What are you talking about? Using an app while driving = becoming Darwinized? If you can't seriously drive 35MPh while getting directions from waze that help you on your journey, I'm sorry you must be terribly handicapped. Most humans are capable of managing to wait for the upcoming turn direction while operating a motor vehicle at residential speeds, FYI.
Those roads do not belong to property owners, residents, or communities (unless hey are private and gated). They belong to the tax-paying public, the owners are those users driving down the road!
Those cars are getting better gas mileage not sitting in bumper to bumper traffic.
Those users can get home faster to their families, and so can you since you can drive through some other neighborhoods when traffic backs up.
The big roads will be a bit clearer if emergency personnel need to get through traffic to save a life.
If you want the "sanctity" of your own neighborhood, go buy property in a gated community with HOA fees, so you own a part of the street you and your fucking neighbors are demand exclusive rights to. Now get off my lawn!
I know, this is stupid. Making calls? Making video calls? Ever see 2001: A space odyssey? Im sure there are older examples of video calling. Isn't that prior art? What the fuck?
These patents needs to be invalidated, patents should last for a decade at the most. If you can't make money on the idea in a decade, and gain enough marketshare to fund further R&D, get out of capitalism. But seriously, why are these trivial patents getting through our system with so much prior art and established methods already common knowledge. No Corydoras Technologies, you did not invent the video phone, nor did you tell Apple how its done./rant
Again, this is either Mia-information or out-dated technology. Positive coefficient reactors are miles safer than the concrete-block rod-fueled HWR we have been installing in the past, and are running for years beyond spec. Newer designs are safer specifically because they can't melt down. Let me explain
In old-style reactors you had to do something to more, to slow down the reaction. Specifically (in Chernobyl's case), you had to insert graphene rods into the core at varying depths to control the rate of reaction. Let the reaction run to high, and the water used to conduct the heat away turns to steam and throws the graphene rods out like a potato gun. That's called a negative coefficient. You have to do something positive (push rods in) to achieve something negative (slow down or stop the reaction).
In new reactions, there is a positive coefficient, so you have to do something to get something. In a pebble-bed reactor, you have to flood the bed with gas (preferably helium). Helium does not have the embrittlement risk to pipes and structures. And there are in fact not really pipes in the core, the space between the baseball sized pebbles forms the conduit. Also helium is not as potent a neutron absorber as water, so there is less comtaminated waste.
The new generation IV reactors are much safer, and simpler than their older brethren and that's where most of the complexity and cost comes from, the safety systems inherent in the cooling systems. That's where Fukushima failed. It had a negative coefficient, because we couldn't cool it down, it's reaction speed increased. In a PBR, the hotter it gets, the slower it reacts, cooling itself naturally and stopping the reaction without the introduction of additional neutrons. It's a positive feedback loop. It's what these ships should have, and the mis-education or mindset from the 60's is what keeps the stigma around, and the pollution from coal and diesel in the air.
Don't they not use uranium for propulsion anymore? I'm not sure what the state of the art is now-a-days, but you are assuming 30 year old HWR reactors, when there have been many innovations in the technology, like positive co-efficient designs, pebble-bed reactors who's fuel is in spherical pebbles, etc. I know you can enrich the fuel as well as create more in breeder reactors. That ensures a supply if your using anything other than natturally occruing U235
The operative word in that post was COULD. Things could be that way if we made those changes. I believe a viable low-maintenance reactor for commercial use would yield those benefits.
The real cost of a petrochemical navy is absurdly higher than a nuclear one. Just check out:
1. The cost of ensuring its supply (through wars)
2. The fluctuation in real cost of fuel prices over the lifespan of the engine
3. The environmental cost and irrecoverable damage to the planet
4. The increase in respiratory illnesses incident rate vs the relatively nonexistent incident rate related to nuclear energy. More on this:
Nuclear power, when compared with just about every other fuel on earth, has a vastly lower injury, death, and sickness rating, even with Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3-Mile. The safety is what makes the cost astronomical, not the science. Nuclear power is the fuel of the sun, the earth, and the source of all of life's energy. Even solar power has a higher deaths per gigawatt than nuclear. This an educational problem, not a practical, economical, or scientific one.
Its too bad the first experience humans had with nuclear power was via WMD, and not civilian applications. We would be living in a very different world today if we first commercialized the technology before we blew up Japan with it.
First off, the Costa Concordia accident wouldn't have had a radiation leakage, because those reactors are designed to withstand ship-to-ship missile impacts, and are so heavily encased, that running aground at full speed would not -- and should not -- penetrate the reactor. That is something that the design should absolutely account for.
I believe that reactors would run with less manpower than an engine, and be a fairly autonomous machine, with maybe two crew onboard to maintain it. You don't have to change the lubrication, there are less moving parts, you can store the energy produced, and you only have to refuel every other decade.
Commercial operations don't use nuclear power due to regulation and public perception.
I live 10 miles from a nuclear power station, and I get more radiation from eating the potassium in a banana than I would if i stayed here my whole life. I agree with you, educating the public to what the real risks are and how likely they are to happen would be something thats needed before commercial adoption could take place. It seems like ordinary people get their nuclear physics 101 information from Godzilla! If only they were as educated in how many cases of asthma or lung cancer coal/diesel cause. Maybe they (and you) would see Nuclear as a blessing.
The nuclear power of a ship is vastly different to weapons-grade nuclear fuel. It's also not something you can saws-all into and steal. For one, you would quickly get sick. If Captain Philips had nuclear fuel, he could have told told the pirates "in there", and they wouldn't have even reached the shores riding a dingy with fuel rods by their ankles. I read a story not to long ago about Cobalt 60 thieves that authorities said they would just wait by radiation treatment centers for the sick bandits to arrive.
No, I think if there is going to be a theft from a cruise ship of reactor fuel, it would have to be a very highly skilled robbery, of the sort only a nation-state could execute. OR... we could give Steven Segal free voyages for life and not worry about it at al!
I don't know the exact numbers nor can I site any sources, but my gut feeling is that you are incorrect sir. I believe properly enacted nuclear propulsion for >500ft ships could prove economical when the ships are high-use ships (oil tankers, cargo, cruise). The amount of fuel burned must end up being a huge cost. There are few reasons I believe this:
1. The reactor industry would become more competitive with companies that have to find cost-savings, because today's customers don't care about profit, as you pointed out, so the prices are inflated because the existing market will bear a high price.
2. The additional demand will drive economies of scale in the reactor production, fueling, and maintenance driving down cost and creating a vibrant market.
3. There is a hidden cost in the environmental impact that running these pollutant engines and their dirty fuel has to the civilization beyond those born by the consumers of the fuel and its direct price.
4. The fluctuating market price for that fuel is going to dictate its cost to you, the shipping company, because its not feasible to retool the asset to consume something else like hydrogen without basically ripping half the ship apart. The market in 20 years time may have vastly different cost for this fuel, especially if emissions regulations force the companies to stiff fines. Nuclear fuel on the other hand is good for that 20 year time frame, and although there is a problem with the spent fuel today, its a known cost, and in 20 years there may be practical applications for that depleted fuel rod.
I don't think there are much commercial uses for it but certainly you could burn it in a facility with the proper equipment to capture or treat the pollutants prior to shoving them up a smoke stack. There are probably some lubricants for things like the giant tunnel boreing machine that this could be used for, or other applications where its specific properties might come in handy, I can't think of any. For a more detailed description: see Wikipedia, which has a uses section.
I've read a while back that these large ships consume the bottom of the fractional distiller for fuel. Musically most of the sodium is removed from refined oil products and what these ships kindly refer to as diesel is really "bumper" fuel, or refinery fuel. It's cheaper, and harder to process. It's the remains of the fractional distiller, in the refinery, which refiners also use to as refinery fuel. The problem these ships really cause is the levels of sodium dioxide emissions due to the concentration of excess salts left behind in the refining process.
This is a first world problem, and it has a first world solution. There's a reason commercial mega-ships are so much worse than even larger military mega-ships: nuclear power. There's no reason at all a ship of this size shouldn't have a reactor for its fuel. There are no safety precautions that aren't acceptable for the loss of a reactor that are acceptable for the loss of 8000 souls, so safety shouldn't be an issue.
We can run reactors in the confines of a submarine, in aircraft carriers, and on large combat ships, and it's arguable that a military ship is more at risk than a commercial ship, since it will be actively engaged in combat! When anti-nuclear pundits win, the environment loses. And so does the company, since it would be cheaper in the long run, certainly in a period time for which this ship will operate.
Indians pay no Federal Income Tax (read my lips). Oh yeah, it's deducted from their pay, but they get it all back when they file
Indians are in fact required to pay Federal Taxes, they are not required to pay into social security (SSID)because they can not get it when they retire. Their work visas simply expire since they no longer hold a job and return to India or apply for permanent residency.
Indians are willing to live 4+ in a two-bedroom apartment; are you willing to compete with them on that? Ever been to Mumbai, India? Like pooping in the street? That's what Americans are competing against.
Clearly you have not since they don't live like that and haven't for a long time. Do you really think companies are hiring some homeless indian with an OLPC laptop hooked up to a car battery living in the gutter without the means to pay for a haircut or toiletries? Of course you don't, but your too much of an ass much to know better. Travel to Hyderabad and see who your competition is, and how they compete with you. But they have a right to compete with you and are willing to do so, who are you to say "No! you must pay me more even though they are willing to live a less-costly lifestyle and accept less pay." Get your fucking entitled ass-wipes off my software prices / costs. I don't want to pay more for software in america because of ass-munch software developers costing us more economically than some place with greater freedom to hire whomever they want. We get the best value for our buck when our suppliers hire their best bang for their buck, no if's and's or but's.
Oh, your hamburger example is stupid too, plain and simple. All of the "chain" restaurants are so close in price as to not make any difference at all, and the better hamburger places tend to be more expensive. Amazingly, they're
still in business, too. You failed to consider or explain that subtle point.
You completely missed the point where he said "If two companies are selling comparable hamburgers". I mean, how could you miss that? It's how the sentence started! Are your reading skills that bad or do you black in and out, because if you do, you should really have that looked at. Re-read the posts you reply to so you don't look like an ass-munch who doesn't pay attention to details, like an Indian programmer does.
I'm not against Indians per se; it's a very bad system in the U.S. of A. right now. Please don't paint hard-working Americans like toe jam because they have dignity and refuse to stoop to that way of living to compete..
Then get out of the market. If you are truly uncompetitive and can't compete, then you should stop costing some poor company their valuable resources.
The comparison should be to iOS tablets, not Mac. And outsold Mac's in units? Dollars? Please. This means nothing. Isolate the Mac business from Apple, and the Chromebook business from Google, which business would you rather own?
Apple has yet to release a single Mac with Thunderbolt3, and they JUST released the first MacBook with Skylake. Clearly they are either so focused internally on another big project (like the 10 year anniversary iPhone or project Titan, or their mega-campus), or the macs we are going to see at WWDC2016 are going to be a major refresh for the entire line. If it's the latter, the sales are typical of Apple's sales cycle when a refresh is imminent. Having a small number of options (just as Apple products do) makes consumers very aware of the time in the cycle of their product, so wait for release before buying. You can go buy a recently released Chromebook from SOMEBODY, almost always. There are so many options.
Don't get me wrong, Chromebooks are great. They serve a wide market and for those who need a basic computer and would rather have a laptop form factor vs a tablet or iPad, but comparing sales to a Mac is completely irrelevant. Do iPhones outsell Windows? Yes but who cares? It's just as irrelevant when Lenovo sells more 2U servers than Apple do Macs.
That's practically impossible. Apple is worth about 1/2 it's price in actual cash. Warren Buffet spend 500 million on someone else's 500 million. And even if apple never sold another iPhone, they would have to literally burn quite a lot of cash to lose that kind of value.
Bars and everyone else. With less cost to travel, more discretionary spending will be available for all of us to spend elsewhere. There will be some industry that gets its lunch eaten, like traffic and parking enforcement, for-pay parking space, direct-to-consumer auto insurance, and the like; but this will be a boon to other industries (trucking, parcel delivery, taxi services, and travel lodging).
What will really be interesting is to see how SDCs perform optomally, if the right speed is really higher than HDCs, due to the drafting effects they can achieve over us. I think another thing that we have to think about as this catches on (and it certainly will, people never away from easier and more useful tech), is how roads may be different 20-30 years from now.
If SDCs flat-out replace HDCs, then roads may not need to be lit at night (assuming LIDAR or similar prevails), or paint may go away in favor of magnetic markers or something similar.
This is all a silly topic to discuss (Insurance). Nothing at all has to change from the current situation. Today, if you are driving a vehicle and it fails (like the linkage between the steering wheel and the power-steering unit) causing injury to 3rd parties, then the manufacturer or the garage can be at fault, and if the costs are high (like loss of life), then your insurance company or the victims will likely seek compensation from the manufacturer, or the garage that most recently worked on the vehicle. In the case of these very sophisticated cars with lives in their silicon hands, I'd imagine all major maintenance become the manufacturer's purview. Either way, the party ultimately responsible has to shoulder the blame, and the cost.
In the case of autonomous cars, if the equipment fails, it will be the equipment manufacturers fault, just like GM's ignition switch. If the error was caused by someone jay-walking, they will be at fault. If the error was caused by the driver commanding the vehicle to do something unsafe, then they are at fault.
The only thing I see changing is the cost of that insurance for the general public, since the miles driven where users are in control will drop substantially, as will the cost of damages. The cost of insurance for the manufacturers will increase, but not enough to be as expensive as car insurance is today, since overall, lower damages will lead to lower costs for those companies, and competition is still fierce.
Like self serve banks, (ATM), self serve post (email), and just about every other fastet of technology we have created. Sure, many industries will be disrupted, jobs moved from the labor economy to the tech economy, and such... But with one of the two large costs of transportation (the other being energy) going away, moving things will become much cheaper, and so everything else will become just as much cheaper, to the benefit of consumption.
I'm waiting to see what comes out this year. That, and there aren't any other laptops that have what I want. Plus I remember when comparing, nothing has the feel of apple's trackpads, not by a mile.
Slashdot Mirror
Irrespective. Construction or not, it's still a right-of-access issue. And the public have a right of access down a publicly funded road.
What are you talking about? Using an app while driving = becoming Darwinized? If you can't seriously drive 35MPh while getting directions from waze that help you on your journey, I'm sorry you must be terribly handicapped. Most humans are capable of managing to wait for the upcoming turn direction while operating a motor vehicle at residential speeds, FYI.
Are you all fucking nuts?
Those roads do not belong to property owners, residents, or communities (unless hey are private and gated). They belong to the tax-paying public, the owners are those users driving down the road!
Those cars are getting better gas mileage not sitting in bumper to bumper traffic.
Those users can get home faster to their families, and so can you since you can drive through some other neighborhoods when traffic backs up.
The big roads will be a bit clearer if emergency personnel need to get through traffic to save a life.
If you want the "sanctity" of your own neighborhood, go buy property in a gated community with HOA fees, so you own a part of the street you and your fucking neighbors are demand exclusive rights to. Now get off my lawn!
echo "myreallysecurepasswordforemail" | md5
I know, this is stupid. Making calls? Making video calls? Ever see 2001: A space odyssey? Im sure there are older examples of video calling. Isn't that prior art? What the fuck?
/rant
These patents needs to be invalidated, patents should last for a decade at the most. If you can't make money on the idea in a decade, and gain enough marketshare to fund further R&D, get out of capitalism.
But seriously, why are these trivial patents getting through our system with so much prior art and established methods already common knowledge. No Corydoras Technologies, you did not invent the video phone, nor did you tell Apple how its done.
Again, this is either Mia-information or out-dated technology. Positive coefficient reactors are miles safer than the concrete-block rod-fueled HWR we have been installing in the past, and are running for years beyond spec. Newer designs are safer specifically because they can't melt down. Let me explain
In old-style reactors you had to do something to more, to slow down the reaction. Specifically (in Chernobyl's case), you had to insert graphene rods into the core at varying depths to control the rate of reaction. Let the reaction run to high, and the water used to conduct the heat away turns to steam and throws the graphene rods out like a potato gun. That's called a negative coefficient. You have to do something positive (push rods in) to achieve something negative (slow down or stop the reaction).
In new reactions, there is a positive coefficient, so you have to do something to get something. In a pebble-bed reactor, you have to flood the bed with gas (preferably helium). Helium does not have the embrittlement risk to pipes and structures. And there are in fact not really pipes in the core, the space between the baseball sized pebbles forms the conduit. Also helium is not as potent a neutron absorber as water, so there is less comtaminated waste.
The new generation IV reactors are much safer, and simpler than their older brethren and that's where most of the complexity and cost comes from, the safety systems inherent in the cooling systems. That's where Fukushima failed. It had a negative coefficient, because we couldn't cool it down, it's reaction speed increased. In a PBR, the hotter it gets, the slower it reacts, cooling itself naturally and stopping the reaction without the introduction of additional neutrons. It's a positive feedback loop. It's what these ships should have, and the mis-education or mindset from the 60's is what keeps the stigma around, and the pollution from coal and diesel in the air.
Don't they not use uranium for propulsion anymore? I'm not sure what the state of the art is now-a-days, but you are assuming 30 year old HWR reactors, when there have been many innovations in the technology, like positive co-efficient designs, pebble-bed reactors who's fuel is in spherical pebbles, etc. I know you can enrich the fuel as well as create more in breeder reactors. That ensures a supply if your using anything other than natturally occruing U235
The operative word in that post was COULD. Things could be that way if we made those changes. I believe a viable low-maintenance reactor for commercial use would yield those benefits.
The real cost of a petrochemical navy is absurdly higher than a nuclear one. Just check out:
1. The cost of ensuring its supply (through wars)
2. The fluctuation in real cost of fuel prices over the lifespan of the engine
3. The environmental cost and irrecoverable damage to the planet
4. The increase in respiratory illnesses incident rate vs the relatively nonexistent incident rate related to nuclear energy. More on this:
Nuclear power, when compared with just about every other fuel on earth, has a vastly lower injury, death, and sickness rating, even with Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3-Mile. The safety is what makes the cost astronomical, not the science. Nuclear power is the fuel of the sun, the earth, and the source of all of life's energy. Even solar power has a higher deaths per gigawatt than nuclear. This an educational problem, not a practical, economical, or scientific one.
Its too bad the first experience humans had with nuclear power was via WMD, and not civilian applications. We would be living in a very different world today if we first commercialized the technology before we blew up Japan with it.
First off, the Costa Concordia accident wouldn't have had a radiation leakage, because those reactors are designed to withstand ship-to-ship missile impacts, and are so heavily encased, that running aground at full speed would not -- and should not -- penetrate the reactor. That is something that the design should absolutely account for.
I believe that reactors would run with less manpower than an engine, and be a fairly autonomous machine, with maybe two crew onboard to maintain it. You don't have to change the lubrication, there are less moving parts, you can store the energy produced, and you only have to refuel every other decade.
Commercial operations don't use nuclear power due to regulation and public perception.
I live 10 miles from a nuclear power station, and I get more radiation from eating the potassium in a banana than I would if i stayed here my whole life. I agree with you, educating the public to what the real risks are and how likely they are to happen would be something thats needed before commercial adoption could take place. It seems like ordinary people get their nuclear physics 101 information from Godzilla! If only they were as educated in how many cases of asthma or lung cancer coal/diesel cause. Maybe they (and you) would see Nuclear as a blessing.
The nuclear power of a ship is vastly different to weapons-grade nuclear fuel. It's also not something you can saws-all into and steal. For one, you would quickly get sick. If Captain Philips had nuclear fuel, he could have told told the pirates "in there", and they wouldn't have even reached the shores riding a dingy with fuel rods by their ankles. I read a story not to long ago about Cobalt 60 thieves that authorities said they would just wait by radiation treatment centers for the sick bandits to arrive.
No, I think if there is going to be a theft from a cruise ship of reactor fuel, it would have to be a very highly skilled robbery, of the sort only a nation-state could execute. OR... we could give Steven Segal free voyages for life and not worry about it at al!
The stigma of reactors. It's a risk the lay-person does not quite comprehend.
I don't know the exact numbers nor can I site any sources, but my gut feeling is that you are incorrect sir. I believe properly enacted nuclear propulsion for >500ft ships could prove economical when the ships are high-use ships (oil tankers, cargo, cruise). The amount of fuel burned must end up being a huge cost. There are few reasons I believe this:
1. The reactor industry would become more competitive with companies that have to find cost-savings, because today's customers don't care about profit, as you pointed out, so the prices are inflated because the existing market will bear a high price.
2. The additional demand will drive economies of scale in the reactor production, fueling, and maintenance driving down cost and creating a vibrant market.
3. There is a hidden cost in the environmental impact that running these pollutant engines and their dirty fuel has to the civilization beyond those born by the consumers of the fuel and its direct price.
4. The fluctuating market price for that fuel is going to dictate its cost to you, the shipping company, because its not feasible to retool the asset to consume something else like hydrogen without basically ripping half the ship apart. The market in 20 years time may have vastly different cost for this fuel, especially if emissions regulations force the companies to stiff fines. Nuclear fuel on the other hand is good for that 20 year time frame, and although there is a problem with the spent fuel today, its a known cost, and in 20 years there may be practical applications for that depleted fuel rod.
I don't think there are much commercial uses for it but certainly you could burn it in a facility with the proper equipment to capture or treat the pollutants prior to shoving them up a smoke stack. There are probably some lubricants for things like the giant tunnel boreing machine that this could be used for, or other applications where its specific properties might come in handy, I can't think of any. For a more detailed description: see Wikipedia, which has a uses section.
Yeah, but the ship doesn't do 60mph, so it's not equivalent. You have to look at fuel-miles/person not not fuel-time/person.
I've read a while back that these large ships consume the bottom of the fractional distiller for fuel. Musically most of the sodium is removed from refined oil products and what these ships kindly refer to as diesel is really "bumper" fuel, or refinery fuel. It's cheaper, and harder to process. It's the remains of the fractional distiller, in the refinery, which refiners also use to as refinery fuel. The problem these ships really cause is the levels of sodium dioxide emissions due to the concentration of excess salts left behind in the refining process.
This is a first world problem, and it has a first world solution. There's a reason commercial mega-ships are so much worse than even larger military mega-ships: nuclear power. There's no reason at all a ship of this size shouldn't have a reactor for its fuel. There are no safety precautions that aren't acceptable for the loss of a reactor that are acceptable for the loss of 8000 souls, so safety shouldn't be an issue.
We can run reactors in the confines of a submarine, in aircraft carriers, and on large combat ships, and it's arguable that a military ship is more at risk than a commercial ship, since it will be actively engaged in combat! When anti-nuclear pundits win, the environment loses. And so does the company, since it would be cheaper in the long run, certainly in a period time for which this ship will operate.
Indians pay no Federal Income Tax (read my lips). Oh yeah, it's deducted from their pay, but they get it all back when they file
Indians are in fact required to pay Federal Taxes, they are not required to pay into social security (SSID)because they can not get it when they retire. Their work visas simply expire since they no longer hold a job and return to India or apply for permanent residency.
Clearly you have not since they don't live like that and haven't for a long time. Do you really think companies are hiring some homeless indian with an OLPC laptop hooked up to a car battery living in the gutter without the means to pay for a haircut or toiletries? Of course you don't, but your too much of an ass much to know better. Travel to Hyderabad and see who your competition is, and how they compete with you. But they have a right to compete with you and are willing to do so, who are you to say "No! you must pay me more even though they are willing to live a less-costly lifestyle and accept less pay." Get your fucking entitled ass-wipes off my software prices / costs. I don't want to pay more for software in america because of ass-munch software developers costing us more economically than some place with greater freedom to hire whomever they want. We get the best value for our buck when our suppliers hire their best bang for their buck, no if's and's or but's.
You completely missed the point where he said "If two companies are selling comparable hamburgers". I mean, how could you miss that? It's how the sentence started! Are your reading skills that bad or do you black in and out, because if you do, you should really have that looked at. Re-read the posts you reply to so you don't look like an ass-munch who doesn't pay attention to details, like an Indian programmer does.
Then get out of the market. If you are truly uncompetitive and can't compete, then you should stop costing some poor company their valuable resources.
-- A fourth generation American programmer
You have a really specific requirement. Wouldn't OpenCL work for the ATI variants? Does CUDA do work that OpenCL doesn't support? I'm curious
The comparison should be to iOS tablets, not Mac. And outsold Mac's in units? Dollars? Please. This means nothing. Isolate the Mac business from Apple, and the Chromebook business from Google, which business would you rather own? Apple has yet to release a single Mac with Thunderbolt3, and they JUST released the first MacBook with Skylake. Clearly they are either so focused internally on another big project (like the 10 year anniversary iPhone or project Titan, or their mega-campus), or the macs we are going to see at WWDC2016 are going to be a major refresh for the entire line. If it's the latter, the sales are typical of Apple's sales cycle when a refresh is imminent. Having a small number of options (just as Apple products do) makes consumers very aware of the time in the cycle of their product, so wait for release before buying. You can go buy a recently released Chromebook from SOMEBODY, almost always. There are so many options. Don't get me wrong, Chromebooks are great. They serve a wide market and for those who need a basic computer and would rather have a laptop form factor vs a tablet or iPad, but comparing sales to a Mac is completely irrelevant. Do iPhones outsell Windows? Yes but who cares? It's just as irrelevant when Lenovo sells more 2U servers than Apple do Macs.
That's practically impossible. Apple is worth about 1/2 it's price in actual cash. Warren Buffet spend 500 million on someone else's 500 million. And even if apple never sold another iPhone, they would have to literally burn quite a lot of cash to lose that kind of value.
Bars and everyone else. With less cost to travel, more discretionary spending will be available for all of us to spend elsewhere. There will be some industry that gets its lunch eaten, like traffic and parking enforcement, for-pay parking space, direct-to-consumer auto insurance, and the like; but this will be a boon to other industries (trucking, parcel delivery, taxi services, and travel lodging).
What will really be interesting is to see how SDCs perform optomally, if the right speed is really higher than HDCs, due to the drafting effects they can achieve over us. I think another thing that we have to think about as this catches on (and it certainly will, people never away from easier and more useful tech), is how roads may be different 20-30 years from now.
If SDCs flat-out replace HDCs, then roads may not need to be lit at night (assuming LIDAR or similar prevails), or paint may go away in favor of magnetic markers or something similar.
This is all a silly topic to discuss (Insurance). Nothing at all has to change from the current situation. Today, if you are driving a vehicle and it fails (like the linkage between the steering wheel and the power-steering unit) causing injury to 3rd parties, then the manufacturer or the garage can be at fault, and if the costs are high (like loss of life), then your insurance company or the victims will likely seek compensation from the manufacturer, or the garage that most recently worked on the vehicle. In the case of these very sophisticated cars with lives in their silicon hands, I'd imagine all major maintenance become the manufacturer's purview. Either way, the party ultimately responsible has to shoulder the blame, and the cost.
In the case of autonomous cars, if the equipment fails, it will be the equipment manufacturers fault, just like GM's ignition switch. If the error was caused by someone jay-walking, they will be at fault. If the error was caused by the driver commanding the vehicle to do something unsafe, then they are at fault.
The only thing I see changing is the cost of that insurance for the general public, since the miles driven where users are in control will drop substantially, as will the cost of damages. The cost of insurance for the manufacturers will increase, but not enough to be as expensive as car insurance is today, since overall, lower damages will lead to lower costs for those companies, and competition is still fierce.
Like self serve banks, (ATM), self serve post (email), and just about every other fastet of technology we have created. Sure, many industries will be disrupted, jobs moved from the labor economy to the tech economy, and such... But with one of the two large costs of transportation (the other being energy) going away, moving things will become much cheaper, and so everything else will become just as much cheaper, to the benefit of consumption.
I'm waiting to see what comes out this year. That, and there aren't any other laptops that have what I want. Plus I remember when comparing, nothing has the feel of apple's trackpads, not by a mile.