There have actually been a few cases that have made it through the courts that apply “employee” status based on how the company treats the worker rather than how they’re paid.

Especially in cases where the worker is on long-term assignment somewhere like Google.

A lot of science fiction writers try to address the problem of time when humanity becomes a space-faring race. Star Trek has the idea of a “Stardate” and instructed the script writers to just fucking make it up,

For example, 1313.5 is twelve o’clock noon of one day and 1314.5 would be noon of the next day. Each percentage point (sic) is roughly equivalent to one-tenth of one day. The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don’t worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts. Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode."

Meanwhile, Asimov in the Robots / Foundation universe, everyone still uses the idea of a 365-day / 24-hour day “year”, even if no one remembers Earth (except a R. Daneel Olivaw and a few others).

And Kim Stanley Robinson in his Mars trilogy does what OP notes – Martian years are longer, and the societies diverge pretty rapidly, within a generation, for a whole host of reasons.

From the article, this looks like it’s for GM’s “Cruise” program, which is already out there in limited scope in a couple cities. It’s aself-driving car service limited to a small area of San Francisco and… I want to say Austin?

They’re already operating vehicles that are essentially “self-driving” now. This is about rolling out a new class of vehicle using the same technology, but without the human controls.

I don’t know a lot about the service, or what, exactly it does, but I suspect it works well because the area the vehicles operate in is extremely limited and the vehicles can have an incredibly detailed, and up-to-date map of that area. I’d also wager the area selected is free of most obstacles and has only one type of terrain, i.e., “downtown low-speed streets” or similar.

That said, I can’t imagine the NTSHA will allow a vehicle on the road without any sort of manual emergency control mechanism in place. Though, it may be very rudimentary, like others have suggested, a joystick and a throttle/brake intended to get the vehicle somewhere safe so people can get out.

It’s okay to say “No” to two things at the same time without having to choose one or the other.

For fuck’s sake, this article is nothing but outrage bait. Wired has gone to shit.

I have a whole protocol for this.

You got a 5-count once there’s no one in front of you to go. Then you get a quick tap.

Then you get a 2-count to start moving. Then you get a double tap.

Then you get another 2-count. If you haven’t started moving by now, you get 1 tap every second until you fucking move for the love of fuck just fucking GO jesus tap-dancing christ in a Bethlaham drag show GO!!

Let’s not forget the Saudi royal family. They really hate social media.

Yes, this is called regulatory capture.

Capitalism is great, but it absolutely must be tempered by regulation.

The problem comes when the capitalist gains influence over the regulator, aka, regulatory capture.

As an Xbox junkie, I want more stupid games on the Xbox platform.

But even I can recognize how bad this is for the industry.

It was invite only for too long, and then, suddenly, it was required for everything Google.

By all accounts, carbon fiber doesn’t “strain”. It does its thing great right up until it fails catastrophically.