How to Switch Back and Forth Between Uber and Lyft

…switching from one app to the other leads to distracted driving…

Distracted driving is the number one cause of Uber/Lyft crashes, and when a driver has to switch back and forth between both Uber and Lyft driver apps it can cause a serious distraction in a moving vehicle.

In some markets, driving only for Uber or only for Lyft isn’t generating enough income for the driver. To increase chances of getting business, it’s possible to run both driving apps at the same time. When a ride request comes through one, the driver has to switch over and go offline with the other. To do that the driver has to take his or her eyes off the road and concentrate on the phone. This, of course, is distracted driving.

And we all know distracted driving can lead to an accident.

An Uber and Lyft driving using a smart phone to navigate to the next destination.

Imagine a driver with no passenger is on a busy highway. The smartphone is mounted on the dashboard and both the Uber and Lyft driver apps are online at the same time. Suddenly, the Uber app comes to life, making a startling jingle and displaying a blue pulsating button. With only seconds to accept or reject the ride request, the driver presses to accept the ride and a navigation screen is presented on the phone to help navigate to the requesting passenger. Throughout all of this, the Lyft driver app is still online looking for rides. This means the driver next has to switch over to the Lyft app and go off line and then switch back to Uber navigation before putting both hands back on the wheel and both eyes on the road – all while driving on a congested highway surrounded by moving vehicles. Sound like a recipe for disaster? The same happens, of course, if the Lyft app signals for a driver first. All this switching back and forth forces the driver to take his or her eyes off the road, leading to a potentially dangerous situation.

A vehicle involved in a crash clearly has an Uber and Lyft logo displayed on the driver’s door.

Fortunately, there is an Android app to help with that problem (not available for the iPhone). The app is called QRAD and is available on the Google Play Store. It’s free for 30 days so you have a chance to evaluate it before you spend a minimal monthly activation fee.

QRAD runs in the background silently. You don’t have to open it or touch it. When you accept a ride request, the app automatically takes the other driving app offline. When you are finished and drop off your ride, QRAD switches back and turns the other driver app back on. It’s really a very simple solution to a very real problem and it works flawlessly (most of the time). QRAD can be used on a trial basis so you can test it and see how it works. Eventually, however, you’re going to have to pay a low monthly subscription fee.

The author does not have any financial interest in QRAD, but I do have a subscription and I do use it. It really does help you to keep your eyes on the road and reduce the possibility of an accident.

The QRAD app logo as seen on the Google Play store.

On UberPeople.net, LVFatMan says, “I recommend all drivers downloading this app, it’s free for the 1st 30 days .. It automatically toggles Your ride share apps when you accept one it automatically turns the other 1 off and when you Finish a ride it turns it back on, Very good app”. He goes on to say, “also QRAD has alerts now that give you a heads up warning in case the ride type is Uber Pool, Uber Eats, time/distance is too great etc. I was showing it to a friend and he told me it worked for him even though his trial period had already expired. Might be useful to even those who drive only for Uber or only for Lyft.” Here is a look at the kind of notification QRAD gives the driver:

Qrad not only switches between Uber and Lyft, toggling one or the other off when you get a ride, it also places large, clear notifications like this on the screen, notifying the driver how long it will take for the driver to reach the passenger.

You can see it too: a star is changing

A week or so ago I was getting out of the car parked on the curb outside my house and looked up. I had heard about Betelgeuse, one of the stars in the Orion constellation. Lately it was growing dimmer. I wanted to see if I could notice it and sure enough I could. With the naked eye.

You can too because this is one of the more noticeable stars in the sky.

Most people that look up at the sky at night in the northern hemisphere are familiar with Orion’s belt, three stars in a closely near straight line. Above that line there are two stars and below that line there are two stars. The star in the upper left is Betelgeuse, and it’s different than it was even a few months ago.

Betelgeuse is a very big star many many times larger than our own sun. It is expected that this star will explode one day and although it’s unlikely to do it within our lifetime, this dimming of the star and it’s exceptionally orange color visible with a naked eye it does indicate that Betelgeuse could be near to going supernova.

So now you know how to find it, go out and look at it the next time it gets dark around your house and the sky is clear.

Would Elon Musk be the most important person to have ever lived if he successfully colonized Mars with 1 million people?

If Elon Musk did colonize Mars with 1 million people, would he be the most important person to have ever lived?

I would then think of him like maybe Christopher Columbus, or the Pilgrims from England that started populating North America. Outside North America these people are not seen as important (or even known). Schools in other parts of the world don’t teach much about this.

Here in America, however, we have Columbus day to remember the crossing of the Atlantic in 1492 by Christopher Columbus, and Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts to remember the first landing of the Pilgrims who came from Plymouth, England. We have Thanksgiving to remember a mutual celebration between the Pilgrims and the local Native Americans after the Pilgrims had their first successful growing season.

So I would say that to the people of Earth Elon Musk would not be the most important person to have ever lived, but to the people of Mars he would be the most important person for the first few generations, but as time passed he would be seen from an historical point of view and remembered on future Martian calendars by the people of Mars.

Here on Earth he would be remembered in history books, too, but so many people have come and gone in the history of mankind. Many people in the past have been very transformative, but overall are not seen as the most important persons. People like Alexander the Great, Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, George Washington, Queen Victoria, ad infinitum, have all been very important in the history of mankind, but none stand out over time as the most important person to have ever lived. So will it be with Elon Musk even if he did colonize 1 million people on Mars.

Do you think human beings will invent a way to travel through space fast enough to reach far away galaxies or they will invent an alternate way to travel through space and time?

Wouldn’t it be great to travel at Warp speed?

The answer to your question, surprisingly enough, is not necessarily “No, humans will never invent a way to travel through space fast enough to reach far away galaxies.”

Here’s the deal. The faster you go, the slower you age, so if you could go almost the speed of light, then it would still take you millions or billions of years to fly to other galaxies from Earth’s point of view, but not so for you who are traveling in the spacecraft. For you the time would be dilated.

Look at an example introduced by Albert Einstein. Consider two twins, named Biff and Cliff. On their 20th birthday, Biff decides to get in a spaceship and take off into outer space, traveling at nearly the speed of light.

He journeys around the cosmos at this speed for about 5 years, returning to the Earth when he is 25 years old.

Cliff, on the other hand, remains on the Earth. When Biff returns, it turns out that Cliff is 95 years old.

Similarly, Biff could travel to other stars and galaxies if he could somehow go fast enough, but meanwhile whole civilizations, humanity and even Earth itself would grow old and cease to exist. So when Biff gets there, Cliff will be long gone. Biff will have traveled forward in time as his spaceship zipped through the cosmos.

Traveling fast enough will slow time down for the astronaut.

Is Time Travel Even Real?

Although I wrote a time travel novel once (Time Gods), time travel has many problems that most sci-fi authors don’t take into consideration.

For example, consider that Earth spins at the equator at about a thousand miles per hour and the Earth orbits around the sun an average speed of 29.8km/s or 65,000 mph (105,000 kph).

The sun also orbits the galactic center at about 225 km per second (140 miles per second) or about 486,000 miles per hour.

The Milky Way galaxy is moving toward the Andromeda Galaxy at about 2.1 million kilometers per hour, or 1.305 million miles per hour.

Now, get in a time machine and go forward (or backwards) an hour or so. Will you find yourself in the same place on Earth only in a different time, or will you find yourself floating in space, Earth having moved hundreds of thousands of miles away in the short period of your time travel?

Now wouldn’t that make an interesting idea for a time travel novel!

Aside from that, and disregarding the impracticality of string theory, time travel in reverse isn’t possible, but time travel to the future certainly is possible under special circumstances.

Consider that you have an identical twin and both of you are in a space ship orbiting a black hole. On your birthday, your twin sibling decides he wants to get in a shuttle craft and take a closer look at the event horizon of the black hole. So he gets inside the craft and travels near the event horizon and then comes back 20 minutes later, only to find you are a very old person and that you have aged many, many years. What you see, as your twin gets closer to the event horizon, is that he slows down until he is practically motionless. Years go by and you grow old. Your twin, down there in that shuttle, still seems frozen in time, then eventually he slowly rises up to the space craft and comes back inside. Although you are now old, you are looking at a young twin!

Another example was introduced by Albert Einstein. Consider two twins, named Biff and Cliff. On their 20th birthday, Biff decides to get in a spaceship and take off into outer space, traveling at nearly the speed of light.

He journeys around the cosmos at this speed for about 5 years, returning to the Earth when he is 25 years old.

Cliff, on the other hand, remains on the Earth. When Biff returns, it turns out that Cliff is 95 years old.

So yes, under certain conditions forward time travel is possible, but not reverse time travel, and certainly if you had a “time machine” then Earth might move away from under you while you are going 30 minutes forward or backward.

How come if we flew to the Moon, nobody ever tried to fly underneath the Earth to see what’s really down there?

Hehehe….. Did someone actually tell you nobody has ever flown around the earth pole to pole?

That’s why you should check your facts before believing conspiracy theories! A good place to start is by going to Snopes.com to do your fact checking.

Not only do some satellites pass “underneath the Earth” to see what’s really down there, so have many airplanes. Furthermore, people live down there, past that “wall of ice” at the South Pole.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like for real.