Having driven extensively in both states, I'll say the drivers in Texas are more clueless and likely to do stupid things by mistake. The drivers in California aren't necessarily bad, but they are much more aggressive and more likely to do something stupid out of impatience.

As always, YMMV on any particular drive in either state, this is just my general impression over several hundred thousand miles of driving.

You realize prototype and home built airplanes are flown from public airports all the time?

The joke must be silent...but deadly.

Airliners, especially Fedex and UPS, are already almost drones. Pilots rarely need to touch the controls, even for take-off and landing. They are mostly there for FAA reasons.

The first ground autonomous vehicles you are likely to actually see on the road will probably be either taxi cabs or big rig trucks. Both have economics that make absolute sense for autonomous vehicles, even at relatively expensive "first adopter" prices.

These are ducted fans. A bird, bug, scrap of paper, floating plastic grocery bag, etc. can jam or wrap up a prop instantly.

Um, AT&T, Verizon, Google, Time Warner, (Comcast charges for providing access, but really can't say they DO it.), etc.

I can't say that I know of any Federal provided public access to the Internet, and they certainly don't own or operate any of the major backbones any more.

It's a very silly place.

I'm not talking about the old episodes. I'm talking about resurrecting the show as a made for Netflix series.

At $2M/episode * 20 episodes/year = $40M / year. For $20/month that would take less than 170,000 fans to keep the show running, not counting any income from DVD sales, merchandising, licensing, etc. I bet there are that many fans who would do that without a problem.

This all sounds good, but, if it's true, WHERE IS MY FREAKING FIREFLY!!!

That one show, resurrected on Netflix, would buy them more long-term lasting subscribers than any of the garbage they put out now.

Not only THIS, but even on Netflix, binge watching a series, the constant dramatic-crisis-leading-to-a-black-cut-and-back-to-the-scene-not-quite-as-it-was every 4-5 minutes showing where the commercial was "supposed" to be is highly annoying. It interrupts the story and wastes valuable story telling time. Agents of Shield and Once Upon A Time are recent series I have noted with this issue.

Something else I've noticed is that many of the recent shows, when streamed on Netflix, seem oddly filmed with all of the action and interest happening in the top 50% of the frame and the bottom 50% almost irrelevant. It wasn't until about a month ago, when I watched regular TV at a friends house, that I realized the networks are showing Ads on the bottom half to third of the screen DURING the freaking show! UGH! Never going back to broadcast TV.

How many probes does it take to get to the center of a 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko?

1+1=4

\\ for very large values of 1

Or, just possibly, there is a long period large body that transits the oort cloud approximately every 60 million years, sending large chunks of debris into the inner solar system on just the type of semi-clockwork periodicity you seem to think the universe lacks?

As people under 25 get older, their cars will become automated. At that point, the only thing they will care about is pointless shiny and interior infotainment.

HP and muffler growl will go away as concerns. Even exterior looks will fade as a point of care as car sharing and on-demand ride services take over from individual ownership.

Amen to this. My Audi is going on 3 years old, and my one disappointment with it is the poor Multimedia interface. My son just bought a Mazda and we were looking at Volkswagen for him as well. Both have far superior in-dash systems for music, navigation, and vehicle information. What's really sad is that Volkswagen owns Audi, so you'd think they would put the better media system in the more upscale vehicle line.