Thought Experiment: Driverless automated cars

In the linked article you can read about driver less pods at Heathrow airport that take passengers from the car park to the terminal. Driver less automated pods are certainly part of the future, one day they may even replace ordinary cars on ordinary roads.

However here is a thought, a driver less pod will always be programmed to stop for a pedestrian / obstruction as the whole point in driver less pods is to prevent accidents. This all sounds very sensible and logical but what happens when pedestrians know they can never be hit by a car. Simple, they will step out into the road without looking as they know any car will stop and they cannot be hurt.

Now extend this thought, which basically means that pedestrians now have priority. In towns and cities pedestrians would reclaim the streets, traffic would be brought to a stand still and the whole fabric of society would break down. Ok maybe not that last part.

So if cars are no longer dangerous pedestrians would no longer be wary of them. You could either

a) Trust pedestrians to do the right thing - make it socially unacceptable.
b) Allow cars to be slightly dangerous again.
c) Make it a serious criminal offence to cross the road when a driver less car is coming.
d) Or another option which I haven't yet thought of.

Its an interesting thought which may have to be solved before driver less cars go mainstream.

I thought fox hunting with hounds was banned...

The press hounds have been released and they are on their ten day hunt. The basic idea of a ten day hunt is to start with a slightly dubious story and then keep it going with an extra tit bit of dubiousness each day. If you don't change the story slightly each day the story will falter. The longer you can keep it going from news day to news day the more pressure you can put on the politician and the prime minister (or party leader). The goal is to get the politician to resign or be fired.

Now get the wrong story and you wont make it onto the second day of news. This is a game that the press like to play with the politicians, its very similar to gossiping and the theory that if you throw enough mud it will eventually stick. It is a sort of modern day witch hunt.

I would suggest that most members of the public get caught up in the gossip and the chase. There is something voyeuristic about it.

The politician's only fight back is to try to derail the ten days. They can deny all claims or provide evidence but they have to be careful it doesn't then look like a cover up. They can start an official enquiry which will take a while to report back, by which time the news cycle will have moved on.

It is quite a negative aspect of the press hounding people out of office. It borders on immoral and ungentlemanly conduct.

For the current story here is what I have filtered out to be the facts:

1. Adam Werrity is a friend of Liam Fox who has spoken to him about work related matters. 
2. Adam Werrity has been on government trips as some kind of self styled advisor.
3. Mr Fox had a male friend staying with him when he was burgled
4. There seems to have been some confusion when information of the burglary was given to the press
5. Mr Fox has had to deny he was in a relationship with Adam Werrity.

Or something along those lines.

Taking it point by point I don't care about points 1, 3, 4, 5 it is not relevant to his day job. I am satisfied that there is an official investigation regarding at least point 2 and I trust parliamentary procedure to investigate and take the right action.

Bottom line, let Mr Fox get on with the job, if the official investigation finds him to have acted improperly he can resign. I am now bored of this story so if the press could go and report on some actual news it would be much appreciated.

Keep running Mr Fox don't let the news hounds pull you down

Note - I am not the first to come up with the ten day hunt, according to the BBC article Alaister Campbell got their first.