henningo

To be fair, Linux users aren't really completely left behind, there's the web interface (play.spotify.com).

I'd be interested to know how many people use native app vs. web interface. The web interface is not always as snappy as the native apps, but if it bogs down I can just kill the tab and launch it again.

I agree that the analogy doesn't hold for the recent VW debacle (where the calibration was changed during certification testing), but it holds for the industry in large and what has been going on for the past 10-20 years, which is what the paper is about.

The vehicle manufacturers optimize the engine calibration to the drive cycle they are trying to beat. That is why a US-spec BMW has a different engine tune than a Euro-spec BMW for example, the drive cycles are different.

Well done! Just one thing I noticed, the speed is mph and the distance unit is meters. Would be nice to change speed to km/h.

Articles like this just confirms my theory that car journalists are the biggest obstacle for the automotive industry to truly innovate. It is as if they dictate the requirements for the general public.

What the author completely seem to ignore is how turbos are key to the entire downsizing trend that is drastically changing the cars. With lower mass, less inertia and less internal friction, going back to first principles is what is making a difference these days.

Fair point,

Nonetheless, I felt the topic was worth discussing. In my experience "teams of very talented people" can often turn into "teams of very competitive people".

I have not read the full article (pay wall), but I have definitely experienced this in professional settings. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this, especially with startup's desire to build "killer teams"!

Did you consider doing spline fits to the x,y coordinates and then just saving the spline coefficients instead?

The fit process could likely be done client-side, and could offer some subtle smoothing if wanted?

Anyhow, really nice execution!

Of course, and I'm sure dealing with the many different data sources (ie. weather and TV listings) makes it even more complicated!

Yes, that makes sense, thanks for the insight.

Although this article discusses the actual collection and transmission of data, what I find more interesting is how efficiently the vast amount of data is being used in the decision making process for vehicle setup and race strategy. (I strongly believe that data has no value until it is used for analysis and decision making.)

Data coming from the vehicle sensors and other sources are concurrently being used for analysis (by both hundreds of engineers and a wide range of "algorithms") as well as input to simulation models. The results from the simulations means that even more data is being generated even when the vehicle isn't running.

Within minutes, using the data, the different engineering groups (typically responsible for a sub-system, ie. engine, tires, aerodynamics) arrive at conclusions which then the vehicle's race/performance engineers are using to enhance the setup of the vehicle. The results of changes are then fed back to the engineers, and evaluating if the analysis and predictions are correct is a big part of the post-event work.

I honestly can't think of any other industry that carries out this kind of analysis of highly non-linear systems at this scale and speed. The only other industry that I can think of is finance?

Disclosure: I work in motorsports