That has been my experience working with both Windows and Linux based OSs; easier to reimage when things get very broken. In my own experiences, this situation comes up more frequently with Linux than for Windows, largely with installing applications that have very particular requirements about the versions and configurations of dependencies let alone if the application is well supported and documented for your distro. If you can live off of what you install using apt-get or yum then you are golden, if you need to install something beyond that... well, this is why I only use Linux in virtual machines with the ability to take snapshots.

I'm on board. I've been on teams where 'replacing' certain developers with dead bodies would improve overall team productivity.

I meant that in the sense that the only way it would work is if you were actively paying full attention already as if driving on cruise control. I fully agree with you, there is no way the user is going to be able to respond to a split second cue from the system to "please start driving". I did not mean to convey this was a realistic scenario, and it is even less so given that most people will want an automatic car just so that they can sleep, play angry birds, or drive drunk as the OPs attitude confirms. Sorry for the confusion.

I agree with you fully. I should probably clarify that when I said "A appropriate use of a smart car" I meant "a _more_ appropriate use compared to what people are wishing for".

I'd love to know what a smart car will do when it reaches a construction zone where the lane lines are missing, incorrect, or mixed up with the old lane lines. I update my GPS maps before long trips and I still find instances where road maintenance has temporarily diverted the roadway to be inconsistent with the GPS. A smart car that believes it is on the right course because the lane lines look correct and the GPS measurement is consistent may still be wrong.

And neither should any of those things ever be legal. This is yet another risk of have self-driving cars; the false assumption that what you describe are safe uses of such a vehicle. There will ALWAYS be situations where the automation software can't cope with a particular scenario and you have to take the wheel in a split second. Commercial aircraft can already take-off, fly, and land themselves but this does not replace the need for sober alert pilots to take over in the case of an emergency. A appropriate use of a smart car would be more akin to cruise control. You still need to be continuously alert and ready at the wheel, the cruise control just relieves the effort of continually adjusting to maintain your speed.

I think a lot would actually be shaped by peoples behaviors and expectations of the clone. A sort of self fulfilling prophecy. Imagine if from the day you were born you were surrounded by people that considered you to be the reincarnation of a famous guitar player, eventually you might start to believe it yourself. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that if you raised a child surrounded by people who believed he was a deity he might just try playing the part.

No need to imagine it, just youtube it! ;)
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=underwater+bicycle

It's also like claiming that parents who spend all their money on drugs and get fired from their jobs are harming their kids. I totally agree that society should have no right to demand a certain degree of productivity out of people but productivity is hardly the only thing affected by addictive substances that skew your priorities and ability to think rationally.

Well, from your earlier comment you seem to assume that people generally behave rationally. Based on how paltry government retirement benefits already are, and how many speculate that such benefits will only get worse, even with current expected lifespans it would not be rational to assume that the government will be there to cover retirement benefits.

Forget retirement, think of how many people barely plan for how they are going to cover their expenses for even a month while at the same time making purchases beyond their means. Unless becoming immortal comes with a rationality and willpower upgrade, I highly doubt immortals will plan any better than mortals do now.

Aging and death is a feature, not a bug. For any given species it needs to have a sufficiently long lifespan to produce (and possibly raise) offspring. The young then have to compete with the more mature for resources. In the case of humans, we also compete within our social hierarchies for the influence of our principles and ideas. To continue the cycle of adaptation and renewal as a species it is important to balance birth with aging, and ultimately with death.

If people want to live forever, they at least need to clock-out and watch from the sidelines at some point. Perhaps as heads in jars in some museum similar to Futurama (sans robotic Richard Nixon).

Had a friend who told me a story about a time he was at a restaurant with some guests from somewhere in the UK. The jist of it was that after dinner his guests were looking for some cigarettes which my friend didn't have so they approached some burly looking marines at the bar and asked where they could find a couple of fags. In a flash moment of terror in envisioning where that exchange might lead my friend sprung up and as quickly as he could explained: "cigarettes!, they are looking for cigarettes!"

It isn't the employer I'd be worried about but your customers and colleagues (as applicable). Knowing the right people and having good relationships with them can make all the difference in finding the good positions, if not for your next job then for the one after that. If you bail unexpectedly on your team, or leave one of your customers high and dry without warning it could leave a bad taste not only in their mouths but in anyone they spread the word to. Even if your employer and everyone you worked with was a jerk you are only giving them more ammo to badmouth you to others. Beyond some fleeting satisfaction, burning a bridge will never help you and may end up hurting you in ways you can't easily predict.

Ahh, see NOW you're talking my language! Come to think of it, most of the junk from my failed KSP launches has been raining down all over the Kerbal Space Center.

No, he's describing how to build devices to intentionally destroy public and private property as well as the vision of certain animals. He asserts that one can trust that they are nearly impervious to prosecution due to a presumed lack of necessary evidence to obtain a conviction. He assures us that due to the technique he is proposing that these likely hobbyist quality devices will not inadvertently blind any human beings because his detector will not trigger in such cases.

So what you're saying is it would be like a Fus without the Ro Dah?