Now that it's known to be possible, the drug cartels don't even need to buy or steal the recipe. If necessary, they could just hire some genetic engineers to independently re-discover how to do it.

It seems like there might be a a way to solve this particular problem more cheaply. How much extra safety could be provided without upgrading any track? If we accept (for the sake of this thread) that this was a case of operator error, it seems like that accidents like this could be avoided by installing onto each train a speed governor linked to a GPS receiver and a known-speed-limits database. While that wouldn't handle all the possible issues that PTC would, I doubt that would cost anywhere near as much as upgrading thousands of miles of track. That might be a reasonable safeguard to install in the short term while waiting for a more comprehensive solution to be funded and installed.

hoi-polloi means "the masses; the common people". That's quite a radical position you're taking there. ;)

An interesting side-effect of this might be that more full-serve gas-pumping jobs are created (outside of NJ of course). All those self-driving trucks aren't going to be able to pump their own gas...

In practice, though, the self-driving vehicles are simply going to have to be able to see the orange cones, understand what they are and what they mean, and react appropriately. Blind drivers (human or otherwise) are not going to be tolerated on public roadways.

Who is going to do any of this when they're almost certain to be caught and put into prison?

In either case, the tricky part isn't stopping the truck or getting to the goods; the tricky part is getting away with the goods, without being identified and captured.

Robberies depend on anonymity to work. A truck full of two-way digital communications devices and sensors continuously recording its environment makes anonymity quite a bit more difficult to maintain than than the eyewitness testimony of a single (probably quite rattled) human driver with a CB radio.

A railroad that has tracks that go everywhere, can share the tracks with automobiles, and has multiple lanes of tracks on every route so that the faster vehicles can pass slower ones (at any time or place, no less -- try that with a traditional train ;))

Certainly it's less fuel-efficient (because the vehicles are shorter, so there's more weight-overhead per vehicle), but the additional flexibility may make up for that. Getting your goods from point A to point B on a train is great, but somewhat less great if you actually need them transported from point C to point D and have to first load them onto trucks, then onto the train, then back onto trucks again to accomplish that.

... while generating very little usable power. Practical cat-based renewable energy is at least 30 years away from commercial use.

Hmm, can you give some example brand names or links? I googled around, and all I could find was this article on the evolution of workstations, which only lists the new Mac Pro and some (unnamed) souped-up Windows/Intel PCs as the modern equivalent of a Unix workstation.

Because rehabilitating a criminal saves society money. A rehabilitated criminal can be released into society and (by definition) won't commit any more crimes. He/she may even contribute productively to society. An unrehabilitated criminal, OTOH, must either be kept in prison indefinitely (which costs society around $60,000 per year per criminal), or gets released and commits more crimes (the costs of which will depend on the crimes, but can easily be more than $60,000 per year).

Just out of curiosity, what these days would be considered a not-so-cheap UNIX workstation? Does anyone still sell such a thing?

I wonder if it would be at all practical to take Rust's innovations regarding memory-safety and apply them to C++? (Obviously some finessing would be necessary to do that without breaking backwards compatibility, and existing C++ code might not be able to benefit, but then new C++ code could be written with stronger safety guarantees, while still retaining the compatibility and familiarity advantages of C++)

Of course, the wrench technique only works if the attackers have physical access to your body. Most Internet hackers aren't going to be located physically near you (and hopefully most of them wouldn't have the stomach for that either).

The biggest challenge is putting up the miles of anti-gyrocopter netting to keep the event pest-free.

Of course, there is also the Chevy Bolt, scheduled to be released around the same time, for a similar price. I agree with you about the downward pricing pressure these will have on EVs with shorter ranges.