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Speaker 1: I'm Kristin Conger and I'm Caroline Irvan, and we're hosts

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Speaker 1: of the podcast Stuff Mom Never told you. That gets

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Speaker 1: down to the business of being women from every imaginable angle.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Kristen and I skillfully decode the biology, psychology,

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Speaker 1: and sociology of ladies and gents from their evolutionary past

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Speaker 1: a millennial present to better understand all of that stuff

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Speaker 1: Mom never told you. No offense Moms. I'll be sure

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Speaker 1: to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren vocal Baum, a

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Speaker 1: researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,

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Speaker 1: I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the

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Speaker 1: weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.

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Speaker 1: This week, we've got a couple of updates on autonomous vehicles.

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Speaker 1: A man with quadriplegia has been granted America's first semi

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Speaker 1: autonomous vehicle restricted driver's license, and he's got a retrofitted

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Speaker 1: Corvette to go with it. Unrelated, in Japan, a car

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Speaker 1: company is bending its driverless technology to that most odious

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Speaker 1: of tasks, having to shuffle forward while waiting in line.

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Speaker 1: But first holly fry of stuff uness in pistory class

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Speaker 1: has an architectural etymology lesson for us. There may have

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Speaker 1: been a real family with a very real vacation house

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Speaker 1: who inspired the phrase keeping up with the Joneses. Keeping

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Speaker 1: up with the Joneses is the colloquialism that comes to

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Speaker 1: life when neighbors and frenemies engage in consumer one upmanship.

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Speaker 1: The purchased status symbols ranged from small things like brand

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Speaker 1: named sunglasses to large such as vacation houses. But the

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Speaker 1: point is always to outdo the other. But now the

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Speaker 1: grand American castle that may have in fact inspired this

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Speaker 1: saying has become a crumbling ruin that sold for a

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Speaker 1: measly hundred and twenty thousand dollars at auction in September.

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Speaker 1: There was an actual Jones family who build a seven thousand,

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Speaker 1: six hundred and nineties square foot mansion in Rhinebeck, New York,

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Speaker 1: was a summer vacation spot for well healed, wealthy families

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Speaker 1: from New York City. Elizabeth Shermerhorn Jones commissioned the formidable

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Speaker 1: brick and slate structure in eighteen fifty three, situated on

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Speaker 1: her eighty acre plot overlooking the Hudson River. She was

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Speaker 1: related to two prominent New York families. On one side,

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Speaker 1: the Astors, prosperous American industrialists, and on the other, Pulitzer

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Speaker 1: Prize winning novelist Edith Wharton. Jones's red brick vacation home

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Speaker 1: called Windcliff was one of the pre eminent examples of

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Speaker 1: Norman Romanesque architecture, a style popularized in eleventh and twelfth

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Speaker 1: century France and England. It featured arches and towers and

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Speaker 1: an asymmetrical style that resulted in formidable angles. It was

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Speaker 1: the most impressive house along the river, sporting twenty four

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Speaker 1: rooms with ornate finishes, including tiffany skylights. It's sweeping grounds

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Speaker 1: boasted his courts and boat and carriage houses, and the

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Speaker 1: mansion was so ostentatious that it is believed to have

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Speaker 1: single handedly prompted a building boom. Wealthy neighbors expanded and

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Speaker 1: remodeled their own homes to quote keep up with the Joneses,

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Speaker 1: and this trend continued through the nineteen twenties, but the

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Speaker 1: Great Depression dismantled it. Windcliffe's recent sale brings to light

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Speaker 1: the struggle that successive owners have had to keep the

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Speaker 1: mega sized mansion in good repair. The estate has shrunk

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Speaker 1: from that massive eighty acres to just two point five acres,

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Speaker 1: and significant parts of the home structure have fallen in,

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Speaker 1: leaving massive piles of bricks and debris. The once well

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Speaker 1: tended shrubbery has turned wild and overgrown the grounds. What

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Speaker 1: would the Joneses think of that? Next? Up steph editor

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Speaker 1: Christopher Hassiotta springs us a story from our long time

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Speaker 1: freelance writer, Laurie l Dove Fantasy Laurie. The first autonomous

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Speaker 1: vehicle driver's license in the United States has been granted

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Speaker 1: to a former race car driver with quadriplegia. It marks

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Speaker 1: impressive advances in autonomous car technology and also demonstrates how

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Speaker 1: far we have to go before driverless cars will be widespread.

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Speaker 1: Driverless cars are coming, that much, we know. But will

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Speaker 1: you need a special driver's license to operate one? Will

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Speaker 1: you have to take a test all over again? Will

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Speaker 1: you have to wait in line at the dun dunt

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Speaker 1: done d m V. While state governments here in the

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Speaker 1: United States haven't worked out all the kinks, or maybe

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Speaker 1: even any kinks, we have gotten one step closer to

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Speaker 1: licensing these pilots of driverless vehicles, and it's all thanks

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Speaker 1: to one quadriplegic race car driver who in late September

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Speaker 1: received the state of Nevada autonomous vehicle restricted driver's license,

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Speaker 1: as the first person in the United States to receive

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Speaker 1: such a license. Sam Schmidt, an indie race car driver

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Speaker 1: and racing team owner who is paralyzed from the neck

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Speaker 1: down after a car crash sixteen years ago, is free

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Speaker 1: to navigate his custom built semi autonomous corvette on public

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Speaker 1: odes and control its movements with breath and voice commands.

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Speaker 1: When Schmidt gets behind the wheel of his corvette, he

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Speaker 1: starts the engine with the sound of his voice, accelerates

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Speaker 1: or breaks with a sip or puff air tube, and

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Speaker 1: tilts his head to turn the car around a corner.

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Speaker 1: This retrofitted corvette, called s A M, was designed especially

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Speaker 1: for him by a Colorado based US Air Force performance

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Speaker 1: lab called Arrow Electronics. After issuing the unique license to Schmidt,

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Speaker 1: Nevada Lieutenant Governor Mark Hutchinson called it a catalyst for

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Speaker 1: even more transforming technologies. Earlier in Schmidt, who still races

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Speaker 1: cars despite his quadruplegia, reached a hundred and fifty two

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Speaker 1: miles per hour during a demonstration at the Indi five hundred.

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Speaker 1: He also successfully navigated the sharp switchbacks of the Pike's

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Speaker 1: Peak International Hill Climb, the country's second oldest auto race.

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Speaker 1: Although Schmidt's driver's license is groundbreaking, it does come with

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Speaker 1: restrictions when operating the car on public roads. For instance,

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Speaker 1: he must drive behind an arrow electronics pilot car and

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Speaker 1: be accompanied by a license driver who can take control

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Speaker 1: of the vehicle if necessary. Schmidt also isn't allowed to

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Speaker 1: drive when ice or snow are present on roadways. Still,

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Speaker 1: Schmidt's license is another step towards determining the landscape of

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Speaker 1: our autonomous car future. It's also another great example of

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Speaker 1: how technology can benefit those of us with physical disabilities. Finally,

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Speaker 1: how will a race car driver used to outrageous speeds

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Speaker 1: handling back on the road. In a recent CNN interview,

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Speaker 1: Schmidt said, so far, I haven't honked, but I might

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Speaker 1: have to do that soon. Finally, this week, I've got

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Speaker 1: a cutting edge tech story that marks the first time

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Speaker 1: that I've really pondered the future of queuing. Nissan is

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Speaker 1: using their driver assistance software to build self piloting chairs

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Speaker 1: to improve our experience of waiting in line. Do you

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Speaker 1: hate walking standing in line paying attention to your surroundings, Well,

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Speaker 1: Nissan's got the chair for you. Nissan is bending their

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Speaker 1: driver assistant software called pro Pilot to make in waiting

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Speaker 1: in line quote easy and fun end quote. In one

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Speaker 1: of their twenty seventeen minivans available in Japan, drivers can

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Speaker 1: enable the pro Pilot system to help them respond to

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Speaker 1: traffic and stay in their lane when they foresee being

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Speaker 1: distracted by what's going on inside the car. But what

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Speaker 1: else are you going to do with autopilot software once

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Speaker 1: it's out there, hopefully keeping people safer on the roads

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Speaker 1: and paving the way for a future of driverless cars.

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Speaker 1: Nissan's answer makes self driving chairs. The pro Pilot chair

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Speaker 1: doesn't really give the center much of a choice of

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Speaker 1: where to go, but some restaurants in Japan are using

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Speaker 1: them to advance waiting diners along a preset path so

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Speaker 1: they don't have to shovel forward manually when the party

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Speaker 1: at the front of the line gets seated. The chairs

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Speaker 1: are equipped with cameras to maintain a set distance between themselves,

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Speaker 1: and when the one in the front moves, they all move.

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Speaker 1: When the people sitting in the front of the line,

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Speaker 1: stand up the unoccupied chairs moved to the back of

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Speaker 1: the line. Here in the US, the ridiculous wait times

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Speaker 1: at popular restaurants, iPhone releases, and even congressional hearings have

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Speaker 1: prompted the rich and impatient to high are homeless people

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Speaker 1: as their line placeholders. Instead of improving the systems that

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Speaker 1: necessitate standing around for hours, technology like this could make

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Speaker 1: the weights more comfortable. It sounds a bit silly, but

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Speaker 1: THESA is envisioning a world where these chairs could be

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Speaker 1: used as cutorial aids and museums, shuttling visitors along a

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Speaker 1: pre established route, or as tidying tools allowing chairs to

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Speaker 1: automatically resituate themselves after being pushed away from desks or

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Speaker 1: meeting tables, or perhaps even as a means of moving

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Speaker 1: through outdoor spaces, which could prove useful to Japan's aging population.

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Speaker 1: And certainly it brings us one step closer to getting

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Speaker 1: what Pixar promised us in wally moving chairs than able

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Speaker 1: us to spend more time slurping milkshakes and staring at

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Speaker 1: our mobile devices. That's our show for this week. Thank

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Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. Subscribe now for more

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Speaker 1: of the latest science news and send us links to

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Speaker 1: anything you'd like to hear us cover, plus a Halloween

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Speaker 1: costume idea because I am coming up so dry this year.

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Speaker 1: You can send us an email at now podcast at

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Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com, and of course, for lots

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Speaker 1: more stories like these, head on over to our home planet,

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Speaker 1: Now dot how stuff works dot com.