Toyota has only ever used hydrogen tech as spoiler and FUD to counter the uptake of battery electric vehicles. It never stood a chance of taking off for a variety of reasons and was never intended to. Same for their other efforts of late - liquid hydrogen power (not merely compressed but liquid), ammonia power, solid state batteries (which they've been claiming could come any day for the last 10 years) etc. All intended to dampen enthusiasm for BEVs and spread the illusion of viable alternatives. And yeah solid state batteries will come at some point but it will be no thanks to Toyota.

I wouldn't be surprised if in addition to the above that some parties, e.g. automakers or oil companies are responsible amplifying disinfo about EVs. There is certainly a lot of lies going around and somebody is putting them out there.

Titan's atmosphere is rather calm; not an issue. At the surface, the winds measured by Huygens were 0,3 m/s.

You actually can use solar power in extreme environments - even Venus's surface has been shown to be compatible with certain types solar, though you certainly get very poor power density. Dragonfly, as noted above, uses an RTG.

Planetary scientists frequently refer to moons that are large enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium as planets in the literature. Examples, just from a quick search:

"Locally enhanced precipitation organized by planetary-scale waves on Titan"

"3.3. Relevance to Other Planets" (section on Titan)

"Superrotation in Planetary Atmospheres" (article covers Titan alongside three other planets)

"All planets with substantial atmospheres (e.g., Earth, Venus, Mars, and Titan) have ionospheres which expand above the exobase"

"Clouds on Titan result from the condensation of methane and ethane and, as on other planets, are primarily structured by circulation of the atmosphere"

"... of the planet. However, rather than being scarred by volcanic features, Titan's surface is largely shaped..."

"Spectrophotometry of the Jovian Planets and Titan at 300- to 1000-nm Wavelength: The Methane Spectrum" (okay, it's mainly referring to the Jovian satellites as planets, but same point)

"Superrotation indices for Solar System and extrasolar atmospheres" - contains a table whose first column is "Planet", and has Titan in the list, alongside other planets

Etc. This is not to be confused with the phrase "minor planet", which is used for asteroids, etc. In general there's a big distinction in how commonly you see the large moons in hydrostatic equilibrium referred to as "planets" and with "planetary" adjectives, vs. smaller bodies not in hydrostatic equilibrium.

Why?

NASA's obsession with Mars is weird, and it consumes the lion's share of their planetary exploration budget. We know vastly more about Mars than we know of everywhere else except Earth.

This news here is bittersweet for me. I *love* Titan - it and Venus are my two favourite worlds for further exploration, and dragonfly is a superb way to explore Titan. But there's some sadness in the fact that they're launching it to an equatorial site, so we don't get to see the fascinating hydrocarbon seas and the terrain sculpted by them near the poles. I REALLY wish they were going to the north pole instead :( In theory they could eventually get there, but the craft would have to survive far beyond design limits and get a lot of mission extensions. At a max pace of travel it might cover 600 meters or so per Earth day on average. So we're talking like 12 years to get to the first small hydrocarbon lakes and ~18 years to get to Ligeia Mare or Punga Mare (a bit further to Kraken Mare), *assuming* no detours, vs. a 2 1/2 year mission design. And that ignores the fact that they'll be going slower in the start - the nominal mission is only supposed to cover 175km, just a few percent of the way, under 200 metres per day. Sigh... Maybe it'll be possible to squeeze more range out of it once they're comfortable with its performance and reliability, but... it's a LONG way to the poles.

At least if it lasts for that long it'll have done a full transition between wet and dry cycles, which should last ~15 years. So maybe surface liquids will be common at certain points, rare in others.

And don't worry, they probably used vi, it's optimized for low baud rates...

Hello context callling. This is an article about Amazon delivering shit in the US, not about some other thing in Rwanda or whatever else you want to conjure up.

The old name of Coffee Stain Studios was actually a single studio not multiple so it was a little misleading / confusing.

The new name Coffee Stain & Friends makes this a little clearer.

Many people ask me, What about the future? Well, rest assured, we will be there...

"It's the bees and the spiders, Mr. President!"

...a jazz fusion band?

Because (a) we have infinitely more experience with this than with cars; the level of automation in aircraft is amazing; (b) the operational environment is in many ways much simpler than things on the ground. However, that's not really a recipe for "flying cars" (which actually, nobody wants) and as you point out: those are just called "helicopters".

There will be heliport-to-heliport super short hops by autonomous electric helicopters coming online pretty soon. Very small market, even if they artificially price the rides at 10x less than their actual cost. A hype-show demonstrator technology, really.

Drone delivery would only work in locations in perfect weather, with no nearby hazards, no flight paths / air restrictions, where the item is light enough, and in stock and close enough to a recipient who will pay stupid money to receive it fast. In other words, a diminishingly small set of customers.

If that were to happen, then most people could install solar & a household battery. Either charge the car at night from the battery, or during the day/weekend. I expect ultimately most EVs will be charged through solar hooked up to parking. After all most cars spend their lives stationary, parked at home or the office.