October 20, 2018

Three Cheers for Driverless Buses!

Kevin and Marian are on a weekend getaway, but where are they?Kevin Drum

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I’m on vacation this weekend, but right now I’m sitting around waiting for some photos to upload very sl-o-o-o-w-ly to my ancient tablet.¹ I would buy a new Surface Pro if it were even slightly better than the one I have now—and I’m such a hopeless fan that it wouldn’t take much to talk myself into it—but Microsoft’s latest is a joke. I guess I’ll have to wait for the Surface Pro 7, assuming Microsoft doesn’t kill the whole product line before then.

Anyway, I was perusing my blog reading list and noticed Atrios once again mocking the concept of self-driving cars. And that’s OK. We all need a hobby, and besides, I’m now confident that advances in the treatment of multiple myeloma will let me to live long enough to see full, no-shit driverless cars for sale in ordinary Chevy showrooms. So I’ll have the last laugh.

In the meantime, though, I just have one comment: if the software boffins can build driverless cars, they can also build driverless buses, trains, blimps, hyperloops, and hovercraft. It’s just a matter of a little more time.

¹It’s one year old.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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