Firmware updates are normally applied to a car via secure communication on the CAN-BUS (via direct connection or cd player). If an update prevents a module from accessing the CAN-BUS it would be easier to swap out the module than to reprogram the module using a different method.

Perhaps the car as a whole wasn't bricked but computer systems on it may have been.

Mostly because every Windows machine has a remote desktop client but almost none have a VNC client installed. I actually do have a UltraVNC server running but since remote desktop is easier to access I have never really used it. Honestly I forgot I even had it.

Windows 7 Professional supports remote desktop. The home version does not let you RDP into it. I use RDP quite often when I am not at home.

I'll have you know that all of those legal problems can be solved by bribes in the Great US of A too!

Except if one company can get away with charging an extra fee ALL companies can get away with charging an extra fee. This especially applies since car insurance is mandatory in some (most? all?) states. That is why airlines started adding extra fees at the same time, cellular companies started adding extra fees at the same time, etc., etc..

I never said I avoided it. Last year I was on jury duty for two weeks and took it very seriously. However, what the courts gave me hardly covered gas and lunch and my work didn't give me jury pay for the two weeks. By the time I got back to work I was broke and people were unhappy with the mindset as if I took a two week paid vacation.

When it comes down to it the jury consists mostly of people that have decent enough jobs that pay for jury duty and those that are retired. Other people generally find ways to get out of it or are thrown out by the attorneys/judge by acting like people with common sense or intelligence rather than puppets.

Eh, Jury Duty does not pay enough to own me for the entire duration of a trial. Sure, I will go out of my way to avoid finding out information about the trial in the name of impartiality but I will be damned if they want to make me a prisoner in my own body while I get an unpaid vacation from work.

What makes that interesting is that a lot of time time insurance companies refuse to pay for non-generic versions of medicines if a generic version is available.

Multi-stranded wire does not help when dealing with the skin effect. Since the skin effect is caused by an electro-magnetic field and the strands are in contact with each other a multi-stranded wire will experience the same effects as a solid conductor. To get around the skin effect you need to use something called a Litz wire. A Litz wire is a mult-stranded wire in which each conductor is smaller than the skin depth and each strand is insulated from the others. Each strand is routed from the center of the bundle to the edges of the bundle throughout the length of the bundle to ensure there are no "center-strands" which do not contribute to the conductivity of the wire.

Because believe it or not most people go to college to find a better job or to start a career. People want their university to teach them useful skills to make their students employable. It is a novel idea for people to go to school for the sake of higher learning but in today's world productivity (perceived or real) is what drives the human race.