I suppose one question to this technology issue is what happens when people find a way to sabotage it. In the Bosnian war the U.S. was dumping graphite on the power plants to knock them out and I'm sure there are people with evil intent, or maybe just liking to play games, who are steaming their brains overtime to think up ways to knock out both the power grids and the computerized ones. I have been using Yahoo (don't much care for it) and the mail system was down for an hour or so yesterday, no problem for me, but even such a small thing must put big industry in a tizzy. And even the power problems during recent blizzards there must have had their effect. What I don't like is being made dependent on these systems. I feel like I'm losing some basic survival advantage. RagMan. Hutch or someone was talking about liking old style points systems on their ignition for just this reason, easy to fix by the wayside. It is a bit of a quandary - how do you run a business without it, so dependent are we becoming, and it is happening right now, Vern, machines and electronics are taking control. Someday there may well be this socialized brain made up of both human and artificial inputs that will indeed take over, and we through our elected leaders will have let it all happen (are letting it happen). "1984" came a bit late, but it is here now.
Yes Prof, you feel safer because they are doing away with this distraction on the freeways, but looking at the bigger picture and taking life's road as a huge freeway, we aren't very safe at all!!! We are all bozos on this bus and the bus is running totally out of control! We take our peace, our small bit of Nirvana, when we can, driving an old motorcycle on the largely abandoned roads of this earth while wishing for a simpler time.