Manhattan's plan to charge up to $15 to drive downtown won't happen, but there are better, more high tech ways to do it.

Tesla FSD has learned some antisocial behavior. But what if self-driving systems work together to make a more cooperative and social road?

It's time to radically scale back the postal service, by banning the mailing, on paper, of computer files.

The US Postal Service delivers 44% of the mail in the world. 127B total pieces of mail, plus packages, and 46B pieces of first class mail (down from 103B at the peak) of which 13B are "single piece" first class mail with a stamp. That's a lot of trees and a lot of energy.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Agency is investigating 31 incidents involving the robotaxi company s vehicles.

Baidu, the tech company sometimes called the "Google of China" has a new robotaxi at half the price, and a plan for profits

Cruise is Back, Waymo is doing 50,000 rides/week with nobody in the car, Motional lays off half their staff, and Tesla still teases a Robotaxi. It's interesting times.

I recently rented a Tesla from Hertz, for an experience that tried to be wonderful but failed.

What reasons could Tesla possibly have to laying off its entire Supercharger team when most consider it to be one of the company's prized jewels?

Some day robots may roam the streets without cargo, just showing ads. What will we do about it?

Cars that go charge themselves are the ideal, and also a solution for the power grid, plugging themselves in when solar power is surplus and cheap

California's home solar net metering standards changed last year and crashed the solar industry. Could neighbors selling power to neighbors' cars fix it?

Machine learning AI and large language models (similar to ChatGPT) are taking over software development at self-driving car companies

There's a lot Tesla has to do to make a robotaxi, but if they do, it might be a cheaper car to buy than a low cost EV

Here is an album of shots from the 2024 Eclipse, shot from Magog, Quebec (near Sherbrooke) after a long odyssey to avoid clouds, detailed below.

For best viewing, Go to Google Eclipse Photo Album

Did you know that the Bible doesn't just condone abortion, it actually requires it in the case of infidelity, and gives (bad) instructions on how it is to be done? It's all in Numbers Chapter 5, starting at verse 11. I wonder if it would be possible to set up abortion clinics which perform abortions with a modernization of the method described in the Bible, for the subset of women who qualify.

A serious Waymo incident turned out to be a mistake by a human remote assistance operator. How do the errors of people and robots differ, particularly to the public?

Yesterday, I declared in commemorating his life, that Vernor Vinge was the greatest SF author. Of course, there are many opinions on who might get that title, and a solid argument that there isn't just one, or one axis of what makes great SF.

I have received the sad news of the passing of the world's greatest science fiction writer, Vernor Vinge, who was also my friend and onetime collaborator. (And, I need to point out, it's pronounced Vin-gee.)