No because the elevator operators and Ether would still be tilling the farm. Even those jobs where "new" in the early part of the last century. And allowed by improvements (read technology) in farming that freed up workers for those "new" jobs.

You can replace your land line phone with a flip cell phone.

You can replace your flip phone with a "smartphone" (well they did call them that at the time...)

You can replace your smartphone with an iPhone or an Android.

Do you think that we really would want to go back to what was the standard phone service in the 70's and 80's?

Or TV service (all 3-4 channels) of the sixties?

Taxi service has not changed all that much. There is a bit of automation in the dispatching. But the basic model of a regulated (medallioned) driver getting hailed or dispatched by radio (now computer) is essentially the same as it was 50-60-80 years ago. And really that was little changed from the horse drawn equivalent in larger cities in the 1800's.

It is seriously time to look at new models of service.

Funny you should mention maintenance. Presumably the smaller generators on wind turbines will last longer with less maintenance. Especially since any maintenance that is required is distributed across a larger number of remote points (some in the ocean) and many feet in the air.

We have a gas fired plant locally that used to have yearly tours (sadly suspended after 9/11). Highly efficient and large turbines, but at the expense of frequent (well once every year or two if I recall) maintenance and overhauls. But large power plants have built in cranes to lift the turbines out of their cradles and move them to the attached tool shop that has all of the required tools and mechanics to rebuild them.

Wind turbines require that the mechanics with their tools get transported to the site, lifted in the air and then work in cramped and dangerous conditions. Of course if you are looking for a challenging and probably rewarding (financially) career the Wind Farm service industry is hiring. There are a lot of Wind Turbines coming off warranty.

And if you don't want DRM patent-encumbered connectors on your ear phones / ear buds then just don't buy an Apple device. It really really REALLY is that simple.

Personally I'm looking forward to new ear buds with Lightning. Most likely they will have a smaller connector, have better strain relief and last longer.

I suspect that currently Apple swaps about 1 set of ear buds for every Apple Care they sell for iPhones. IFF going to Lightning reduces that by any significant amount it will pay for any increased manufacturing cost and increase customer satisfaction.

When I can get it as an electronic tattoo. No charging and don't need to remember to put it on or take it off.

Is it more important that Linux be considered to be POSIX or for POSIX to figure out how to accomodate LInux?

With Uber's recent capital infusion a quick end run would be to start a chain of hotels (UberHotels) that are located very close to airports. This could be easily and quickly done by buying existing ones.

Then just have the UberHotel shuttle take people to and from the airport to the UberHotel for a small fee. Once at the UberHotel the passenger could book a room or arrange for an UberX ride somewhere else.

If this was about insurance then they would simply require that UberX drivers have the proper insurance. That is simple to mandate and relatively simple to check.

Because most public transportation is less efficient than autonomous cars.

The exceptions are very high bandwidth routes carrying a consistently high amount of riders.

Most of the time for most routes you have large, expensive, low gas mileage vehicles running mostly at a loss.

Autonomous cars will be able to work efficiently in a dense configuration where they can operate very close together achieving almost the equivalent of the best of mass transportation.

And for the rest of the time (probably > two thirds) they are simply more efficient than pretty much any other alternative.

Autonomous cars also optimize for peoples time. The latency of your travel (time to get from a to b) will be lower. Since you don't have to walk to the closest bus stop, then take the local feeder bus to mass transit, then switch and wait for that, etc. You get picked up at home, and read your paper or work on your laptop until it drops you off at work.

Finally, building this out doesn't require mega-investments by local or state or federal governments. Since autonomous vehicles will re-use the existing road network (and more efficiently at that) multi-billion dollar investments in public transit lines won't be needed. Just encourage adoption of autonomous vehicles. As the old fleet ages out and the new one rolls out it becomes more efficient in its use of the road network.

No, the equivalent is how old does a child have to be before they can take a taxi alone to school.

Or in Vancouver should they be allowed to ride the Skytrain which are indeed autonomous. No drivers. We do still have drivers in our taxis and buses though.

Exactly. By the time this question is germane it will be equivalent of "would you let your kid ride in a taxi without you?".

The long term direction is a far safer driving experience solely based on removing human drivers from all cars. Allowing them to "override" the automated systems just makes them far more dangerous than cars today where at least the norm is drivers who are somewhat used to driving. Letting people who rarely if ever driver override is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Download chrome
Download classic shell
Download cygwin

And you now have a really nice windows system. I prefer it to Windows 7!

Very occasionally I stumble across some weird "tile" like things but one of them is labelled Desktop and that restores things to normal quickly :-)

The premise is stupid. Why is the car getting a ticket?

If it is getting a ticket because the law was broken because of a design defect the manufacturer pays.

If it is getting a ticket because the passenger overrode the safeties and told it to do something (drive 5% faster than the speed limit, I need to get to an appointment...) then the passenger pays.

By definition a well designed and behaved robotic car simply won't break the law and won't be in a position to get a ticket. Law enforcement agencies may find that trying to milk GM or Ford or Toyota or Google with their favourite fast yellow light scam or similar may also find that those companies have very well paid lawyers that WILL challenge them in court (and appeal as far and as long as is necessary) and the cost legal costs will exceed anything that could ever be collected.

Don't confuse your poor tired robotic car who has Harvard and Yale law teams on call with the average joe tourist who just doesn't want to spend the night in jail.

The point about robotic cars is that they turn into really great robotic taxis. So at least for those jurisdictions that don't prevent it you'll see movement away from owning your own car to just getting driven to where you want to go at a hopefully (compared to today's rates) a moderately lower price. And certainly much less than owning your own car.

In all but very high density commutes (with common destinations) robotic taxis will be lower cost in the long run than self owned auto mobiles and any public transportation. And without any of the messy public interactions involved with public transit. And without the huge out front capital costs or ongoing public subsidizations. What is there not to love in this scenario (if you don't drive for a living.)