Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]
164 points
9 hours ago
| 18 comments
| youtube.com
| HN
https://x.com/fulligin/status/2003925653113184498

https://xcancel.com/fulligin/status/2003925653113184498

dllu
6 hours ago
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Very neat. I recently went to the Waymo depot in Bayshore (Toland St) and snapped a couple of pictures of the new Zeekrs for Wikipedia.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waymo_Zeekr_Vehicle_...

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waymo_Zeekr_Vehicle_...

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blackoil
1 hour ago
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How are Google allowed to get Zeekr? Are they pre tariff or they have some loophole being corporate?
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Fricken
28 minutes ago
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It was a pre-tariff deal.
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fragmede
1 hour ago
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> some loophole being corporate

Presumably they use the loophole called "paying the tariff".

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dvrp
6 hours ago
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How did you get in?
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dllu
6 hours ago
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These were parked on Hudson Ave, which is a public street, and not inside the fenced area of the depot. So I just walked up to them.
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vasco
3 hours ago
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Your Transamerica pyramid picture is incredible among really cool pictures you have there. Quite cool to photograph for wikipedia like this, the world needs more people like you!
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sam-cop-vimes
1 hour ago
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Indeed. May I ask the GP, how did you produce those scrollable images of the Shinkansen?
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dllu
1 hour ago
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It was done with a line scan camera. More on the technique here: https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/2025-09-21-line-scan-camera-...
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HolySE
8 hours ago
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That art fixture's placement at the Mission Waymo Depot is kinda cool. It's evocative of a future in which humanity lives a life of indolence propped up by automation.
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polyomino
6 hours ago
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Looks like it's GAIA by Marco Cochrane, I remember seeing it out in the desert. It looks like it might not be related to Waymo and just on the adjacent property
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throwaway2037
16 minutes ago
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schoen
6 hours ago
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Thanks, I was assuming it was the same artist as the one at the Embarcadero, and that seems to be right.
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flomo
2 hours ago
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As an old time burner, sometimes this kind of stuff seems like a flex, like 'you had to be there, sorry pleb' from the tech exec class. Anyway I'm glad they have something there than not.
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CobrastanJorji
5 hours ago
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I don't think the goal is indolence. The goal is freedom. We want a post-need society propped up by automation. That doesn't mean that we should spend our reclaimed time idling, though, but certainly we could.
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atonse
3 hours ago
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This is how I describe financial freedom. It’s not a particular number, it’s the freedom from thinking about money.

And which number gets you there depends on your lifestyle.

And taking a job without any consideration of pay.

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rossjudson
4 hours ago
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It makes me think that we need more representations of humans on and in our cities, to remind us about who they are for. We can shift a small amount of architectural scale towards the human.
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0x38B
4 hours ago
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Reminds me of the half-buried in the sands of time sculptures in Blade Runner 2049; the surrounding self-driving auto depot only adds to the resemblance to some far off future.
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ramraj07
7 hours ago
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I had to look up indolence. At least for the time being im not indolent enough not to look up such things I suppose.
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netsharc
7 hours ago
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Makes me think of Miniatur Wunderland's "self-charging" system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC8aOLWR134

It's the world most complex model railway with cars (not just trains) that go around in predetermined routes, and also go to the charging station when their battery is low. And I guess Waymos are a version of that but with human-scale! (Oh they still need humans to plug the charging cables into them).

I wonder if they park themselves or if the maintenance people park them...

Also, the footage feels like Satellite Reign https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFZVXG0g40Q (or the original game, Syndicate Wars)

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nomilk
2 hours ago
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Love the moonrise! Beautiful shots.

When most road transport is automated it will seem crazy that everyone had to drive for themselves, or sit in the car with a complete stranger, who may prioritise their comfort over the traveller's with regard to audio, navigation noise, air 'fresheners' / diffusers, temperature. Perhaps analogous to having a flatmate; it's mostly done out of necessity rather than choice.

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Sophira
7 hours ago
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If anybody is wondering, the music in this video appears to be "Alonia" by Valante. Very soothing.
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fabiensanglard
7 hours ago
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Thank you, I was about to start searching for it :) !
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tomduncalf
4 minutes ago
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It has a similar feel to Vletrmx21 by Autechre if you dig the spooky ambient feel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-fhfYhqBr4
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MarioMan
7 hours ago
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Very interesting to see the workers in yellow presumably cleaning and manually plugging in the cars to charge.
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chiefgeek
5 hours ago
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Gave me a new appreciation for the scale of the investment /bet that is being made on transportation of the future.
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erwincoumans
1 hour ago
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Nice shots, would fit well in the Baraka (or Samara) movie.
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rossjudson
4 hours ago
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This is actually rather beautiful to look at, covering a full day/night cycle. Well done.
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admissionsguy
2 hours ago
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Can't they get out and kill the Ubers already instead of sitting in the lot? (half-serious, but I have been wondering what are the reasons they don't just push the price towards zero during low hours?)
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blackoil
1 hour ago
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They know how to boil a frog.
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Fricken
7 hours ago
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Getting Bladerunner vibes from several things but mostly that giant translucent synthwave Marco Cochrane statue.
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balaji1
6 hours ago
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Great clips and editing. New perspective on the scale of self driving cars deployed currently.
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blueblisters
2 hours ago
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Surreal. Almost like an optimistic science fiction film.

After all, self driving cars have some of the highest positive to negative externality ratio of any modern technology

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clemo_ra
8 hours ago
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This is cool and soothing. Merry xmas
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bgwalter
7 hours ago
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There are also neighborhood self-help groups who try to "stack" the Waymos into alleys so that they can sleep:

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/25/us/santa-monica-waymo-bat...

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soulofmischief
7 hours ago
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rootusrootus
6 hours ago
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That would drive me insane, they have my sympathy.
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transitorykris
7 hours ago
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Watch the Zoox test vehicles please. They do absolutely terrifying things, _in every encounter_.
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lateforwork
7 hours ago
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Seeing all these Waymos together like this... is depressing. You get a sense of the scale at which machines are replacing humans. This could be a scary movie made in 1970s about the robotic future... and that future has now arrived. What will the world look like 10, 20 years from now? What would a scary movie made today contain?
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nutjob2
3 hours ago
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Robots and technology have been replacing humans for many decades. It's a positive thing and change is a natural part of life. It's hardly depressing, it's progress.

It's not like humans are somehow put on this earth only to do certain jobs or the same job forever. Contrary to 100+ plus years of predictions, humans will never become obsolete.

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bgwalter
7 hours ago
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I would make a movie about UBI recipients wearing shock collars that are supervised by Optimus robots and pluck almonds or apples.

Perhaps we need a euphemism for UBI: Let's call it "level-1 rich".

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Mawr
8 hours ago
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[flagged]
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akanet
8 hours ago
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Most of it is not drone, but you have to think a bit about the angle and duration to realize this. Merry Christmas
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pkkim
5 hours ago
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I took the time to figure out where you took the shots from. You were not kidding about risk, especially for 201 Toland, Jesus Christ.
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dang
8 hours ago
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Could you please review and follow the site guidelines? "Oh, who cares." is not an ok way to respond to someone's work on HN, and is particularly bad when a thread is just getting underway.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(of course I understand that it's disappointing when you're hoping for certain content and end up with something else, but still - please don't express that in a hostile way)

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ceroxylon
5 hours ago
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You changed my life with considerate moderation like this, so thank you for all that you do, thank you for keeping the ship on course.
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blazingbanana
8 hours ago
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I actually quite liked it, was somehow soothing, especially the car park that was used as a temporary location during the night.
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Animats
6 hours ago
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If you like that sort of thing, see "AGV Garden".[1]

(This is the port of Rotterdam, ten years ago. Sped up about 3x. Most big ports look like that now. Automated driving works really well when all those pesky humans are out of the way.)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm_rlLyelQo&

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akanet
3 hours ago
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Very nice, quite enjoyed that.
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throw-12-16
1 hour ago
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I think the risk to safety was just existing in SF at night.
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nullc
8 hours ago
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It isn't what you were expecting-- but it's really good. Give it another look with no expectations.
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