Way back when I was taking computer science classes, the traveling salesman problem was considered if not actually unsolvable at least unoptimizable. Then again, maybe that’s just because I skipped Calculus so often. Then again-again, if you actually try to read what I just linked to there, it’s still unsolvable for 99.999% of human beings (and a lot more nines, probably). Sure, make jokes about the symbol for boron, but infinitesimal asymptotics are no laughing matter (though they would make a great band name). Anyway, apparently cracking impossible computational complexity is now a trivial feature on in-car nav systems. I’m probably irrecoverably old for even bringing this up. Give me a car without a computer or a torque converter any day.

Thanks Jorn!