Last night's Meadowlakes City Council agenda included an item that canceled the city's May elections. All three positions attracted only one candidate. In canceling the election, the city avoids the county's charges for conducting elections, a prudent use of taxpayer money. As a result, Carolyn Richmond and Mike Shaw will retain their seats on the city council, and the mayor's position will fall to current City Councilman Garrett Wood, who will take office at the May 19 regular meeting.
Old Clubhouse
Last week, we celebrated a final toast to the old clubhouse before the building was razed. Just two days ago, Wayne Thelen made the final putt on the practice green. He is the club's longest-standing member still living in Meadowlakes. Golf will continue during construction. Golfers are asked to grant us their indulges for the inconveniences while waiting for a new practice putting green. As soon as work is completed on the relocated water lines, drainage lines, and sewer lines, work can be initiated on the new practice green. Once started, the new practice green construction time will be approximately two months.
Grok Talk
I would be surprised if all the readers of today's column know what Grok is. It was originally a new word (or concept) coined by writer Robert Heinlein in his science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. It has now gained popular use in tech communities where "to grok" means to deeply comprehend a concept or system, not just intellectually but as a real part of one's identity. Now Tesla's AI company xAI named its language model Grok, to gain a deep understanding of information beyond simple data retrieval (as Siri or Alexa do). Grok acts as a navigation co-pilot. For example, you can make statements to the Grok voice sensor like, "Stop by Home Depot by 4:00 this afternoon." Or "Find a 4-star Mexican restaurant and make a stop at a battery supercharger on the way." Grok also can provide real-time awareness by warning "there's a supercharger station nearby" when the car's battery is low. It also works with Full Self-Driving systems to adjust routes mid-trip or add stops. But Grok does not control lane changes or brake operations. That's another technology. Waymo Smart
Uber has been working with the Waymo Partnership, a subsidiary of Google, on autonomous travel. They are now offering driverless rides in Austin and Atlanta, which will serve as a pilot program with plans to expand in the future. Uber's robotaxi fleet is being built by Lucid Motors and Nuro. These robotaxis (using Lucid Motor's Gravity SUV) will be tested in the San Francisco Bay area with safety operators. Their target is to accumulate a 20,000 vehicle fleet within six years. Lucid builds the cars, while Nuro has developed the autonomous driving systems equipped with Nvidia's AI computing platform. Note that Lucid Motors started building their initial cars and SUVs in 2021 at their Casa Grande, Arizona factory. Longer term, Uber aims to expand to 100,000 vehicles by 2027, working with Nvidia and Stellantis (formed by the 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler and French PSA Group).
Smart Start
Two things I take from these science-fiction-like advancements: first these innovations are going to proliferate in large cities and gain acceptance before expanding to markets like ours. The second observation is that the engineers and scientists developing these revolutionary technologies are extremely smart. They started in elementary schools just like we did. They did their homework, developed a sense of who they wanted to be when they grew up, read books, and paid attention in class. The recipe for success stares us in the face, and it is a "simple" process for those who stick with it.
