I went to Mammoth Cave in the early months of this administration. Prior to going, I had no idea about how that cave system was first explored. As it turns out, in the 1840's, there was an enslaved guide named Stephen Bishop who did a lot (if not the lion's share) of the early exploration. He wasn't a freed man until 1856, a year before he died.

I don't think anyone's saying that there's a necessity to discuss how slavery was a component where it wasn't, but the fact remains that slavery DID play a part in a lot of public places. Noting that isn't a weakness.

You'd probably be surprised at how little of this is actually present on modern platforms (I know I was). Most platforms, regardless of how many types of sensors that a marketing team will say a vehicle has, lean heavily on one type of sensor. For Apollo, it's lidar. If the lidar unit(s) have problems, even if there are additional types of sensors in your suite (ours additionally had both multiple radars and cameras), the system either fully stops working, or working so badly that it becomes necessary for a human operator to take over.

I don't think it's necessarily an "Apollo only"-type problem, either. Because we can see Apollo's source we know it's a problem there, but just by following the news, you can tell that there are similar issues across the industry. It's the same reason a Waymo vehicle can get "traffic coned" into a panic state.

The capability for different sensor packages (lidar, radar, cameras, etc) to work in concert for better localization and object detection. The ability to perceive the world around a vehicle as a cohesive whole, instead of several different individual sensor domains that don't really "talk" to one another. In a perfect world, this would also provide a level of redundancy for a failed system, such as an obstructed sensor.

As someone who has worked on the technical side of a rollout of an Apollo platform on US roads, no, there's not a lot to be terrified about (yet, if at all).

While there are a lot of situations where Apollo is able to drive safely (mostly in situations of light-to-no traffic), it still struggles with:
- navigating tight spaces
- sensor fusion
- false positive collision avoidance ("sees" dust or water spray as a possible collision object)
- inclement weather in general
- requiring a HD map for navigating the world (which is expensive to build and even more expensive to maintain over time)
- requiring realtime kinematics corrections for localization, which isn't widely available

I love the fact that it's more or less an open source project, but after operating the platform for a good while I can safely say that I wouldn't worry too much about it being the death of manually operated cars. At very least, not in the near term.

... for modern connectors?

All HDMI and DisplayPort connectors have a cheap tension-grip connector (at best). It's not like I'm moving my PC around all the time, but hell, if I bump my tower, any one of my HDMI/DisplayPort monitors comes slightly loose and constantly try to reestablish handshake.

Tension-based connectors are garbage. Sure, they disconnect easily, but I don't always WANT them to disconnect easily. The old screw/standoff connection was rock solid.

I'd be okay with transcribed voicemail, but even "good" ones are still incredibly shitty at it. For instance, here's an ACTUAL transcribed message from a recent voicemail:

"Armed already reported it. Gilbert Fairchild, The. Sex describe this 3 black males in her to use two had tons already reported that your birth. Fairchild, the sexist drive this 3 black mqales in her to use. Yeah for more information."

That's Google Voice. So I end up having to listen to the message anyway. Transcription has a looooooong way to go before it becomes anything more than something to laugh at.

Seriously, almost all of these modded-up responses strike me as a bit crazy. Is it so mad to believe that we, as a species, might be doing things that we could be doing better? I've been around these forums for long enough to know (and feel myself) that the "think of the children!" arguments get overused, but is it so unthinkable that we need to identify anything that goes against our own parenting styles as "horseshit" or "screwy"?

We're all a bit damaged in our own ways. Whatever we've dealt with (or probably more importantly, haven't dealt with) growing up shows up in our own parenting. I know we all think that we're all perfectly functioning adults with the sure-fire recipe for creating the next generation of perfectly functioning adults, but are we? We're a violent species who thinks that the solution to problems is a display of authority, usually by physical means. Little Johnny getting out of line? A small whack will put him right back into his place! That'll teach him, right?

Come on.

The technocrat response on these forums is old, and shows a lot as to why we fail as a society at identifying and correcting problems before they explode into tragedies. A little empathy goes a long way, and our knee-jerk reaction of "but this is how we've always done it!" isn't productive. The fact that we treat children like tiny adults is pretty screwed up.

Yeah poor people, suck it up and call an ambulance. It's only a couple extra grand tacked on to your hospital bill anyway.

Wait, you mean this whole situation BEGAN with financial problems, and this would only compound the issue? Oh, I guess it isn't so easy as "call an ambulance" and "don't be a stereotype."

It's actually more along the lines of 1.21 gigawatts.

Nope:

From the associated doc in your link:
"To upgrade to Windows 8.1 from Windows Vista or Windows XP, you'll need to install it from a Windows 8.1 DVD and perform a clean installation. This means you won't be able to keep any files, settings, or programs when you upgrade."

That's definitely not an "in-place" upgrade, which is what the OP wants, I'm guessing. (I know it's what I want.)

Seriously, it seems like this question comes up every few (2-6) months. Can we have the submitters just search the archives before posting? It's not like there's been some sea change in IT world that would preclude the same answers.

Over and over.

And over.

Can we just get back to stale tech news already?