Perceptual "Funny" link thread

[ewmayer]

Elon Musk: Greatest Man Alive - Existential Comics

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Elon Musk: Greatest Man Alive - Existential Comics

Now there's a Soap Box thread if ever I saw one! Government has "invested" approximately ~nothing into SpaceX (depending on your definition of "invest") and though I can't speak for the car side of things, it certainly passes the smell test that other car companies get at least as much incentives as Tesla. Not that those count as "investment" either. Honestly I'm not sure the other guy understands "invest" as well as he thinks he does. When SpaceX was founded in 2002, he put most of the money he had at the time into it. Most of his current "fortune" is in shares of SpaceX and Tesla, so calling that money not-an-investment (as the other guy seems to do) is not even a meaningful sentence.

[ewmayer]

@Dubslow: Here is an 2015 LA Times articles on Musk's government-subsidy-targeting strategy, which interested readers can use to help make their own judgment. I thought the cartoon made a pretty fair point re. Musk's beloved "look over here! New! Shiny! Genius! Squirrel!" diversionary tactic whenever bad news re. his various ventures' massive problems with mundane real-world issues like, say, "making money by manufacturing cars people are willing to buy at a markup relative to the manufacturing cost" threatens to grab headlines. Every non-puff-piece I've read about Tesla points to it being a huge money-losing black hole of "gosh, actually manufacturing physical *stuff* and doing it both cost-effectively and well is harder than my passionate disrupter-thought-leader-software-genius-self told me it would be"-ness ... thing is losing literally billions per year, and the more money Musk throws at it, the worse the loss ratio becomes. Note the upshot of the preceding piece in form of the following dire ratio: "26% increase in revenues caused a 114% jump in net losses."

I give Musk credit for making e-cars sexy, but like so many auto-industry pioneers, it looks like other companies with less media-lovefest hype but much, much more car-making-and-selling experience are going to be the long-term beneficiaries.

[Dubslow]

I don't claim to know much about Tesla, that's for sure. I can tell you all about SpaceX though, who certainly have succeeded in turning out their physical product faster than any other competitor (with fantastic cash flow to boot, at least now). SpaceX certainly has never received federal government subsidies. (It wouldn't exist without federal spending -- a lot of the credit for SpaceX even existing today goes to the Bush-era politicians who first launched NASA's commercial space programs in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster -- but make no mistake, all federal government spending on SpaceX has been the result of publicly competed contracts, the government agency getting a service or product back in return, at market prices, with the exception of one small Air Force R&D contract which specified at least 2-to-1 private investment per government dollar spent, but this contract was for a product that SpaceX didn't have direct interest in, and the R&D in question was begun at the request of the Air Force. None of this qualifies as "subsidy"; the mini Air Force contract might count as "investment", or it might count as speculative capability development by the Air Force, which is an investment by the Air Force for the Air Force, but certainly not an investment in SpaceX's bottom line, which several private companies have done to the tune of billions of dollars. Not the government.) Like I said, Tesla may get a lot of subsidies, but SpaceX most certainly does not.

[kladner]

I give Musk credit for making e-cars sexy, but like so many auto-industry pioneers, it looks like other companies with less media-lovefest hype but much, much more car-making-and-selling experience are going to be the long-term beneficiaries.

It seems to me that some of the real benefits of the Tesla project come from advances in battery technology. Storage is one of the real needs on the renewable energy front. The batteries are gaining significance beyond the cars.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by kladner

It seems to me that some of the real benefits of the Tesla project come from advances in battery technology. Storage is one of the real needs on the renewable energy front. The batteries are gaining significance beyond the cars.

The electricity storage market is far more competitive than the electric cars market. Maybe Tesla has higher volume than most companies, but I highly doubt that the market would look all that different without Tesla (in the area of storage, dunno about the cars application).

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by kladner

It seems to me that some of the real benefits of the Tesla project come from advances in battery technology. Storage is one of the real needs on the renewable energy front. The batteries are gaining significance beyond the cars.

I hear they are gaining popularity as a "poor man's cluster bomb." :) And like all good miltary explosive ordnance, they even remain dangerous long after the initial use.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I hear they are gaining popularity as a "poor man's cluster bomb." :) And like all good miltary explosive ordnance, they even remain dangerous long after the initial use.

I have to suppose that the battery had sustained considerable damage. I have to wonder how fast the car was going, considering how much is missing.That is the auto context. Storage for solar, or some other renewable is stationary, which would have fewer stresses.

Then too, these are still the early days of increasing energy density in batteries. I am not at all saying that Tesla batteries are going to rule the world. There are other very promising technologies. Whatever they are, the more such things are pursued, the better. Even crashes and fires contribute to the knowledge base. One hopes that someone learns from such things.

[Mark Rose]

https://github.com/kelseyhightower/nocode

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I hear they are gaining popularity as a "poor man's cluster bomb." :) And like all good miltary explosive ordnance, they even remain dangerous long after the initial use.

So -- any kind of bomb, shell, or grenade which simply explodes on first use is not "good" military explosive ordnance?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

So -- any kind of bomb, shell, or grenade which simply explodes on first use is not "good" military explosive ordnance?

As usual, it's a little complicated...

A land mine, by design, doesn't explode once it's deployed. Nor does a sea mine.

It is common SOP (in an asymmetric warfare situation) to detonate two car bombs, at different times. The first kills lots of civilians; the second kills lots of first responders.

Cluster bombs are /supposed/ to all explode at about the same time, to send out quite an impressive wavefront.

But, as we all know, machines don't always do exactly what we tell them to do....

P.S. I once spent a wonderful vacation in Cambodia. But the Hash there was quite different than what I was used to. Instead of searching out the correct path across large areas of land, instead it was effectively "follow the leader". Why, because they didn't know where the land mines were, more than fifty years after the war!