I think so, too, and I don't think it's a problem. Rather than just telling people they're talking out of their ass, why don't you explain what value is gained by watching it? Obviously there's no factual information in the video that can't be expressed in a few sentences of text, so the only think I can suppose is that you're of the opinion that the greater emotional impact of seeing it has value.

What, precisely, is that value? For me, personally, I can't imagine what it would be. I don't think anything could make me more strongly opposed to the act of beheading an innocent journalist. Seeing it would make that opposition more visceral -- perhaps in an almost literal sense -- but it wouldn't increase my opposition. It wouldn't lower my opinion of the terrorists, either, since it's not possible to hold a lower opinion of them than I do.

So what is the value of seeing it?

While it would be entertaining, I don't think that's a very useful method for evaluating the performance of self-driving cars, unless you're trying to design a car for demolition derby competitions. I understand that your'e trying to design an extreme environment on the theory that if the car can perform well there, it'll definitely do fine on real roads, but I don't think that theory is valid. In real life, the vehicles on the road try not to hit one another, and the method they use (in most countries, at least) isn't hyper-alertness and evasion skills, but rather cooperative rule-following.

We avoid accidents by collaborating on a set of rules, some written and enforced by police officers, most not, that tell us all how the other drivers are going to behave in a given situation. That is the context in which self-driving vehicles need to operate, at least until we eliminate the human drivers from the road -- at that point self-driving vehicles can use their high-speed wireless communication channels to collaborate more directly. Of course, while human drivers are on the road, we (human and machines alike) have to be wary of drivers who don't behave in the expected way, so there is some value in being able to avoid bad or aggressive behavior. But I don't think optimizing for that is likely to be the most effective solution.

The Google team recognizes this and is optimizing for proper cooperative behavior, and even behavior that optimizes for the comfort of passengers, as in the example in the summary.

Obviously, because everyone knows that DC travels great distances without loss and transformers love it.

A cat's purpose in life is to wage psychological warfare upon you; it's only right and proper that you retaliate in kind.

Dogs are for companionship. Cats are to keep you on your toes.

At the beginning of the show, it was 'lets see if Hollywood special effects can be done without using special effects. No. Now here's how the special effects were done.'

Then, for a while, it was actually busting myths.

Now, it's 'Does physics actually work?' I stopped watching when I saw an episode where they were challenging the assertion that, given a vehicle moving at 30 mph, with a rear-facing air cannon that would shoot at tennis ball at 30 mph, the ball, when fired from the moving vehicle, would simply drop.

Right idea, but we have two tabs, two laptops, two phones, etc. Everything that is fixed, yes, hardwired.

Which is why you should do both. A simulation can test millions of permutations -- including arbitrary combinations of events, and in far more variety than could be tested in a reasonable amount of time on real roads -- and can verify that software changes don't introduce regressions. Real-world testing introduces an element of randomness which provides additional insights for the simulation test cases.

Ultimately, governments should probably develop their own simulators which run the autonomous car through a large battery of scenarios, including scenarios which include disabling some of the car's sensors. Then autonomous vehicles from different manufacturers could be validated on a standard test suite before being allowed on the roads, and when real-world incidents occur in which an automated car makes a bad decision, those incidents can and should be replicated in the simulator and all certified vehicles tested. They should also do real-world testing, but I suspect that in the long run simulations will provide much greater confidence.

Because that turns wikipedia into a Myspace/Facebook clone, where every 2-bit garage band, every marketing campaign, and every nut is free to abuse Wikipedia's services to push their self-image, desilugions and agenda.

Again, what is wrong with that?

Either that, or somebody needs to mark 'The Encyclopedia Everyone Can Edit' and every such claim on Wikipedia 'citation needed.'

You simply don't have any clue. You can't relate do doing any kind of hard time.

Yes I can. I did about the same amount for stealing long distance calling from Sprint using a C64.

This is among the worst advice for programmers I've ever read. And it's pointless advice because it's where the majority of programmers already are.

Oh, I certainly agree that clever code is a bad idea, but you should never stop thinking creatively about how to make your code better. Focus it on finding ways to structure your code that are elegantly simple and obvious, on finding the perfect name for that variable, function or class, one that precisely captures the meaning and intent -- and if there is no such perfect name, focus it on finding ways to refactor your code so that there is a perfect name. Programming -- done right -- is an inherently creative task, and the scope for beneficial creativity is vast.

This even applies at the micro level. It's almost always the case that any handful of lines of code that contains branching logic can be structured in several different ways. Take the time and try each of them! See which is most concise, which is most readable, which highlights one aspect of the logic flow or another... and then spend some time deciding which aspect will be most important for the next programmer to read it. Think about how you can write code a little bit differently to eliminate -- and visibly eliminate -- important classes of functional or security bugs.

One of the more important insights I received, after nearly 20 years as a professional programmer, was that comments are evil. Comments are a hack to work around the failure to write code which is sufficiently clear and expressive (note that I'm talking about inline comments, not comments used to generate documentation). When I find myself typing a comment, I step back and look for ways to improve naming, or refactor, until the comment is no longer necessary.

Those are just a few examples, there are many more. Programming, like any art, is a never-ending opportunity for learning and improvement, because perfection is unachievable. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try, though. I can already hear the complaints "But I don't have time for that crap, I have deadlines, and..." that's just another set of constraints to be optimized. When time is tight, I focus on simplifying and making absolutely sure that my code is bug-free and has thorough automated tests, because there isn't any time for extended debugging.

Never, ever settle for mediocrity. One of my proudest days was when another programmer whose skills and code I highly respect called my code the cleanest and clearest he's ever read. I strive to impress my colleagues (and I work with some of the best) with clarity, simplicity and elegance. Sometimes I succeed, mostly I fail... but I always learn in the process. After 25 years, I think I'm learning more every day now than I did when I started. The lessons are more subtle and far less obvious, but I think they're more valuable.

Detroit got fat and lazy, and as a result foreign automakers ate their lunch. Japan in particular had cheaper, harder-working workers, coupled with more focus on efficiency and -- eventually, after they built enough capital and experience building cheap crap cars -- design and build quality. Detroit didn't believe they could lose, either the management, or the unions. In order to stay competitive, both would have had to make serious changes... almost certainly including some reductions in labor costs and some labor re-training.