Why exactly is the entertainment system of a vehicle, developed by design to display "unknown" content, tied into critical systems? First airplanes and now cars. What the actual fuck are these people thinking?

Beancounters.

In a very rural area in a very Red, rectangular US state amidst fields of wheat, soybeans, and aquifer-draining corn... it is a rarity to see an actual bee, as it has been for decades.

At every company there's someone that works harder than you and makes far less money than you. Conversely, there's also someone that works far less than you and makes way more money than you.

"Representative Lamar Smith (R - TX), chairman at the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, got involved today, expressing grave concern over the incident in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. NIST is part of the Commerce Department. 'I am troubled by the allegations that such dangerous and illicit activity went undetected at a federal research facility. It is essential that we determine exactly where the breakdown in protocol occurred and whether similar activities could be ongoing at other federal facilities,' wrote Smith in an accompanying press release. He has requested a briefing with NIST no later than 29 July."

Meaning: 'I want all this privatized and sold to my asshole buddies for pennies on the dollar.'

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).