Plus, with buses, they can make smaller buses that have more routes and can also respond to demand to better stick to schedules. (If 13 people "check in" at Bus Stop B but no one at Bus Stop A, then the bus can take a shortcut that avoids A and goes to B sooner, to better handle the larger amount of people waiting to get on.)

1) convince the unions to let us

Even if the tech is viewed as very mature by every automotive professional, Average Joe will still view it with heavy skepticism. Having a human who could take control in the event of a bad situation will alleviate a lot of concern, regardless if the human could not realistically do anything useful even with very early warnings and a sharp eye. Public trust will probably grow at the same rate as bus drivers quit/retire, which brings us to the union solution: Attrition. Everyone keeps their job and rate but does less. Make them drive the bus in and out of the storage facility to keep their driving skills up and give them busy-work. No new blood, raises are probably capped off, but the drivers can keep working until they quit/retire or a specific amount of time (like 5-10 years) has passed.

While I've not dealt with a union directly (only felt some indirect effects, like not being able to move my own desk), I think that would be acceptable. As an added (evil) bonus, the driver can be a scapegoat if a bad accident occurs.

(I wonder if buggy whip makers had a union that had to deal with this...)

Interesting, thanks for the reply!

A vehicle may decide that a pothole is actually an obstruction, or that the railroad track is the end of a road.

Very nice post. This particular line made a question pop into my head: Do we have any human-driven cars that have a companion AI "driving" a virtual car, where the AI is doing risk aversion and noting where the human differs from the AI for later review and/or machine learning?

Using your example, the vehicle "sees" a railroad track but, because of the sudden shift in terrain, thinks it's an end of the road. The AI, in its virtual car, starts applying the brakes, but the human maintains speed and keeps on going. The AI notices that the terrain has resumed expected road conditions, that they haven't crashed or fallen off a cliff, and marks that point as an event to review.

The *actual problem* with nuclear is that practically every other option is cheaper and lower risk.

My (admittedly limited) understanding is that one of the major problems with both solar and wind power is the fluctuation. Yeah, solar is great for running A/Cs on hot summer days when the sun is shining bright, but not as useful for heaters at night in the winter.

So unless power transmission tech improves that you can run cables thousands of miles with minimal loss, or battery tech improves that extra power stored during the day is enough for night, you need something else to generate the power that can cover non-productive times for the other sources. If our goal is to get rid of our reliance on coal and fossil fuels, what other option is there but nuclear? If you're lucky you live close to a hydroelectric source, but not everyone is.

(I also understand there are problems with standard power plants not being able to spin up quickly to meet demand, and assume nuclear would have the same.)

I prefer ever-increasing copyright maintenance fees. If Disney is willing to pay a billion dollars a year to keep Mickey, fine. But for most works, the copyright owners will eventually decide that it's better to release it into the public domain.

You and I are of the same mind. This does away with the whole problem of corporations owning copyright, as well.

My thoughts specifically are about doubling/halving price/time, respectively. You start with a regular fee and a regular term (I think the original term was 14 years? Sounds good to me.) After 14 years they can apply for a renewal, which will cost them twice as much and last only 7 years. The chart would be:

Renewal...Cost...Length
0..........X........14
1..........X*2......7
2..........X*4......4 (we'll be nice and round up)
3..........X*8......2
4..........X*16.....1
[...]
N..........X*2^N....1

Mickey is 85, so under this system Disney would have had to pay X*4.61*10^18 to renew this year (even with X=1, this is far larger than the entire world's Gross Product, so Disney would have had to give up decades prior.) As an added bonus, the increasing renewal fees can be used to subsidize initial applications, making it easier for smaller companies and individuals to copyright.

The recent run of Cosmos (with Neil deGrasse Tyson) has the episode The Clean Room which is mostly about figuring out the age of the Earth, but also spends some time discussing Clair Patterson (by way of his ultra cleanroom) and his battle against oil companies.

Corporate coverups are not a new thing, and yet people continue to give companies and company-funded studies the benefit of the doubt despite what history teaches us.

Would a NBC or a CNN publish it?

Pffft, hahahaha. You're better off with The Enquirer than those two. They're more likely to report you to the FBI than report on the NSL.

If you actually want to get coverage, try the likes of The Guardian. I recommend a massive shotgun approach instead if you want more protection; scan the letter, send a copy to as many "news" organizations as possible, and post it everywhere you can on the internet. WikiLeaks, 4chan, reddit, Fark, FurAffinity, Youtube, Redtube, Daily Kos, HuffPo, make your own website, create an entry on Wikipedia, put a torrent/magnet on as many of those sites as possible, etc. Make it so easy to get that no amount of takedown orders can scrub it from the internet. Put copies in every mailbox in the neighborhood, collect those return envelopes from credit card offers and send them copies, leave copies on the seats of buses, movie theaters, libraries, hand copies to the FBI agents/police who show up to arrest you. Encourage others on the internet to do the same. Attach as much information about yourself and the event surrounding the NSL as possible. If the NSL doesn't include your physical address, put that up there as well; the FBI will be more hesitant to act if they think a bunch of local dissatisfied citizens might be hanging around your place with cell cams.

Before you pull the trigger give the original NSL to someone you trust and have them keep it somewhere safe, to be offered up if any of those news places actually want to verify it.

This won't keep you from getting arrested, but it will make a lot of people inquire as to your well-being and where you are in the justice system; depending on the reasons for the NSL, various groups might take up the cause to get you your freedom.

What about sharing the car or renting it out? A driverless car could make me money while I am at work.

I believe the end result of driverless cars (which, I agree, would have a large amount of demand from the general public) is the advent of "auto clubs". Most people would just belong to one of these clubs in lieu of owning their own vehicle and be able to order up a car on demand or reserve ahead of time, and it would drive itself to the person. Garages and apartment parking spaces would become extravagances (how many more apartments could you build in the same area if you didn't have to consider parking?). The rider just pays a fuel cost based on the trip.

I don't see Auto Clubs as springing forth from the ground, either; they seem like the natural evolution of companies like Enterprise Rental, or even insurance companies who want to keep people on their plans but have more control over the car. Heck, the insurance companies could offer smaller programs like this if people agree to drive their (manual) car less--thus reducing the risk of an accident--and will help convert society to mostly self-driving cars.

The obvious problem with this is the daily commute. This would be worked out before such clubs became ubiquitous through two mechanisms:
1) Auto clubs would offer "pool" cars; it doesn't matter if your drive takes that much longer if you can work or sleep during it[1]
2) Self-driving buses, half the size and twice the routes. They can be "called", so if no one is at a stop waiting it will keep on going (cutting down travel time at the expense of a regular schedule). You may even be able to have them come right to your door.

I think 2 will happen first: buses offer greater savings in fuel and tend to have very strict routes so there's less concern about "unknown" streets. Google already has a bus fleet (or they contract one), so doing this makes sense for them to do a proof of concept especially as people complain about the problems of their buses using normal stops. It would also be easier for smallish cities to implement these than take on a fleet of normal buses. Once self-driving buses prove themselves, self-driving cars will be accepted much faster.

[1] This also offers a meet-and-greet kind of system for potential carpoolers; if everyone in your pool likes sports, or likes Metallica, or likes basketweaving, it could make carpooling far more interesting. (There would, of course, be the "I want to be left the fuck alone" car pools.)

The list that was posted has apparently been removed (if you can get to the site, which seems to be under heavy traffic with people looking for it). Furthermore:

While it's difficult at this point to definitively know how the hackers acquired the material, Chris Davis, a cybersecurity researcher and fellow at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, hypothesized that one likely possibility, based on the information contained in the leak, is that the hackers made use of a botnet. "The list of credentials [in the published list] fits that bill pretty well," he explained.

Malware explains the odd collection of websites, relatively small number of accounts, and supposedly-plaintext passwords. So anyone affected who changes their password will just have that new password picked up unless they've exorcised their computer.

I spend 5 seconds plugging in at night and 5 seconds unplugging in the morning.

And even that tiny amount of time might go away if induction charging technology becomes viable for electric vehicles. No need to plug in, you just have to worry about being over the pad properly (an issue I think would be trivial to solve if induction does become viable.) Also gives local stores something they can install and promote.

If the goal is improving grades (which it seems to be from TFA), then you have to get the kids interested; they'll learn far more if they aren't just being lectured at. The best way to get them interested is to let them direct at least some of their own education. It's been shown that kids (or people in general, for that matter) take a larger interest/initiative when given freedom and personal control. Let them define something they want to learn about in an applied way, then connect it to regular core classes, and use the extra time for that. Assign a teacher to be an "adviser" (or make positions that are only advisers) to define explicit goals, track overall progress, and put them in touch with the specific teachers for education when needed.

Maybe they want to learn about becoming a race car driver, so you have: automotive, business management (for sponsoring and finances), physics (aerodynamics, G-forces), materials (composition of the tires, body, etc.), and phys ed (reaction time and physical fitness are important in drivers). End goal: design a race car, perhaps some job shadowing of an actual driver.

Maybe they want to make video games, so you get: applied math (vectors, other calculations), physics (gravity and object interaction) computer science (programming), art (character and world design), psychology (play testing and feedback), business management (marketing and selling the game, if desired), and liberal arts (plot creation). End goal: create a simple-but-complete game.

(Of course, all of this is more important in High School, and this extended day won't affect high schools in the area.)

I believe the most common solution is a covered box with fairly high side.

I volunteer at a cat rescue and sanctuary where the cats roam freely, and we use giant totes (>25 gal) in our main area filled about 1/4-1/3 of the way up. We still have some spill over because there are so many cats (mainly when they jump out, not from digging), but it's a sprinkling instead of a beach. High sides are a good way to go.

Our smaller rooms use normal litter boxes, but again only filled about 1/3 of the way. Still not much spill over, but that could be because they're mostly kittens and don't have as much digging power. Most people that suffer from litter going all over are filling it too high, so it may be as simple as just putting less litter in the box at a time.

The cover, however, might not help. The adoption counselors recommend against covered boxes: while it might seem useful to humans (between extra protection against spilling and odor filters that can be put in the top) it isn't that enticing to cats (I can't remember exactly why.)

Agreed. That's why I just roll my eyes whenever they say the unemployment has dropped another .1%, because that can mean plenty of stuff aside from people getting work with a livable wage.

I wish they would focus instead on A) % employed and B) % "viably" employed, meaning they have a single job that puts their income above the poverty level in their area (so regions would be on similar standing). There should be a statement whenever they release these that employment (viable or otherwise) will never hit 100% because there are those who have retired, stay-at-home parent where a second income is unnecessary, or are mentally/physically incapable of working.

I think I got my points across, but in case anyone is confused, some corrections I should have made before hitting submit:

mostly they receive government benefits in an attempt to help them maintain some stable life despite not being able to work.

in convincing people that socialism is not a synonym for communism or evil

This is why we will soon be looking at hordes of citizens of zero economic value.

Not only do we already have "zero economic value" citizens, we have negative-economic value citizens. Consider those who are mentally and/or physically incapable of working today; do we just toss them out on the street? Sadly, sometimes; but mostly they receive government benefits in an attempt to help them maintain some stable life despite being able to work. They can only take and never give, except perhaps as research subjects for scientists.

The only way we will survive the Autonomy Age (where robots do the vast majority of necessary work, with little or no human interaction) intact is by giving up this stupid idea that people are defined by their productivity, especially when the productivity of many well-off people is essentially zilch, such as marketers, HR, CxOs, and a plethora of middle-men (but they don't take food stamps so are ignored.)

This will probably approach something like socialism, if not socialism itself, but we (people the world over, but especially Americans) have a huge hurdle to get over in convincing people that socialism is a synonym for communism or evil, and that taxes on obscenely large amounts of income is not only a necessity, but not evil. I personally look forward to a future where people are guaranteed a Minimum Standard of Living (not necessarily income; there are likely more efficient methods than handing out cash) and those who want to and can do work are able to do so for a higher Standard while the rest are able to just enjoy the long-term fruits of humanity, namely the arts, literature, and random cat videos.

(I think this will require an efficient and reliable male contraceptive medication to help reduce the birth rate even further, but that's a different subject.)