ewibble and Jane Q. Public make good points, but mine is a lot more prosiac.

It's simple enough: The statistics available for serious injury accidents in the USA is detailed enough to chart known BAC levels and get a good idea of how various levels really affect driver's tendencies to get into serious accidents.

That data is simply unavailable for minor and no injury accidents, and we're already making it such that 'busted for DUI' is the biggest 'cost' for low BAC drivers, and it can be a real moneymaker for police departments.

You still have to consider that, unlike with ground traffic, you have a lot more 'lanes' in the air. Ergo, traffic jams are much less likely unless everybody wants to land at the same spot. Possible, but less likely.

Other than that, it appears that you didn't realize that I was talking about the collision-avoidance problem, not the 'requirements' for giving everybody a flying car. I wasn't disagreeing with the need for self-driving flying cars, I was disagreeing that the problem is harder in the air.

Well, the first rule of a self-driving car should be 'don't hit anything'. The second should probably be 'don't impede traffic'.

So yeah, avoiding you should be one of their primary jobs.

The problem that I was pointing out, that the USAF is having with drones is that in some ways there's a 'valley' where you have too much automation for the operator to pay sufficient attention, yet not enough to handle all situations, such that you still need the operator.

Imagine a job where you stare at something. As long as the object does nothing, you do nothing. If the object does something, you have 5 seconds to hit a button. The object normally does something about once every other 8 hour shift.

Ideally you'd replace said human with automation ASAP, because the average human is going to suck at that job.

That's why I said 'there's arguments for', I agree with you, but there's still the occasional incident so they want the human there.

I'm rocking multiple new mac minis

Are you "rocking" them? Really?

It can't get you to your destination if your destination is off road, if there is significant construction in between, significant rain, snow or ice on the road, etc...

Right now it's equivalent to a very safe 'fair weather' driver. The type that stays home if conditions aren't optimal.

Over in England, the cost for insuring a young/new driver is apparently so out of whack that car companies are selling their cars with 3 years of full coverage insurance included. Now, yes, these are cheap cars of the type that aren't likely to do as much damage even if they hit something else, but the manufacturer is already including the maintenance and insurance for the first 3 years in the price.

At a big enough discount that there's apparently not much of a 2nd hand market for these cars.

Per the article:

"Self-driving cars promise a future where you can watch television, sip cocktails, or snooze all the way home"

I mean....geez, aside from the sleeping part, that's not that uncommon now for REGULAR cars. The console screens are pretty easily bypassed to allow watching video anytime, and well...it isn't that big a deal to pour a cocktail for the road, hell, that's why folks try to catch as many of the plastic Mardi Gras cups here during carnival season, so that you have a sturdy disposable "to-go" cup to make a beverage for the road with when leaving the house......

Just the opposite. Consider that we developed drones long before we developed a self driving car. You can program specific lanes for flying, they're used all the time by commercial aircraft, but by the same token there's a lot less static clutter, margins are greater(no worrying about whether the kid on the side of the road will dart out), etc...

There are reasons why we developed self-piloting plants decades before we developed self-driving cars.

Actually, this would be a problem. The USAF is currently struggling with some of this - they automated their drones too much, operators don't have enough to do to keep proper attention on the drone in case something does happen. They're actually considering removing some of the automation...

I don't disagree that this is the most likely current situation, but it's going to be virtually impossible to keep the driver from doing other things as you remove more responsibility and control from them.

Even then, there's arguments for removing the human pilots today because they actually cause around half the accidents.

On the other hand, if you study actual injury statistics inside the USA, you'll find that you don't see serious increases in serious injury accidents until around .2%.

The majority of fatal accidents involving alcohol as a real contributing factor are well above .2%, so if .05 is lost within statistical noise, is it really saving lives?

Again, I'll clarify a bit: I'm not saying a business can't refuse cash. It CAN in 'most' cases. The ONLY time it's obligated to accept cash is when you actually OWE them money. My common example would be the sit-down restaurant. The meal has been delivered and consumed, the debt created.

Then, per 31 USC 5103, US currency is legal tender for that debt. While UCC article 3 might not apply(I've seen judges contort more to make something applicable), you've still made a valid offer to pay.

This can be modified in some ways with a previously agreed upon contract, but unless the business has gone out of it's way to tell you that cash isn't accepted before they extend you credit, they have to take it.

Like I said, if they end up taking it to court, the worst the court is going to do is tell them to take the cash and be happy, assuming that the 'cash' isn't in some crazy state like 'all pennies', 'folded into 10k paper cranes' etc...

Oh yeah, and they're not obligated to take partial payment.

The QuNexus also has control voltage outputs for directly triggering analog/modular gear.

That is great news. I've got a room full of old modular synths, like a Serge suitcase model and an early Arp.2600. Not to mention a Steiner-Parker that looks like it should have a 1930's phone operator sitting at it.

I've built some home-brew triggering controllers, but none of them are anywhere near as good as what McMillan makes.

Do you have a citation on how the courts handle a reasonable attempt to pay in cash? IE bills of reasonable denomination that have not been defaced or altered?

Okay, they don't have to accept $100 worth of pennies or $10k worth of $1 bills. What about 5 $20 bills or 100 $100s*?

*$100 being the highest denominator in common circulation