Yeah, until they turn around and make using those cars on public roads illegal.

You know, they are unsafe/thinkofthechildren/onlycriminalsusethem/youhavenothingtohide/etc...

Or, just insurance companies will refuse to insure you. Here in the UK they are already making it harder and harder to own cars that are pre-90's. I can imagine it becoming even harder in future, until they become something you can only take on a trailer to show off at classic car shows.
 

You just need to buy the right FIAT :)

Sounds a bit like my experience maintaing perl infrastructure. We had to have like, 4 different versions of perl5, with their own module set, because each one had subtle changes that would break some library, or some other piece of code, or not run as expected. What a PITA.

Maintaining two (or even three) versions of Python is bliss in comparison. We only had to maintain two versions: 2.7, and 3.

So yeah, neither Python nor perl are really robust, although IMO Python is more robust than perl.

I don't know, if you want rock solid single standard languagel, I really can't; think of one. COBOL perhaps, along with Forth and LISP come to mind. C suffers from lots of "undefined" behaviour which is compiler dependent, but at least the standard syntax doesn't really change often.

Nah, people are exhaling pretty much as much as they did 20 years ago. Just that there is quite a few more of them now :)

Also, to point out, it was open sourced a while ago, and has been improved and has quite a vibrant community behind it:

http://wz2100.net/

I played the original when I was young, and was happy to see it still exists, and is still a lot of fun to play. Plus works flawlessly on Linux :-)

Based on what I've read (and talked to Egyptians). the closest original descendents of the Egyptians that built those pyramids are the modern day Coptic Christians (whose numbers in Egypt are ever dwindling nowadays). Via their trade with Byzantium and other other Christian nations at the time, the Pharoes and their subjects converted slowly over to Christianity. The muslims are a result of the Arab hoards that invaded and laid waste to the area back in the day. Once their conquest was done they settled and now are the dominant people there. They have little to do with the original Egyptians and their civilization.

Yes, but airplanes cost in excess of 30 million USD. For that amount you can justify the high costs in testing, triplicate redundancy, and hiring code auditors, security auditors, every cable accounted for EM interference, etc.., etc...

You really think that your average car will have that level of redundancy and checks? Hell, the only reason airplanes have it is because it is mandated by the flight authorities. An Airbus or Boeing would not get type approval if they didn't produce certificates, and signed documents from all involved, that all the unit tests/audits were done, and passed successfully.

You really think automakers will do the same? It would drive the cost up immensly, and unless forced to, I suspect you will find most of the code will be a lousy hack-job done by the lowest bidder somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, a bit like most built-in car tech.

The only place this hasn't been the case is the ECU/EMU's. This is:

a) The only people who can do the job are competent already (very rarely can you find cheap, good, embedded programmers.)
b) the ECU/EMU controls fuel efficiency, and emissions, which the car has to pass to be allowed to be sold. Incentive to get it right
c) It is a very simple problem, relatively. Control of fuel/ignition timing, and power output/throttle control.
d) the project isn't very big (a few K of data/code).
e) It doesn't change much. It only gets refined with time (like the IC engine, which, as a concept is about 100 years old).

Also, the whole point of a driverless car is that you would be able to ignore the driving, and just go do what you want. However that level of sophistication has not even been reached in airplanes. Airplane autopilots, despite being around for decades, and generally dealing with a 3D space , in which 99% of it is air, still have software glitches/unexpected situations. That is why airlines still have highly trained people sitting at the controls at all times, paying attention and ready to make corrections if necessary.

I don't think a normal "driver" in a self driving car, will want to sit there and stare at everything around them, making sure the computer is doing the right thing. If you can't disconnect, and be a passenger, then you might as well be driving. Just as much effort, slightly higher risk of error, and you don't end up bored to death.

On the flip side, I don't think they can make a pure driverless car, just because driving is really complicated, and requires the ability to think ahead, and not just react to immediete events. Something AI is not yet able to do. You could make self-driving only roads, which area designed to not confuse the AI, and make everything work reliably. However then you've just really reinvented trains, with roads instead of rail.

The only place where I could see a self driving car working at all is on Motorways, due to their predictable, linear nature, no pedestrians and other obstacles, and clearly defined rules.

Well, that would explain where all the bugs and spiders have come from in my flat :-) I live on a pile of plants, which live on earth, which floats on mantle surrounding a partly-molten core. :-D

Well spotted though!

Well, based on what I've seen in my time on this plant, The Russian Government, The EU, and the US governments break agreements, violate sovereignty and meddle in the affairs of other smaller nations as much as they want. It is one of the perks of being a top-dog in the world.

However those are governments, you will generally find that people on all sides are more the less the same. They have fun, get laid, party, and have dreams and goals of their own.

As such, just because the governments do nasty shit, doesn't mean that you should not co-operate where there are mutually aligning goals. That is one of the fundamental tenants of diplomacy.

If the human race as a whole does not co-operate in space, the alternative is to compete, which could well cause more problems in future.

Besides, as long as the US pays for the engines, they will get them. Communism is gone, currency is the new ideology. Likewise for trips to the ISS, as long as the US is willing to pay, they will get a seat there. What may be influenced by the geopolitical situation is the price for future seats though.

Not to say that having two suppliers for a job is a bad idea, that is just good business. Otherwise your only supplier can lock you in :o)

Since the US shut down Lavabit I don't have my old email for Demonoid, so I'm trying to create a new account.

I've spent 40 mins trying the damn captcha, and I just can't read any of them. I so far got it only once, and then the site came back saying my username was invalid.

They have successfully thwarted any bots from registering, by successfully preventing humans from registering as well :-/

And their audio option doesn't even work, most annoyingly. Am I the only one having trouble with it?

Or... you know... hire the best person for the job, not set a goal of having a 50/50 distribution?

Humans are not marbles, we are all unique, all have our strengths and weaknesses, and different ways of thinking.

Hire the right person for the job in hand, don't hire people based on some magical need to have a particular distribution. I really don't get this desire...

Lasting peace in Europe? You must have been asleep for the last 25 years.

Bombing, invasion, annexation, partition, suffering, in Europe and abroad, by the hand of NATO.
Your "peace" and general prosperity is built on the blood, death and suffering of others, and don't you forget it.

Personally, I'm happy Russia finally slapped NATO in the face. I was wondering if anyone on this planet had the balls to finally stand up to the bully (Disclaimer, I'm not Russian). Now just to see how this develops, geopolitically.

It allows us to judge distances using depth perception, partly because we have two eyes at offsets, and as mentioned earlier, because we can bob our head about to help us get depth cueing.

The only way cameras will come close to being as good as a mirror is if they are 3D cameras and displays, to allow us to judge distances like a mirror, at which point I suspect they will be a lot more expensive than just having a mirror.

(Talk about using a jackhammer to crack a nut. It is always easy to make things complicated. Making something elegantly simple, now that requires serious brain power).

I was looking into the YaCY P2P search engine ( http://yacy.net/âZ ), but I have not given it a go yet. Have you tried that one? What did you find about it that was bad?

Your dream has been (partially) answered: Namecoin :)