If we ever get to 50 or 100 character passwords i don't think passwords will be the norm anymore. Perhaps facial recognition, but i think a better option is on the horizon.

Your face is not a secret.

>We Should really just build rails

The beauty of cars vs rails is that cars can go more than just a set in stone angle or path defined by a rail. Cars can go in and out of parking lots and dirt roads. Rails would be more automated, yes, but not as versatile.

Rails empty out into areas that are parking lots, and maybe you don't get the irony of rail but the more of it you have the less parking lots you need.

And as far as dirt roads go, if the self driving cars can't make it through well defined, paved roads what are the odds they are going to accurately navigate some dirt road?

Why not rails for the long distance high speed travel and then low speeds off the rails for that final distance?

A lot of ICE train routes run alongside the Autobahn. The beautiful thing about the Autobahn it’s that it’s legal to match the speed of the train. That said, it’s bad for the environment and cruising at 140mph where it’s safe to do so drinks fuel like nothing else.

I think in reality you will find that this is rather difficult to do, especially when it's one of the high-speed lines where the ICE can go 300 km/h - quite fun to watch the cars go by really rather quickly.

Wherever there is a road, there can be rail.

Autonomous cars aren't a viable tech until the roads are reengineered with rails built in. It's just way too big of a technical problem to solve with computers alone.

Right now the death rate of autonomous cars is far higher than human drivers and it is never going to catch up given that it hasn't advanced technologically recently.

As someone preparing to lay down a small (1/5 scale) railroad - you vastly underestimate the expense, difficulty, and maintenance requirement of rail. Switches and diamonds (intersections) are especially troubleprone. 2% is considered a serious grade. And derailments happen, more frequently with higher speeds and deferred maintenance.

If our rail network was as potholed and badly maintained as our roads, people would die in train accidents every day.

Rails are great for intensive, carefully manicured routes. They are not a substitute for roads.

There seem to be fairly regular (at least, more regular than one would like) AmTrak derailings in the US. That isn't to say I think it is AmTrak's doing specifically, I think it is like you said a maintenance issue coupled with everybody else who isn't on the train interacting with it.

Then there are the cases of engineers who are distracted and what not, but I'd imagine we're talking autonomous so that (hopefully) wouldn't be an issue.

We're not talking actual rails, right? Just some kind of marker / beacon with information (like a RFID for the roads).

I was thinking more superconducting floating maglev with underground power transfer, but whatever floats your boat (rail...)

I liked Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour A Day, it goes over C++14 and C++17 and it was really informative.