"The states are: Alaska, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont and Virginia

Not sure why this couldn't be in the summary."

Why state the obvious?

"in VLC every Christmas time the cone gets a Santa hat - it's a nice touch that shows they're thinking about the end user."

unless he's muslim, hindu, baha'i, atheist, ... then they switch to a non-religious player.

"The unstated assumption is that you are still delivering a good product on time."

Unfortunately that never happened, ever!

"Why the funk not just send the damn data to the doctor immediately, and let him/her spend any downtime ("there's always patients cancelling") to review the data?"

Because then the doctor and the radiologist will make deals behind your back and bill your insurance senseless, because you are no longer in the middle to check if they don't overdo it.

"even though "america" doesn't mean what you think it means."

Inconceivable!

" if a patient has the means and the interest to look at the data from a doctor's medical scans, she can."

I'm from Luxembourg, Europe and here all the scans have been done on CDs and DVDs for over a decade now and handed out to us patients, not the doctors. As soon as CDs got cheaper than chemical they switched, I must say I was impressed at the time.

For a copy of the lab-tests I have to pay 1€ to have a copy of the results sent to my address.

As almost everywhere on the world, electronic patient files are slow to come so it's like always:

If you want something done properly, do it yourself!

...a system that would store the energy for a couple of hours and use that to walk me home when I'm drunk.

"...but for the most of us, why have a car at all? "

Exactly! If I need my laundry or whatever from the city, why call a car and let myself be driven there, a self-driving car will bring the stuff to my home.

"Trucks also follow well defined routes.."

Not to mention that self driving trucks will ruin the crystal meth business.

"With sensible urban planning, buses and subways can solve the same problem much better."

The bus doesn't pick up my laundry and groceries unless I'm in it.

My self-driving car does.

"I want to interact with my car by operating a steering wheel, 3 pedals and a shifter."

There will be a place to do that, you'll just have to pay an entrance fee.

First thing I'll do for my errands is to tell my car to drive around until I call it instead of paying a fortune for the parking in the city.

On second thought, I'll stay at home and just send the car to pick my stuff up.

Also, it can drive itself to the car wash and maintenance.

Damn, I just found out I don't _need_ a car.

Schroedinger should have chosen a different animal than cats, you know, 9 lives and so.

A good method to get some money into the population instead of greasing the Administration and rich hotel moguls.

"After all, a cat can't simultaneously be dead and alive until someone looks can it?"

Why not? After all, falling trees make no noise when nobody's watching and bears also do not shit in the woods.