Because flywheels aren't actually all that energy dense, even after quite a few years of development. To store more energy, you want bigger radius, more mass, or higher speed. There are material limits to all of those things. Push any of those criteria too far and you end up with a flywheel that has a distressing tendency to self-disassemble. Catastrophically.

Oddly enough, as difficult as it is, the materials science of figuring out more efficient ways to store electrical energy by moving ions around is still easier than the materials science of keeping spinning-very-fast things in one piece.

That's just the thing. Some codes do specifically require a grid connection. Building codes and accompanying occupancy permits are a perfect example of small government at work. They vary from county to county, and can even be contradictory. Of course they can't contradict state or federal codes, but they don't have to match each other. Some counties seem to take positive delight in piling on additional restrictions, on top of state codes. For the property values, of course.

So yes, there does have to be a minor revolt against codes, in many places across the nation. They were worded a little too specifically, once upon a time. A conspiracy theorist would be inclined to suspect power company lawyer involvement in drafting those codes, and I bet if you turned over enough rocks, you'd find a few. Mostly it's just sloppy language though.

It's true. Sale price per car minus expenditure per car equals profit per car, and it is indeed 25%.

The company has negative net revenues because they're busily pouring money into capital investments, tooling up production lines for new cars. It's not like $700 million has vanished down a hole somewhere. They're buying real estate and massive amounts of machinery. Starting a car company from scratch requires investment. You don't just wave a hand and cars start pouring out of a door in the side of a building.

It's perfectly fine. The TSA jobs program is working as designed.

Judging by the former Marines I've known, the last thing a Marine wants is yet another electronic gadget that doesn't work with yet another battery that always needs charging. I suspect this little toy has a long way to go before it convinces a Marine there's something better than a plastic film topo map.

A 2x2 LEGO brick can stand up to 950 pounds of pressure. They're already military grade.

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

And... the Internet shall descend into Anarchy! With a capital Anarchy!

Naturally. They're waiting for some crisis that has all the news in a foaming slather, so they can quietly drop it into a Friday night Take out the Trash Day and hope the news organizations will ignore it.

Like, say, a shooting war between the US and Russia.

So this plus an Oculus Rift connected to a wearable computer == 3rd person POV for your own life?

As long as the batteries hold out, anyway. So, 20 seconds or so.

Some of those people walking around with their heads down having a social life through their phone do, in fact, fall further out on the autism spectrum than most people. The phone enables them to function significantly more than they otherwise would be able to.

I'm quite certain autism is over-diagnosed today, but there are plenty of genuine sufferers and the percentage of the population who is autistic only has to stay steady for the number of autistic people to rise. Population is still going up, albeit more slowly than it used to. If the phone lets them navigate society on their own, so much the better.

The GP sounds just like the last generation, yelling at their kids to "get off the phone, you're tying up the line!" Which obviously had no detrimental affect on the continuance of the species, or there wouldn't be this new generation to yell at.

It was a reference to this story where Italy put 7 people, including 6 scientists, in prison for manslaughter for failing to predict an earthquake. There is no law forcing scientists to predict earthquakes or volcanic eruptions in Japan, but there is in Italy.

It was covered here on Slashdot. Try to keep up.

But Tesla CAN'T sell cars in Iowa. There is no one from Tesla in Iowa who will take your money. So by definition Tesla test drives are not selling cars. There's guaranteed never to be a sale in Iowa.

Tesla's lawyer will no doubt dig up case law to that effect, but I don't see the need. It's black letter law. No Teslas are sold in Iowa, therefore Tesla's activities are not selling cars, therefore those activities are legal. Yes it's a loophole, but it's a legitimate loophole. You can promote whatever you like. It's just speech. Which is free. As long as no sale occurs in Iowa, the law isn't broken.

Oh, and the two quoted reasons? They're not a dealer and manufacturers can't sell cars.

They're not selling cars.

So who cares what some random bureaucrat thinks. The law doesn't say what the bureaucrat thinks it says. The law is quoted elsewhere in the thread. It does not forbid test drives. It's actually very simple language.

The Iowa Department of Transportation is not a judge. And they tend not to listen to their lawyers. We'll likely see what an actual judge thinks, before it's all over.

It covers the ongoing maintenance of those lines. Installation of those lines was paid for by a bond issue, many years ago, and I don't actually recall if servicing that debt was included in the infrastructure fee or rolled into the usage payment.