Is 8 years (2008->2014) enough time to develop the technology to intercept Kepler and refuel it?
It seems unlikely that one could get there so much faster, use the fuel required to then match speed, and then transfer the fuel in a way that doesn't create its own problems with trajectory.
I'm not a scientist, but what little I know leads me to believe the real life application is even more difficult.
People want gasoline car range, fast charging, and performance equivalent to a normal car.
More people want Model S's that want BMW 5 series, more people want Model 3's than want the BMW 3 series.
This is while EVs are a touch more expensive than the gasoline equivalent, that won't always be true (fewer moving parts will eventually lead to less expensive manufacturing).
There are very few people it seems that are concerned about the half hour charge per 4 hours driving (30 minutes for 240 miles).
The trick to to make an EV not an overpriced golfcart.
The demand for gasoline range EVs with a huge quick charge network seems to be pretty high (see the way Tesla dominates at the price points they're able to make cars for leading me to believe that once one breaks the 250 or so mile threshold people relax a bit), and the model 3 hasn't even reached out globally, where EVs are doing pretty decent overall.
Tesla does seem to be poised to be a top tear EV manufacturer in the long run, and are likely demonstrating that they are worth investing in to stick around (debt not equity) at this point.
EVs are poised to be huge (once they become cheaper than regular cars, which will likely be in the next few years as gasoline engines continue to become more complex and EV components drop in price) and Tesla is poised to be a top tier competitor.
Do I think they're worth more than GM right now? no
I think at this point they'll stick around though, I won't be really confident until they have a smooth roll-out of a model though.
The profit number also completely ignores 2 and 3.
2) Not paying vendors doesn't mean you don't account for the bill, it simply means it may adjust in the future. 3) Selling a loaner fleet is revenue neutral it's trading asset for cash, if there was profit in it it just means the loaner fleet was undervalued before, it's still legitimate profit.
The 2.5k cars does dramatically shift the numbers, but not enough to tank the company (2.5k * 60k is about half of the profit), also, there could be sins hiding in that huge cashflow (or it could be 2 and 3 from the list).
All and all, I do tend to think this completely turns around my outlook on Tesla, I was certain they'd succeed, but then started getting worried this year and last with all the missed M3 goals.
I also have concerns about Musk's health, he can't possibly be a net positive for the company again until he takes a nap (just my opinion from the outside).
The GP is napkin mathing the gross on those to point out that it was about half of profit (using the 55k number, using yours it's about 2/3's).
Basically, those 2500 cars make Tesla look MUCH more profitable, they must be relying on a lot of extra manufactured cars next quarter to not look like a huge drop.
Those 2500 cars made Tesla's profit significantly higher, and are easy to hand wave as insignificant being only 5% of sales.
Basically, Tesla cost shifted 100-150 Million in costs (80% of 135-150 million) to last quarter from this one by making a bunch of cars and stockpiling them to sell this quarter.
It is also worth noting that Tesla had free cashflow and profitability even if you subtract the subsidy and 2.5k extra cars sold.
If this is sustained, Tesla will very likely survive. I'm assuming there's still significant depreciation on their equipment causing non cash loss (bringing cash flow above profit, even with large debt, though maybe that's accumulating interest on debt making that gap, no idea).
Uptake of Creative Cloud did seem pretty fast in my observations, Though I'd bet it had more to do with short-term capital outlay than it did everyone being on the same version. If one was buying for the first time it was about 3 years before it was cheaper to buy, and even if one was upgrading more than one version it was a while before it became more expensive.
It's interchangeable, if it's so rarely used as to not be worth a reasonable subscription (which we don't really know if that'll be the case in the future, which is a problem) one can simply abuse free trials or short subscriptions, or even just pay a professional to do what needs to be done.
I'd assume that's break even (they probably get cable money to be available, but give a cut of the sub), and I doubt cable is needed for subs bow adays.
HBO does fine with the model of subscription only.
They seem to be way better at picking winners than Netflix is, and they spend far less on content, but it's definitely a sustainable business model if run well.
It'll be interesting to see if Netflix's model of tons and tons of mediocre content works. I'm not sure it will, because the whole season release model means people aren't so much in sync and therefore shows are less discussed and less of a cultural phenomenon even when they are great (and sone are).
If GoT was on Netflix for example, everyone would be totally out of sync, and there'd be a lot less talking about it, which in turn makes it harder to turn a great show into subs.
I'm definitely pro open file formats. I'm well aware of that fact.
They still don't solve the issue of features (for example formula compatibility in ODF spreadsheets is (or at least was) not a given).
And yes, convenience/ability to share editable files does increase the value of software, that should be obvious. Being able to collaborate is pretty important.
The fact that people use old copies of Office does make sending and receiving files to/from office users a pain. Dealing with Office files is a pain in the ass anyway, but it's made even worse by the fact that there are at least 3 versions in regular use.
FOSS software solves the problem with versioning (like a subscription does), but open file formats only barely do.
Do you really think it wasn't inconvenient when people had mismatched versions of Creative Suite and tried to exchange files? How about with Office?
Office was at least pretty decent, 99% forward compatible and 95% backwards compatible for the most part (some bugs in the docx/xlsx parsing created minor issues, and in the 90s word had some changes in how the same file displayed (this is ignoring the issues with print driver selected also altering rendering)
I hardly think I was the only person that felt that inconvenience.
Maybe it's narcissistic to think reliable and easy data exchange is a killer feature for software, but I don't really see how.
A killer feature for those of us that interact with other organizations.
No file format issues, and no feature lacking issues even if the file format is the same.
The fact that I receive a file and know I can open it, or send a file and know it can be opened as increased the value of Creative Suite and even to an extent Office (though there's plenty of old copies of Office floating around, so it's a lot less true there).
No more does one need to back-save and hope everything remains in tact.
I'm really hoping that a more accommodating environment will allow more voices to get heard and prevent future messes such as BTRFS.
Remember when the fact that a poorly timed crash could completely delete old files was defended as a design decision with much rigor and insult? It wasn't Linus doing so, but it was certainly a product of the culture.
I suspect a little more willingness to hear sanity from others would have lead to the primary next gen file-system. It sounds like there were a lot of cultural issues around the IO scheduler too, which actually lead to me to stop using Linux as my primary desktop (huge (10s of seconds) random lags way too often because apparently not having an SSD in the late 00s meant I was basically unsupported.
a 2% TIPS being available would be the minimum return anyone with money would invest in I'd think.
Sure, if one is at 0.1% including depreciation, it doesn't make sense to close down, but it doesn't really make for a market one wants to invest in either.
$350 is a lot of cash for a phone with those capabilities now. Other phones with those specs (albeit larger screen) are right about $150 at most right now.
I currently pay $150ish for phones so big that my thumb gets sore from reaching the top of the screen during 1 handed use. I'd happily pay $350 for a smaller one (assuming it worked about as well as a G series Moto or an equivalently priced BLU).
I'm not paying the $500ish for a Sony (maybe that's an arbitrary distinction, but it just feels like too much to me).
I'm a bit confused as to exactly how, but all the coverage suggests this is not a device that is supported unless you also buy a 'real' phone to go with it. So even if it would work, you still have to spend the money on *another* device so that you can have this device. So depending on the requirements Verizon has for a qualifying 'main' phone, that already pricey $350 becomes probably between $500 and $800.
This is my point. I am the person that hears about this phone and doesn't think "designed for annoyance" or "useless", until I read the restrictions about only as a second phone, and only Verizon I was actually excited for it.
What I hear is, "we won't sell this to you, you use Tmobile and don't want to pay for a second device". I get carrier exclusivity can have value for the seller, so it's an annoyance, but understandable for a new launch. What I don't understand is the arbitrary decision to not be able to just buy this and use it as a phone.
What I mean by being their target market is the device excited me until needless restrictions were put on it.
I'm cheap, and inhate big phones, but love decent screens.
I haven't seen one, maybe it's way too small, but I suspect with the high pixel density I'd be fine faffing about and reading on it. I'm sure typing would suck, but a process I'd be happy to pay.
If it wasn't painfully slow (no idea again, I haven't used one), I would likely use it as my main phone.
There are no reasonably priced phones that are decent and under 5 inches (old iPhone maybe? But then I need to deal with a whole new ecosystem).
If this was available on T-Mobile, and I could SIM swap rather than pay extra for it, I'd almost certainly buy one
I'm actually quite happy with paying for streaming.
To be fair, I paid for Ubuntu One when it existed, and for a Sub Sonic server at another time. it's more like paying for the hosted environment than the music itself.
The cost is well worth it for me just for the access (when I had a blend of ripped, pirated, digital purchase music in subsonic I was paying nearly $10/month anyway, and adding music and discovering new music was a PITA).
I've thought about switching back because beat hazard ultra requires an actual MP3 to play, but I really like having access to new music on a whim.
Manual control of headlights is an important communication tool. Every car I've driven built since the late 90s has had a lever on a spring to temporarily turn on the high beams.
I assume there's a way to handle this in the model 3, but if not it's a big problem.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it has more to do with the complete lack of fixed location.
These places can more easily move around to match demand, increase and decrease capacity.
But the refuel mission would need to match it's location in 2 years, and then slow down to match its speed.
One may as well ask why we didn't just launch a second refueling vessel at the same time, or maybe just make Kepler bigger.
Both of these are easier solutions.
Could we?
Is 8 years (2008->2014) enough time to develop the technology to intercept Kepler and refuel it?
It seems unlikely that one could get there so much faster, use the fuel required to then match speed, and then transfer the fuel in a way that doesn't create its own problems with trajectory.
I'm not a scientist, but what little I know leads me to believe the real life application is even more difficult.
The closest prebuilt system I can find at a glance would be something like this:
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
Sure, it's less, but not so dramatic.
Nice small cases are quite expensive, though it's prebuilt at essentially the price GGP suggests.
Your analysis makes $800 for a system with a nice case and non FOSS OS seem like a reasonable deal.
Not great, but reasonable. Add $100 for the OS and you have a 33% margin for assembly.
Correct, nobody wants overpriced golf carts.
People want gasoline car range, fast charging, and performance equivalent to a normal car.
More people want Model S's that want BMW 5 series, more people want Model 3's than want the BMW 3 series.
This is while EVs are a touch more expensive than the gasoline equivalent, that won't always be true (fewer moving parts will eventually lead to less expensive manufacturing).
There are very few people it seems that are concerned about the half hour charge per 4 hours driving (30 minutes for 240 miles).
The trick to to make an EV not an overpriced golfcart.
I doubt that.
The demand for gasoline range EVs with a huge quick charge network seems to be pretty high (see the way Tesla dominates at the price points they're able to make cars for leading me to believe that once one breaks the 250 or so mile threshold people relax a bit), and the model 3 hasn't even reached out globally, where EVs are doing pretty decent overall.
Tesla does seem to be poised to be a top tear EV manufacturer in the long run, and are likely demonstrating that they are worth investing in to stick around (debt not equity) at this point.
EVs are poised to be huge (once they become cheaper than regular cars, which will likely be in the next few years as gasoline engines continue to become more complex and EV components drop in price) and Tesla is poised to be a top tier competitor.
Do I think they're worth more than GM right now? no
I think at this point they'll stick around though, I won't be really confident until they have a smooth roll-out of a model though.
The profit number also completely ignores 2 and 3.
2) Not paying vendors doesn't mean you don't account for the bill, it simply means it may adjust in the future.
3) Selling a loaner fleet is revenue neutral it's trading asset for cash, if there was profit in it it just means the loaner fleet was undervalued before, it's still legitimate profit.
The 2.5k cars does dramatically shift the numbers, but not enough to tank the company (2.5k * 60k is about half of the profit), also, there could be sins hiding in that huge cashflow (or it could be 2 and 3 from the list).
All and all, I do tend to think this completely turns around my outlook on Tesla, I was certain they'd succeed, but then started getting worried this year and last with all the missed M3 goals.
I also have concerns about Musk's health, he can't possibly be a net positive for the company again until he takes a nap (just my opinion from the outside).
Deliveries were 2.5k higher than produced.
The GP is napkin mathing the gross on those to point out that it was about half of profit (using the 55k number, using yours it's about 2/3's).
Basically, those 2500 cars make Tesla look MUCH more profitable, they must be relying on a lot of extra manufactured cars next quarter to not look like a huge drop.
Those 2500 cars made Tesla's profit significantly higher, and are easy to hand wave as insignificant being only 5% of sales.
Basically, Tesla cost shifted 100-150 Million in costs (80% of 135-150 million) to last quarter from this one by making a bunch of cars and stockpiling them to sell this quarter.
It is also worth noting that Tesla had free cashflow and profitability even if you subtract the subsidy and 2.5k extra cars sold.
If this is sustained, Tesla will very likely survive. I'm assuming there's still significant depreciation on their equipment causing non cash loss (bringing cash flow above profit, even with large debt, though maybe that's accumulating interest on debt making that gap, no idea).
Fair-point WRT to killer feature I guess/
Uptake of Creative Cloud did seem pretty fast in my observations, Though I'd bet it had more to do with short-term capital outlay than it did everyone being on the same version. If one was buying for the first time it was about 3 years before it was cheaper to buy, and even if one was upgrading more than one version it was a while before it became more expensive.
It's interchangeable, if it's so rarely used as to not be worth a reasonable subscription (which we don't really know if that'll be the case in the future, which is a problem) one can simply abuse free trials or short subscriptions, or even just pay a professional to do what needs to be done.
I don't think the cable deal is necessary though.
I'd assume that's break even (they probably get cable money to be available, but give a cut of the sub), and I doubt cable is needed for subs bow adays.
I'm also pretty sure Netflix is on cable now.
They profit a billion a year or so.
I'm not sure their cashflow situation (but with so much debt it may be negative).
They'll need to slow down the borrowing soon, but they also will be able too.
Someone signing up today already has a pretty big back catalog, in three more years, it'll be even more.
HBO does fine with the model of subscription only.
They seem to be way better at picking winners than Netflix is, and they spend far less on content, but it's definitely a sustainable business model if run well.
It'll be interesting to see if Netflix's model of tons and tons of mediocre content works. I'm not sure it will, because the whole season release model means people aren't so much in sync and therefore shows are less discussed and less of a cultural phenomenon even when they are great (and sone are).
If GoT was on Netflix for example, everyone would be totally out of sync, and there'd be a lot less talking about it, which in turn makes it harder to turn a great show into subs.
I'm definitely pro open file formats. I'm well aware of that fact.
They still don't solve the issue of features (for example formula compatibility in ODF spreadsheets is (or at least was) not a given).
And yes, convenience/ability to share editable files does increase the value of software, that should be obvious. Being able to collaborate is pretty important.
The fact that people use old copies of Office does make sending and receiving files to/from office users a pain. Dealing with Office files is a pain in the ass anyway, but it's made even worse by the fact that there are at least 3 versions in regular use.
FOSS software solves the problem with versioning (like a subscription does), but open file formats only barely do.
Do you really think it wasn't inconvenient when people had mismatched versions of Creative Suite and tried to exchange files? How about with Office?
Office was at least pretty decent, 99% forward compatible and 95% backwards compatible for the most part (some bugs in the docx/xlsx parsing created minor issues, and in the 90s word had some changes in how the same file displayed (this is ignoring the issues with print driver selected also altering rendering)
I hardly think I was the only person that felt that inconvenience.
Maybe it's narcissistic to think reliable and easy data exchange is a killer feature for software, but I don't really see how.
A killer feature for those of us that interact with other organizations.
No file format issues, and no feature lacking issues even if the file format is the same.
The fact that I receive a file and know I can open it, or send a file and know it can be opened as increased the value of Creative Suite and even to an extent Office (though there's plenty of old copies of Office floating around, so it's a lot less true there).
No more does one need to back-save and hope everything remains in tact.
I'm really hoping that a more accommodating environment will allow more voices to get heard and prevent future messes such as BTRFS.
Remember when the fact that a poorly timed crash could completely delete old files was defended as a design decision with much rigor and insult? It wasn't Linus doing so, but it was certainly a product of the culture.
I suspect a little more willingness to hear sanity from others would have lead to the primary next gen file-system. It sounds like there were a lot of cultural issues around the IO scheduler too, which actually lead to me to stop using Linux as my primary desktop (huge (10s of seconds) random lags way too often because apparently not having an SSD in the late 00s meant I was basically unsupported.
One of the killer features of software rental is that everyone has the same version. This makes the software actually worth more IMO.
0.1% profit sounds terrible.
I'd want to at least beat inflation by a 1%.
a 2% TIPS being available would be the minimum return anyone with money would invest in I'd think.
Sure, if one is at 0.1% including depreciation, it doesn't make sense to close down, but it doesn't really make for a market one wants to invest in either.
$350 is a lot of cash for a phone with those capabilities now. Other phones with those specs (albeit larger screen) are right about $150 at most right now.
I currently pay $150ish for phones so big that my thumb gets sore from reaching the top of the screen during 1 handed use. I'd happily pay $350 for a smaller one (assuming it worked about as well as a G series Moto or an equivalently priced BLU).
I'm not paying the $500ish for a Sony (maybe that's an arbitrary distinction, but it just feels like too much to me).
I'm a bit confused as to exactly how, but all the coverage suggests this is not a device that is supported unless you also buy a 'real' phone to go with it. So even if it would work, you still have to spend the money on *another* device so that you can have this device. So depending on the requirements Verizon has for a qualifying 'main' phone, that already pricey $350 becomes probably between $500 and $800.
This is my point. I am the person that hears about this phone and doesn't think "designed for annoyance" or "useless", until I read the restrictions about only as a second phone, and only Verizon I was actually excited for it.
What I hear is, "we won't sell this to you, you use Tmobile and don't want to pay for a second device". I get carrier exclusivity can have value for the seller, so it's an annoyance, but understandable for a new launch. What I don't understand is the arbitrary decision to not be able to just buy this and use it as a phone.
What I mean by being their target market is the device excited me until needless restrictions were put on it.
I bet you could get a flip phone on T-Mobile.
They block most junk calls, and the flip phones make decent phones, though I don't know if anybody answers phonecalls anymore (nobody I know does).
I'm apparently their target market.
I'm cheap, and inhate big phones, but love decent screens.
I haven't seen one, maybe it's way too small, but I suspect with the high pixel density I'd be fine faffing about and reading on it. I'm sure typing would suck, but a process I'd be happy to pay.
If it wasn't painfully slow (no idea again, I haven't used one), I would likely use it as my main phone.
There are no reasonably priced phones that are decent and under 5 inches (old iPhone maybe? But then I need to deal with a whole new ecosystem).
If this was available on T-Mobile, and I could SIM swap rather than pay extra for it, I'd almost certainly buy one
I find it pretty hard to get a read on the temperature or humidity that way.
I'm actually quite happy with paying for streaming.
To be fair, I paid for Ubuntu One when it existed, and for a Sub Sonic server at another time. it's more like paying for the hosted environment than the music itself.
The cost is well worth it for me just for the access (when I had a blend of ripped, pirated, digital purchase music in subsonic I was paying nearly $10/month anyway, and adding music and discovering new music was a PITA).
I've thought about switching back because beat hazard ultra requires an actual MP3 to play, but I really like having access to new music on a whim.
Of course we do.
I pay $10/month for a service, and side-load what's unavailable.
Some of the side-loaded stuff isn't available anyway.
Manual control of headlights is an important communication tool. Every car I've driven built since the late 90s has had a lever on a spring to temporarily turn on the high beams.
I assume there's a way to handle this in the model 3, but if not it's a big problem.