“A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive–you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.”

As far as being jealous of one-percenters in our midst, I think that the rest of us won’t be seeing those people very often, because there will be only Beverly Hills or the barrio. The concentration of wealth is getting worse exponentially; it won’t be long now.

— Steven Brust

Also, I work in software QA. I simply will not trust myself to a self-driving car whose form and software has not been in unmodified operation for at LEAST several hundred million man-hours of real-world operation. I’d build myself a replica Model T or similar first (and I mean that quite literally – I’ve gotten pretty good with a milling machine and am teaching myself the lathe now).