Maybe there aren't many humans being preyed upon by felines nowadays, but has that always been the case?

Parasite Rex is an excellent book, by the way, if the subject holds any interest to you at all.

I think you forgot "because it's cheaper", which is probably the most important consideration to the majority of consumers.

Great advice here. Mods?

Uh, yeah. I didn't find that out until I'd already bought the car... I'd change it myself, but I'm just a bit leery of trying to hack this sort of system. I'm assuming that the problem the auto-shutoff was supposed to solve was people simply relinquishing control completely, and reading a book, texting, or otherwise intentionally diverting their attention from the road. While I'm disappointed, I have to say that the system is still nice. While driving on the highway, it gives a feeling of "tracks" on the highway, so it feels like the road is guiding you, yet it's very easy to overcome, if necessary. And again, crossing a lane marker OR the disabling of the system is accompanied by chimes and blinky-lights, so hopefully that would be enough to rouse a dozing driver. Then again, you don't really belong on the road if you're drowsy, lane-keeping system or not.

I have the Accord Tourer, the closest US model is the Acura TSX Sport Wagon. (bought it mainly for safety for the wife and kids) Mine is diesel, though, and there are quite a few differences in the feature packages. Coming from a pair of '98 Accords (Coupe and Sedan), I'd call this wagon "sportier" than the Coupe: tight steering, stiff suspension... it's lacking in HP, but it handles curves quite nicely.

I have to assume that the sue-happy culture of the USA is probably part of the reason why this system isn't already being sold on a mainstream vehicle in North America. (I own a 1.5-year-old vehicle with a very similar system)

Slightly off-topic: After growing up in the USA, then spending some time living in Europe, I've often been shocked by some of the seemingly dangerous things that are allowed here, compared to the USA. I guess they expect people to exhibit some common sense here, rather than go crying to the courts when didn't make it all-but-impossible for them to injure themselves...

As I mentioned in a previous comment, the LKAS system installed in my vehicle is very picky about what sort of lane markings it accepts before the system is active.

Beyond that, in my vehicle, the system is disengaged by default. Every key cycle, you're forced to manually enable the lane-keeping assistance system. Disabling is always a steering-wheel button-press away, but since the power it exerts is so small, it's hard to imagine a scenario where it would be necessary...

Assuming it works like the "LKAS" system in my vehicle, it does NOT. However, the amount of force exerted by the system is very small, and *very* easily overpowered.

In my dreams... I'm sure we'll get there eventually. :)

I have a vehicle with a similar system: a European Honda Accord with LKAS (Lane-Keeping Assist System). It seems to have a watchdog timer in place that checks for input on the steering wheel, and if it doesn't detect anything with circa 14 seconds, the lane-keeping system automatically disables itself (with chimes and flashing yellow warning light on the dash). It's immediately re-enabled the moment you apply any force to the wheel. (It's actually a bit of a pain on a long straightaway, where you don't *need* to make any corrections for that long.)

I have a vehicle with a similar system: a European Honda Accord with LKAS (Lane-Keeping Assist System).

It's very particular about the lines being painted a specific way, and if the lane markings don't meet the spec, the system stays in standby. That said, it was able to cope with the yellow work-zone lane markings on the Autobahn, which seem to take priority over the normal ones.

Would you be willing to share some details?

This is why I love Slashdot.

You have to admit that the capability is still impressive.

Consider: something that just a few short years ago was only possible with a news van and a satellite dish is now in the hands of millions. (okay, maybe Skype installations on iPhones is 2,000,000, but it's gotta be pretty close, right?)

Botnets have been (and continue to be) used in mafia-style "protection" rackets, threatening with DDoS attacks. If you ran a server that was threatened with or subjected to one, you'd probably change your tune pretty quickly.

Oh, and even if you're using an email client with good spam filtering, it still has to download the spam before it can sort through it and throw it away, wasting bandwidth.

Botnets are a scourge, and harmful to many, not only ISPs! (although I do agree with your assertion that ISPs ought to disconnect users with pwned machine :)

Well, practically everybody. Some acquaintances of mine have had ridiculous phone bills after enabling data roaming for an "emergency"... ridiculous on the order of > €1,000 for less than an hour's usage.

It's enough to make me wonder: why don't they lower their prices, so more people would be willing to utilize data roaming? Couldn't they actually make more profit that way? I suppose studies on that subject have already been conducted, and the results doom all of us to suffer on account of a few suckers/idiots: perhaps the same ones that are responsible for spam, due to responding to unsolicited commercial email.

Off-topic, out of curiosity, are you in France, Netherlands, or Germany?