Germany apparently isn't completely rife with corruption, unlike the United States. That's how.

already has significant training procedures to accommodate big processes (like, say, a government would have),

HAHAHA! Thanks for the laugh.

I speak from experience when I tell you you're dreaming if you think government has training procedures. We have a training group and my area (the IT side) does more to train end users than they do. We keep wondering why we're paying these people when everyone comes to us with training questions.

The "opt in" was more like "we're making you an offer you can't refuse." It was pushed as an update to an existing add-on. The page with the terms was deliberately confusing. The privacy policy was originally missing. Some users reported that if you refused the tracking, the add-on then blocked major sites such as Flickr.

I was amazed that got past Mozilla's approval process. They've sold out.

Now that scares me. The suspension can be updated remotely? What could possibly go wrong? Just how good is the security on that? Who has access to the keys? Are you sure? How are the download servers secured? Is the update system protected against cut-and-paste attacks?

That kind of update could be used as an assassination weapon.

When Tesla was talking about automatic driving, I suggested that there must be a second processor, with completely different software, checking the main system for sanity (like "not approaching obstacle at high speed") and able to force a stop. The backup system should have its program in ROM, and changing that program should require breaking seals and physically plugging in a new program module.

Flight control software for airliners works like that. For the Airbus line, the backup software was written by a different team for a different kind of CPU in a different programming language, to avoid any possibility of a common mode failure.

Mozilla allows that, too. There's a slimeball company that takes over abandoned Firefox add-ons, adds spyware, and puts them up on Mozilla's "store". They did this to BlockSite. Users were very angry.

Mozilla's reaction? Mozilla's add-on policies prohibit this: "Whenever an add-on includes any unexpected* feature that ... compromises user privacy or security (like sending data to third parties)" ... "These features cannot be introduced into an update of a fully-reviewed add-on; the opt-in change process must be part of the initial review." The spyware was just fine with Jorge Villalobos, Mozilla's add-on project manager, who wrote "That's outdated, since we don't enforce that policy."

You can't trust the Mozilla Foundation any more. That's sad.

Of course police cars should be tracked. They're dispatched centrally, after all. The dispatchers need to know who's where.

Traditionally, the approach used is to put cops in small patrol areas ("beats") so dispatch knows roughly where they are. But this is an ineffective use of resources. Dispatch should be moving cops around as necessary depending on the level of activity and coverage.

Between radio SETI and optical SETI, new technology is inevitable, technology that can be patented or sold. Isolating data from a planet orbiting a star is going to require variable interferometry of a sort we don't yet have. New algorithms will be needed, as you can't sift through billions of channels for information content efficiently with what we have.

This means you can have a well-defined ROI even if nothing is ever found. And that means you can value SETI in terms of that ROI, which means you can float SETI on the market. Make it something with worth defined in terms others can understand.

Just as importantly, make it something the government regrets ignoring. They can talk all they like about the benefits of private enterprise, but they have legal restrictions on buying foreign technology or using the services of people without clearance. Signals analysis is signals analysis, meaning Russia and China will likely be involved in any open research, meaning the US will have all kinds of legal hoops to jump through. That or buy the shares in some way, thus funding the work and keeping sigint stuff out of the hands of imagined enemies.

In short, use the obsession with private funds to back Five Eyes against the wall. Give these nations no choice but to give SETI the money needed.

Accelerating a car takes energy. That energy has to be stored on board the car. Whenever you store a lot of energy in a small space, there is a risk that the energy could be released. Gasoline is not uniquely dangerous in that respect.

70 miles per hour is high speed. The car collided with the debris.

Yeah, but don't tell that to the people who marked me flamebait for stating the obvious.

An excellent description of the remainder of your post. Unless you've actually talked to the people involved in making that decision, or conducted your own equivalent investigation, you have no idea whether it's justified or not. Your knee is jerking because you've found an excuse to grind your favorite axe.

I hate to ruin a beautiful theory with facts, but we've already seen plenty of sensational articles about how great the Tesla is.

My meter uses quaternions but there are no options for imaginary usage.

How many cars are on the road compared to how many Teslas?

If you have tens of millions of cars and trucks (pickup trucks) on the U.S. roads, you are bound to have many fires for various reasons.

When you only have a few thousand of a specific car on the road and several catch fire, you need to ask questions and investigate.

Media Darling Gets Unfair Share of Positive and Negative Media Attention - News at 11!

The AC never said American companies had scruples either. He also gave no indication he's American. You do realize there's more than 2 countries on the planet with companies, right?