Ludicrous Easter Egg

[George Parrott]

@ yo mama...

Elon, yes, get us the parts for the ludicrous upgrade, something like 67% of those of us with the P85D have that cash ready to throw at you!!!

PLEASE ! It has been almost 8 weeks since you announced this option. "Tesla Time" doesn't HAVE to be glacial in progress.....does it?

 

[Pete90D]

Development resource allocation aside, every software change requires extensive unit/functional, integration, regression testing at a minimum. If I recall, when the 85D was first released, there was a bug that caused the car to shut down if a certain setting was enabled. Then there was a recent bug which caused low speed shuttering in dual motor cars. It looks like Tesla does not treat the software development/testing as seriously as they need too, especially if they have time to play around with easter eggs. You also have to question if easter eggs are even appropriate in software that controls a 2 ton car. Would it be appropriate if Boeing developers put in easter eggs in the aeronautical software of the 777 to improve morale?

Testing and development are not always the same as the real world. Situations occur that can't always be accounted for even if you write excellent tests. You simply will enumerate every possible combination and if you could it would be extremely time consuming to the point negative impact on making progress.

I've met two Tesla employees that work in software validation and they've mentioned how they try hard to find issues before release. It's the purpose of their job. However you won't be able to test every situation with every configuration setting combination with every single car. We'd never get updates.

 

[mhpr262]

Would it be appropriate if Boeing developers put in easter eggs in the aeronautical software of the 777 to improve morale?

Sure. Keep the transmit key on your radio pressed for a second after you're done talking and the autopilot will activate and do a barrel roll for you!

 

[TEG]

...those 777 pilots are asleep or drunk most of the time - or at least during takeoff and landing...

I know you are kidding, but the airline industry takes drinking and flying very seriously.
You never want a drunk pilot in the cockpit even if the plane ends up doing most of the flying on autopilot.

 

[yo mama]

@ yo mama...

Elon, yes, get us the parts for the ludicrous upgrade, something like 67% of those of us with the P85D have that cash ready to throw at you!!!

PLEASE ! It has been almost 8 weeks since you announced this option. "Tesla Time" doesn't HAVE to be glacial in progress.....does it?

For what it's worth, which may be nothing, I pestered the good folks at Tesla about this over the weekend. I was told the Ludicrous upgrades would start in about a month. But who knows - maybe they were just trying to get me to leave. :biggrin:

 

[Pete90D]

maybe they were just trying to get me to leave. :biggrin:

Haha! Did you ask them "are we there yet?" repeatedly?

 

[yo mama]

Haha! Did you ask them "are we there yet?" repeatedly?

Actually, I went into the Tesla store and said, "My name is (yo mama) and I am a dissatisfied, new P85D owner." The expression on the employee's face suggested he had never heard that phrase before. I then explained *why* I was dissatisfied and the poor guy and his manager made a call and then came back and said what they said. (The upgrades are also supposed to take 1-2 days to complete but loners cars will allegedly be provided - just not P90D loners).

 

[Rafik]

Actually, I went into the Tesla store and said, "My name is (yo mama) and I am a dissatisfied, new P85D owner." The expression on the employee's face suggested he had never heard that phrase before. I then explained *why* I was dissatisfied and the poor guy and his manager made a call and then came back and said what they said. (The upgrades are also supposed to take 1-2 days to complete but loners cars will allegedly be provided - just not P90D loners).

I can at least corroborate that I heard pretty much the exact same thing, as I mentioned in this post

 

[bmanke]

To those of you who feel the Easter eggs are a waste of time - I personally think you have it all wrong. Our daily jobs can get monotonous and at times dull. Easter eggs are fun for the programmers and interjects a little fun into their daily life. I am sure they enjoy reading people's giddy responses when they are found and posted. I have put Easter eggs into things I have developed and enjoyed it when they found. Easter eggs bring a little spice into our lives. The day Tesla stops allowing their engineers to do Easter eggs is the day they lose their mojo and my support. It's a slippery slope to big auto manufacturers bland products and risk averse cultures. Keep the Easter eggs coming!

 

[xrayangiodoc]

Reminds me of the old Star Raiders game. (Atari 800)

 

[Pete90D]

To those of you who feel the Easter eggs are a waste of time - I personally think you have it all wrong. Our daily jobs can get monotonous and at times dull. Easter eggs are fun for the programmers and interjects a little fun into their daily life. I am sure they enjoy reading people's giddy responses when they are found and posted. I have put Easter eggs into things I have developed and enjoyed it when they found. Easter eggs bring a little spice into our lives. The day Tesla stops allowing their engineers to do Easter eggs is the day they lose their mojo and my support. It's a slippery slope to big auto manufacturers bland products and risk averse cultures. Keep the Easter eggs coming!

I see both sides of it. Easter eggs are usually put in places where there is little harm, but I understand how people can view them as not taking things seriously. For almost 6 years I've owned a project that most people take seriously and I've been asked to add in gimmicky features and April Fool's jokes and I always reject them. I haven't wanted to make it seem like I don't take the importance of it seriously, but I don't really have a place to put in an easter egg. It would end up being more like if Tesla had an April Fool's joke that popped up a message during normal operation.

I think the important distinction is always where the easter egg was placed. In this case it is going to follow a specific code path that doesn't interfere with anything else. Now if it was like pump your brakes 5 times and turn on your windshield wipers to full or if the steering wheel became like a controller... left right left right A B A B... , then it's in the middle of normal driver operation and could have an impact.

 

[Cyclone]

Innocuous placement is key. I rather like this one...
The XC90t Know About

 

[Pete90D]

I'd really like an easter egg that showed me the new manual that tells me more about Max Battery Power mode.

 

[rjcbox]

To those of you who feel the Easter eggs are a waste of time - I personally think you have it all wrong. Our daily jobs can get monotonous and at times dull. Easter eggs are fun for the programmers and interjects a little fun into their daily life. I am sure they enjoy reading people's giddy responses when they are found and posted. I have put Easter eggs into things I have developed and enjoyed it when they found. Easter eggs bring a little spice into our lives. The day Tesla stops allowing their engineers to do Easter eggs is the day they lose their mojo and my support. It's a slippery slope to big auto manufacturers bland products and risk averse cultures. Keep the Easter eggs coming!

Great point

 

[eloder]

Development resource allocation aside, every software change requires extensive unit/functional, integration, regression testing at a minimum. If I recall, when the 85D was first released, there was a bug that caused the car to shut down if a certain setting was enabled. Then there was a recent bug which caused low speed shuttering in dual motor cars. It looks like Tesla does not treat the software development/testing as seriously as they need too, especially if they have time to play around with easter eggs. You also have to question if easter eggs are even appropriate in software that controls a 2 ton car. Would it be appropriate if Boeing developers put in easter eggs in the aeronautical software of the 777 to improve morale?

That's just ridiculous.

My mother works as a nurse, and there's some essential equipment/software they utilize (you know, to save people's lives) that have Star Trek easter eggs.

Software has bugs. Software takes time. Autopilot and the underpinnings of fully autonomous driving are perhaps one of the most sophisticated types of software on the planet to write right now. An easter egg is not the reason behind AP's delay.

I'd be worried if there were no easter eggs at all, as to me that's a sign that the people writing the software or managing those individuals do not have passion or heavy enthusiasm for their work.

 

[PV4EV]

Reminds me of the old Star Raiders game. (Atari 800)

Hah, me too! For 1979 the visual effect of accelerating through the 'Star field' with the SFX volume wound up to '11' was dramatic and addictive and unlike anything else at the time. I have painful memories of playing it sat in a dark room whilst instinctively moving left to right dodging asteroids and trying to keep the cross hairs on target, when suddenly the chair legs collapsed on one side!

I was so impressed by that game that I ended up working for Atari as a games designer / programmer. As such I always put Easter eggs in games.

In many ways, the buzz that Atari had back then is similar to Tesla today.

 

[bonnie]

To those of you who feel the Easter eggs are a waste of time - I personally think you have it all wrong. Our daily jobs can get monotonous and at times dull. Easter eggs are fun for the programmers and interjects a little fun into their daily life. I am sure they enjoy reading people's giddy responses when they are found and posted. I have put Easter eggs into things I have developed and enjoyed it when they found. Easter eggs bring a little spice into our lives. The day Tesla stops allowing their engineers to do Easter eggs is the day they lose their mojo and my support. It's a slippery slope to big auto manufacturers bland products and risk averse cultures. Keep the Easter eggs coming!

Well said.

 

[TEG]

Another use for Easter eggs - see how long it takes QA to find them.
If customers find them before QA, then the developers can give QA a hard time for not testing as thoroughly as they could.

 

[bonnie]

Another use for Easter eggs - see how long it takes QA to find them.
If customers find them before QA, then the developers can give QA a hard time for not testing as thoroughly as they could.

Yeesh. Hopefully software QA includes code reviews and walk throughs. Like 'eyeball on code' reviews, not just black box testing, That's the fastest way to get a feel for the sophistication of the people writing the code.

 

[TEG]

Yeesh. Hopefully software QA includes code reviews and walk throughs. Like 'eyeball on code' reviews, not just black box testing, That's the fastest way to get a feel for the sophistication of the people writing the code.

Hopefully you have a mix of both...

Maybe even some automated testing that maps out all the possible button press outcomes.