I’m thinking bigger than that. There are companies right now operating robotic taxis on American roads with no human operators on board. A car that may or may not even have a steering wheel arrives, a human passenger climbs into the back seat, and the car drives off with them. Who is legally responsible for the operation of that car? If it hurts someone, who do they sue? If it commits a crime, who do we punish?

Argue about how specialweshul you are until you’re blue with stars in the face. Doesn’t change the fact that an idiot with bad teeth said something stupid to me over a decade ago.

Unhealthily watching = scrolling shorts for too long.

The concept absolutely exists in law but it’s just called… “the driver.”

There’s another aviation term, “The Pilot Flying.” The Pilot In Command bears the authority and responsibility. The Pilot Flying is doing the work of steering. If present, a Pilot Not Flying might help with checklists, system monitoring, navigation, radio communication, handling secondary controls like flaps and landing gear, but the Pilot Flying is in immediate control of the aircraft.

The PIC is very often not the pilot flying. I used to be a flight instructor, when teaching students who aren’t yet qualified to command, I acted as Pilot In Command, but the student was the Pilot Flying as much as possible.

Autopilots have been a thing for most of aviation history. It doesn’t count as a crewman. It’s a piece of equipment like any radio or gauge. It is a tool at the PICs disposal. It is the PIC’s job - sometimes delegated to the Pilot Flying - to monitor the autopilot and take over if it begins doing something wrong.

That’s the concept that is missing with self-driving or driverless cars. Tesla drivers will sit in the driver’s seat and abdicate command of the vehicle to the autopilot, or worse, cars are operating as taxis with passengers in the back seat and no one in the front seat, or with no onboard controls at all. Fully autonomously, or remotely operated by Southeast Asians who…totally have a valid American driver’s license. Definitely.

Corporations love it. “Legally, the driver is responsible for the vehicle. Our car has no driver, so legally no one is responsible for the vehicle. Responsibility averted.”

I was born and raised in the state of North Carolina. One of several states that seceded from The Union during our Civil War. That was right at 160 years ago, and we’re STILL riding the waves from that splash. As a student of history I tried to warn them, but the damn limeys had to find out the hard way.

I’m a citizen of the United States of America. I know what a federation is, the separation of powers between my state’s government in Raleigh and my nation’s government in Washington D.C. has direct effects on my daily life.

Per Wikipedia, “The EU is often described as a sui generis political entity combining characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.” So it’s a Federation Umm Actually. The part where it has a legislature populated by delegates from each member state is the relevant characteristic here, a trait the EU shares with federations.

That Blimey Limey that bitched at me years ago was presumably expressing frustration that the United Kingdom only got to send one representative to the EU Council, and then accused me of not knowing what life is like in the United States of Mitch McConnell.

So, earlier today I was being unhealthy on youtube, and someone half my age made a HUGE point to tell his audience including me that even if a self-driving Tesla runs a red light, it’s the human driver that gets the ticket.

Now…I’m a pilot. I have been since I came in that guy’s mom. In the aviation community, we have this concept called Pilot In Command. In the US, this is set into law in 14 CFR 91.3. The pilot in command of an aircraft is fully responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft. Not the administrator, not your instructor, not air traffic control, not the President of the United States, not god, the PIC. That concept doesn’t exist in driver’s ed, but it needs to. We need to teach student drivers about the Driver In Command responsibility.

Too long, didn’t process the metaphor: Nobody thinks about anything they do unless the law requires it.

I remember before Brexit, I was still on Facebook. That’s been so long I struggle to remember exactly how Facebook worked; mostly you were posting among your own coterie of friends but some places were more public. I remember posting my own “You really don’t want to do that” on the subject of Brexit, and some idiot Brit came back with “you yanks don’t know what it’s like having your laws made for you by politicians you didn’t elect 500 miles away.”

Motherfucker I live almost exactly that far from Washington DC, out of 435 congressman and 100 senators I get to vote for exactly three of them. The difference between me and the average citizen of the UK is I understand what it means to be a citizen of a federation.

In the words of my grandfather: “You made your bed, now eat it.”

On today’s episode of News Article About A Revolutionary New Battery Chemistry That Will Never Happen:

amazing to me how few creatures have learned to not be assholes while delicious. It’s like “do you want to be honey barbecue or spicy buffalo? I’ve got a choice of sauces available.”

In the words of Jeff Foxworthy, “true stuff is the funniest stuff.”

Reminds me of a picture I saw of an owl that was missing a lot of feathers on its head, captioned “…bless you.”

I would also like to autopsy this car.

The Northrop-Grumman B-2 Doomerang.

Sounds delicious.

I thought it was a horse with some weird hair going on.

I would actually worry more about a typical generator or power bank because they’re going to deliver actual power. What is one of these balcony solar jobs going to put out? 200 watts or so?

Of course it would, but then it wouldn’t be a useful illustrative example when teaching noobs what a distro is.

Regarding the wheel arches on compact pickups: Most compact pickups that can’t fit a sheet of plywood flat on the floor between the wheel arches have notches in the side of the bed for crossboards. That allows you to easily build a platform for sheet goods. Like this:

That’s what the rectangular notches in the side of the Slate’s bed are for: