I really don't know why this is a difficult question, I see a simple law that solves the problem:

1. If there is an occupant in the car who holds a local drivers license, they are required by law to sit in the drivers seat, and they are responsible if the car is on autopilot or not.

2. If there is an occupant in the car who is unlicensed or incapable of driving they must not sit in the drivers seat and rule 3 applies.
(ie. this is what you do when you are drunk)

3. If there is no occupant in the car (eg. the car is driving its self to pick you up), the owner of the car is responsible as if they were driving.
(ie. If your car kills someone because Sergey programmed it wrong, you go to jail. You knew this was the law when you purchased the car and sent it off on it's own so don't bitch about it.)

4. For civil claims (that is, if someone is seeking money from you in damages), and it is proven that the software was at fault, then the liability is joint and several. (ie. the person who is suing can take you for what you are worth, and take google for what they are worth).

This is easy for lawmakers because there is always someone in their jurisdiction who is liable for the car, and as the owner, you need to trust that the software works. If you don't trust it, don't buy one.

In other news, this study was repeated using NFL supporters as a control group.

In that study, no statistically significant differences were found between the level of brain damage found in the control group compared with that of the group studied.

The original question was "Best 32-Bit Windows System In 2012?..

And I'm afraid, despite it's awesome capabilities... Wine is only the best windows system if you compare it with Windows NT 3.51 and OS2.

If you've somehow convinced yourself that the best platform for running 32bit windows apps isn't Windows, then parallels on MAC OS is streets ahead of wine.

Why can't Linux just accept that it is good for running Linux apps, and leave the windows apps for windows.

You and your *science*.
Consider me re-educated.

Here's two news articles saying that the systems shut down if they detect an animal (or a fork) in the way:

http://www.techradar.com/au/news/car-tech/wireless-electric-vehicle-charging-explained-1094646

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/wireless-car-charging-action.html

So I'm not sure if they don't believe your science; or if they are just placating the ignorant masses. (Probably the latter)

Sleek and mirrory with floor to ceiling windows... until you see the wheelhouse. Seriously, WTF?!

It looks like Steve Jobs took the designs of the black ship that Zaphod Beeblebrox stole from the restaurant at the end of the universe, built it in white, then jammed a old corrugated iron shack on the top for a wheelhouse!

IRRC the biggest unknown with these chargers is that it's effects on a small animal that chooses to sit right in the path of the inductance loop is largely unknown.

It's a bigger issue than you would think, since it does put out some heat, it is extremely likely that your family cat will find a new favorite sleeping place under the car.

Granted the biggest risk might be that of a 'squashing' incident when you park or drive off without first checking for your loved one; but the effects on living tissue of spending hours sitting on top of a giant electromagnet are not exactly known.

We know that running a 60 watt TV from across the room via inductance has zero effect on human health - but running 12.5kW through a cat is a slightly different equation.

You also will need the following:

1. A van der graaf generator
2. A very powerful degaussing Coil
3. A glass still

1. Because if you're spending heaps of time in an electronics lab, you're sometimes going to have visitors and it never hurts to show them something theatrical.
2. Because you never know when you need to destroy information.
3. Because if you're testing and doing R&D on electronics stuff for any length of time, you will know it doesn't always work the way it should, and for those instances a home-made stiff drink never goes astray.

Actually, that's not entirely correct.

You tell yourself you are happier, in the same way that paraplegic often eventually say the accident that paralized them is the best thing that ever happened to them.

You remember raising children to be awesome fun, but if you are actually surveyed while doing it, you are on average far less happy than someone who doesn't have to give most of their time and money to a relative, change shitty nappies and get woken up three times a night. Surprise Surprise.

Here's two very interesting talks on the subject:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/rufus_griscom_alisa_volkman_let_s_talk_parenting_taboos.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html

We have children because we are programmed to do so. We say we love it because of exactly the same programming. But don't fool yourself - you could get exactly the same high that you get out of children by spending a fraction of what you have on your children on drugs instead.

You misinterpreted the heading - Facebook has the hardest information technology problem on the planet.

That information technology problem has nothing to do with servers and storage.

The hardest information technology problem on the planet is: How do the Facebook exec's stop the company going the way of Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) - oh wait, no, (DELISTED by NYSE because the share price couldn't stay above $1: SGI); since the company creates no real value, and has done nothing but drop it's price since IPO.

*THAT* is the problem that Google isn't facing.

Reasons why I think there is not, and will never be an antitrust lawsuit over this:
1. Antivirus should be part of the operating system. It is a critical aspect of a stable system.
2. Nobody cares about Microsoft anymore, they are loosing so much market share to Apple etc. Microsoft have good grounds to say 'not a monopoly'
3. Antivirus is an industry that has peaked - not a growing, sexy industry like the dotcom was.
4. (Conspiracy warning) Prior to viruses having economic benefit in themselves as botnets and state-sponsored attacks, they were all written by the AV vendors anyway to sell their software. The AV industry has it coming.
5. As per 4. The whole business model of AV vendors is to pray on people who don't know better and sell them crap they don't need. None of the AV vendors wants their business model put under a supreme court microscope - so nobody is 'clean' enough to lodge an antitrust case.

You can learn more about how Coursera works here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html - It is far more than just "study groups".

Now, I'm not sure what it was like at your university, but doing a science course at Monash, I realized there is a huge difference in people who can teach vs. people who can research. And universities love getting researchers who publish stuff so the university looks good. The end result - every one of our maths or CS teachers spent their time talking in a thick Indian accent while scribbling nonsense on the board which you frantically copied down without learning a DAMN THING.

As for the TA's - well, they aren't exactly experts or authorities in themselves, usually your first year TA was a second year student; your second year TA is a third year student; your third year TA is a fourth year student ...

Lecturer interaction at most universities doesn't live up to the promise.

So how do people learn? Well the studies say it isn't by sitting in a room listening. Nor, is it about talking to an expert about the material and asking interesting questions. And importantly - nor is it by memorizing stuff by wrote, then regurgitating it for an exam.
You learn best by USING what you've been taught (in fact studies* say one of the best ways of learning something is to try to teach it to others).

What does that mean?

Most of what you learn at university actually comes from you doing assignments (or using what you have read or have been told in a practical way).

How does Coursera stack up?

Well, they did research that showed that peer-marked assignments hold an extremely strong correlation to teacher marked assignments - so as a student of Coursera, once you've finished an assignment, you then get assignments from other students to mark. They send the same assignment to a second student who also marks it (cross marking) - so you do assignments (when you learn), they get marked, and you get a grade.

Also, There is an "official answer" to questions - when they do exams, they don't just tell you what answers you got wrong, because they have hundreds of thousands of people doing the same exam, they offer reasons why you got that wrong answer. Thus giving personalized learning via machine.

Okay, you got me.

Don't go to the pub this *weeknight*.

Oh, and remember to Truecrypt.

It's all circumstantial until they take your PC, and if you haven't encrypted, that's usually got all the _real_ evidence they need, regardless of your VPN provider.

Buy a Virtual Server from a cheap provider in Europe, install linux on it if you're savvy, and windows if you're not.

Set it up to be an encrypted VPN endpoint and do all your browsing from there.

It's about as cheap as getting a VPN service provider, your IP address in destination logs will just look like a standard data center in Europe (rather than a suspicious VPN provider), you get massive data allowances for almost nothing.

Yes, the AFP can still pressure the foreign virtual server provider to give up logs etc, but if you're browsing is all encrypted and seeming to come from a European data center, they would only start looking if you were a person of interest for non-browsing reasons. If that is the case, you probably shouldn't be getting law avoidance advice from slashdot.

Sorry to burst your little bubble there, but America has spiralling debt, high unemployment and a stagnating economy because it is no longer productive on a global stage.

For many years we got fat and rich with merchant bankers who added pseudo value by moving money about in the global economy, and by being the central world bank thanks to the convenience of the rest of the world using US dollars as an intermediary currency.

But we fucked that up. We didn't know, or didn't care while the rest of the world pissed their money up against the wall lending it to us so we could buy McMansions. Now, without an ever increasing credit market, there is no money coming in. We've lost the last couple of real export industries we had.

America just isn't any better than anyone else in the world at doing anything of value. We used to be innovators, now China, India and Ireland innovate. We used to be a finance hub, now London, Hong Kong and Singapore are too. We used to make stuff. Now you can't even make an iPad without China's help.

The only reason why we aren't as fucked up as Europe is because we can print money and inflate ourselves out of debt.

Our leaders are pointing the finger at Europe to distract the masses from the fact that we are in almost as bad a position as them. And good on them, we need all the positive sentiment we can get in your markets at the moment. Even if it is just ignorant optimism.

You can blame Obama, but, as you saw when you elected him - changing our leader won't solve the structural problems that exists. Only by waking the fuck up and either lowering our standard of living to match the lower national income - or swallowing our pride, learning to become good at something, and WORKING for a living will we increase our employment figures.

You want to know the really dirty little secret about Indian outsourcing? If I could hire an Indian for exactly the same price as an American, I'd hire the Indian. They are more passionate, more driven and have a better work ethic than the fat lazy, self-entitled locals.

Just look at Australia. Anyone on a half decent income in Australia pays about 38% tax. That's after a 30% company tax, a 10% sales tax and payroll taxes.
They have huge healthcare costs, huge social policies, but they're richer than us - why? Because they're still exporting something.

The cost base isn't our issue, and our 'socialist' policies are nothing compared with the rest of the western world.

The problem is, if America were a potential employee, we'd be that fat lazy bum who used to be great at college football, but is now, basically, unemployable.

The rest of the world loves Obama, he's the best leader we've had in years - he knows America needs to be aware of it's place on the world stage. You guys hate him, because he oversold himself - but if you've learnt anything (and oh how obvious it is that you haven't) learn this - Our leader ain't your problem mate - you are.