You're quite right that roads will need to be upgraded to provide telemetry to autonomous cars, and this will happen gradually over many, many decades.

Didn't say that, didn't mean to imply it, and don't believe it. Other than that, no. :)

The only way a car can be designed to safely self-drive is doing it just the way we do: by creating a local, up-to-date mapping of the surrounding area in real time and working within that representation with sufficient skill to respond to anything that might appear.

Pre-existing environmental mapping simply cannot keep up. Construction, pets crossing the road, wild animals, falling rocks, pedestrians, vandalism of road signs and traffic indicators and lane painting, washouts, drunks, heart attacks, stinging insects, oversize loads swinging around traffic lights and signs, special transports, some guy at the side of the road madly waving a hand-printed sign that says "BRIDGE IS OUT!"... the list of unpredictable effects upon the local driving environment seems almost endless -- and keep in mind these things can occur in combinations of more than one type and more than one incident. Often suddenly.

Further, if the car is smart enough to be capable of updating the environmental map in real time and deal with any combination of changes, then it's already smart enough to maintain a completely dynamic local mapping and doesn't need a pre-existing mapping for anything but gross navigational purposes (route planning) and even that can require the vehicle to adapt.

Contrariwise, if it isn't smart enough to maintain a full local environmental mapping, then it is inherently unsafe.

Someone(s) at Google didn't think this one through.

The difference between a sacrificial altar and a butcher shop / BBQ joint is the words people say when they're there, and the article says that culture didn't have writing. If the person in charge asks the customers what favors they want from the gods, it's a temple; if they ask whether you want regular or extra crispy, it's a BBQ joint, and in some cultures they're going to thank the gods for the life of the animal even if it's a BBQ joint. In a temple, it's more likely that some parts of the animal will get burned instead of eaten, and in a BBQ joint, it's more likely that there'll be spices on the meat, and maybe priests get paid a bigger share than a butcher and cook, but none of those are universal across known cultures.

Also, the article says it was a two-story building; just because it's underground millennia later doesn't mean it was underground at the time.

My Garmin Nuvi GPS no longer gets traffic data, and can't use a few other 2-way features like Google Search, because the 2G wireless network it used will be going away early next year, and the carrier's no longer renewing contracts for them. So it's back to being a dumb GPS, with maps and built-in data points, but no live search.

Carriers really want to reallocate their 2G spectrum to 4G or at least 3G, because it lets them get more calls and a lot more data in the same amount of bandwidth, and because the movement of users to newer standards means that their remaining 2G bands are very underused.

No one should have a "right to not be offended." Being offended is subjective. It has everything to do with you as an individual, or as part of a collective, or a group, or a society, or a community; it varies due to your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs, your upbringing, your education; what offends one person or group (collective, society, community) may not offend another; and in the final analysis, it requires one person to attempt to read the mind of other persons in order to anticipate whether a specific expression or perception will cause offense in the mind of another. And no, codifying an action in law is not in any way sufficient... it is well established that not even lawyers can know the law well enough to anticipate what is legal, and what is not. Sane law relies on the basic idea that we try not to risk or cause harm to the bodies, finances and reputations of others without them consenting and being aware of the risks. Law that bans something based upon the idea that some group simply finds expression objectionable is the very worst kind of law, utterly devoid of consideration or others, while absolutely permeated in self-indulgence. It is, in the end, something that encourages weak-mindedness.

Conversely, when people are truly harmed (not just offended) without their informed consent (and legitimate defense is not the cause), then the matter is one that should arguably be considered for law. Otherwise, no.

Your story depicts consequences of concerted psychological warfare upon an incompetent individual. Harm is possible. informed consent is not. Special care that does not apply in general society is called for. This is why your example completely fails to make your point. What applies to competent individuals is not particularly relevant to what applies to those not competent, whether that be because they are biologically deficient, or simply too immature to attain that level of sophistication.

What you want, in the end, is that no one can be offended by expression or perception within the context of normal society. If you allow society to pursue this course, you will end up being unable to express yourself, for I guarantee you that almost anything you can say or do will offend someone, and likely grievously so.

Either you take the attitude that others must deal with the ideas expressed to them or within their ken, or you begin to muzzle yourself -- and everyone else. Benefits would definitely accrue to those who wish to be coddled, but everyone else will suffer. Free expression is important. It is definitely more important than the possibility that someone, or many someones, might be offended. If that's not how you see it, then we have no common ground where a meeting of minds could take place on this issue.

You might as well say the constitution is based on words, so we can do whatever we want.

Here's the legit deal: The judges get judicial power. Guilty or innocent, sentencing.

The feds, congress get enumerated powers.

The states get anything else that isn't outright forbidden to them (ex post facto laws, for instance.)

Anything left after that goes to the people.

See how those powers slide in a very particular direction? See why it's downright silly to claim that they magically slide UPHILL to the judiciary, when there's no such indication, anywhere, that such is the case? AND, to hammer it home, the thing explicitly says that if it's not in here, it belongs to the states or the people. There is NO authority for SCOTUS to do most of what it does. None whatsoever. And hell, even if there were, there they go rubber stamping the inversion of the commerce clause, ex post facto laws, rights violations left, right and sideways... you're looking right at them, and you don't see what they've done to you, and the rest of us. Pity.

This is all about direct usurpation of power that belonged to the people, frankly. Although we still have just the barest sliver of it left, which we can apply via jury nullification. Although, as you probably know, we're not even allowed to talk about that in court because judges(!) don't like it. Funny thing, that. Judges. They seem to be doing a lot of unauthorized things, don't they?

There's no such thing as a "well designed lawful age metric." Though I'm not sure you were even implying there was. But in any case:

It's about comprehension, consent, and physical development. Age cannot serve to draw such a multidimensional line effectively. There are obvious cases of young teens who know exactly what they are doing, are doing it carefully, and not in any way coming to harm. There are obvious cases of "adults" who are so unready for sex by the "comprehension" and "informed" metrics that it is painful to even consider it. And everything you can think of in between.

Verizon, as a telephone company, doesn't censor "illegal" voice traffic, does it? They do not, last I checked. That's because Verizon is a common-carrier and is not held liable for telephone content over its wires.

No, it's because they make sure every word you say is parsed by the government. The government decides if it doesn't like what you said if and when it becomes convenient for them to do so. Not only is your speech free, it's on deposit in special government accounts with your name right on them. You had just better hope it doesn't start earning "interest."

You're being disingenuous here.

We know loud sound and loss of sleep can cause direct physical harm. That's the basis for not yelling, bullhorns, and so on.

There is no sane basis for banning words, drawings, sculptures, renderings, woodcarvings and so on. None whatsoever.

The only sane basis for banning *anything* is it either causes such immediate harm to purse or person, or it is so likely to do so (ex, massively drunk driving) that the activity must be interfered with to lessen the odds of that potential becoming reality.

When speech gets loud or amplified, the legit question is not what was said. Ever. The question is what were you thinking putting people's hearing and/or sleep cycles at risk?

There is no reasonable argument that can justify a "right not to be offended", and there never, ever should be such a thing encoded in law. It should be painfully obvious as to why. If it isn't... oy.

So, when people devise these tests, are they just out of their fucking minds, or what?

Awesome. You get it. You and a few others. Everyone else has a torch in one hand, a pitchfork in the other, and they like it that way.

Yes, but it's the Supreme Court's job to decide if the law about it is Constitutional.

Only because they said so (Marbury v. Madson, ca 1802 -- they made it up out of thin air.) The constitution says they have judicial power. That's guilty or not, assign punishment if so. Not "the law is whatever I think it is today."

The constitution is crystal clear about many things that the judges, in explicit violation of their oaths, have made mean something else entirely. Previous poster is quite correct. The experiment failed.

This is a corporate oligarchy. Not a constitutional republic. It's been that way for a while, but it's right out in the open now. Corporations are people. Money is speech. Those two ideas, taken together, directly disenfranchise the people. You think you can outspend a corporation? If you can, you probably own one. Or more. And you're part of the problem. The rest of us are just along for the ride now... a brave new world, indeed.

No, a better analogy would be locking up people for having a drawing of a copyrighted song. Because, you know, people might THINK of hearing the song, and we can't have THAT.

It's. A. Drawing.

Most clickable things on the web don't have boxes to make them look like physical buttons.

Those are hyperlinks. That's the generally accepted, even traditional, look for a hyperlink. You do know what a hyperlink is, do you not? When I click a hyperlink, I expect to arrive on a web page forthwith. That's what they mean. But that's not what these mean. These mean... random stuff. Normal words... are words. Underlined and/or blue-colored words are hyperlinks. Buttons, despite Ive's insane, drooling jihad against skeuomorphism, should look like you are expected to reach over and press them. This leverages the user's familiarity with the real world (something I admit I don't think I can assume you have) and creates a natural understanding of an implied action just by existing. An action, I might add, that is not hyperlinking. Because we use, you know, highlighted words for that. How would you react to a stereo that had no buttons, just words on its face? Is that intuitive? Of bloody course it isn't. You press a button, it depresses, it looks different, it clicks, you know to expect the action to occur. If it's a toggled state, the button stays in. Natural. Normal. Expected. But a word? Where's the premise for touching a word? Where indeed? Hyperlinks, you say? YES! BLOODY HYPERLINKS!

Ives is probably the worlds foremost product designer

Ah. Ah ha. Ha. Ha Ha Ha. Oh, that is priceless. Just priceless. Ive's work is at best, a mixed bag, and he surely isn't the world's foremost designer. I can think of any number of designers that make him look like the pretentious hack he is. Starting with any number of supercar designers, wandering off into audio equipment and musical instrument design, heck, there are even refrigerators that are designed better than Ive's work product. Also, Scott Forstall's ideas were far better in terms of design than Ives. He just wasn't minimalist -- but minimalist is not a synonym for "good", and in fact, very seldom is that the case.

Also, look at the new Mac Pro. What a dysfunctional failure-storm. Can't install drives in it, doesn't fit in with other equipment well, requires desk warts to be even reasonably functional... expansion is a plug-addled nightmare... even the plugs themselves can be pulled right out, no security (physical or data) whatsoever. Oh yeah, Ives. I wouldn't let that guy "design" my kitchen. He'd probably take out all the plugs, knobs and buttons, color everything silver, and not allow silverware dividers in the drawers or pots on the stove. But you'd get a microwave with only one setting, and son, you'd be expected to like it. And you... well, you probably would. Lacking any kind of taste as you do. ;)

You're one of these people that will always be a reactionary against change.

Yes, absolutely, that's why I praise Mavericks so highly after years of buggy OS's left unfixed. That's why I thought "awesome" when the fully expandable Mac Pro came out, and why I bought right in. That's why I changed from Windows to the Mac. That's why I generally have the latest in home theater gear. That's why I have a Tesla on order. That's why I cohabit instead of marry. That's why I'm atheist and not theist. That's why I just took in a severely injured kitten. That's why I get such a kick out of messing with a Raspberry Pi, cobbling up little RPi projects we can use around the house. That's why my favorite literary genre is hard science fiction. That's why I have moved to SDRs, away from conventional radios. In fact, that's why I write SDR software.

Yeah, I'm just terrified of change, you bet. You crack me up. Any other "insights" you might care to share while you're making things up out of the clear blue? I think Fox News is holding a place for you, better get right over there.

Let me attempt to clue you in here: I'm not "afraid of the new Mac Pro because it's.... new", I dislike it because they functionally crippled it and because they compromised its reliability. I'm not "afraid of Yosemite because it looks different", I don't like it because it is unintuitive. because it is known to have privacy issues, and because it is ugly, which I would hasten to point out to you, since you clearly don't get it, is not in any way the same thing as "new."

I think your actual problem is that you pee down your leg when another Apple user doesn't play the sycophant as you expect. Can't help you with that. In my worldview, something is good when it actually is good. Not just because it came from a particular source.

Podkayne... isn't real?

But... but...

She's why I wanted to be a synthesist!