I think the goal of governments both authoritarian and democratic (but I repeat myself) is to set the wheels in motion (pun intended) to remove even the option of quasi-anonymous large-scale movements of their citizens; a mobile Panopticon, if you will.

When I think of autos, I frequently think of the folks in the Great Depression that drove out of the Dust Bowl and headed to California to start a new life. I suspect more than a few of them left behind mortgages and land payments in their wake. Starting from scratch somewhere else will never be allowed again by the Powers that Be.

A variation of the speech from Inherit the Wind: "You sir, will be allowed your self-driving car, but before you leave town for good, it will drive you to the bank to make sure your financial affairs are in order."

Is there seriously no EMP-style weapons for these increasingly hostile machines? As in the case of them interfering with fire-fighting planes resulting in the insane scene on Highway 15 in Nevada over the weekend, I've have less and less regard for the dronebros who place their footage above others lives. A nice, devastating EMP burst (where you only have to get close) is what they so richly deserve.

Yes, my OTHER computer is anonymous

Would make a great bumper sticker.

That same issue is shared at my work, where we already have this system of forced updates. I'll be working and notice the computer progressively getting slower, and slower..... to the point where I can't open documents, pull something from the network drive, or read email. Why? Because it's updating in the background while I'm trying to work.

Only absolutely rank amateurs would inflict this on their users; professionals run these overnight when no one will be bothered (AFTER verifying each update won't break things). It might be time to find a better job.

I'm betting their legal eagles are still screaming "LIABILITY!!" at the top of their lungs at Nadella, given that 'mandatory' = 'no one but us to blame' for borkage up to and including personal injury, EULA be damned.

Jade Helm truther, Scientology puppet... it is staggering to realize that Rick Perry was _not_ the worst modern-era Texas governor.

When I was a kid, NOBODY was allergic to wheat.

Celiac disease dates back to the 2nd Century [csaceliacs.org] and was given its current name in 1856.

And when I was a kid, NOBODY was allergic to peanuts.

Something *has* changed, history buff.

They can offer to keep all the horrific subreddits open, BUT everyone from mods to posters can ONLY join by using their real, independently-verified name, which will be permanently and permanently displayed.

You want to scream racist, misogynist crap or advocate mass-murder or man-boy love in the town square? Do it with a 'Hello, My Name Is' tag.

And no, this would not chill unpopular free speech; into would chill unpopular cowardly speech of those that don't have the courage to match their ignorant hatreds.

The only thing on that show is how crap is made. It's all pathetically low-grade tech, building artsy-crafty dreck most of us wouldn't be caught dead owning. It will never show truly interesting stuff like jet turbine construction, motherboard manufacture or the like, because the production processes of such cool things are truly a corporations' 'family jewels'.

I don't think that changing the way we educate people or making education free or anything else is going to be able to change the fact that some people don't have the cognitive ability to do the high level jobs that robots won't be able to do.

One hopes this might force people to actually ask the question: 'do we really need to add more people to the population?' instead of just arrogantly breeding, hoping to glom on to their accomplishments as somehow being our own.

Soon, even 1.21 gigawatts won't be enough to make ends meet (in time).

They'll just slap in a new AE-35 unit, and you're good to go. I wouldn't even bother with a helmet.

Why does the train have operational, accessible sockets if they are not to be used by the PAYING passengers??

Flash is a diseased animal in pain, it needs to be put out of its misery. It is going to die on its own, Adobe may as well save a little face and do Flash and the world a kindness by euthanizing it.

That's just the cover story; it's actually an effective deployment platform for the NSA.

You really think it's just decades-long incompetence that just as one hole is patched, another brand-new one is quickly discovered? They're issuing hole exchanges, not patches.

It is only a matter of time that real-time license point deduction (and more lucratively; insurance rate increase) systems become _mandatory_ to operate a motor vehicle.

Why? because panicky snowflake moms and insurance corporations control the law-making process.