If anyone finds information on how Apple calculated that $200 valuation please share. I searched but found nothing. An AppleInsider article did say this though: "It is unclear if the $200 valuations are for hundreds of dollars or are in fact for $200 million." ( https://appleinsider.com/artic... )
I get that this guy has an interest in making his company look good, but the economy ultimately cares how people actually behave, not what they claim they want or what they will do. Just like when everyone claims they want [something].... Yet almost no one is willing to pay what it costs for [something]....
Agreed... behavioral economics... it's an interesting subject...
However, high quality in-flight WiFi may get a big boost from business travelers. The individual's cost-benefit analysis changes dramatically when someone else is paying. Businesses may not mind paying a premium to keep an employee productive and "on the clock" during flights.
Also, if satellite internet is the least expensive option for anything that is anything short of the most remote among remote places, I worry more about what is making more traditional infrastructure impossible there more than anything else.
Folks who live in urban areas seriously underestimate the challenges of building rural infrastructure. There are still many rural areas of the US that don't have cable TV/internet yet, much less fiber. On rural roads [and there are lots of them] utilities are delivered on poles, which is costly to maintain fiber lines; and the upfront costs of burying them can be prohibitive. There just aren't enough people on the line to make the economics of installation and long-term maintenance of fiber work out [unless subsidized by gov't or urban subscribers, but that's unlikely]. My parents live in a rural area and just got cable internet about 4 years ago; and before that they subscribed to a local WiFi-based ISP that made browsing the web tolerable, but a far cry from broadband. There are people near my parents who are still accessing the internet by dial-up, Direct TV satellite, or their cell phone if they live near a tower. FWIW, my parents are within a ~40 minute commute to the largest city in the state, so it's not that rural, relatively speaking. It's just really expensive to build/maintain this infrastructure. The most cost-effective way to bridge the last mile gap to rural areas will be with wireless technology, which many rural folk are already doing.
And that ^^ is just the US... In developing regions like Africa, Central and South America, island nations, etc. the challenges of physical internet infrastructure are multiplied by poor electric grids, lack of equipment, political instability, corruption, etc. There are still billions of potential customers in the world without access to a physical line that a satellite-based service could reach.
FWIW, when you hear about a small rural town getting fiber, it's probably just a small fraction of the residents in the village center or narrow corridor along a main road. But, the vast majority of rural town residents will live spread out over many square miles of surrounding countryside out of reach of the fiber lines.
You have a point: Radio can cover a wider area without having to bury anything, which is an advantage in rural areas where little to no infrastructure is built anymore, or where no infrastructure other than roads have been built yet.
Thank you. Exactly my point.
Electricity, water, waste water, phone lines, how difficult would it be to bury glass fiber alongside those?
This is an example of how urban/suburban folk don't fully understand rural infrastructure challenges (that's not meant as an insult, so please don't take it that way). In rural areas [and even some lower density suburban developments] water and sewer is typically onsite wells and septic tanks, respectively. Electric, phone, and cable lines are typically above ground on poles.* Now, you could run fiber on poles, but it will be damaged more often in storms, so long-term maintenance/repairs will be much higher; and there may not be enough customers on the line to support the maintenance. There might not be enough customers on the line to justify the upfront cost of trenching underground lines either.
* - Those conditions would describe the utilities for about 90% of residents in the VT town I grew up in, which is a pretty typical rural town (i.e. some public utilities right in the village center, but the vast majority of township residents are spread out over the countryside). I also have extended family in rural areas of central PA who are in similar conditions.
We have success stories in America too, like Vermont...
Sorry, but that is exaggerated or just bullshit. I grew up in rural VT on a gravel road and my parents still live there. Standard cable TV/internet became available to them ~4 years ago. Fiber is pipedream. I know some areas got fiber, particularly if they were near larger cities/towns like Burlington, Stowe, Montpelier, Rutland, etc. but there's still vast swaths of rural land where thousands of people live and get internet connectivity via cable, Dish Network, cell phones, or dial-up (yup dial-up is still a thing in some areas of VT).
5G will be commonplace in about two years and LEO satellite broadband will be longer, but no longer than it would take to lay fiber lines down every single rural road in America at great expense.
How do you think your 5G cell towers connect to the net?
Smoke signals?
Cell towers are connected to the net by fiber.
You answered your own question.... Connect one fat fiber to a tower that covers many square miles instead running fiber down every little rural podunk road to every cabin or farmer's doorstep. I didn't mean to say no fiber at all in rural areas, just that it's not cost-effective to run fiber to every doorstep, when wireless technology can bridge that gap.
FWIW, I grew up in a very rural area on gravel road where my parents still live. They had dial-up until about 2006, when a regional Wi-Fi ISP opened, which made browsing the web bearable but a far cry from "broadband". Standard cable TV/internet became available to them ~4 years ago. My father works in IT, so he jumps on these things as soon as he can, so you can't blame them for being luddites. There are areas near my parents that are more rural with only dial-up or Dish Network available. Urbanites vastly underestimate how difficult and expensive it is to build infrastructure into rural areas.
There's no reason the US shouldn't have this, too. Or at least your local state, if you prefer things at the state level.
Maybe 10-15 years ago, but I'm not convinced nationwide fiber is a smart investment now. Next generation mobile networks (e.g. "5G") and low-orbit satellites could provide the nationwide broadband coverage more efficiently than laying and maintaining* physical wires along every rural public road. Those technologies are being tested right now and could use a boost of investment.
* - I don't think most people realize how expensive it is to maintain fiber cables. If a fiber cable is damaged by a storm or an inexperienced excavator operator you can't just splice the line and replace a few feet; you often have to replace hundreds, sometimes miles of fiber all around the damaged location. Urban areas can absorb the cost/risk to laying fiber, but rural areas might not.
It's a little odd that GMO advocates are so opposed to people knowing how their food was produced.
I wonder if they feel that people are too stupid to decide what they want to eat?
It's not that people are stupid, but they are ignorant. A generic label doesn't teach people anything that will fix their ignorance. When people make choices from a state of ignorance they often unwittingly do more harm to themselves and others.
Ignorance is like being blindfolded. Being blindfolded does not make one stupid, but it does make moving around more risky. Placing labels on things around a blindfolded person does not help.
Agreed, Slashdot's hands-off approach to trolls has driven away the knowledgeable members, academics, and experts that used to make Slashdot great. It is a shame. HOWEVER, moving that discussion slider bar to browse at 0 or 1 does do wonders. It's not enough to bring back Slashdot back to it's glory days of contributors, but it makes it passable now.
Tangentially related to the idea of "crypto-collectibles" (and I don't see a better place to put this thought)...
If in the near-ish future average people could easily and unobtrusively display virtual/crypto collectibles, then it becomes less crazy to think they could have real world demand/value. For example if AR becomes commonly-used technology, which really isn't a far-fetched idea, then it would be pretty natural for people to use AR to display opinions or interests in subjects as they already do with T-shirts, bumper-stickers, jacket patches, keychains, ball caps, posters, photographs, trinkets, license plate covers, etc. In an AR-capable world with blockchain to prove authenticity, the early adopters could have something relatively rare and valuable. Virtual (i.e. not-real) stuff goes against everything I conceive of as value, but only the stuff no one expects to have value ends up rare and valuable. If not for all those kids who used to jam Mickey Mantle rookie cards into their bike spokes to make noises, the card probably wouldn't fetch more than $3 million at auction today ( http://www.sportingnews.com/ml... ).
Maybe not DIY diamonds, but laboratory-made synthetic diamonds are now being sold in regular jewelry stores for 30-40% less than natural diamonds. Read more here; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
People do not or choose not to hear, or disregard experts/science. The experts give up. The void of facts is replaced by emotions, insults, and political/legal maneuvers on both sides.
...or are we still fighting the Illuminati?
No, but thank you for providing a perfect example of the inane noise that facts have to compete with. (this was the only reason I chose to respond to an AC troll).
FWIW, I am licensed geologist and environmental consultant who works in areas where fracking occurs. I can say a lot about fracking that would probably surprise non-professionals on both sides of the debate, but I know I won't be heard/believed and I don't need to bear the ad-hominem attacks against me for trying to educate people. It's not my problem if society collectively ignore facts and wastes time and resources in protests, Facebook mining, restraining orders, and lawyer fees as described in the original article.
The problem here is the experts in the fields can't speak to the public on the science, engineering, and technical side of the fracking issue. The public won't listen when the experts try to explain, and experts give up trying to engage and educate the public. The result is debate not guided by science, but a battle waged by PR campaigns and lawyers with emotional pleas, misinformation, smear tactics, insults, political lobbying, and legal machinations on both sides. There are facts buried deep in the rhetoric, but the facts can't compete with the noise. It's not an issue unique to fracking either; the same disregard of science [and anti-intellectualism, in general] echoes through issues of GMOs, vaccinations, nuclear power, climate change, flat-earthers, intelligent design/creationism, etc.
If they'd put that business model in front of me I'd run screaming the other way
It's been hypothesized their business model is to get critical mass where they can the be powerful enough to dictate to the cinemas how much it is per ticket. In the mean time they're throwing good money after bad.
That's a stupid idea considering that cinemas have to remit a percentage of their take to the movie studios. Cinemas are already being bullied and I doubt they're willing to take it from both ends. There's only so low they can go, in the end. I think it's also clear by now that the MPAA's reach......
Yeah the real puppet master here is the MPAA/studios and their stubborn clinging to an antiquated, almost century old flat-price ticket business model. That's who the Movie Pass and theaters need to convince to be more flexible. Maybe if there was a tiered ticket price based on the movie's popularity, show time, release date, etc. more people would go to the theater. If award-winning dramas like The Post and Ladybird were $5-8/ticket I'll bet people would see them in the theater where they are more profitable per view for studios, instead of $1 Red Box rentals or pennies on a stream. MoviePass has the potential to get to a pricing structure like this, but not unless they can convince the studios there is a mutual benefit to cooperation on pricing.
If you wait until the movie is towards the end of it's theater run often the theater is empty, so many of the issues of bad seating and annoying people disappear. My wife and I saw Solo recently on a weekday, and we were the only people in the theater.
And the important point is that quick charging is nearly irrelevant except on trips, and you don't take a short-range EV on a trip. Regular charging is mostly at home or work. People aren't generally buying EVs on the assumption that they'll fill them up at a quick charge station like they do with gas.
Absolutely true. People are far too hung up on charging stations and fast-charging concerns. They are stuck in the gas station mindset [understandably, to a degree] and worry a lot about non-issues. I've owned a Nissan Leaf for nearly 3 years and I've never taken it to a charging station. All of my charging has been in my garage by 120V "trickle" charge. I drive it almost every day. Obviously, it's local/commuter vehicle only, which won't work everyone, but if you have a 2-car household it's very easy to get by with one EV and one ICE, for short and long trips, respectively.
To me that is like watching people eat. It just does not cause any of the pleasant feelings that the activity itself induces.
I mostly agree... I would never watch someone play just for the sake of watching. But two scenarios I might are: 1) I'm considering buying the game and want to see it actually played; and 2) sometimes watching a really good player can help you can pick up tricks and strategies that would take you much longer to figure out on your own by normal play/trial-and-error.
And hydrogen isn't even a fuel source - it's a fuel store. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than the hydrogen itself provides when used.
Cheap solar electricity could solve hydrogen's energy of production problem. Right now when California's skies are clear and the sun is shining they make surplus solar electricity (and more is coming). The surplus is wasted because there is no storage built into the grid. If surplus solar energy can be converted into something that can be stored and used when the sun goes down (like hydrogen) the problem of renewable energy is solved.
Firstly hydrogen as a fuel source is more dangerous than a lot of other alternatives both in use and transport.
I would agree if there was a need to transport hydrogen, but there isn't. You just build the hydrogen production plant in the same location as a hydrogen-burning power plant. Store generated hydrogen in large secured tanks piped directly to the power plant. No transportation dangers. In that controlled scenario hydrogen doesn't seem any more dangerous than natural gas, which is also extremely flammable/explosive and fuels many power plants.
It's been a while since I was in a chemistry class too, but oceans are a pretty big place if you spread things around. Dilution is the solution to pollution!...a tongue in cheek saying, but there is a truth. It might not be necessary to put it back in the ocean either if you can find a beneficial/marketable re-uses for bicarbonate in industry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), which might help balance the costs of the system.... maybe. Really though I think removing carbon from the air bit is mostly a nice sound byte for the media, but it's not the real story...
This could potentially balance the renewable energy grid, which is the biggest hurdle to make renewable energy feasible. Right now, California has enough solar built (with more coming) that when the skies are clear solar electricity supply overtakes demand, however the grid is on-demand only (no storage), so the surplus energy is dumped, and when the sun goes down the fossil fuel-based power plants fire up again. Dependency on weather conditions forces power companies to build a lot of expensive redundant power sources into the grid, so end consumers see little benefit. Other states and nations are adding solar and wind to their grids and hitting the same problem. This is a potential way to turn that excess solar and wind energy into hydrogen for storage until weather conditions are unfavorable. Essentially a battery, but a battery without mining and processing tons of metals like lithium, cobalt, zinc, etc. When the problem of energy grid storage is solved, the problem of renewable energy feasibility will be solved, which will also reduce our carbon emissions. If we sequester some carbon into bicarbonate in the process, that's lovely, but it's not the real point.
Slashdot Mirror
If anyone finds information on how Apple calculated that $200 valuation please share. I searched but found nothing. An AppleInsider article did say this though: "It is unclear if the $200 valuations are for hundreds of dollars or are in fact for $200 million." ( https://appleinsider.com/artic... )
I get that this guy has an interest in making his company look good, but the economy ultimately cares how people actually behave, not what they claim they want or what they will do. Just like when everyone claims they want [something].... Yet almost no one is willing to pay what it costs for [something]....
Agreed... behavioral economics... it's an interesting subject...
However, high quality in-flight WiFi may get a big boost from business travelers. The individual's cost-benefit analysis changes dramatically when someone else is paying. Businesses may not mind paying a premium to keep an employee productive and "on the clock" during flights.
Also, if satellite internet is the least expensive option for anything that is anything short of the most remote among remote places, I worry more about what is making more traditional infrastructure impossible there more than anything else.
Folks who live in urban areas seriously underestimate the challenges of building rural infrastructure. There are still many rural areas of the US that don't have cable TV/internet yet, much less fiber. On rural roads [and there are lots of them] utilities are delivered on poles, which is costly to maintain fiber lines; and the upfront costs of burying them can be prohibitive. There just aren't enough people on the line to make the economics of installation and long-term maintenance of fiber work out [unless subsidized by gov't or urban subscribers, but that's unlikely]. My parents live in a rural area and just got cable internet about 4 years ago; and before that they subscribed to a local WiFi-based ISP that made browsing the web tolerable, but a far cry from broadband. There are people near my parents who are still accessing the internet by dial-up, Direct TV satellite, or their cell phone if they live near a tower. FWIW, my parents are within a ~40 minute commute to the largest city in the state, so it's not that rural, relatively speaking. It's just really expensive to build/maintain this infrastructure. The most cost-effective way to bridge the last mile gap to rural areas will be with wireless technology, which many rural folk are already doing.
And that ^^ is just the US... In developing regions like Africa, Central and South America, island nations, etc. the challenges of physical internet infrastructure are multiplied by poor electric grids, lack of equipment, political instability, corruption, etc. There are still billions of potential customers in the world without access to a physical line that a satellite-based service could reach.
FWIW, when you hear about a small rural town getting fiber, it's probably just a small fraction of the residents in the village center or narrow corridor along a main road. But, the vast majority of rural town residents will live spread out over many square miles of surrounding countryside out of reach of the fiber lines.
You have a point: Radio can cover a wider area without having to bury anything, which is an advantage in rural areas where little to no infrastructure is built anymore, or where no infrastructure other than roads have been built yet.
Thank you. Exactly my point.
Electricity, water, waste water, phone lines, how difficult would it be to bury glass fiber alongside those?
This is an example of how urban/suburban folk don't fully understand rural infrastructure challenges (that's not meant as an insult, so please don't take it that way). In rural areas [and even some lower density suburban developments] water and sewer is typically onsite wells and septic tanks, respectively. Electric, phone, and cable lines are typically above ground on poles.* Now, you could run fiber on poles, but it will be damaged more often in storms, so long-term maintenance/repairs will be much higher; and there may not be enough customers on the line to support the maintenance. There might not be enough customers on the line to justify the upfront cost of trenching underground lines either.
* - Those conditions would describe the utilities for about 90% of residents in the VT town I grew up in, which is a pretty typical rural town (i.e. some public utilities right in the village center, but the vast majority of township residents are spread out over the countryside). I also have extended family in rural areas of central PA who are in similar conditions.
We have success stories in America too, like Vermont...
Sorry, but that is exaggerated or just bullshit. I grew up in rural VT on a gravel road and my parents still live there. Standard cable TV/internet became available to them ~4 years ago. Fiber is pipedream. I know some areas got fiber, particularly if they were near larger cities/towns like Burlington, Stowe, Montpelier, Rutland, etc. but there's still vast swaths of rural land where thousands of people live and get internet connectivity via cable, Dish Network, cell phones, or dial-up (yup dial-up is still a thing in some areas of VT).
I don't need ad-hominem attacks when there's actual information.
Recent 5G news:
https://mobile.slashdot.org/st...
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
https://mobile.slashdot.org/st...
Recent Satellite Internet news:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
https://science.slashdot.org/s...
5G will be commonplace in about two years and LEO satellite broadband will be longer, but no longer than it would take to lay fiber lines down every single rural road in America at great expense.
How do you think your 5G cell towers connect to the net?
Smoke signals?
Cell towers are connected to the net by fiber.
You answered your own question.... Connect one fat fiber to a tower that covers many square miles instead running fiber down every little rural podunk road to every cabin or farmer's doorstep. I didn't mean to say no fiber at all in rural areas, just that it's not cost-effective to run fiber to every doorstep, when wireless technology can bridge that gap.
FWIW, I grew up in a very rural area on gravel road where my parents still live. They had dial-up until about 2006, when a regional Wi-Fi ISP opened, which made browsing the web bearable but a far cry from "broadband". Standard cable TV/internet became available to them ~4 years ago. My father works in IT, so he jumps on these things as soon as he can, so you can't blame them for being luddites. There are areas near my parents that are more rural with only dial-up or Dish Network available. Urbanites vastly underestimate how difficult and expensive it is to build infrastructure into rural areas.
There's no reason the US shouldn't have this, too. Or at least your local state, if you prefer things at the state level.
Maybe 10-15 years ago, but I'm not convinced nationwide fiber is a smart investment now. Next generation mobile networks (e.g. "5G") and low-orbit satellites could provide the nationwide broadband coverage more efficiently than laying and maintaining* physical wires along every rural public road. Those technologies are being tested right now and could use a boost of investment.
* - I don't think most people realize how expensive it is to maintain fiber cables. If a fiber cable is damaged by a storm or an inexperienced excavator operator you can't just splice the line and replace a few feet; you often have to replace hundreds, sometimes miles of fiber all around the damaged location. Urban areas can absorb the cost/risk to laying fiber, but rural areas might not.
It's a little odd that GMO advocates are so opposed to people knowing how their food was produced.
I wonder if they feel that people are too stupid to decide what they want to eat?
It's not that people are stupid, but they are ignorant. A generic label doesn't teach people anything that will fix their ignorance. When people make choices from a state of ignorance they often unwittingly do more harm to themselves and others.
Ignorance is like being blindfolded. Being blindfolded does not make one stupid, but it does make moving around more risky. Placing labels on things around a blindfolded person does not help.
No need to ban GMO. Just clearly label it. No one will buy it, and the frankenfarmers will go out of business.
We should also label all irradiated food, and all those atomic farmers will go out of business! https://www.fda.gov/food/resou...
Labels on foods without any scientific basis do nothing but scare ignorant people.
Agreed, Slashdot's hands-off approach to trolls has driven away the knowledgeable members, academics, and experts that used to make Slashdot great. It is a shame. HOWEVER, moving that discussion slider bar to browse at 0 or 1 does do wonders. It's not enough to bring back Slashdot back to it's glory days of contributors, but it makes it passable now.
..."Crypto-Collectibles".... marketing... collector items.
Tangentially related to the idea of "crypto-collectibles" (and I don't see a better place to put this thought)...
If in the near-ish future average people could easily and unobtrusively display virtual/crypto collectibles, then it becomes less crazy to think they could have real world demand/value. For example if AR becomes commonly-used technology, which really isn't a far-fetched idea, then it would be pretty natural for people to use AR to display opinions or interests in subjects as they already do with T-shirts, bumper-stickers, jacket patches, keychains, ball caps, posters, photographs, trinkets, license plate covers, etc. In an AR-capable world with blockchain to prove authenticity, the early adopters could have something relatively rare and valuable. Virtual (i.e. not-real) stuff goes against everything I conceive of as value, but only the stuff no one expects to have value ends up rare and valuable. If not for all those kids who used to jam Mickey Mantle rookie cards into their bike spokes to make noises, the card probably wouldn't fetch more than $3 million at auction today ( http://www.sportingnews.com/ml... ).
Maybe not DIY diamonds, but laboratory-made synthetic diamonds are now being sold in regular jewelry stores for 30-40% less than natural diamonds. Read more here; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
Yep, even going back...
...to the printing press (invented 1440), which between printing copies of the Bible, printed steamy sex stories.
So where's the breakdown...
People do not or choose not to hear, or disregard experts/science. The experts give up. The void of facts is replaced by emotions, insults, and political/legal maneuvers on both sides.
...or are we still fighting the Illuminati?
No, but thank you for providing a perfect example of the inane noise that facts have to compete with. (this was the only reason I chose to respond to an AC troll).
FWIW, I am licensed geologist and environmental consultant who works in areas where fracking occurs. I can say a lot about fracking that would probably surprise non-professionals on both sides of the debate, but I know I won't be heard/believed and I don't need to bear the ad-hominem attacks against me for trying to educate people. It's not my problem if society collectively ignore facts and wastes time and resources in protests, Facebook mining, restraining orders, and lawyer fees as described in the original article.
The problem here is the experts in the fields can't speak to the public on the science, engineering, and technical side of the fracking issue. The public won't listen when the experts try to explain, and experts give up trying to engage and educate the public. The result is debate not guided by science, but a battle waged by PR campaigns and lawyers with emotional pleas, misinformation, smear tactics, insults, political lobbying, and legal machinations on both sides. There are facts buried deep in the rhetoric, but the facts can't compete with the noise. It's not an issue unique to fracking either; the same disregard of science [and anti-intellectualism, in general] echoes through issues of GMOs, vaccinations, nuclear power, climate change, flat-earthers, intelligent design/creationism, etc.
What ever happened to ignoring stuff you don't agree with. A lot of today's generation have always got to have the last word regardless.
I suspect that not being able to ignore stuff and needing to get the last word has contributed to Slashdot's 953 comments and counting on this story.
If they'd put that business model in front of me I'd run screaming the other way
It's been hypothesized their business model is to get critical mass where they can the be powerful enough to dictate to the cinemas how much it is per ticket. In the mean time they're throwing good money after bad.
That's a stupid idea considering that cinemas have to remit a percentage of their take to the movie studios. Cinemas are already being bullied and I doubt they're willing to take it from both ends. There's only so low they can go, in the end. I think it's also clear by now that the MPAA's reach......
Yeah the real puppet master here is the MPAA/studios and their stubborn clinging to an antiquated, almost century old flat-price ticket business model. That's who the Movie Pass and theaters need to convince to be more flexible. Maybe if there was a tiered ticket price based on the movie's popularity, show time, release date, etc. more people would go to the theater. If award-winning dramas like The Post and Ladybird were $5-8/ticket I'll bet people would see them in the theater where they are more profitable per view for studios, instead of $1 Red Box rentals or pennies on a stream. MoviePass has the potential to get to a pricing structure like this, but not unless they can convince the studios there is a mutual benefit to cooperation on pricing.
If you wait until the movie is towards the end of it's theater run often the theater is empty, so many of the issues of bad seating and annoying people disappear. My wife and I saw Solo recently on a weekday, and we were the only people in the theater.
And the important point is that quick charging is nearly irrelevant except on trips, and you don't take a short-range EV on a trip. Regular charging is mostly at home or work. People aren't generally buying EVs on the assumption that they'll fill them up at a quick charge station like they do with gas.
Absolutely true. People are far too hung up on charging stations and fast-charging concerns. They are stuck in the gas station mindset [understandably, to a degree] and worry a lot about non-issues. I've owned a Nissan Leaf for nearly 3 years and I've never taken it to a charging station. All of my charging has been in my garage by 120V "trickle" charge. I drive it almost every day. Obviously, it's local/commuter vehicle only, which won't work everyone, but if you have a 2-car household it's very easy to get by with one EV and one ICE, for short and long trips, respectively.
To me that is like watching people eat. It just does not cause any of the pleasant feelings that the activity itself induces.
I mostly agree... I would never watch someone play just for the sake of watching. But two scenarios I might are: 1) I'm considering buying the game and want to see it actually played; and 2) sometimes watching a really good player can help you can pick up tricks and strategies that would take you much longer to figure out on your own by normal play/trial-and-error.
And hydrogen isn't even a fuel source - it's a fuel store. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than the hydrogen itself provides when used.
Cheap solar electricity could solve hydrogen's energy of production problem. Right now when California's skies are clear and the sun is shining they make surplus solar electricity (and more is coming). The surplus is wasted because there is no storage built into the grid. If surplus solar energy can be converted into something that can be stored and used when the sun goes down (like hydrogen) the problem of renewable energy is solved.
Firstly hydrogen as a fuel source is more dangerous than a lot of other alternatives both in use and transport.
I would agree if there was a need to transport hydrogen, but there isn't. You just build the hydrogen production plant in the same location as a hydrogen-burning power plant. Store generated hydrogen in large secured tanks piped directly to the power plant. No transportation dangers. In that controlled scenario hydrogen doesn't seem any more dangerous than natural gas, which is also extremely flammable/explosive and fuels many power plants.
It's been a while since I was in a chemistry class too, but oceans are a pretty big place if you spread things around. Dilution is the solution to pollution! ...a tongue in cheek saying, but there is a truth. It might not be necessary to put it back in the ocean either if you can find a beneficial/marketable re-uses for bicarbonate in industry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), which might help balance the costs of the system.... maybe. Really though I think removing carbon from the air bit is mostly a nice sound byte for the media, but it's not the real story...
This could potentially balance the renewable energy grid, which is the biggest hurdle to make renewable energy feasible. Right now, California has enough solar built (with more coming) that when the skies are clear solar electricity supply overtakes demand, however the grid is on-demand only (no storage), so the surplus energy is dumped, and when the sun goes down the fossil fuel-based power plants fire up again. Dependency on weather conditions forces power companies to build a lot of expensive redundant power sources into the grid, so end consumers see little benefit. Other states and nations are adding solar and wind to their grids and hitting the same problem. This is a potential way to turn that excess solar and wind energy into hydrogen for storage until weather conditions are unfavorable. Essentially a battery, but a battery without mining and processing tons of metals like lithium, cobalt, zinc, etc. When the problem of energy grid storage is solved, the problem of renewable energy feasibility will be solved, which will also reduce our carbon emissions. If we sequester some carbon into bicarbonate in the process, that's lovely, but it's not the real point.