I had an idea that might not be so dangerous and pulled out my fone. âoeComputer,â I said, âoewhat's the best way to knock that bitch out?â
        The fone said âoeParse error, there are no female dogs on board and âknockâ(TM) is not in context. Please rephrase.â
        Who programs these God damned stupid things, anyway? Back when computers were new, science fiction movies had computers that could think. These stupid computers sure can't. God damn it, I was going to have to talk like I went to college... only I ain't went to college, damn it.

There are a lot of people who think drunk driving is equivalent to drive-texting, but that's illogical since people can set a phone down and ignore it, but they can't undrunk. I think the comparison is bad because it makes drunk driving seem less dangerous than it is and it makes it sound like you don't understand the difference between being in an diminished state and avoiding a distraction.

That said, making it illegal to operate electronic devices while driving a motor vehicle is a pretty reasonable start. It doesn't matter *why* a person is driving unsafely, what matters is that they are. I find the specification of "electronic" a little silly since that makes any car with a battery (all of them in production) technically illegal, but I like the consistency. Do something that distracts your attention from an inherently dangerous activity (driving) and you break the law? Logical. Even if I don't personally like it. (I like lots of things that aren't logically supported by my long term goals; naps, beer, webcomics and cheetos spring to mind.)

"Ban cheetos! They make people fat!" Fine, I'll switch to pringles and vote against you in the election. "Ban naps and beer!" I'll drink wine and sleep in and vote against you in the election. "Ban snacks!" you say? I'll attend your funeral and eulogize "Here lies Silvrmane, at least his argument was consistent."

Fair enough. I hope you do "buy a dash cam, record these knuckleheads and then post shame videos on youtube," but please don't just limit it to the people you know or suspect are driving badly due to texting. Driving unsafely is and should be against the law. We're in complete agreement on that.

Please don't suggest that texting while driving is "just as dangerous as drunk driving" though, as that's an illogical comparison and it weakens your position. I can set a cheeseburger down, I can leave the radio alone, I can let the obnoxious gps navigator be wrong, I can ignore the fighting children in the backseat, I can ignore the ranting of my passenger and I can choose to give my full attention to the road. I can set a phone down. What I cannot do is undrunk myself because traffic demands it.

If you're convinced that texting while driving should always be illegal everywhere and in every situation, then you have a perfectly logical argument. Don't diminish it by conflating it with driving intoxicated. It makes drunk driving seem less dangerous than it is and it makes it sound like you don't understand the difference between being in an diminished state and avoiding a distraction.

Fair enough. I agree the tone of the reply you're commenting on was silly, so allow me to present a counter argument, hopefully slightly more logical.

It's very hard to put a drunken state down because traffic demands it, while it is easy to put a phone down.

I routinely take calls while driving, and as the evidence indicates, I'm typical in my response of driving much more conservatively when that happens. Personally, I'm probably safer when I'm taking a call than I am normally, because I back way off and try to stay well away from other cars when I'm on a call. If I'm going to reply to a text, I'm going to wait until I'm pretty lonely on the road and start paying a lot of attention to the driving when otherwise I'd normally be pretty much on auto-pilot. If there is heavy traffic and I need to use my phone for some reason, I find an exit and pull off. If I'm averaging 5mph and take a call and traffic picks up, I switch to hands free or if it looks like it is resuming normal speeds, say I'll have to call back.

Contrast that with driving intoxicated. If I'm behind the wheel, there is nothing I can stop doing as a result of my analysis of traffic. I can try to drive slower, but cause a whole set of different problems by impeding normal traffic flow. There is no "set it down" or "I'll have to call you back" option.

None of this means that texting or talking on the phone while driving is as safe as not doing those things. I don't think anyone is suggesting that a driver should do things that decrease the safety of the situation. All I am saying is that there are clear differences between driving intoxicated and engaging in texting while driving.

If I *had* to text while driving, my driving would be significantly impaired, just like it is in a study comparing reaction times. The fatality rates of motorists has actually decreased while mobile phone use has increased. (Look it up. I had to before I believed it.) The corollary is obviously NOT an indication that mobile phone use while driving improves safety, there are a lot of other things offsetting the hazard posed by texting while driving, but the idea that texting drivers is making the roads more dangerous than they used to be is false. The idea that texting drivers is making the roads more dangerous than they need to be is fair. There is a difference.

I hate it when people confuse improper and immature behavior with the technology they're using. Bittorrent is a very logical and quite useful protocol and it has a bad name because it is associated with the behavior of many people who use it. Outlawing the bittorrent protocol is just as reasonable as outlawing texting while driving. Unsafe driving should be (and is) against the law, just as copyright infringement is against the law. The technology isn't *ever* the problem, the people making bad decisions are the problem.

It is certainly immoral to use war and its tools to gain wealth and power, but is it idiotic? I'd say they're sick. Most of our leaders are, certainly the heads of finance are.

I seldom comment in the stories any more, I just come to read journals. Too much noise, too little signal. I've been posting on Soylent News more lately, it's a little like slashdot used to be.

What about how the computers store information for their own use (example: evercookies)? I know it's not the "mind" of the computer doing what it wants but it's certainly not the user either.

Duh, it's the mind of the programmer who had the script drop the cookie. But your comment tells me you know that already.

First, I agree completely with your comment. Secondly, I don't even have to RTFA to see that TFA rides the short bus.

As a cyborg, I find this entire topic offensive. A cyborg is part animal and part machine, and guess what? There are a hell of a lot of us. I have a CrystaLens implant in my left eye, making glasses unnecessary for me (I see better than you do). It is a device that uses the eye's muscles to focus. I'm 62 and need no corrective lenses whatever.

Do you know someone with a cochlear implant? Artificial hip or knee? Heart pacemaker? They, like me, are all cyborgs by dictionary definition.

The former vice president of the US was a cyborg, now he's a chimera.

The question "should cyborgs have rights" is stupid and insulting. Shame on the article's author.

It's probably in Today's Illinois Times, they run it in their print edition. I always enjoy that cartoon.