*Certainly* the autodriver will not be able to "handle" a rig in the context of a terminal; there are just too bloody many variables to see that happening soon. But for the bulk of long-haul miles? I can certainly see a sort of 'local pilotage' system developing where trucks are driven by a human to a terminal on the outskirts of a metro area. From that point the human gets out and the autodriver takes it to a similar terminal at the destination city, where a local 'pilot' gets in and handles the truck from there.

In other words - reinventing a less efficient version of the railroad.

I suppose its not a bad thing to have just in case but I don't see the reasoning behind the fixation on it as a design requirement and their ranting about its "importance" in press releases. In almost 300 manned space launches a Launch Escape system has only been of verifiable use in a single incident(Soyuz T-10-1).

My wife and I have owned vehicles with airbags for nearly twenty years. By your logic, we could have gotten rid of them since we never needed them.

Until a week ago.

Also, SpaceX has done something rather clever. The abort propellent and engines will eventually be used for propulsive landings instead of coming down under canopy. So their abort system isn't a total waste.

Clever in some respects - but not without risks and drawbacks. (As compared to the toss-it-unused style generally in use otherwise.) Since the spacecraft is (intended to be) re-useable up to ten time "without significant refurbishment", all limited life components (notably the seals) have to last that long. Since it's carried the whole flight, the system has to survive all flight phases. And most notably, it increases the orbited, suspended, and landed weights.

Another consideration is that "traditional" (solid fueled tractor escape motors) were passively stable, while Super Draco very likely is not. "Traditional" systems could also be easily designed to passively steer the vehicle clear of the boosters trajectory, while Super Draco will require active throttling.

I'm not saying anything against the system, only that the cleverness comes with costs that aren't going to be obvious to the untrained eye.

Why is this any different than the population of other skilled professionals?

That's the thing - the (claimed) distribution is different from what we see in other professionals.

Ok, I'll grant that I could understand your first sentence. However, if it were really a problem, installing a heating loop under the array would fix the problem at the touch of a button. For the DIYer, some plastic tubing, antifreeze, and aquarium pump, and a 5 gallon tank of propane would do the job. I'll also point out that although it snows frequently, that's not typically a disaster. It's also only been 200 years since a mammoth earthquake that would, if it happened today, paralyze this nation for months. That's only three lifespans, so the odds of witnessing that again may not be as low as you assume.

Your entire second paragraph is an incomprehensible bowl of word soup. You seem to be advocating that 50 million people without gas hop in their cars and find a hotel in a different region of the continent.

Your last paragraph disregards the whole point of the damned thread: that you can recharge the batteries indefinitely without fuel. Even when keeping a dangerous amount of volatile gasoline on your premises, you get a couple days max of electricity generation, and as I pointed out, natural gas generators are no panacea either.

It's cash-price is currently at the top-end of the luxury-sedan class

In among all your handwaving about TCO - the above quote is the single relevant fact.
 

Your example fails.

On the contrary - the grandparent is correct, electric cars are the plaything of the rich because you pay the cash price upfront. TCO is irrelevant to what the bank loans you.
 

Trust me, ten years from now the only ICEs that may still be on the roads will be classic cars and long-haul heavy-load delivery trucks.

Only if somebody comes out with a wide range of cost comparable electric vehicles fifteen or twenty years or so ago. (The average age of cars on the road in America generally hovers between 9 and 12 years - generally lower in good times, higher in bad times. Currently it's about 11 years and still trending up somewhat.) ICE automobiles are going to be on the road in significant numbers for a long time indeed - and that won't change until the lower income folks can pick up a "junker" electric vehicle for a couple of grand the same way they currently can an ICE vehicle.

Even the "leasing" option appears to be a contract to purchase power at a set rate. Going by the blurbs *every* option they offer, other than direct purchase of the panels, is a contract to purchase power. (I suspect that's because that allows SolarCity to keep the tax credits for themselves.)

Did you actually read the page? Or just jump on the word "lease"?

WTF? Every sentence in that argument makes zero sense.

How about a large earthquake on the New Madrid fault in Missouri takes out most of the gas pipelines in the central US. There could very well be precious little electricity or gasoline available for an extended period of time.

I don't know why everyone who replied is so focused on snow. If the blizzard is that bad, you'll be sitting around with nothing better to do than figure out how to clear snow off a few dozen square feet of slippery surface. If you do a half-assed job with a roof rake, the sun hitting a south sloping roof would generally finish the task quickly.

Most of the country doesn't even get hurricanes. However, if a hurricane has ripped the roof off of your house, then you've got bigger fish to fry than a lack of electricity.

Companies like SolarCity basically install solar systems for no money up front, and then lease them back to you for a period. For many houses, even with these fees, the SolarCity systems will save the homeowner quite a bit of money.

No, SolarCity doesn't lease the panels back to you - they sell the power from the panels to you. And they control the rate you pay and have the ability to raise it annually (up to 2.9% per annum).

OTOH, in a real crisis, that might be the last 20 gallons of gas you get your hands on for a good while. The solar powered system refuels itself.

Nah; in the US, the term has been "re-purposed". It now means "Anyone that the people currently in power don't like." That definition successfully explains almost all uses of the word "terrorist" now, while the original, obsolete definition you quote doesn't.

A dollar spent on an unmanned mission goes much further than a dollar spent on manned missions.

[[Citation needed]]

Don't send people to Mars, send unmanned rovers. Solves a bunch of other problems too, and saves a lot of money that can be used on other cool stuff.

But, as always, you get what you pay for.

Of course, the tournament could audit the config files to insure no cheating, but there's a lot of gray area in there (e.g. having a specific combination of player events tied to one key or click that can perform fairly incredible stunts, etc).

I don't see any gray areas - require each player to use the same config (other than what can be accessed through the game UI) as every other player, the same as pretty much any other serious sport puts the players on a level playing field. If the game allows it, and players fail to take advantage of it, that's on the player - he shouldn't be competing at that level.