Let's face it, wrong question. While one religious guy is wondering about humanoid robots and our link with god, at least half the species is going to be pondering, "Yeah, but can I f!@# it?"

If Guido does his job right, there won't be any lawsuits.

"Nah, honest, the other four fell out the window when we went over that river back there. Really unfortunate."

Or an alternate suggestion - some guys with vaguely Italian-sounding names with shady backgrounds and baseball bats to ride along. Tell them they get $100 for every camera they whack, and $1000 for every camera user they whack, no questions asked. Since there won't be any functional cameras, the usual excuse of "I didn't see nothin', boss" actually holds up quite well. The problem will solve itself very quickly.

Use SRAM. As long as you keep the lights on, everything's stable. :)

I tend to agree. I don't see the exclusion here. There are lots of programs trying to encourage women to go into science & engineering type fields, and the track record over the last decade isn't good. Honestly I think engineering and software development are probably two of the most meritocratic fields out there. Likewise, don't expect me to instantly respect you no matter who you are. In my world, new people start at "you suck" until they prove otherwise. Professional respect is earned based on achievement. It's not an entitlement based on your education or upbringing or genetic features.

I say - for all people - encourage the ones that show interest and let the rest go off and find their place in life. We can't all be software architects, or there's going to be hell trying to keep the lights and water on (or for that matter, hard to actually get any code written... ;) The world needs farmers, plumbers, marketers, artists, electricians, truckers, soldiers, machinists, etc. as much as needs engineers and programmers.

As for the parent, I have to agree. I've been to some sales conferences and thought repeatedly, "Holy shit, you people get away with this?"

If only young women would use my technical presentations for such purposes. Unfortunately the few I've met are generally interested in the subject matter and not the old guy talking about it.

I was married to a fellow engineer for ten years. Hands down best relationship of my life, even if we had divergent goals at the end. I've spent the last eight looking for someone understands what I'm thinking about most of the time and haven't even come close, but no engineers in the last eight years either. Unfortunately, embedded software and electrical engineering have a very low percentage of women overall, and a minute (almost undetectable) number of single ones.

Actually, successful and miserable.

I had an interesting conversation with my ex-wife last night. We both do (and always have) suffered from some crippling bouts with depression for months on end, up to a year or two. She's finally getting back out of the latest round, whereas I'm deep at the bottom. But the thing I've noticed is that I'm many times more productive and creative when I'm depressed and fucked up than when I'm happy. My output when I'm at the bottom is amazing both to me and those around me, because I literally work myself into the ground in an effort to avoid

When I'm happy I don't get shit done. It backs up, it gets put off, it gets ignored, because I'm off relaxing or doing things that keep me happy. I'm out with friends or relaxing, not sitting in my house working on project X, Y, or Z for the whole weekend.

When I'm worm-food, I want to have made a difference. That's the one and only thing I want out of life. I want to have contributed to the things I care about in a meaningful way that will make the future better. It's that one overriding goal in my life that makes me accept miserable as the price to be paid.

I still drive my 1932 Chevrolet, and it's still perfectly road legal. So, 82 years and counting. I just rebuilt the engine again, and she's probably good for another 15-20k before more major work. The car has far outlived its original owner (my great grandfather, who passed away before I was born), and very well may outlive me provided I find someone to care for her like my grandfather, father, and I have. Sure, I don't drive it more than once a month or so, but my daily car will be 20 this year and has 250k miles on it. Body's good, drivetrain is fine, engine isn't showing any problems, and I have a mountain of spare parts in the shed. It's not going anywhere anytime soon unless I grow tired of it.

The biggest threat is a significant shift in fuel sources, such as we suddenly embrace E85 as a primary fuel, or something like CNG or electric.

And even warranty - under Magnuson–Moss, you can typically mess with anything you want and they can't void your warranty unless what you did caused the problem. So shunting the seat heater wire straight into the +12V rail won't cause you a problem unless you blow up the seats (or burn the car down from failing to use a fuse, etc.)

Then again, I haven't had a car with a warranty in years, and even when I did, usually the first mods went in within days of buying it.

I agree - I read that part about a 100 foot cliff at the end of the bunny hill and immediately thought "design fail..."

Honestly these little telco coops just don't have the clout and size to do this sort of thing efficiently, and they typically have a lot of very rural customers on very long loops (read: no DSL no matter how you slice it). My hometown is 1000 people in eastern Iowa, but it's served by Qwest/Centurylink. As much as I love to hate on 'em, they drug fiber to town and rebuilt the CO in the 1990s. My dad pays much less for internet access than I do living in Colorado Springs, and until a few years ago got better bandwidth.

I'd suspect that they have - at most - a few thousand DSL subscribers scattered across the county. Doesn't make for any great efficiencies there. Honestly I'd be surprised if somebody isn't putting radios on top a couple elevators in the county within a year to compete. Grain elevators make awesome towers, and we Iowans have lots of them.

Personally I don't know why we mess around with all these expensive drugs and such. Shooting condemned prisoners has worked quite well for centuries. Sure, ammo is more expensive than it used to be, but it's not *that* expensive. And if you mount said criminal to a fixed mount, and have a fixed weapon trained on his head, that's pretty damned fast and reliable. I used to hunt quite a bit in my youth, and from a good clean shot to the head, there's not a lot going on a few seconds later.

Then again, if we did it my way, we'd bring back the public hanging. The other side of the "purpose of criminal justice" is to act as a deterrant to others. Modern execution is too clean and too far removed from the average human being to act as a deterrant. But if you string 'em up in the town square, that makes an impression.

I can't imagine this actually working, particularly once the drones exit dense urban spaces for the suburbs. The first kid with a BB gun is going to figure out he can get a free drone and a surprise present. Unless the drones are sending back continuous 360 degree spherical video so the perps can be caught, this scheme is just ready for a stealin'.

To me, it's all about the price, otherwise I'd own one by now.

My three cars, together, barely cost me $30k. $17k for my Ridgeline, $16k for my S2000, and $3k for my del Sol that actually sucks up most of the miles. So, for $36k I have three cars, each appropriate for different things, and not one range-limited electric that's only really any good at being a commuter car. Since 700 miles in a day isn't uncommon for me due to work and hobbies, an electric can't be my only car.

I did think about converting the last del Sol over to electric when the engine gave out at 310k, but it just wasn't worth the investment in time and materials. Electrification would have never paid for itself over another 15 year old car that I'll put 150-200k miles on and bought for $3k.

Much like I really wish they'd play a World Series sometime during my lifetime. But in my world, it's only a World Series if the Cubs are in it. Otherwise it's like it doesn't even exist.