OOTS #1172 - The Discussion Thread

[Fish]

Just to be absolutely clear, I agree with this 100%. Just because I don't expect a resolution in my remaining lifetime, that doesn't mean I think we should stop trying. The way I see it, these "permanently 20 years in the future" developments are in fact waiting for a key unknown breakthrough - possibly in a different field entirely...

Modestly, I think linguistics is that field. Current language models are long on dubious statistics and short on grammatical modeling and semantic world modeling (though we are building tons of ontological models). What we need is a way to teach a computer what things in the world are and what is logically entailed by those definitions, so it can better identify what it’s looking at and why its decisions are important. Machine Learning is too much of a black box, I feel (though I’m no expert and willing to be proved wrong).

[Dion]

immediate response to "oh, there's a parking space right there, take it, I'll walk the rest of the way" aren't going to be solved anytime soon

Your car will drop you off wherever you like, and then it will form a traffic jam with other self driving cars (so they don’t have to pay parking or use too much battery when nobody is going anywhere) until you’re ready to be picked up.

And no. For once, I’m not joking at all.

[D.One]

You know that the Batmobile already does that, presumably Tim installed it, though it was definitely there by the time Richard Grayson (self censoring because what people call him gets bleeped out) became Batman.

Nightwing bleeped out? Or was it Robin?

[hamishspence]

You know that the Batmobile already does that, presumably Tim installed it, though it was definitely there by the time Richard Grayson (self censoring because what people call him gets bleeped out) became Batman.

You are allowed to Circumvent The Filter for these purposes:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ambiguous-word

[CriticalFailure]

I don't think it's "permanently 20 years in the future." There are a lot of companies aggressively going after it right now which are making a lot of progress in terms of responding to road conditions. The progression from cruise control to follow-to-stop cruise control to the various automated prototypes out there now is huge.

[Schroeswald]

You are allowed to Circumvent The Filter for these purposes:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ambiguous-word

I didn't even think that trying to say D-i-c-k Grayson would be banned, I just figured it would be easier to just write out Richard and explain why.

[GregTD]

Precisely. The case of driving from distribution center A to distribution center B half a continent away is already solved. Highways present little challenges to decision making, by design, so I do expect self-driving long-distance haul to be put on the roads relatively soon, because it's expensive to pay someone to drive for a week at a time, and the route, hazards, and the like are well-known and dealt with already. A hybrid self-driving with optional remote control would probably be all it takes.

On the other hand, driving in cities, accepting weird commands like "I just want to wander through picturesque lands", or immediate response to "oh, there's a parking space right there, take it, I'll walk the rest of the way" aren't going to be solved anytime soon.

Grey Wolf

You're not just paying someone to drive the truck

You're paying someone to check the tie-downs, deal with problems, and provide security, just off the top of my head. Pretty sure you don't have robots that can handle all that in the field.

Quick question: what's the difference between your version of "this is what a trucker does", and "simply dropping the shipping container on a train and letting it bring your goods close to the final destination before a local finishes the trip"?

I don't see much difference. Which means if your proposal was economically viable, we'd be seeing a lot more goods going by train

[GreatWyrmGold]

Spoiler: Vehicular Technology

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Spoiler: Non-Self-Service Gas Stations

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Ostensibly, the ban here in Oregon was originally put in place in 1951 over fears of untrained people spilling fuel.

Speaking as someone who's been pumping gas since before he could drive, I find that amusing.

edit: as someone who sells gas station parts in Colorado. I'm very positive some people shouldn't pump their own gas. Those people should also not be driving at all. You wouldn't believe how much I have to charge people to replace hoses and nozzles when people drive off.

Oh, right. I always forget to account for how many people act like utter buffoons. (Which seems to be the case for a lot of people in the self-driving car discussion, but I digress.)

Spoiler: Self-Driving Cars

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With a car robot, you are supposed to be able to do that, but in reality, you can't. When the computer fails, it cannot fail safe, and therefore any major failure is a life critical failure.

Why?

Don't get me wrong, car robots are the next step on the path to giant mecha, which are inherently good, but there's some serious problems with the current iteration of the technology and pretending otherwise can and does cause innocent bystanders harm.

There are some serious problems with the current iteration of humans driving cars, and pretending otherwise can and does cause innocent bystanders harm.

Robots can be hacked
But humans can get drunk

Q.E.D.

If you're willing to expand your definition of "hacked" to include anything with similar results regardless of methodology, it's easier to hack a human than a computer. Most computer systems are immune to bribes, for instance. (Nobody lets them sign up for Netflix accounts.) Humans also have a weird habit of hacking themselves, either intentionally (getting drunk) or accidentally (having a bad day).

As for the self-driving question: ask Elaine Herzberg for her opinion.

Oh wait, you can't. Never mind.

Should we also ask the opinion of the tens of thousands of people who die to human-driven automobile accidents every year, in the USA alone?
Nobody's said self-driving cars are perfect. Why do people keep using "But sometimes people die, hah!" as a gotcha argument?

Actually wouldn't it be easier to make public transport self-driving? They're much more regulated.

Not really. Making a self-driving vehicle drive itself is pretty much the same challenge whatever you're driving it for, assuming the vehicle in question is held the same. (I'm guessing bulky busses are some of the trickier vehicles to automate, BTW.) Self-driving automobiles also require someone to tell the car when to start going places; for cars, this is the passenger, but public transport would presumably need someone to sit in front and tell the bus when everyone's onboard, which doesn't eliminate the point of a self-driving bus, but it does reduce its usefulness.
Also, small trains are probably a better public transport option anyway.

Your car will drop you off wherever you like, and then it will form a traffic jam with other self driving cars (so they don’t have to pay parking or use too much battery when nobody is going anywhere) until you’re ready to be picked up.

And no. For once, I’m not joking at all.

I'm trying to figure out what you're suggesting. That cars will be programmed to just sit in the middle of the road, waiting for their passengers to get back in the car? I could see that if we were trying to make them drive as well as humans, but we're aiming to make cars that drive better than we do!

Spoiler: MAXplanes

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ETA: I didn't quote either because I'm at work, and youtube and twitter searching is less-than-easy and NSFW.

Considering the quality of citations in this debate, I wasn't academically insulted that you didn't cite your sources. I was just curious if we'd all been drawing from the same source.

I'm not claiming to understand the entire process that went into that design decision. I'm just saying it seems crazy to me that their design process allowed for the kind of changes that were made, to be made, without additional oversight and review required for approval. I believe your explanation for why those decisions were made, I was just saying I found it crazy that their process and regulatory bodies both allowed the specific system through without additional oversight.

As I understand it, and I don't, the system they came up with was the best system they could create within a series of constraints set in place by contracts and what pilots would legally be considered to already be trained on. So blame the constraints, not the oversight.

(You can even say “they crashed because of the failures of capitalism”, but at that point you’re so far away from an actual actionable problem that I can’t see how it’s useful to say that.)

When enough problems can be traced back to "the failures of capitalism," it's probably worth examining those failures and dealing with the problems at their root rather than at the source. It's like the difference between driving off orc raids one at a time versus attacking the war-chief and dispersing the entire army at once. One can be done immediately and easily, but the other stops similar problems from arising in the future.
Of course, it does raise the possibility of having to deal with a tribe of kobolds who were previously enslaved by the orcs and now have no way to survive but to start occupying granaries or robbing markets, but if our plan to drive out the orcs (which here represents economic reform) was crafted with enough care, we should be able to make the kobolds less dangerous to the public good than the orcs were.

Spoiler: Some stick comic?

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Spoiler: The IFCC

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The fiends also clearly don't want the world to get destroyed. After the previous gate blew up, they mentioned they await the race for the last gate.

Also, their plans go off the rails if their memories get erased. It's not clear how much they know about the history of the worlds, but they know the Gates are important, so they presumably have some inkling of a prior world none of their superiors remembers.

I'm still a bit confused by people thinking the IFCC have this factored into their plans at all.

If there's anyone revealed in the comic thus far who could pull off an "Exactly as planned" moment and have people believe it, it would be the IFCC. (The gods seem to scatterbrained, disunified, and tied up by divine law to pull it off; the Oracle has the power, but doesn't seem interested in schemes that go beyond petty revenge and coming back to life.)
Mind, I personally don't think the IFCC is Light-Yagami-ing everything, but I can see why people might think they were.

Spoiler: Dvalin's Court Procedures

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We've been discussing this "will of the council" thing since Dvalin spoke about it many strips ago. No decisive conclusions have been achieved, with some passionate arguments from both sides.

The "will of the council" may be "the true desires of the council members' hearts, the desires they would express if they weren't under domination", or "the result of the council vote, performed under the established protocols" (regardless if any of the council members were under magical control, blackmail, drug effects or just in a bad mood day).

I have my preference, but I'll refrain to bring it here, for the sake of avoiding this fight all over again.

I'm inclined to think it's the second option, simply because that fits with the themes established thus far in this arc. Honor versus reason, with half-baked bureaucracy full of loopholes you could ride a warhorse through being taken as the natural end result of a society built on honor.

Why would direct observation be considered interference?

The Observer Effect
Imagine you were at the poll, trying to decide whether to re-elect the mayoral incumbent. Now imagine that the mayor was watching you vote. Could that affect your choice? Yes, this isn't quite the same, but there are similarities. Many democratic systems consider blind voting (ie, nobody knows who voted what) to be a critical tool in avoiding voter coercion, which applies here since Dvalin doesn't want to coerce his voters; he tallies the votes and lets people go free.
Or if that's too specific and has too many specific places where it doesn't line up with the council situation, imagine if your coworkers were voting on something at work. Would you vote differently if your boss was watching the discussions?

It's not even a desperate moment. It's a "the heroes save the day" moment. Nothing desperate is actually happening aside from "oh no, Durkon is stoned for the next half hour".

There is a non-zero chance that some vote happening at this council ends in a tie that needs to be resolved elsewhere, forcing Durkon to wait weeks for the tiebreaker vote to be resolved and the council session to be formally adjourned.

For some reason this makes me wonder if the dwarves thought to make illegal the casting of Break Enchantment, Stone-to-Flesh, etc on someone petrified by the inner chamber enchantments. Or does a petrified person still count as a creature?

It would make sense, in the same way that breaking someone out of their holding cell before trial is illegal. Which means that there's at least a one-in-three chance that no such law exists.

But I have a quibble with this comic: It shakes my suspension of disbelief, because there is no way in Hel that a committee meeting would ever move that quickly. They get the question presented to them and already they're making the final vote? This is far too efficient.

It would help rub in the bureaucracy motif, but it would also mess with the pacing and what's clearly the climactic moment of the book (even if we just spent one page on a time-skip and some red tape jokes). I'm not sure the trade-off would be worth it.

Spoiler: Drop The Hammer!

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I have a theory about something I think people are overlooking. While I agree about Durkon's hammer returning and making another hole in the roof, what are the chances that BEFORE it returns, it ends up hitting something else, say a certain vessel the Order has forgotten about?

Bandana: "...I wonder what the odds are this ain't related to Roy's gang."

I'm saying that the hammer might hit the ship by accident and cause it to crash. Something has to happen to complicate the Order getting to the Kraggor's Tomb.

I think that thing is called Xykon.

The reasoning being that with Durkon not being able to catch it the hammer is just going to keep flying in large ovals?

I'm pretty sure there was a Zelda game whose boomerang could be tricked into doing a 2D screen-wrapping version of that trick. I don't think the hammer was programmed on a limited budget and 8-bit hardware, though...

A returning hammer tends not to harm the thrower when it comes back, so it likely magically decelerates as it gets close.

The thrower is usually able to catch the hammer when it comes back.
I don't think this is a likely result (it has the same "obstacle that only exists to throw a temporary roadblock at the characters" vibe as hitting the Mechane, though with less D.E.M. required to solve it), but I don't think it's an illogical result. And it could definitely provide some last-minute levity via black humor, especially if he got a free sundae for his troubles.

If you were designing a returning hammer, what simple rules would you implement to deal with such common scenarios as (1) the thrower is dead, (2) the thrower no longer has hands (amputation, polymorph, …) (3) the thrower is no longer there (trapdoors, telephorts, …)? There are lots of ways a thrower could be unable to catch the hammer.

Depends on the design specs I was given and how skilled I was at the enchantment language available.

I would give the hammer a degree of sentience and then make it so it can beat up the enemy, and then let the Order of the Stick have five pets (Banjo, Mr. Scruffy, Blackwing, Bloodfeast and the hammer) :p.

That's a dancing warhammer, Schroeswald! We don't have the budget for that!

Any plan that relies on someone whose primary trait is unreliability is no plan at all.

Not if you're relying on their unreliability!

How about another alternative: All Dwarves start a civil war before the gods destroy the world, getting killed by each other in an honorable way. They would go to Valhalla instead of Hel...

Someone should suggest it.

"Dammit, Grag, you always suggest that."

Spoiler: Misc

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One of these days I'm gonna run a game where not spilling gasoline requires a skill check.
Everything will catch fire, knowing my group.

I know more than a couple of players who'd set things on fire on purpose if I used that rule...

You know that the Batmobile already does that, presumably Tim installed it, though it was definitely there by the time Richard Grayson (self censoring because what people call him gets bleeped out) became Batman.

...Why is 'Nightwing' bleeped?

[littlebum2002]

to maximize survivability the normal state needs to put the human in control, with automated systems available should the human fail.

Do you believe this about planes as well? Do you think we should go back to having pilots fly the plane for the entire trip, and just have the autopilot take over if the pilots mess up?

It just amazes me to think that there are still people who think that humans can actually do something as complex as driving better than a computer can. (I mean my step dad does, but I expect stuff like that from old people who don't understand what computers are capable of). I guess maybe it's because humans are so much better than computers at thinking fast, knowing what is the best thing to do in every possible scenario, and reacting almost instantly? Oh wait, those are all things that computers do infinitely better than humans.

I tend to agree, based on what I know of the ML models and methods employed elsewhere. If we’re going to move the needle on AI, we need to build a system that has enough understanding of the problem to consistently extrapolate correct solutions for situations not found in the training data.

The thing is, humans can't do that either Most humans don't know the "correct" way to behave in every single traffic scenario. All we know how to do is hit the brakes, and that is assuming that we are actually paying attention tot he road and not to our phones.

Sure, it will take a LONG time for driving AI to be perfect. But for it to be "slightly more perfect that a human"? We'll be there in no time, if we're not there already. It doesn't take much for a logic machine to be better than a glorified chimp at making complicated calculations quickly in a machine we have only used for 0.001% of our time on earth and therefore have no inherent evolutionary responses to know how to use.

[GregTD]

Your car will drop you off wherever you like, and then it will form a traffic jam with other self driving cars (so they don’t have to pay parking or use too much battery when nobody is going anywhere) until you’re ready to be picked up.

And no. For once, I’m not joking at all.

Too bad you've requested your car come pick you up, but it can't. it's stuck in a traffic jam.

Your car will drive to a nearby parking lot that charges a reasonable fee to let it sit there until you need it, with another reasonable fee for charging / fueling services.

Why a reasonable fee? Because outside of a few hell-hole cities, setting up a flat lot in an inconvenient place is cheap. And since all the facilities that provide the service will be advertising on the internet, to machines that can check out all the competition, nothing other than city granted monopolies will keep the prices excessive

[littlebum2002]

Too bad you've requested your car come pick you up, but it can't. it's stuck in a traffic jam.

Your car will drive to a nearby parking lot that charges a reasonable fee to let it sit there until you need it, with another reasonable fee for charging / fueling services.

Why a reasonable fee? Because outside of a few hell-hole cities, setting up a flat lot in an inconvenient place is cheap. And since all the facilities that provide the service will be advertising on the internet, to machines that can check out all the competition, nothing other than city granted monopolies will keep the prices excessive

Why would your car pay to sit in a lot when it can instead get paid to drive people around rideshare-style?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

You're not just paying someone to drive the truck

You're paying someone to check the tie-downs, deal with problems, and provide security, just off the top of my head. Pretty sure you don't have robots that can handle all that in the field.

Drivers are not there to "deal with security". If someone tries to rob a truck, they can call the police. A robot can do the same if someone breaks into the container. Tie down is done before the truck leaves. Problems can be dealt with remotely and, in the 1-in-a-1000 times it needs a human, send someone out. When 99% of trips are routine - and they are - a robot can handle it.

Quick question: what's the difference between your version of "this is what a trucker does", and "simply dropping the shipping container on a train and letting it bring your goods close to the final destination before a local finishes the trip"?

I don't see much difference. Which means if your proposal was economically viable, we'd be seeing a lot more goods going by train

We do see a lot of goods moving by train (In the US, some 2000 billion tons of freight-km per year). But trains don't go everywhere, and so even though they are an order of magnitude cheaper (~2.5 US cents per ton per km vs ~13 for trucks), they can only go where tracks are. (This information is brought to you by Wendover Productions)

And when of those 13 cents for trucks, somewhere between a third and half go to pay the driver, you can see that there is savings to be made, especially given that long haul truck drivers are harder and harder to hire.

Grey Wolf

[Fish]

The thing is, humans can't do that either Most humans don't know the "correct" way to behave in every single traffic scenario.

Yes, that is a problem when designing a decision system from a machine learning algorithm: you have to feed the computer a gold standard to learn from. If humans can only make the right decision 66% of the time, which you can read as “the gold standard designers couldn’t agree on what was Right in 34% of scenarios,” the computer won’t be any better than humans at it — and even if the computer was better, we have no way to measure it.

That sort of invalidates your premise that computers are always better at making decisions; if we always knew what was the right decision, we could build a perfect gold standard and could measure the computer’s decisions on an absolute scale; but as we don’t, we can’t. We don’t have any way to know whether computers exceed our ability. We can only measure things we have a reliable scale for (eg, fatalities, reaction speed, amount of data processed prior to making the decision, effect on travel time, and fuel efficiency, etc). The “goodness of fhe decision” scale isn’t one of them.

[The Aboleth]

Re-reading this latest comic, I actually have a question about how the characters are positioned.

In the first panel of the "page break" (the one where Durkon is throwing the hammer) he is to the left of Gontor; I'm assuming Gontor doesn't move until 5 panels later (in which he says, "Oh wait, I can move"), at which point he moves to the right. However, in the final panel Gontor is to Durkon's left, but based on how the panels were laid out prior to the final one, it seems like everyone is in the opposite position than they should be based on Gontor's movement away from the light.

The simplest explanation is that the "camera" moved in the final panel, and everyone is in their correct positions; still, it keeps throwing me off because my brain goes, "Wait, shouldn't Durkon be facing the other way?!" and/or "Wait, did Gontor walk around Durkon between the second-to-last panel and the final one?"

It's ultimately not a big deal; I'm just curious why Rich chose to "move" the camera for the final panel (assuming that's what occurred here). Maybe the next comic will reveal something that otherwise would have been spoiled had the "camera" been positioned like it was in the previous panels?

[Schroeswald]

Re-reading this latest comic, I actually have a question about how the characters are positioned.

In the first panel of the "page break" (the one where Durkon is throwing the hammer) he is to the left of Gontor; I'm assuming Gontor doesn't move until 5 panels later (in which he says, "Oh wait, I can move"), at which point he moves to the right. However, in the final panel Gontor is to Durkon's left, but based on how the panels were laid out prior to the final one, it seems like everyone is in the opposite position than they should be based on Gontor's movement away from the light.

The simplest explanation is that the "camera" moved in the final panel, and everyone is in their correct positions; still, it keeps throwing me off because my brain goes, "Wait, shouldn't Durkon be facing the other way?!" and/or "Wait, did Gontor walk around Durkon between the second-to-last panel and the final one?"

It's ultimately not a big deal; I'm just curious why Rich chose to "move" the camera for the final panel (assuming that's what occurred here). Maybe the next comic will reveal something that otherwise would have been spoiled had the "camera" been positioned like it was in the previous panels?

It looks better to have the dialogue on the left and the big interesting thing on the right due to how english speaking humans read.

[Doug Lampert]

Your car will drop you off wherever you like, and then it will form a traffic jam with other self driving cars (so they don’t have to pay parking or use too much battery when nobody is going anywhere) until you’re ready to be picked up.

And no. For once, I’m not joking at all.

This is not just a problem of self-driving cars, the other day the Red Sox radio announcers were claiming that traffic was much worse now that they have (they claimed) 20,000 Uber drivers in Boston all circling around waiting for a call.

Personally, I'm having difficulty with the concept of Boston traffic being WORSE than it was before.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

This is not just a problem of self-driving cars, the other day the Red Sox radio announcers were claiming that traffic was much worse now that they have (they claimed) 20,000 Uber drivers in Boston all circling around waiting for a call.

Personally, I'm having difficulty with the concept of Boston traffic being WORSE than it was before.

Personally, I'm having difficulty believing Boston didn't have taxis before Uber. Or that taxis in Boston didn't congregate near stadiums when they were about to finish the game. I've never been there, but once you've seen taxis congregating at airport exits, you know that "it's an easy place to pick up fares" is not a new invention.

Grey Wolf

[GregTD]

Drivers are not there to "deal with security". If someone tries to rob a truck, they can call the police. A robot can do the same if someone breaks into the container. Tie down is done before the truck leaves. Problems can be dealt with remotely and, in the 1-in-a-1000 times it needs a human, send someone out. When 99% of trips are routine - and they are - a robot can handle it.



We do see a lot of goods moving by train (In the US, some 2000 billion tons of freight-km per year). But trains don't go everywhere, and so even though they are an order of magnitude cheaper (~2.5 US cents per ton per km vs ~13 for trucks), they can only go where tracks are.

And when of those 13 cents for trucks, somewhere between a third and half go to pay the driver, you can see that there is savings to be made, especially given that long haul truck drivers are harder and harder to hire.

Grey Wolf

Wow.

1: We towed our car from CA to MN. After the first 12 hours driving, the tie-downs holding the car tires to the trailer had slipped off. I managed to stop this before there was an accident.

Truck drivers with tie-downs who don't want an accident are checking them on a regular basis, not just when they leave. 99% of trips are "routine" in that nothing happens that the human driver can't handle. That's FAR different from "nothing happens."

2: A truck driver can chase someone off. A truck driver provides an often superior second security alarm.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. If your sole security is provided by an alarm and the hope that cops will show up soon, you have no security.

3: We shipped 3 Conex containers from CA to MN. By truck. Not train. Because truck was cheaper. Pickup and dropoff points for train were both within 20 miles of our start and end points.

4: "Trains don't go everywhere"? Have you looked at a rail map of the US? They'll get you reasonably close to just about anywhere. And short haul truckers are much easier to find that long haul ones.

Yet long haul still carries a large chunk of freight.

5: How are you planning on fueling and servicing those trucks? you going to build a nationwide network of automated gas stations?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Wow.

{Scrubbed} I've given you my sources, you've given me personal anecdote.

Good bye.

Grey Wolf

[Doug Lampert]

Personally, I'm having difficulty believing Boston didn't have taxis before Uber. Or that taxis in Boston didn't congregate near stadiums when they were about to finish the game. I've never been there, but once you've seen taxis congregating at airport exits, you know that "it's an easy place to pick up fares" is not a new invention.

Grey Wolf

Boston definitely had taxis prior to Uber, they still do have actual taxi companies. I'll note that the airport pickup area is heavily regulated specifically to prevent the taxis from making it hard for other traffic. (Me, the MTA goes out of Logan, there is much to be said for transit if you are staying in the downtown area as opposed to going to the suburbs.)

They weren't talking about getting away from the game, they were specifically talking about ordinary traffic being worse. The context was introducing a new WEII radio show host who'd have the Governor as a guest in a couple of days and wanting him to ask if he could do something about this.

There are a lot of Uber drivers because of the relative ease of becoming one as opposed to an actual taxi company. Uber vehicles are not marked taxis, and probably do circle at Logan in areas that are supposed to be reserved for ordinary traffic rather than commercial pickup.

[Pampukin]

V and Elan are both inside the mountain. The hole opens directly to outside-the-mountain. It looks to me like there's no way they could do anything of the sort; at least, not at the moment.

V does have Passwall as a spell they can cast correct? Its what was used to escape the mummies in the pyramid. I still doubt any of the order is going to come save the day, this is Durkon´s and maybe Sidgi´s moment to shine. They also called it "plan b" so it seems its a pre planed strategy.

Sigdi: I taught Chuck Norris how to Chuck Norris.

Singlehandedly. (oh god what has this forum done to me?)

Same one 3.5 uses: If you can't catch it or have moved since you threw it, it falls to the ground in the square it was thrown from.

If that were the case, I would assume it falls through the hole and clunks on Durkon head, doing neglegible damage since I dont think a non attack weapon would count as magical for overcoming DR or as an attack at all. That is the reason why you cant throw a returning weapon and duck to hit something behind you.

[Fish]

1: We towed our car from CA to MN. After the first 12 hours driving, the tie-downs holding the car tires to the trailer had slipped off.

Business models change. Surely they could work out some kind of, I don’t know, mandatory check-in station along the highway where a human could visually inspect that kind of thing. It would be cheaper to hire a few inspectors to man those stations than to hire ten times that many drivers.

2: A truck driver can chase someone off.

This would not be a concern for a vehicle that doesn’t stop every 16 hours for the driver to get 8 hours of sleep.

That said, a driverless vehicle would be susceptible to other kinds of things that a human would never fall for — like catching it at a stop light and standing in front of it, so its safety systems prevent it from driving while your buddies loot it.

5: How are you planning on fueling and servicing those trucks? you going to build a nationwide network of automated gas stations?

Sure, but you don’t have to build a new network. I believe you’ll find that nationwide networks of gas stations for truckers already exist, minus the automation. If the business model supports it, the gas station owners will add the automation.

[Peelee]

That said, a driverless vehicle would be susceptible to other kinds of things that a human would never fall for — like catching it at a stop light and standing in front of it, so its safety systems prevent it from driving while your buddies loot it.

Even then you'd have to have a way to transport the stuff you want to take. Plus, remote locks that only unlock from the inside at set GPS coordinates would probably help. And given that a cab would be unnecessary if fully automated, they could either save gas money on less weight or reinforce the container for extra security if they wanted.

[Kantaki]

Singlehandedly. (oh god what has this forum done to me?)

It lead you to greatness.

Also, Sigdi did it with one hand tied behind her back.

[Fyraltari]

So pardon me if this was brought up before but:

All the dominated Elders already voted, yes? Unless they can take their vote back once undominated that means the heroes have to introduce additional voters.

[redemedic]

I feel like there is no way that Rich is going to make the next strip that obvious. For as long as I have been reading this comic, Rich Burlew has kept it unpredictable and his readers on his toes. I have faith that he will pull off an unexpected next strip. What I am worried about is what is what's happening with and up north.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

So pardon me if this was brought up before but:

All the dominated Elders already voted, yes? Unless they can take their vote back once undominated that means the heroes have to introduce additional voters.

We don't know that the votes can't be changed after the fact. Maybe there is a "everyone ready? Change your vote now or forever hold your peace" phase they'll enter after a quorum is reached or some other trigger?

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

We don't know that the votes can't be changed after the fact. Maybe there is a "everyone ready? Change your vote now or forever hold your peace" phase they'll enter after a quorum is reached or some other trigger?

Grey Wolf

Maybe, then again, this whole book has been propelled by one principle: panel 3.

[DavidSh]

So pardon me if this was brought up before but:

All the dominated Elders already voted, yes? Unless they can take their vote back once undominated that means the heroes have to introduce additional voters.

I've only seen four "yes" votes so far, and more than eight total council members. So take-backs or additional members aren't needed, if things are otherwise resolved swiftly.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Leave it to the dwarves to find a way to vote for the end of the world, even when they’re not dominated.

Durkon sure is bringing destruction of property to them all...

Also, kudos to Peelee for probably 100% calling this one and then profiting of it by starting a religion.

Ah. With the two pointers being (I had thought) 18th - early 19th century (pre industrial) and religious, my mind went to Oratorios in the classical and baroque periods. I was raised on classical music, and while I sang for a while that talent plateaued sometime in high school and has since degraded thanks to smoking for too many years.

Classical music is where 90% of my knowledge of Latin comes from.

Partially. I also read James Fallows. Not because of his flying articles but because of his international poltiics (of which I will say no more, because board rules), but he does like flying, so he was all over the 737 Max crash. When he and Wendover pretty much agreed on all points, I took at as close enough to the truth.

Yes, I'm aware that there is a fallacy in there where Wendover might have sourced Fallows too (not the other way round, Fallows was out first).

ETA: I didn't quote either because I'm at work, and youtube and twitter searching is less-than-easy and NSFW.

But consider them both cited as the basis for my position

Grey Wolf

Those are both pretty excellent sources for many different topics.