If you only get chump change, you do busy work. I agree in general that NASA should be doing bigger, more important things, but they're sort of resource constrained at the moment.

And, actually, you do figure out how to deal with long term issues in space by sticking up a metal can and orbiting earth for ten years. Yes, we could have done better, we could be doing better, but with the money and political power that exists, all you get is the ISS. Remember, space is hard. Really hard. The ISS has returned a lot of boring but important data on how people and materials survive in LEO. You don't get that data by watching Star Trek reruns.

And that 'fucking telescope' that has your panties in a bunch has a much better chance of significantly changing our world view than any reasonably feasible manned program.

Actually, NASA has done a shitload of stuff since Apollo. They have been doing long term, small scale research on a whole raft of subjects including plain ol planes. They've organized some pretty impressive technology for the Mars / Jupiter / Saturn unmanned probes. They've kept the ISS up and running.

All of this isn't as sexy as the Shuttle or Apollo programs and NASA would be glad to ramp up it's efforts had it been given some decent long term funding and had Congress resisted the urge to micromanage everything. There have been setbacks of course. The James Webb Telescope/a) (successor to the Hubble) is over budget and over time. Sometimes rocket science is hard.

Given the constraints they have had to work under, I'm surprised they get anything done.

It all makes sense really. Since the Apollo landing, computer generated graphics have come a long way. It should not be hard nor expensive to "travel" to the Moon and Mars, Hollywood style. Would make an excellent reality show, one that was more true to life than most of them on the small screen these days. Hell, NASA could even make money from this. Works for Industrial Light and Magic, doesn't it?

You people are too literal sometimes.

Yeah, Google is just pissed that the government is crowding in on their turf.

Don't be evil, my ass.

No, that only applies if the manufacturer in question is trying to gain a competitive advantage. Given Balmer's mishandling of Microsoft over the past decade, it's hard to argue that Microsoft is competing with anyone other than themselves.

No, it's not brilliant. It's depressing.

Except the way the economy is going, you can replace "Ragastan" with Newark, New Jersey.

Computers COULD drive "better" than humans. But what would happen is the computer would try to minimize accidents - so it will take fewer chances. It will stop and refuse to go forward in fog (and hopefully talk to all the neighboring cars to slow down as well). It won't go over snowy roads. It won't cross open water.

The net result is that you may be safer, but forced to detour or wait. That's a perfectly rational way to do things - but humans aren't rational very much of the time. I just don't see this as happening any time soon. Perhaps in a generation or two who grow up away from the 'open road', but not in the near future.

Dear Citizen:

We have been monitoring you ravings and it is clear that you suffer from a bad case of uncollectivist psychosis. We understand your pain and would like to help you with your problem.

Please walk (do not drive) to the closest re education facility.

Yours in Homogenization,

The Minders.

How do you square that with the fact that local governments don't exactly have the spare change to fund major infrastructure changes? In my rural town, there is a debate as to whether we should unpave some roads to decrease maintenance costs (the costs then go to the vehicle owner in terms of increased damage and wear and tear).

ANYTHING that's an unfunded mandate is likely to be ignored unless it comes with adequate funding from somewhere else (in which case it's not an unfunded mandate, just pie-in-the-sky). I don't think the insurance 'savings' are going to fund this switch. If you have actual data to suggest this, I'd love to see it.

An employed blue collar joe is easier to deal with than a chronically unemployed blue collar joe without any real hope for a decent job.

You really pull the rug out of the middle class in this country and you find out that the veneer of civilization is thin, indeed.

Well, not that I disagree with your general argument, but your specific example is quite easy:

You squish the annoying little hatchback. You'd even get a prize.

Computers and complex machinery are cheap? Good to know.

Use a terminal program with some buffering. It's not 1998 anymore.

Oh, AT&T is 'being nice' - it's cheap publicity and unlike the usual bit of AT&T publicity these days, is actually positive. The costs are but a rounding error in some small department and are probably being born mostly by the City. I imagine that NYC isn't charging them a siting fee. The stations will have an AT&T logo - so it's advertising.

I sure hope the rest of NYCs storm mitigation efforts are a bit more substantive.