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If the bombs had been ready a bit earlier, Berlin may very well have been the first target.

That's a tough call, but I lean toward, "probably not". For the German context, both the military and the citizenry had become terribly war-weary. Near the end of the war in Europe, Germany faced defending on multiple fronts, particularly from the brutal Russian counterattack. It's not clear to me exactly how much information the Allies had on the despondence of the German citizenry, but they knew the ground and air forces were devastated, and that Germany's industrial and agricultural capacity was in shambles.

In contrast, the Allied experience taking Okinawa lead the US to believe (rightly, if for some wrong reasons) that taking mainland Japan would be even worse. Veterans from the Okinawa campaign had perhaps the highest incidence of PTSD (not called that at the time, of course), and from the US perspective, these weren't even actual Japanese. Of course that was correct, but the Okinawans were treated badly by the Imperial Japanese, and on top of that were told that the coming American forces would kill/rape them all leaving none alive (there were some mass suicides, too). The US expected fierce Japanese military resistance, and also civilian Japanese resistance even stronger than what they encountered at Okinawa. The US manufactured half a million purple hearts in preparation for the invasion of Japan, and there are still at least 75000 of that old production remaining, even after Afghanistan and Iraq.

Furthermore, while it's true that Russia had declared war on Japan shortly after Germany surrendered, as a practical matter, Russian forces were largely concentrated in Europe. The Russian buildup in anticipation of invading Manchuria was insufficient for an attack on the Japanese mainland - a mere 1.5 million troops. That was a real problem for a timely coordinated two-front attack on Japan, because Russia lacked the infrastructure East of the Urals to effectively redeploy units in Europe all the way to Japan (and even today similar problems persist) quickly via anything other than the Trans-Siberian rail. Hell, they couldn't even have mobilized to counterattack Germany without the huge number of trucks which had been supplied by the US. And then there was the limited Northern/Pacific fleets of the Russian Navy at the time. They had plenty of Destroyers, but still no good way to deploy large numbers of Russian troops to Japan's shores even if they could have moved units from the Russian Western front all the way across Russia.

So, the two contexts were very different, and I consider the possibility of an Allied nuclear bombing of a defiant Germany to have been very unlikely.

One wonders if the Japanese, having seen the destruction that the Americans could unleash would have given up before they were targeted.

Sadly, I think not. After the first bomb, they waited to see if the US had another. Once the US proved it wasn't a fluke, they could not know if the US had built three, a half dozen, or perhaps a score or more of them. So, I think even if Berlin had been bombed, the Japanese would still have waited to see if it could be done a second time. Either way, at least two cities had to be destroyed to demonstrate repeatability. Worse, if there had been a significant time lapse between the hypothetical Berlin bombing and the Hiroshima bombing, Japan might have presumed that the US couldn't manage another one for some period of time, providing a perceived window for counterattack or other preparations, and therefore necessitating the Nagasaki bombing to demonstrate relatively rapid deployment - so, three cities destroyed in that scenario. To understate it, war sucks.

I agre

Please don't put people in it if autonomous.

The Volvo aren't autonomous in the sense that they don't handle the actual route.

Volvo mainly use their sensors (though it's camera + lidar + radar, just like on autonomous cars)
to detect possible objects that could collide with the car and break and/or sound an alarm.

Note that the driver can still override by slamming the gas pedal. (People want to be able to have the last say).
But if the driver doesn't do anything, the car will automatically slow down and stop before hitting the car/pedestrian/whatever in front.
(And also, resume driving if the car in front starts moving again. That's a very useful feature in a traffic jam. Though if the Volvo has stopped for a longer period of time, it asks a confirmation from the driver (button or gas pedal) just to be sure to have the drivers' attention.
After all, its NOT an autonomous car, and the driver is still responsible, so it would be better if the driver hasn't dozed off during the stop).

Ok Volvo, see if your car can drive this

Some of the feature of Volvo car are already useful in these situations.

Again, Volvos aren't autonomous, it's NOT their job to actually drive though this kind of hell.

BUT...

The lidar and radar will correctly whatch for anything the car might crash into.
The volvo will correctly stop before crashing into incomin vehicles or against the mountain (due to too narrow space for crossing).

The camera tracks the road and can sound an alarm if the driver risks quitting the path.
(Though unlike other brands like BMW, the Volvo won't correct the course by itself. It just sounds an alarm when detecting that the driver was swerving away of the path and either:
- hopes that the driver will wake-up correct and course
- of the driver will turn on the turn signal, because the driver was actually swerving away from the current lane on purpose - he/she wanted to change lane, but without the turn signal, the car couldn't know it and sounded an alarm anyway. Of course that last one applies to changing lane on a multi-lane highway.
Not trying to stay in path in the kind of hell like this mountain "goat-path-except-there-are-truck-on-it" from your terrifying example).

Ok Volvo, see if your car can drive this.
Please don't put people in it if autonomous.

Indubitably, gas-tax supported asphalt is one big communist contraption that beats the time wasted and employment overhead at toll road booths hands down. Or there is always dirt roads, all you need is bigger tires, slower driving speeds, and tricks up your sleeve to get out of mud puddles every time it rains. Nobody has to pay for it, for the asphalt, it's just dirt, grass beaten down from the constant traffic. This used to be the norm 200 years ago outside cities. Check out what a non-asphalt cheap non-tollroad looks like in middle of uber-communist Russian back country, called Lena highway: http://www.ssqq.com/ARCHIVE/vi... Even communism that's broke can't support a public asphalt road, especially when the traffic on it is too sparse and the distances too long.

you don't say... http://www.ssqq.com/archive/vinlin27d.htm

Russia has plenty of space in Siberia, but the "roads" are hell.

and sell it to this guy.

Perhaps this child should go outside and get some fresh air and excercise so he doesn't look like you when he is your age?

"And that Lady who sued Mcdonalds she lost on Appeal."

You're wrong. There was no appeal made. A settlement was made between Liebeck and McDonalds.

Here, here, and here all point out that you are wrong. It's odd that someone who is trying to claim to know "the real facts" makes such false claims.

And finally it was not the defendant who sued for millions, it was the jury who awarded it becuase it was "unspecified" and the jury specifically said 3million was picked because it was the sales for one days worth of coffee at McDonalds and the jury thought that they needed to prove the company memo wrong.

And she only ended up with about $400,000.

http://www.ssqq.com/archive/responsibility03.htm

The wheelbase width of cars in almost all western countries is standardized, and ALL trains track widths are. They are standardized to 4 ft, 8.5 inches.