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AeroHorn

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Everything posted by AeroHorn

  1. NFL is all about percentages. They think the percentage of reaching the field goal range is less than something bad happening. In college football, defenses are not as good as compared to offenses, and they get a TO after first down.
  2. I don't understand Iran's position. They should have realized that Trump cancelled the nuclear deal only because it was signed by Obama. Trump has made it clear multiple times, even inviting them to renegotiate. Iranians could have got the same or even a better deal with just a bit of flattery.
  3. Aha. I was at a client and I was wondering why the commode is sloping forward. It was absolutely top end otherwise, with bidet and wireless remote that adjusts seat temperature, jet pressure, direction, pulse frequency, water temperature, etc. Absolutely great except for that slope.
  4. Why do people think Trump winning isn't at least 50% probable? Herd mentality is very well ingrained and will overtake even rational individuals, and we know that rationality is less than 50% in our country (and outside too). Most of the people buy stuff they don't need on credit cards, they chug sugary sodas, and their news is through memes. And these are the educated and employed ones. Rationality has become a rare commodity. I would guess that the majority would look at a few video clips of the presidential election debates and vote according to anything but rational thought (have always voted this way, job is going well so country must be good, Trump is funny, etc.) An incumbent has the advantage of name recognition, and in Trump's case, a lot of shenanigans that are possible to those willing to abuse power, ranging from lying blatantly with a guaranteed wide reach to abusing anything and everything to secure votes, whether pushing coal or pushing kids in cages. I would give Dems the higher chance of winning if they were somehow united and had a simplified crystal clear message. They are far from united; the party prefers Biden and is scared of Bernie because they are too comfortable to rock the boat, and there are 100 messages from 10 candidates. Unless Dems go cold turkey and embrace the 21st century wholeheartedly, there is a good chance that the party that is clinging to the 19th century will win.
  5. I guess it reflects the percentage of student population that actually plays any sport regularly, let alone football.
  6. The girl that won in Dallas was making football throws.
  7. I can see how Georgia lost to Texas last year. And they are the #2 team in SEC last two years.
  8. I hadn't seen Fowler for a while. Wow, he looks old.
  9. The Utah QB is lost. Better they focus on running the ball with occasional pass.
  10. I wonder if the duo want to do something different, and what would that be? Gates was somewhat pushed by the antitrust stuff, and he has found his other vocation. Bezos has Washington Post and Blue Origin. Musk is Musk. They may not be wired like Pichai, Nadella, Cook, etc. who are good at managing huge things, which gets somewhat repetitive year after year. I know they have some outside projects but they are pretty small. I suspect they will go more technology route (Musk) than charity route (Gates).
  11. The world is a complicated place.
  12. That's aggy play, when they lost to OU.
  13. Nix would have run better, not to mention the D would have respected the pass.
  14. I don't understand running into the pile. Why not run wide? I would have preferred the QB rollout for RPO.
  15. Very important question. Thank you to others who have already answered it. I'll just link to an exhaustive summary by NREL based off of their detailed reports for each energy type (renewable or otherwise). https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/65645.pdf They do the whole life cycle analysis, not only for emissions, but also for the use of other natural resources such as water and land. They also include 2000+ installation sites data, and do quite a bit of statistical normalization. Slide 10 explains their life cycle calculation methodology Slide 29 summarizes the emissions across different energy sources in terms of green house gasses. As mentioned earlier, renewables are a small fraction of natural gas and coal. Slides 46 and 49 summarize water usage. Among renewables, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) has high recirculating water usage (as expected) but photo voltaic and wind use very little water. Slides 55 and 56 summarize land usage. Since this is uniquely renewable concern, they have listed only these types. As they explain in the text, the very high land use for wind power is not really accurate because the wind turbine has practically no impact on the land and the land can be used for farming, etc. TL;DR: Very exhaustive full life cycle studies for all natural resources show that renewables, especially solar and wind, have very small impact compared to all other types of energy generation.
  16. Why you mad though? For information in easy to understand format, I suggest you get started by perusing the DOE website. https://www.energy.gov/eere/electricvehicles/electric-vehicle-benefits. More online searching would definitely be educational. Personally, I get my electricity from the solar panels on my roof. For my state, California, about 50% is clean/renewable source energy, with 43.5% being solar, hydro, wind and geothermal, and depending on how you see nuclear, add 8.7% to it. Even if 100% is from burning non-renewable unclean sources, burning it at a power plant instead of in the car engine has many advantages, the main ones being much higher efficiency power extraction, emissions kept much lower and handled more efficiently, and those that are released to atmosphere are away from where people live. Texas is not up there yet, but it has tremendous potential for wind and solar. Of course, there are challenges, the main one being the uneven production from solar and wind, but there are many solutions being developed. Any other questions?
  17. Fair points. Musk has many faults, some quite egregious ones, including the way he has sold the AutoPilot and the reasons behind SolarCity acquisition (imo). He is at heart an R&D person and has no business running operations. And just like an R&D person, he would rather doodle about the next thing (a blade runner truck! a tunnel for me to avoid traffic!) than work on what he has already promised (a $35k car, an integrated and affordable solar solution, etc.). Even though Musk may sincerely believe and express his heartfelt desire to democratize clean and affordable future for everyone, he , by nature, will not be able to do it. He may want to be the Toyota+VW+GM, but he'll be their very well funded and unencumbered skunk works division. He'll forever promise the next big thing and will use his many gifts (desirable and undesirable) to somehow make them real in at least a limited sense. Hence, the cult following, always dreaming and always led by something shinier that is oh so within reach. But to overlook this contribution is foolish, and even ungrateful. Because of him, automotive industry will be electric, power company ripoffs during peak loads will be no more, NASA again has an avenue to think about Mars, etc.
  18. Lot of saltiness against a company that pretty much single-handedly, against tough odds, has turned the automotive industry direction from fossil fuel power to electric; so much so that Mustang is going to be electric. Musk is a dork, attention-seeker, and a promise first and worry about delivery later fundraiser, but it was pretty much what was needed to win. He has been laughed at for everything from using "laptop" batteries in cars to getting into rocketry with PayPal background, but he usually has the last word. This truck is unusual, but I can clearly see the engineering reasoning. Anyone here that has designed anything reasonably complicated (an Apple Watch, a VR headset, etc.) knows that the final product is governed largely by the philosophical approach chosen. For current cars and trucks, the primary philosophy is to fit the design to current manufacturing/supply chain ecosystem. Here, Musk has started with a blank slate and said, "what if I start with the cubic volume of an F-150 and nothing else?" His team reached the conclusion that by building an exoskeleton (think insect with hard shell), they can better use the space than the traditional body-on-frame skeleton approach (think mammals). Obviously, this results in a completely different vehicle. Now, the outside shell can just be a cuboid, or a rounded cylinder, or a pretty good aerodynamic wedge shape. Of course, the wedge shape can be smoothed, but secondary issues are many, such as Musk's love for whimsy vs traditional ID team's concept of what is appealing, the exoskeleton's strength in bending and torsion as a function of modifying the wedge shape, manufacturing ease/cost, etc. This is when UX team also gets involved regarding ease of use, story boarding a day with the product, etc. I think, at the end, Musk must have said, "let me roll with a radical design, and we still have lot of time to massage everything about it." After all, Tesla still has Model Y to build and deliver before even seriously starting work on the truck. TL,DR: Design is based on the chosen philosophy, and this truck is just Musk playing around with the final product most likely to be different enough while maintaining the same concept, imo.
  19. As expected, the features are fine, and the price is reasonable too. I liked that built-in ramp. I am a geek, and won't mind driving it.
  20. Tesla's fundamental design language is function over form and minimal to no lines, which many companies are too happy to add, with Prius Prime being an extreme example. They could have stuck to their design aesthetics by rounding out the sharp lines.
  21. Elon said that the 1977 Lotus Espirit S1 was his inspiration. I guess he stuck too close to it.
  22. The livestream link is available, though it is showing only a time counter now. https://livestream.tesla.com
  23. I expect the front to look like the semi, maybe with a straight line accent in front that is part of the teaser image. Regarding customers, they could be looking for business customers, where they may get good ROI while being environmentally friendly. The overlap between existing truck customers and EV enthusiasts may be low; so I don't expect it to be hot with consumers in the near future.
  24. That is an arm against the DE's throat all the way to the QB. It is atrociously obvious.
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