Rote memorization is very important and is seriously undervalued. Try learning an instrument or a sport w/o rote memorization. Memorizing, and developing the capacity to memorize is important. We need more rote memorization, not less.

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

Actually, this raises a more interesting question (at least to me) which your little thought experiment approaches. What if my autonomous car decides that the action to take that is likely to cause the least harm is to kill the driver? For example, what if the car has the opportunity to swerve off the side of a mountain road and drop you 1000 feet onto some rocks to avoid a crash that would have killed far more people than simply you? Is my autonomous car required to act in my own best interest, or should it act in the best interests of everyone on the road?

I imagine that when we have really screwd the climate for us, we will have to come up with genetically engineered human beings that will drive heavily modified cars that are working OK when it's 60C.

What I find completely unbelievable in this story is that someone in California actually has their car in a garage.

Your garage is where you keep all the stuff you can't fit into the house.

The street is where you keep your car.

I thought the US was supposed to be a christian country and slashdot was supposed to be am mostly american site (I say mostly because I am actually british)?

Didn't Jesus say:

Could they change their name to Boy Hackers Of America?

Note. Australian drinking laws are pretty shit