Well, it all depends on where you're talking about. The thing electrics have going for them is that *if* you can move toward clean/renewable sources of electricity, then you're doing more than displacing pollution by going electric. For example in California, less than 10% of electricity comes from coal (http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html) and almost half is natural gas, which is somewhat "cleaner" than gasoline, all factors in.

And with solar on it's current growth trajectory (http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html) it could rival natural gas for top dog in as little as a decade.

Yeah it's true. Battery technology has a long way to go for flight. Non-production electric airplanes *could* be a curiosity in about 15 years, but we're probably closer to 30 years for truly viable electric aircraft... and that's assuming we ever get to the point where energy density of batteries are able to close in on the energy density of petroleum distillates.

Yes, I recall that quote. He was trying to make a big statement in front of the media and ended up leaving the company shortly after that. What I imagine he was trying to say is that signature-based AV is dead in terms of efficacy against quick moving threats. I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but even lowly Symantec has multiple layers of protection and I don't think they're all "dead" so to speak:
https://www.symantec.com/page....

> I wouldn't pay for an anti-virus solution as anti-virus software is an outright fraud. The companies can't fix bugs in the code (on proprietary platforms) and at best there is a slight chance some malicious software might get picked up (the risk and costs vs reward though isn't worth it).

Do you think you might be overstating the case a bit?

It's not *that* bad. Believe it or not, most modern security technologies do indeed track behavior profiles and use reputation systems to catch lots of bad stuff that's never been seen before. If you take off your hate glasses for a moment, you might learn something.

> I don't use MS Windows or Mac OS X or any proprietary software

RMS, is that you?

Twice.

Newer Tesla Model S cars will be able to basically do the same thing this summer with its auto-pilot 'lane holding' firmware update.

It may not be obvious to those who aren't paying close attention to the advancement of self-driving technology, but driving hundreds of miles on a highway is actually fairly easy for today's AI and requires only a basic sensor stack (GPS, HD camera with IR for nighttime, 600 ft radar sensor up front, and a slew of sonar sensors for close up decisions). Lane holding and traffic-aware cruise control together basically can take you 99% of the way to any city from any other on the interstate -- and this is likely coming to a car near you (not just $100k luxury cars) in the next 5 years.

Beyond the highway though, is where the current technology falls apart... The difference between maintaining a lane on the highway and driving in a suburban neighborhood is orders of magnitude in complexity. Google's super-fancy Lidar-based "driverless" cars still have tons of trouble navigating in cities and suburban settings. I'm not even going to approach the topic of weather, but to illustrate some of the challenges, in a city you might run into:

* Roads with inadequate, faded or absent lanes markings.
* Intersections with no stop/yield signs or broken/flashing traffic lights
* Vast distances with no speed limit signs
* Random and unpredictable people, animals and inanimate objects crossing or blowing across the road (e.g. a raccoon, kid on bike, plastic bag, paint bucket, police officer with hand up each may require a completely different reaction from the driver and the inappropriate reaction could put occupants or pedestrians in serious danger.)

All of these are relatively easy for people to navigate, but pose significant challenges for AI. I predict that all-weather, door-to-door, autonomous driving is closer to 10-20 years away -- perhaps 10 years for high-end vehicles and 20 years for your run-of-the-mill Toyota Corolla, etc... (Think of the rollout of GPS navigation or airbags.)

I was being facetious with that comment, but do you have any other viable choices in mind? Don't all cars come with non-free software in them? The only thing Tesla's done is enabled an OTA update mechanism for the firmware. Virtually all new cars sold today have update-able firmware and even if they didn't, there's still no way you can prove that the NSA hasn't got a back door in there from the factory. So, unless you want to go around driving a classic from the 70s or 80s, you're pretty much at the mercy of your car's manufacturer anyway.

Hi, Tesla Model S owner here... Technically you do get asked before firmware installs proceed (download happens automatically in the background). You're free to simply not apply the update. However, and more to your point, as with any binary update mechanism, there's really no viable way to determine what's actually getting installed in the process and you would lose out on potentially important bug fixes. Not all that different from Windows Update...

My personal assumption is that the firmware is a complete privacy-invading cesspool. I love the car overall, so I'll keep it until such time as I get the first mailed speeding ticket based upon my car's GPS location and internal speed telemetry.

Your retirement portfolio is only affected if it's on the wrong side of one of their trades. Index long-term my friend and fuggetaboutit.

OK, but are local police allowed to unilaterally enforce FAA regulations without say the FAA being involved (which I don't know, but assume is the case here)?

I do and I don't really care if you think the whole idea of trying to build an electric car company is a waste of time to you. Don't buy one.

Is $7500 the difference between affordable and unaffordable to you? In your universe, are government incentives that might help us soon get off of polluting, non-renewable resources akin to acts of the devil or are you just one of those who has inexplicable contempt for anyone or anything successful?

Leave it to the trolls of Slashdot to trash anyone successful... Even an Engineer with a vision of a better tomorrow.

You appear to have a very pedantic understanding of the English language. I don't fault you for it, as it can probably be attributed to a genetic anomaly. In any case, let me spell it out for you:

Using the terms 'selection' or 'useful' as it relates to evolution does not imply that one believes there is any conscious, intelligent/scheming/maniacal actor involved. It simply means that randomly generated traits are more likely to be passed down to future populations if they happen to interact with the environment in such a way that the organism containing those traits has a greater likelihood of surviving to reproduce or can otherwise reproduce faster or with more partners.

> Yes, except that is exactly how evolution doesn't work.

Not sure I understand why all the snark and ad hominems other than you feel emboldened by hiding behind AC (as if Slashdot karma is some kind of valuable resource?) Anyway, I don't think the parent's comments are all that out of line. A gene pool is going to change from generation to generation due to random chance occurrences like DNA transcription errors and such, and the changes that sustain are more often than not going to be ones that enable that organism to survive and reproduce better in that environment, yes? If selection pressures in the environment they live in stabilize over time, one would expect that the magnitude of evolutionary changes for that organism will gradually diminish because as time progresses, there are fewer useful adaptations that haven't been incorporated, so-to-speak. All bets are off if the environment destabilizes, but eventually, if stable over a long period of time you might get to a stable organism as described in TFA.

So... Does that make me religious?