pdelbarba

Pretty sure 10,000db is "destroy the observable universe" power levels so.....somehow worse than nukes?

That's a 10^1000 multiplier. It doesn't even matter what unit you use really...

I think it depends on context. There are a lot of sim games where the environment is very controlled and forums are littered with people who can't tell whether the occasional picture is real or in-game. A forest is hard to render accurately but a plane in flight is pretty trivial

Yea, this one goes from 0 to 100 real quick. The first half is a valid-ish argument, then the second is just an exponentially growing web of conspiracy theories...

JFC we really need to turn this societal acceptance of "you don't own the hardware" around.

It's always been legal to sell parts off your car. Do not buy anything that attempts to prevent you from owning what you bought through any sort of user agreement.

Colorado has vote my mail as the default option and it works fine. If you want to vote, you register, get a ballot in the mail and return it. You can verify that it's counted by following it online and we haven't really had any issues.

If you set up the system correctly it'll work just fine.

For an owner operator, an R22 and maybe an R44 would be able to do SF to Lake Tahoe for well under $250. For a charter service you could probably get a commercial operator to do it for maybe around ~$500 and there are definitely some inefficiencies you could remove there. Lilium is on crack if they actually think $250 is going to be the all in cost for a private flight though. You don't just spin up a new air frame and 135 operation and make money at those numbers...unless you pull an Uber on steroids and open the VC floodgates...

You can throw around statistics but the reality is aircraft receive far more scrutiny. Nobody wants to sit helplessly as one of these things flies them into the side of a skyscraper or watch as one falls out of the sky onto them.

Is that fair? Maybe?

Is that reality? Yes.

This isn't like the invention of cars. We have had all manner of airplanes for over 100 years and know how they work. This is like the NYC helicopter taxi boom in the late 70s and 80s where a number of fiery and high profile crashes put an end to the industry.

If they're operating in the US (given all the pictures of US cities) then they will absolutely be flying part 121 or 135.

I absolutely guarantee this will be anything but less expensive.

You can get an R44 with better range and payload for a couple hundred thousand. This will be an electronic nightmare requiring extensive certification and maintenance efforts. Cessna can't even sell ridiculously old designs for reasonable prices due to certification overhead.

This isn't going to be certified and allowed for part 135 operations inside at least a decade. Boeing can't keep their jets from crashing due to simple trim control software, what makes anyone think the FAA is going to go along with these flights over densely populated areas?

This feels a lot like when everyone was scrambling to start helicopter taxi services which promptly crashed and burned... Helicopters were a mature and well understood technology then, but the realities of operating in urban areas under a variety of weather conditions just doesn't allow for these services to be A) safe or B) economical.

Not if they have no funding for those things...

Really they spawned a huge industry of balance-operated electric scooter...things... The branding was much more accurate than I think even they hoped as they were a segue to more cost effective solutions.

I think it's a pretty good cautionary tale for those looking to follow the Tesla model. Don't target the ultra-high end unless you have enough of a technological and legal moat to fend off the vastly simplified and cost effective competitors.

These are all moonshot projects. If someone can come up with a creative and simple ventilator that relies entirely on 3d printed and massively available electronic parts they can save a lot of lives and it appears to be entirely possible. If they don't produce anything of value, at least they tried.