I had a couple of professors back in the '80s who did this same demo, always fun. On a side note, just last week I was thinking about a PBS (U.S.) special on Randi's life, and I clearly remembered hearing later that he had passed away. Curious, I Googled his name, checked Wikipedia and was surprised to learn that he was still alive - sort of a Mandela effect! Thanks to many people like him, I didn't automatically chalk it up to magic or psychic powers. RIP

No they'll still think he's cool.

Greying senior with a sarcastic sense of humor, actually.

Reverse psychology: "So Mr. DA, you're saying that I knew where my fingerprints were, and that I had plenty of time to wipe them off, but instead I opted to tediously ozonate them, and leave them behind so you could find them and prosecute me? Good luck selling that to the jury!"

Buffy? Really? Heh! : )

This is where "Insightful" mods should be used - philosophical! As far as "forgets it" goes, I was going to suggest the "Star Wars" model: When the droids get to a point that we had previously agreed was getting close to sentience/self-awareness (let alone sapience), we simply wipe, and then re-load the basic, useful code. Defining the terms of forthcoming sentience is the tricky part, probably trial-and-error. Which brings us back to the original dilemma: Should we be causing pain in the meantime, while we fumble our way towards a solution?

They still have buggy races. I think they have ostrich buggy races! Who needs electric when you have an ostrich? : )

Yep I missed it, sorry for the redundancy.

" and the vehicle's abilities."

Wasn't there a story recently about Uber disabling some component on that car that would have enabled automatic braking? Here it is

I've been using the "flag" field a lot, in the lower right of the offenders post for awhile now ("Flag this comment as Inappropriate"). Not sure how effective it is, but it gives me something to do, and it saves my mod points for "upmodding", as per original Taco recommendation.

Remember, it's cold and flu season. Pick carefully.

Rapidly flashing yellow for 2 seconds, then solid yellow (then flashing yellow turn arrow, if appropriate).

Sometimes it's simple serendipity and curiosity :"Hey look I put my thermometer near the rainbow put out by a glass prism, and the temperature reading went up!" Curiosity kicks in, and the next thing you know infrared wavelengths are discovered. So in the case of the possible alien probes, use existing tools and look for anomalies. My doubts notwithstanding, this could be an interesting project.

Except to be inspired to develop ways to detect currently undetectable things, advancing our knowledge. At one time, IR, UV, X-rays, neutrinos etc. were undetectable, and now we routinely use them for great benefit. Alien space probes hanging out for millions of years, though? Seems unlikely, but it may be worth a look, if it's not too expensive.

Well, at least they caught the rat.