Yes he is. You could have stopped there. The man is a menace who appeals to the stupid, the bigoted, and the deluded. The fact that he is the chosen candidate of the republican party pretty much says everything you need to know about that party. The man attracts lunatics like shit attracts flies. The rest of your screed is just unrelated nonsense.
Trump scares me as president but Hillary does even more so.
Then you haven't been paying enough attention to the stupid shit coming out of Trump's pie hole.
That being said, I think your inability to understand the line of reasoning makes you more of an idiot than you think trump is.
I'm aware of that fact. However he provided no evidence that conclusively demonstrated that it was a factor. It's a seemingly logical inference but the evidence for it seems to be generally lacking.
Multiple studies show that with the introduction of abs brakes people follow more closely.
There are plenty of studies which indicate that it has no measurable effect on driver aggressiveness including one conducted by the NTHSA provided by one of the other slashdot readers. I consider the NTHSA a reliable source on this matter but even if the others are reliable as well, which one am I to believe? Contradictory studies cannot both be correct.
Similar things are observed with seat belts and some people argue w bike helmets
Even if true those safety devices clearly and substantially improve safety for those who use them. There is no point to a system like Tesla's autopilot if it does not improve overall safety. There may be conditions where it performs worse but it's still worthwhile if it improves safety overall.
Very interesting report and thanks for sharing. However that report explicitly states that ABS had no measurable effect on the aggressiveness of driver. From the report: "The research, in fact, did not identify any significant problems with ABS other than owners’ initial lack of knowledge and experience with the systems. There was little evidence of any behaviors that would cause drivers of vehicles equipped with ABS to run off the road. There was also little evidence that drivers became more aggressive when they had ABS." (page 11)
He has also said that he would never take options off the table and wouldn't telegraph our reactions and responses.
Which means he's an idiot negotiator if he's never willing to do those things. Sometimes it's useful to hint what our reactions might be. Sometimes it's useful to reassure people that you aren't going to cause Armageddon. People tend to be touchy about their continued existence if they perceive you as a threat to it. Pretty stupid position from someone who styles themselves a genius deal maker.
So of course he wouldn't rule anything out because doing so would be ignoring that self imposed principle.
He wouldn't rule anything out because the man is an imbecile as is anyone who seriously thinks he is fit for public office. His only talent is self promotion and aggrandizement. (and no that is not an endorsement of Hillary either)
The problem with the "autopilot" is it essentially allows the AI to do all of the driving, meaning the human invariably stops paying attention and the AI becomes almost exclusively responsible for driving safely.
That's certainly a concern though I think perhaps an overblown one. There might be an "uncanny valley" between crude automation like Tesla's technology and fully automated driving where people have a hard time maintaining concentration. The jury is still out on this but it's a possibly failure mode worth considering even if it turns out to be a non issue ultimately.
On the other hand I have had cruise control in my car for decades and when I engage it I actually seem to pay more attention which is kind of the opposite of what I expected. Two reasons, 1) fewer activities for me to have to do so some amount of my brain is freed up to concentrate on what's around me and 2) I'm still concerned about my physical well being. I've spoken to others who have had similar experience where the cruise control caused them to pay more attention. While that's not really scientific evidence it tells me that we shouldn't be to quick to draw conclusions about the effects of autopilot vs the human brain before we have evidence.
It happened with ABS and airbags. People felt safer, so they went faster.
Got any evidence to back that assertion up? Personally I've never heard of anyone saying some permutation of "yeah, I've got ABS and an airbag so I'm invulnerable now". Show me some statistics that demonstrate a significant increase in accidents attributable to ABS and/or airbags.
No it isn't. The reason shoes sell here in the US for $100+ that cost $20 to manufacture is profit, development and (mostly) marketing costs.
First, you seem to have ignored the bit where I said "some exceptions of course". Second, you are completely wrong about the actual costs in your made up example. You are presuming Nike makes the shoes for $20 and sells them for $100. This is incorrect. Nike's gross margins which is basically the cost to manufacture their shoes and other apparel is around 45%. For every $100 in revenue, about $55 of it goes to making their products. Their Net income is around 9-10% which is the amount left over after the costs of sales, administration and overhead and these are not costs that can be dismissed as unimportant. Respectable but hardly in the league of Apple or Microsoft. That means the cost of those shoes to Nike in your made up example is $90 if they they sell for $100. (I'm ignoring dealer markups which are additional) 10% isn't a hell of a lot of margin so if someone knocks off a Nike product and sells it for 15% below Nike, they are below Nike's cost.
The notion that Nike has 80% gross margins is absurd and easily disproved.
If you noticed the blurb, they've been "working with" Amazon to tackle the issue. However Amazon is unable or unwilling or a combination of both to give them the tools they've been asking for.
If they want Amazon to "solve" the problem like eBay then I'm glad. EBay basically gives brand owners free reign to delete listings for products that compete with theirs with no recourse for the seller even if the listing is legit. I used to sell stuff on eBay for a living and we had auctions halted and strikes against us for merchandise (like fancy hand bags) that we knew beyond any doubt was authentic with a complete paper trail to prove it. EBay threw small sellers under the bus. Hopefully Amazon will have more of a spine.
True but let's be honest, it usually does. It's typically hard to make things cheaper without cutting corners somewhere. Some exceptions of course but not many.
Perhaps it's not as big of an issue for some types of products, but I certainly don't want a counterfeit battery in a phone that costs nearly $700.
Not a problem if you buy the battery from the OEM. Not saying you should have to and it's typically more expensive but it's always the way to be most certain the battery is authentic. If the OEM can't weed out the fakes then the fakes are probably pretty darn good anyway.
Oh I see...it isn't useful for YOU...so that makes it useless.
It is useless to the vast majority of the car buying public. A car with a range of 50 miles that takes hours to recharge is useful to a vanishingly small percentage of the people who buy car. Such a vehicle is either a toy or a second car option for people with more money than sense.
Wow, self centered much?
Really? Going to go straight to the ad-hominem attacks? Classy. If something I've said is factually or logically incorrect, by all means correct me. No need to be a jerk while doing it either. Show me how more than a handful of people would find an electric car with a 50 mile range to be good value for money.
That depends on how much a person needs to drive doesn't it? Lots of people in urban settings might only drive 10 or 20 miles in a day and it would suit them fine for a vehicle which only does 50 miles
You're making the classic mistake of only considering averages. Most people drive less than 50 miles in a normal day. But virtually all of them drive farther than 50 miles on a substantial number of days. The range of a car needs to cover something like 2-3 standard deviations of the daily average at minimum to be a sane choice even if they never take long trips which describes very few people I know. My daily commute is about 45 miles round trip but I drive over 100 miles at least 5-10 days a month. It's not the averages that are the problem, it's the variation.
Urban dwellers who want a car for short commutes, one that avoids the costs and whatever congestion charges, road taxes or other fees that another vehicle might attract.
Another myth. Urban dwellers have access to taxis, uber, public transit, etc. A car is only useful to them if they live some substantial distance outside the urban center and have no alternative means to commute which means they are suburban, not urban dwellers. While you can find some small number of people who could use a vehicle with such absurdly short range, that would be the very definition of niche.
Why is 50 mile range useless? Lots of us commute 50 miles.
And plenty of us routinely drive farther than that on a given day. Particularly when we do anything besides commuting which describes anyone with a life outside of work. Got kids? You'll be driving more than 50 miles routinely here in the USofA. My daily commute is 45 miles round trip for example so any detours or if the weather was particularly cold one day and I'd be stranded somewhere. There is a reason why you won't find a gas powered car with a range under 200 miles sold today. Useless might be too strong a word but it's not far off the mark.
They took a real 1970s electric vehicle, replaced the major parts that make it go with modern equipment, and took it to a dragstrip.
Which is called a dragster. Pretty much no car that can do a sub-10 second quarter mile is good for much else besides fast runs down a drag strip or laps around a racetrack. Not what I would call a real car in the sense that you'd drive it around the city streets routinely. Still cool but call it what it is.
It's the electric equivalent of hot rods, muscle cars, tuners, or whatever generation you choose souping up a vehicle beyond what it could do from the factory.
This isn't souping up the car. This is a wholesale rebuild where the only thing left is the outer shell. That's not tuning, that's something quite different. Anyway you seem to have missed the point. Clearly it is fast in a straight line. Cool project too. But "world's fastest street-legal electric car"? Going to have to back that claim up with some actual evidence.
Still, amazing that little soap box had the suspension and the chassis to take 600 HP.
I'd be fairly sure that it has a huge amount of reinforcement underneath if not a full space frame. You are quite correct that it wasn't designed to handle that much power straight from the factory.
I would hope one of the requirements to be a "street-legal" car is that it can turn, at the very least...
I'm sure it can turn but very doubtful it can turn very well. Clearly it is built with straight line performance in mind if it is doing sub 10 second quarter mile runs.
So we can conservatively conclude this vehicle does 0-60 in under 3.25 seconds.
If it can do a quarter mile in 9.8 seconds it's almost certainly faster than 3.25s 0-60. Wind resistance isn't linear. A Tesla P90D gets to 60mph in 2.8 seconds and it is a full second slower in the quarter mile than this thing with better aerodynamics. Just guessing but I'd estimate this car is probably somewhere close to 2.5 seconds (maybe less) 0-60 to make a sub 10 second run in the quarter possible. Can't tell from the pictures but it looks pretty stripped down so I imagine it is very light and has very large sticky tires. I'd expect it to absolutely fly off the line.
It's a hobbyist car, not something put together by a car manufacturer. There's only 1. The guy built it for himself, so he can be the judge about if 50 miles is "useless".
I'm well aware of what it is. It's also objectively true that a "street legal" stripped down dragster that can only drive 50 miles isn't good for a hell of a lot besides runs at the drag strip. I'm sure he gets plenty of kicks from it and that's great. But dragsters aren't "the fastest" street legal cars. They are just the fastest accelerating cars on flat ground with no turns. No need to make exaggerated claims about its performance.
It sounds like you feel unhappy about his fun little project, but I imagine he enjoyed building and testing the car immensely.
Not unhappy at all. The project is cool as shit. But they don't need to make puffed up claims about it for that to remain true.
It says "Jonny Smith now has the world's fastest street-legal electric car". How exactly am I to take that statement as anything other than an unsupported claim to have the fastest street legal electric car?
It's a fun project taking an electric car made in 1973 and updating it with today's batteries etc.
Which is all fine but then don't claim that it is the fastest street legal electric car unless they are prepared to back that up or qualify the conditions under which it is true. I don't give a crap if it is a just for laughs project or not.
Yeah, it might be hard to figure out how to obtain parts overnight
We're not talking about some oil filters and basic supplies you can get from Amazon here. You're thinking like a hobby farmer. The internet is helpful but there are times when you need a proper technician or factory parts which aren't sold direct and that means a factory dealer.
I run a manufacturing company and the big tools we buy cannot be bought off Amazon or anywhere else on the net. Neither can the replacement parts aside from a few consumables. We have to go through the manufacturer or one of their dealers. A cheap one of the presses we buy will start at half a million dollars and go up from there. Farms are no different for the big equipment. The dollar amounts are too large to involve a middle man.
I see more Kubota dealers around Texas than Deere.
Kubota makes stuff for hobby farms. They deal in small to mid-sized equipment, not the industrial scale stuff. People that are managing 1,000+ acre farms aren't buying Kubota.
Jonny Smith now has the world's fastest street-legal electric car, called the Flux Capacitor.
Ok what is its top speed? 0-60 time? G-force in a turn? Can it even turn?
Now it can run the quarter-mile in 9.87 seconds
The only piece of speed data provided. For reference the Tesla P90D can do a quarter mile in 10.9 seconds. (And it can go around a corner too) So basically they've built a purpose built dragster and not a real car. It's not hard to build a dragster that can outrun a Bugatti Veyron in a quarter mile but I wouldn't call one faster than a Veyron until it beat it around a track with corners.
boosted the car from 370v to 400v and the range from about 30 miles (48km) to about 50 miles (80km).
Wow, a whole 50 miles. That's... damn near useless.
Japanese farming equipment is very good quality and reasonably priced.
I'm sure it is. Doesn't mean you can get parts for it quickly and easily though. One huge advantage to buying from a company like Deere is that they have an excellent service and parts network almost everywhere in the US. There is a Deere dealer within relatively easy driving distance just about anywhere you go in the US. Buy from a no-name and you might have a harder time of it. Of course if Deere insists on shooting themselves in the foot like this then that might become less of an issue.
If she was patient and not going into Yahoo, she had a chance to become the first woman CEO of Microsoft.
I've seen no evidence to support that thesis. Do you have information not available to the rest of us?
Imagine the damage and the headlines she would have created if she played with M$. Yahoo is too small for someone of her talent.
Talent can be situational which is why we have the Peter Principle. She was good at her job at Google apparently but it doesn't automatically follow that her skill set will translate elsewhere. I'm willing to believe she is a talented person but that doesn't necessarily mean she is the right fit for a particular job. It also can depend heavily on the people you have around you. Maybe she had the right people around her at Google but not so much at Yahoo.
A guy I used to work for was excellent at turnarounds. If you had a company that was ailing and needed someone to stop the bleeding and stabilize the company he was great at that. And he could keep the company profitable afterwards. But if you needed to grow the company, he wasn't the right guy for the job. He had little talent for sales, a brusque personalty, and wasn't able to invest with a long term horizon because frankly he was cheap. He was good at conserving money but not so good at making lots of it. Sometimes our talents fit a particular role well and when we venture outside of that role success becomes more dependent on luck.
if there is real competition(instead of crony capitalist control) and real money (instead of subsidies) is space transport and infrastructure business
Already there. I can think of a half dozen organizations capable of launching a satellite into orbit and I'm no expert at all. (SpaceX, ULA, Orbital Sciences, NASA, ESA, ROSCOSMOS, CNSA off the top of my head) Several of these are private companies and more are coming online in the near future (Blue Origin, Orbital ATK) Government money is still a thing but becoming less so by the day.
opened to private enterprises, asian companies (and russians) will blast american ones like spacex to bankruptcy.
Based on what exactly? There is nothing preventing asian companies from getting into space now. It's not like the US can tell a company in India that they aren't allowed to launch anything into space. You pretend like the US is incapable of competing but so far the only private companies that are launching stuff into space are based in the US.
but usa is big on preaching free markets but bad at practicing them.
Believe whatever you want but the actual fact is that the US among the strongest advocates of free markets and global trade. Sometimes to a fault. This is unlike countries like China where there are very substantial trade restrictions on foreign companies and currency controls. I would argue that the US isn't especially good at negotiating favorable free trade deals but they keep trying.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, he must be an idiot
Yes he is. You could have stopped there. The man is a menace who appeals to the stupid, the bigoted, and the deluded. The fact that he is the chosen candidate of the republican party pretty much says everything you need to know about that party. The man attracts lunatics like shit attracts flies. The rest of your screed is just unrelated nonsense.
Trump scares me as president but Hillary does even more so.
Then you haven't been paying enough attention to the stupid shit coming out of Trump's pie hole.
That being said, I think your inability to understand the line of reasoning makes you more of an idiot than you think trump is.
Back atcha.
The poster is referring to risk compensation.
I'm aware of that fact. However he provided no evidence that conclusively demonstrated that it was a factor. It's a seemingly logical inference but the evidence for it seems to be generally lacking.
Multiple studies show that with the introduction of abs brakes people follow more closely.
There are plenty of studies which indicate that it has no measurable effect on driver aggressiveness including one conducted by the NTHSA provided by one of the other slashdot readers. I consider the NTHSA a reliable source on this matter but even if the others are reliable as well, which one am I to believe? Contradictory studies cannot both be correct.
Similar things are observed with seat belts and some people argue w bike helmets
Even if true those safety devices clearly and substantially improve safety for those who use them. There is no point to a system like Tesla's autopilot if it does not improve overall safety. There may be conditions where it performs worse but it's still worthwhile if it improves safety overall.
Very interesting report and thanks for sharing. However that report explicitly states that ABS had no measurable effect on the aggressiveness of driver. From the report: "The research, in fact, did not identify any significant problems with ABS other than owners’ initial lack of knowledge and experience with the systems. There was little evidence of any behaviors that would cause drivers of vehicles equipped with ABS to run off the road. There was also little evidence that drivers became more aggressive when they had ABS." (page 11)
He has also said that he would never take options off the table and wouldn't telegraph our reactions and responses.
Which means he's an idiot negotiator if he's never willing to do those things. Sometimes it's useful to hint what our reactions might be. Sometimes it's useful to reassure people that you aren't going to cause Armageddon. People tend to be touchy about their continued existence if they perceive you as a threat to it. Pretty stupid position from someone who styles themselves a genius deal maker.
So of course he wouldn't rule anything out because doing so would be ignoring that self imposed principle.
He wouldn't rule anything out because the man is an imbecile as is anyone who seriously thinks he is fit for public office. His only talent is self promotion and aggrandizement. (and no that is not an endorsement of Hillary either)
The problem with the "autopilot" is it essentially allows the AI to do all of the driving, meaning the human invariably stops paying attention and the AI becomes almost exclusively responsible for driving safely.
That's certainly a concern though I think perhaps an overblown one. There might be an "uncanny valley" between crude automation like Tesla's technology and fully automated driving where people have a hard time maintaining concentration. The jury is still out on this but it's a possibly failure mode worth considering even if it turns out to be a non issue ultimately.
On the other hand I have had cruise control in my car for decades and when I engage it I actually seem to pay more attention which is kind of the opposite of what I expected. Two reasons, 1) fewer activities for me to have to do so some amount of my brain is freed up to concentrate on what's around me and 2) I'm still concerned about my physical well being. I've spoken to others who have had similar experience where the cruise control caused them to pay more attention. While that's not really scientific evidence it tells me that we shouldn't be to quick to draw conclusions about the effects of autopilot vs the human brain before we have evidence.
It happened with ABS and airbags. People felt safer, so they went faster.
Got any evidence to back that assertion up? Personally I've never heard of anyone saying some permutation of "yeah, I've got ABS and an airbag so I'm invulnerable now". Show me some statistics that demonstrate a significant increase in accidents attributable to ABS and/or airbags.
It is even illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in most of EU. Some old delicacies used it and may also no longer be manufactured
I'm pretty sure unpasteurized milk is "manufactured" constantly since that's how it comes out of the cow...
No it isn't. The reason shoes sell here in the US for $100+ that cost $20 to manufacture is profit, development and (mostly) marketing costs.
First, you seem to have ignored the bit where I said "some exceptions of course". Second, you are completely wrong about the actual costs in your made up example. You are presuming Nike makes the shoes for $20 and sells them for $100. This is incorrect. Nike's gross margins which is basically the cost to manufacture their shoes and other apparel is around 45%. For every $100 in revenue, about $55 of it goes to making their products. Their Net income is around 9-10% which is the amount left over after the costs of sales, administration and overhead and these are not costs that can be dismissed as unimportant. Respectable but hardly in the league of Apple or Microsoft. That means the cost of those shoes to Nike in your made up example is $90 if they they sell for $100. (I'm ignoring dealer markups which are additional) 10% isn't a hell of a lot of margin so if someone knocks off a Nike product and sells it for 15% below Nike, they are below Nike's cost.
The notion that Nike has 80% gross margins is absurd and easily disproved.
If you noticed the blurb, they've been "working with" Amazon to tackle the issue. However Amazon is unable or unwilling or a combination of both to give them the tools they've been asking for.
If they want Amazon to "solve" the problem like eBay then I'm glad. EBay basically gives brand owners free reign to delete listings for products that compete with theirs with no recourse for the seller even if the listing is legit. I used to sell stuff on eBay for a living and we had auctions halted and strikes against us for merchandise (like fancy hand bags) that we knew beyond any doubt was authentic with a complete paper trail to prove it. EBay threw small sellers under the bus. Hopefully Amazon will have more of a spine.
Knockoff doesn't have to mean low quality.
True but let's be honest, it usually does. It's typically hard to make things cheaper without cutting corners somewhere. Some exceptions of course but not many.
Perhaps it's not as big of an issue for some types of products, but I certainly don't want a counterfeit battery in a phone that costs nearly $700.
Not a problem if you buy the battery from the OEM. Not saying you should have to and it's typically more expensive but it's always the way to be most certain the battery is authentic. If the OEM can't weed out the fakes then the fakes are probably pretty darn good anyway.
Oh I see...it isn't useful for YOU...so that makes it useless.
It is useless to the vast majority of the car buying public. A car with a range of 50 miles that takes hours to recharge is useful to a vanishingly small percentage of the people who buy car. Such a vehicle is either a toy or a second car option for people with more money than sense.
Wow, self centered much?
Really? Going to go straight to the ad-hominem attacks? Classy. If something I've said is factually or logically incorrect, by all means correct me. No need to be a jerk while doing it either. Show me how more than a handful of people would find an electric car with a 50 mile range to be good value for money.
That depends on how much a person needs to drive doesn't it? Lots of people in urban settings might only drive 10 or 20 miles in a day and it would suit them fine for a vehicle which only does 50 miles
You're making the classic mistake of only considering averages. Most people drive less than 50 miles in a normal day. But virtually all of them drive farther than 50 miles on a substantial number of days. The range of a car needs to cover something like 2-3 standard deviations of the daily average at minimum to be a sane choice even if they never take long trips which describes very few people I know. My daily commute is about 45 miles round trip but I drive over 100 miles at least 5-10 days a month. It's not the averages that are the problem, it's the variation.
Urban dwellers who want a car for short commutes, one that avoids the costs and whatever congestion charges, road taxes or other fees that another vehicle might attract.
Another myth. Urban dwellers have access to taxis, uber, public transit, etc. A car is only useful to them if they live some substantial distance outside the urban center and have no alternative means to commute which means they are suburban, not urban dwellers. While you can find some small number of people who could use a vehicle with such absurdly short range, that would be the very definition of niche.
Why is 50 mile range useless? Lots of us commute 50 miles.
And plenty of us routinely drive farther than that on a given day. Particularly when we do anything besides commuting which describes anyone with a life outside of work. Got kids? You'll be driving more than 50 miles routinely here in the USofA. My daily commute is 45 miles round trip for example so any detours or if the weather was particularly cold one day and I'd be stranded somewhere. There is a reason why you won't find a gas powered car with a range under 200 miles sold today. Useless might be too strong a word but it's not far off the mark.
They took a real 1970s electric vehicle, replaced the major parts that make it go with modern equipment, and took it to a dragstrip.
Which is called a dragster. Pretty much no car that can do a sub-10 second quarter mile is good for much else besides fast runs down a drag strip or laps around a racetrack. Not what I would call a real car in the sense that you'd drive it around the city streets routinely. Still cool but call it what it is.
It's the electric equivalent of hot rods, muscle cars, tuners, or whatever generation you choose souping up a vehicle beyond what it could do from the factory.
This isn't souping up the car. This is a wholesale rebuild where the only thing left is the outer shell. That's not tuning, that's something quite different. Anyway you seem to have missed the point. Clearly it is fast in a straight line. Cool project too. But "world's fastest street-legal electric car"? Going to have to back that claim up with some actual evidence.
Still, amazing that little soap box had the suspension and the chassis to take 600 HP.
I'd be fairly sure that it has a huge amount of reinforcement underneath if not a full space frame. You are quite correct that it wasn't designed to handle that much power straight from the factory.
I would hope one of the requirements to be a "street-legal" car is that it can turn, at the very least...
I'm sure it can turn but very doubtful it can turn very well. Clearly it is built with straight line performance in mind if it is doing sub 10 second quarter mile runs.
So we can conservatively conclude this vehicle does 0-60 in under 3.25 seconds.
If it can do a quarter mile in 9.8 seconds it's almost certainly faster than 3.25s 0-60. Wind resistance isn't linear. A Tesla P90D gets to 60mph in 2.8 seconds and it is a full second slower in the quarter mile than this thing with better aerodynamics. Just guessing but I'd estimate this car is probably somewhere close to 2.5 seconds (maybe less) 0-60 to make a sub 10 second run in the quarter possible. Can't tell from the pictures but it looks pretty stripped down so I imagine it is very light and has very large sticky tires. I'd expect it to absolutely fly off the line.
It's a hobbyist car, not something put together by a car manufacturer. There's only 1. The guy built it for himself, so he can be the judge about if 50 miles is "useless".
I'm well aware of what it is. It's also objectively true that a "street legal" stripped down dragster that can only drive 50 miles isn't good for a hell of a lot besides runs at the drag strip. I'm sure he gets plenty of kicks from it and that's great. But dragsters aren't "the fastest" street legal cars. They are just the fastest accelerating cars on flat ground with no turns. No need to make exaggerated claims about its performance.
It sounds like you feel unhappy about his fun little project, but I imagine he enjoyed building and testing the car immensely.
Not unhappy at all. The project is cool as shit. But they don't need to make puffed up claims about it for that to remain true.
You're looking at this the wrong way.
It says "Jonny Smith now has the world's fastest street-legal electric car". How exactly am I to take that statement as anything other than an unsupported claim to have the fastest street legal electric car?
It's a fun project taking an electric car made in 1973 and updating it with today's batteries etc.
Which is all fine but then don't claim that it is the fastest street legal electric car unless they are prepared to back that up or qualify the conditions under which it is true. I don't give a crap if it is a just for laughs project or not.
Yeah, it might be hard to figure out how to obtain parts overnight
We're not talking about some oil filters and basic supplies you can get from Amazon here. You're thinking like a hobby farmer. The internet is helpful but there are times when you need a proper technician or factory parts which aren't sold direct and that means a factory dealer.
I run a manufacturing company and the big tools we buy cannot be bought off Amazon or anywhere else on the net. Neither can the replacement parts aside from a few consumables. We have to go through the manufacturer or one of their dealers. A cheap one of the presses we buy will start at half a million dollars and go up from there. Farms are no different for the big equipment. The dollar amounts are too large to involve a middle man.
I see more Kubota dealers around Texas than Deere.
Kubota makes stuff for hobby farms. They deal in small to mid-sized equipment, not the industrial scale stuff. People that are managing 1,000+ acre farms aren't buying Kubota.
Jonny Smith now has the world's fastest street-legal electric car, called the Flux Capacitor.
Ok what is its top speed? 0-60 time? G-force in a turn? Can it even turn?
Now it can run the quarter-mile in 9.87 seconds
The only piece of speed data provided. For reference the Tesla P90D can do a quarter mile in 10.9 seconds. (And it can go around a corner too) So basically they've built a purpose built dragster and not a real car. It's not hard to build a dragster that can outrun a Bugatti Veyron in a quarter mile but I wouldn't call one faster than a Veyron until it beat it around a track with corners.
boosted the car from 370v to 400v and the range from about 30 miles (48km) to about 50 miles (80km).
Wow, a whole 50 miles. That's... damn near useless.
Japanese farming equipment is very good quality and reasonably priced.
I'm sure it is. Doesn't mean you can get parts for it quickly and easily though. One huge advantage to buying from a company like Deere is that they have an excellent service and parts network almost everywhere in the US. There is a Deere dealer within relatively easy driving distance just about anywhere you go in the US. Buy from a no-name and you might have a harder time of it. Of course if Deere insists on shooting themselves in the foot like this then that might become less of an issue.
Some of the Chinese stuff is very good now too.
Same problem as above but worse.
If she was patient and not going into Yahoo, she had a chance to become the first woman CEO of Microsoft.
I've seen no evidence to support that thesis. Do you have information not available to the rest of us?
Imagine the damage and the headlines she would have created if she played with M$. Yahoo is too small for someone of her talent.
Talent can be situational which is why we have the Peter Principle. She was good at her job at Google apparently but it doesn't automatically follow that her skill set will translate elsewhere. I'm willing to believe she is a talented person but that doesn't necessarily mean she is the right fit for a particular job. It also can depend heavily on the people you have around you. Maybe she had the right people around her at Google but not so much at Yahoo.
A guy I used to work for was excellent at turnarounds. If you had a company that was ailing and needed someone to stop the bleeding and stabilize the company he was great at that. And he could keep the company profitable afterwards. But if you needed to grow the company, he wasn't the right guy for the job. He had little talent for sales, a brusque personalty, and wasn't able to invest with a long term horizon because frankly he was cheap. He was good at conserving money but not so good at making lots of it. Sometimes our talents fit a particular role well and when we venture outside of that role success becomes more dependent on luck.
if there is real competition(instead of crony capitalist control) and real money (instead of subsidies) is space transport and infrastructure business
Already there. I can think of a half dozen organizations capable of launching a satellite into orbit and I'm no expert at all. (SpaceX, ULA, Orbital Sciences, NASA, ESA, ROSCOSMOS, CNSA off the top of my head) Several of these are private companies and more are coming online in the near future (Blue Origin, Orbital ATK) Government money is still a thing but becoming less so by the day.
opened to private enterprises, asian companies (and russians) will blast american ones like spacex to bankruptcy.
Based on what exactly? There is nothing preventing asian companies from getting into space now. It's not like the US can tell a company in India that they aren't allowed to launch anything into space. You pretend like the US is incapable of competing but so far the only private companies that are launching stuff into space are based in the US.
but usa is big on preaching free markets but bad at practicing them .
Believe whatever you want but the actual fact is that the US among the strongest advocates of free markets and global trade. Sometimes to a fault. This is unlike countries like China where there are very substantial trade restrictions on foreign companies and currency controls. I would argue that the US isn't especially good at negotiating favorable free trade deals but they keep trying.