Well, that is what we have. The participants are regulated through deciding who gets a bailout, and what terms they receive it under, even if they don't want the bailout (e.g. Ford.) And the prices are kept artificially high through these means as well.

That's right, you go BMW if your first goal is to have a driver's car, with good overall performance. You go to Mercedes, Maserati, Aston or Jag for luxury. And you go Audi for a car that just works... for a few years anyway

So far, absolutely no one on the planet has shown themselves to be responsible with their nuclear waste. France, often held up here as an example of the system working correctly, has been caught by just good ol' Greenpeace dumping waste in Russia. So far, no one with the funding to run a reactor is also sufficiently responsible. There are no signs that humanity is improving as a whole, so there is no reason to believe that nuclear power should ever be a safely viable option.

That is a gross misrepresentation of the situation. There are numerous problems with using mined fuels, not least the environmental impact of the mining itself. If you actually wanted to solve our problems with power generation you would be promoting solar, wind, and tidal power, and developments in power storage. These sources have the potential to provide for more than 100% of our current rate of consumption. Further, our rate of consumption could be slowed dramatically, through various improvements in efficiency.

Which requires fracking, because we're otherwise at peak production. Natural gas is going to be a tragedy worse than gasoline. Say goodbye to free clean drinking water. It will exist nowhere.

You are obviously either a troll or an idiot if you fail to take into account the number of efficiency advantages in EVs, e.g. regenerative braking. So yes, you did it just to stir up a hornet's nest, even if you're not smart (and self-aware) enough to know that.

Interestingly, Toyota has been claiming that they would deliver a Fuel Cell car within x years (x being highly variable) for about twenty years now. Ditto Honda.

Because automotive fuel cells are a completely unproven technology, and only people with too much money buy the new tech. They can afford to eat it if it fails.

I know I said I wouldn't respond, but STOP TRYING TO TELL OTHERS WHAT *I* AM CONCERNED ABOUT. YOU DO NOT KNOW, SO YOU HAVE NO PLACE CLAIMING YOU DO.

I am not "concerned" about any of it. Though you seem to be. And I don't know why, because your analysis above actually verifies what I stated earlier. I've been wasting my time with (my opinion) an idiot.

0.2% is not zero. Therefore T0 (if that is the outward extent of earth system) has a surface area of T * 1.002, and its temperature will be measurably lower than that of heat source T. Therefore we have a net heat transfer proportional to T - T0, which is a non-zero quantity.

You've proved nothing here except to verify my point. But let's finish it...

This argument is HILARIOUS. The only way you can make it "arbitrarily small" is by making Spencer's (and your) whole argument "arbitrarily small" at the same time. I tried to tell you this before, but you just don't get it. That's too bad, because in reality you can't have it both ways.

If the dimensions (and therefore mass) of your "enclosing plate" approaches zero, then any absorption and re-rediation will also approach zero, and any supposed effect it will have on the temperature of the heat source will also approach zero. Even if your argument were correct, you're arguing yourself out of an argument.

So no, this argument is NOT valid with an "arbitrarily small" enclosing mass. It has to have enough to make a measurable difference on the temperature of the source (your argument, not mine) or the whole argument is empty.

You are trying to say you can make the dimensions larger by an "arbitrarily small" amount, without reducing the effect you are arguing for to an equally "arbitrarily small" amount. But the whole argument was about tangible and measurable effects. So you can't have it that way, man.

You sure know how to argue yourself into corners. Your assumptions are pure shit.

Now, I am done arguing. You can repeat the same BULLSHIT over and over all you want, but that won't make it any more valid. If you had the courage of your convictions, you would argue with the proper people about this, rather than trying to pick on (and losing to) a layman who is actually just laughing at your antics. Not laughing at your insults and attempts at ad-hominem and character assassination, no. But your antics, and your arguments about "physics", yes.

It really is amazing that with only 2 models, that they will be producing roughly 50K instances each year of high-end $80-90k vehicles. And that is with less than 1/5 of the world actually having the ability to buy these.
Compare that to say porsche. Last year, they sold 165K cars. 2 of these are similar to what Tesla has/will have: the Cayennes, which is similar to Model X and their panamera which is similar to Model S.
While the Cayennes has grown each year to just under 20K unit, the Panermera grew each year to 7.7K in 2012, but dropped more than 20% just last year to 5.5K. Very likely, the Model X will destroy the Cayennes and other wanna-be POSs sales quicker than what Model S did.
And I am sure that Tesla is putting a bite on other makers as well.

What it comes to, is that the longer that the other makers avoid doing pure inexpensive electric cars, the faster their sales will drop each year. As it is, Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Audi are looking to bet big on H2 Fuel cells. Worst idea going. By the time that they finally adjust, they will each have lost large amounts of their volume similar to what is SpaceX is doing to ULA, Russia, and Airbus.

Actually, if you look at the I3, it has the interior of a $20K car. Worst yet, with it being electric, it should have spectacular performance, and yet, it drives like any other POS car out there. IOW, just like a ford and any BMW that costs under 100K.

well, no. It really is overvalued at this point. Even Musk has said so. With this was a mature company, it would be around 50/share at this point. So being some 5x over, is just crazy.
I think that a correction WILL occur, but it will probably never drop to 50. In fact, I am betting that it will hit 150 again (without a split) but no lower.

And it is not just R*D that is costing them. It is building out showrooms and supercharger network. That is huge.

You need to go study some history to realize that it is very sane to compare the 2.

The problem with what you are saying is that if our comms and spy sats are taken out, AND somebody launches quickly from the ocean, then it is possible to destroy a nation, even America.

And China's work is headed in that direction. As I said elsewhere, back in the original cold war, American and Russian leaders did NOT want nuke war, and in fact, put limits on what our nations could do to prevent making first strike winnable.
But China refuses those changes. Worst yet, they have a massive spying going on over here which is letting them know exactly what we have, and how to take it out.

No, China is to be feared because they will in fact, cause a nuke war if they continue on this path.

They do now. The Chinese Government released details of all 310 Microsoft patents used in Android licensing agreements last month. You can download the list here: http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe... (warning: docx)

That could be another reason why Samsung is now willing to contest the extortion. Very few of the patents are novel or non-obvious.

Nobody pays for votes with money. Not directly at least.

People are paid in deals, jobs, favors - which they get to enjoy AFTER they elect candidate X.
Supply contracts, appointments, sponsorships, various consulting positions... once elected X gets handed a whole ball of strings that can be pulled for people who've been good to X.

Your boss doesn't have to order you to vote for candidate X. Nor does candidate X have to bribe you to get your vote.
Your boss just needs to mention that he/she hopes candidate X will win cause that will mean a secure government contract for the company.
They are friends from back in your boss's goat fucking days, and you know how goat fuckers "stay tight".

And for a "small-ish municipality (between 10,000 to 15,000 in population)" one would probably only need to acquire a couple of hundred votes, one way or the other.

10000-15000 is about 7500-11250 eligible voters.
At about 60% turnout, that makes 4500-6750 votes, total.
At very worst, with a single opponent, you'd need 2250-3375 votes + 1 (or whatever is the necessary majority).

I.e. Not even a quarter of the population.
Now... how many of those people or their spouses and family (Remember, married people count as two votes each.) are already on the municipality payroll, one way or the other?
Police, fire department, utilities...
Those are the votes you buy directly from the budget.
You only need a couple of percent of "real" voters out of those 2250-3375.
I.e. People with influence over other voters.

And yes... The incumbent official has it much easier.

Well, while he's busy sitting on his "proprietary" meta compiler, here's a tool that uses XML to define a business application model and which can be used to produce any text-based language code you might desire. I'm focusing on building Java applications with it.

Unlike some people, I have no where near enough ego to "sit on it" until I "retire." I'd rather people gain whatever use they can as early as they can. Sure it's not perfect and it's not what *everyone* needs, but it works for what it does so far: six database products, a Java ORM, XML parsers, XML messaging for RPC-type behaviour, and I'm working on a prototype/demo Swing GUI right now.

So download http://msscodefactory.sourceforge.net, play, have fun, try it out. No charge, no strings, no bullshit.

But most of all, no ego. I know I'm not "brilliant" or "innovative", just stubborn and persistent.