Zero billions, because the auto companies' lawyers are quite aware of liability issues, and so they aren't going to allow the sale of any self-driving car to the public until they're damn sure it's smart enough to avoid running over pets and children.

So either the automobiles will reliably detect and avoid pets/children, or they will never be released to customers.

I don't think I've seen anyone argue that the distribution of child porn isn't a problem.

I have seen people argue that the First Amendment permits it, regardless of whether it's problematic or not.

It is quite possible, if he had an accomplice.

If he was correctly following the procedures that were set up, it's hard to justify firing him because the procedures aren't to your liking. A more rational response would be to change the procedures.

Would you want to be the guy who ignored the bomb threat, after a plane (or two) blew up?

Put it this way: following procedure (when it later turned out it wasn't actually necessary to do so) won't end your career. Failing to follow procedure (when the threat turned out to be valid) almost certainly will. "But the bomb threat didn't really make sense, because (reasons)" will probably not be seen as a valid defense.

Everyone with the normal human number of digits, I would think.

(e.g. for a right-hander: the thumb is next to the mouse, on the left side; the pinky finger is next to the mouse, on the right side, and the central three digits rest on top of the mouse)

I was a safe driver for 11 years; no tickets, no accidents, no "close calls", no complaints. Then one day I was driving to the airport early in the morning, got distracted by my radio, didn't notice that the traffic light was red, and ran right into a car that was (legally) crossing the intersection.

My question: should I have been driving for those previous 11 years? If not, why not? What kind of test would you have had me take to show that I was a dangerous driver? Or, if I was a safe driver except on that one morning, how would your plan have prevented my accident?

The fact is, most people are safe drivers most of the time. Except for when they're not.

Never mind turning it off, just wait until they start offering to sell you downloadable "engine tones".

You haven't really driven an i8 until you've driven it in "Crazy Frog" mode.

I wonder how well EVE would be doing, if its creators had decided on day 1 to not allow war in their video game? My guess is, not so well.

While I agree that these amendments are political gamesmanship, they are not "voting whether something is fact".

You'll notice in TFA that the amendments are voting on the "sense of the Senate" -- i.e. their purpose is to get Senators' opinions/positions on record, not to determine reality.

Specifically, the Democrats want the Republicans to either publicly acknowledge that climate change is a real problem (thus undercutting their own arguments against doing anything about it), or publicly deny it (and, presumably, thereby look increasingly silly in the future as its effects become more pronounced).

Proprietary isn't just a matter of whether the language is well-supported or not, but where it is supported.

For example, say you've spent several hundred hours of your life learning Visual Basic, and then several thousand more hours writing the Great American Program, in Visual Basic.

Now your boss wants you to get your program running on a Mac. Or a Unix box. Or a Linux box. Or anywhere that isn't Windows.... and here's where you find out that it simply can't be done, because Microsoft doesn't support anything other than their own OS's.

So, all of the time you spent learning and programming with Visual Basic gains you nothing at this point; now you have to go back to square one, learn a different (hopefully less proprietary) language, and rewrite your program from scratch in that language.

That's the real problem with "proprietary". You're locked in to doing only whatever your single-source vendor wants to allow you to do.

Nobody assumes it's mandatory for space travellers.

Lots of people assume it's mandatory if you want to make a profit selling your space-themed video game. And they're probably right about that.

The truth is that none of the cars in the luxury category make any economic sense -- why spend $60,000+ on a luxury car when a $12,000 Honda Fit would get you to your destinations just as effectively?

So why do expensive cars sell? Because they're cool. And cool is something that Tesla's cars have, in spades.

Okay, I'm imagining a lot of people switching to charging their cars at night, and running the AC during the day.

I feel compelled to ask if the code uses a lot of threads...

They also use those same keyboards to log in to their bank accounts, so they'll care after the first time their checking account gets drained. (And for those that don't use on-line banking, they'll care after the first time their Facebook account starts posting goatse pics for their mom to see)

As if having to replace keyboard-batteries every 6 months wasn't reason enough. Is there really any benefit to having a keyboard be wireless, outside of a living room TV/PC scenario?