pogden

Even assuming everyone commutes at the same time, the status quo cars sitting idle the rest of the day, the only difference is that they need two or three spaces to park each, and typically in high value locations. Your car sits at home at night and at work during the day. With the car service there could be half as many parking spaces or less, and they can drive themselves to a garage in some remote area, rather than within walking distance of a place you want to be.

The car service makes car pooling and mass transit more practical as well. Maybe you could hitch a ride with someone to work, but then you might have to stay late. With personal car ownership, you need to drive alone both ways, but with the car service, you can share the morning trip and if you need to take separate transportation in the evening. If buses in your area can't reliably get to work on time, you could have the car service pick you up to go to work, the the bus take you home.

But most statically typed languages let you represent that kind of code. C++ and Java have null. Haskell has Maybe. It doesn't prevent you from writing the code, but rather requires you to be explicit about what values a variable can take, which is the purpose of having a type system at all.

OEMs trying to "distinguish themselves" is what gave us crapware on the PC and buggy UI overlays on tablets and phones. 40% of android devices online today are stuck on 2.3 because some OEM was "trying to distinguish themselves" with fancy animations but can't be assed to update any of it today, when they have a new gimmick to sell you. I'd rather take solid hardware at a great price and know I'll get updates for the next two years.

They still have to pay the sailors. The Cutty Sark had a capacity of 1,700 tons and a minimum complement of 28 [1]. By contrast Emma Maersk can carry 154,000 with only 13 Sailors [2]. The fuel savings are probably not worth ~200 times higher labor costs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutty_Sark

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_M%C3%A6rsk

In Haskell you can also use the Integral typeclass to make functions polymorphic to Int and Integer.

This seems less malicious than, say, installing Ask toolbars.

Yes, but you can plug monitors, a keyboard and mouse into a laptop just as well.

some other ones: -More electric cars. Robotaxis have higher utilization rates, so it makes the fuel-captial tradeoffs of electric cars much more appealing. Additionally, the range point becomes moot. Taking a trip longer than one taxi can get you on a charge? Just have a new one come pick you up halfway through.

-More multi-mode trips, some car trips are just to have a car available for the return trip (e.g. "Let's take separate cars because you have to leave earlier than I do" or "I would take the BART to SF, but it won't be running at 3 AM when i need to come home").

- cars that actually match their necessary capacity. Lots of people buy trucks, vans, and SUVs for the 10% of the time they really need them. Even 5-seat sedans are overkill for most trips. One-passenger robotaxis would hopefully be cheaper due to reduced fuel and manufacturing costs.

-fewer marginal trips. Currently, most costs of car ownership are fixed: insurance, capital, registration. Once you have a car, the only cost to using it more is fuel, so you still take the car for trips where it's only marginally more convenient than alternative transportation.

In what way is that unexpected, given then & is string concatenation?

It's also a result. Normal people don't volunteer that they were home-schooled, the strange ones do.

I don't have a scientific background but I still manage to do okay choosing my own food at the grocery store. Soylent doesn't have to be the pinnacle of human nutrition, it just has to be better than burritos and ramen and freezer pizza.

All of the reasons mentioned in the article play into this, but they missed a big one: young Americans tend to prefer access over ownership, and there just aren't any good ways to use a car. Zipcar is expensive, especially if you stay at your destination for any period of time.

I wouldn't pay $180 for a book either, but most people who buy textbooks don't have a choice.

If you're like most people, somebone already does: your boss, who answers to "convention."