This doesn’t even appear to be an automaton.  Better terms would be “mechanical Turk” or “anthropomorphic waldo”.

I suppose the idea is that the stealth units can catch people violating traffic laws because they won’t realize it’s a cop they’re cutting off as they blow the red light. Which is dumb; it’s better to have obviously marked cop cars, since there’s research proving that the presence of marked cop cars are a traffic…

These all-black squad cars remind me of Hotblack Deziato’s sundiving spaceship from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, about which Zaphod had this to say:

Some here in Minnesota do that too, but it only makes sense if you’re using it on the regular — specifically, they’re doing it because either they have so many cars they need multi-level storage in the first place (i.e. they can’t fit them all on one lot) or they want to be fancy to appeal to pricier customers. You’re…

That’s a good idea.  What would it take to transport the cars to those parking garages?  Do they have enough drivers/car transporters/etc?  Are the roads clear?  I’m sure the owners of the ramps would be happy to rent out the space (assuming their lawyers can draw up an agreement indemnifying them against any losses…

It’s easy to say “lack of prior planning”, but where do you build indoor storage for this many cars? That’s an awful lot of real estate to have to maintain and pay taxes on for fifty years in order to use for three days.

That’s mostly because a couple of generations ago, we downsized our rail infrastructure to a staggering degree rather than continuing to grow it alongside our population. Drive through middle America and every small town has an abandoned passenger railway station. Many mid-sized and larger cities have buried streetcar…

It is certainly something!  :-)  I gotta give Tesla props for scaling up their manufacturing very rapidly.  That’s been very impressive.  However, they have also demonstrated a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver, and that makes me want to see the proof before trusting in the pudding.

Oh my lord.

“Regulatory barriers” is rapidly becoming the fall guy for every problem at every one of Musk’s companies — and I am rather concerned to see how it is starting to become the fall guy for problems at SpaceX. That company has managed to keep ahead of the burnout curve for an impressively long time, but it does seem that…

I now demand to be chauffeured by Robert Picardo.

My guess is to be able to carry consumables -- range extension is about more than just carrying more batteries for the rover, after all.  It’s also about carrying more oxygen for the crew.

Well ya know, if you let criminals go free, you’re just sending a message that we don’t care anymore.  Or something.

I think the cops do make a reasonable point that it’s very hard to use lethal force accurately on a moving subway car.

I’m sure driver inexperience will end up being a factor.  If nothing else, it will definitely contribute to the brown-trousers-level, which has a tendency to addle the brains a bit and cause a person to overlook what’s otherwise obvious.

Oh, and there are absolutely ways to structure things so that you are protecting the assets of the able-bodied spouse while allowing the not-able-bodied spouse to go on Medicaid. My grandparents were exploring those options when my grandmother first started needing long-term care. In the end, my grandfather ended up…

My husband and I just qualified; we’re around 50, and for the two of us together it’s over $100K. It is a little like life insurance, and if we don’t use it, our estate will get it back. But both of my parents have dementia. There’s no family history of dementia otherwise, but it made us very concerned to not have to…

The seeds of war bear fruit long after....

Regarding social security, I believe the “lookback” period is five years, and it is no joke. If the government gets wind of any attempt to hide assets, even after your death, they can and will go after you or your estate to try and claw them back to repay any social security that was paid out which they feel you were…

Heck, at 8', I’m impressed the hole hadn’t caved in.  He is indeed very lucky.  So many ways this could’ve gone so, so, so much worse.