That's actually what it's like at "Mojave Spaceport". Hangers of small aviation practicioners and their junk. Gary Hudson, Burt Rutan, etc. Old aircraft and parts strewn about. Left-over facilities from Rotary Rocket used by flight schools. A medium-sized facility for Orbital. Some big facilities for BAE, etc. An aircraft graveyard next door.

SS2 has not completed testing and it is probable that there will be a need for redesign of one or more components. So, this is a really bad time to have the hand-off. Publicity isn't a good reason.

the nice thing about a modular system is that just as the modules may be discarded from the phones and re-purposed (in this case the idea is to re-purpose them in compute clusters), so may, when there are better more powerful processors available, the modules being used in the compute clusters *also* discarded... and re-purposed further once again down a continual chain until they break.

now, you may think "phone SoC equals useless for compute purposes" this simply is *not true*. you may for example colocate raspberry pi's (not that i like broadcom, but for GBP 25 who is complaining?) http://raspberrycolocation.com... - cost per month: $EUR 3. that's $EUR 36 per year because the power consumption and space requirements are so incredibly low.

another example: i have created a modular standard, it's called EOMA68. it re-uses legacy PCMCIA casework (which you can still get hold of if you look hard enough). the first CPU Card is a 2gb RAM dual-core 1.2ghz ARM Cortex A7, which as you know is based on the A15 so may even do Virtualisation. i did a simple test: i ran Debian GNU/Linux on it, installed xrdp, libreoffice and firefox. i then ran *five* remote sessions from my laptop, fired up libreoffice and firefox in each, and that dual-core CPU Card didn't even break a sweat.

so if you'd like to buy some compute modules *now* rather than wait for google project ara (which will require highly specialist chipsets based on an entirely new and extremely uncommon standard called MIPI UniPro) the crowdfunding campaign opens very shortly:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

once that's underway, i will have the funding to finish paying for the next compute module, which is a quad-core CPU Card. after that, we can see about getting some more CPU Cards developed, and so on and so forth for the next 10 years.

to answer your question about "interconnect", you have to think in terms of "bang-per-buck-per-module" in terms of space, power used as well as CPU. a 2.5 watt module like the EOMA68-A20 only takes up 5mm x 86mm x 54mm. i worked out once that you could get something like 5,000 of those into a single full-height 19in cabinet - something mad, anyway. you end up using something like 40kW and you get such a ridiculous amount of processing power in such a small space that actually it's power and backbone interconnect that become the bottlenecks, *not* the Gigabit Ethernet on the actual modules, that becomes the main problem to overcome.

bottom line there's a lot of mileage in this kind of re-useable modular architecture. help support me in getting it off the ground!
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

No, but money changing hands (commerce) impacts whether it is "commercial", and requires a commercial license.

"Impacts", perhaps. But it's not definitive. Especially in California.

For instance: I bought a pickup truck, to use as a tow vehicle for my camper and my wife's boat. Then I discovered that CA requires pickup trucks to be tagged with a (VERY pricey) commercial license, regardless of whether they're used for business. (You CAN petition to tag a particular pickup truck as a personal vehicle - but are then subject to being issued a very pricey ticket if you are ever caught carrying anything in the truck bed - even if it's personal belongings or groceries, and regardless of whether you're being paid to do it. (Since part of the POINT of having a pickup truck is to carry stuff home from the store this would substantially reduce its utility.)

The one upside is that I get to park for short times in loading zones.

If we aren't going to require commercial licenses for commercial driving, then why even have them at all?

And if we ARE going to require them for clearly personal, non-commercial vehicles that happen to be "trucks", why NOT impose this requirement on putatively commercial vehicles that happen to be cars as well?

The real answer to your question is "because the state wants the tax money, and the legislators and bureaucrats will seek it in any way that doesn't threaten their reelection, reappointment, or election to higher office" - in the most jerrymandered state in the Union. The Uber case is one where an appraent public outcry arose, bringing the bureaucrats' actions, and public outcry about them, to the attention of elected officials.

The full form of the so-called "Chinese curse" is: "May you live in interesting times and come to the attention of people in high places."

Whether the insurance companies should be allowed to do that to you is the real root question which we need to answer.

Sure. Why not? Commercial drivers spend a *lot* more time on the road, so they're much more likely to need to call in the insurance. Non-commercial insurance is substantially cheaper.

Why should taxi drivers need commercial licenses either?

Higher standards? Many jursdictions ensure things like ahigher standard of driving, limited working hours, provision of adequate insurance, background checks for certain criminal activity and so on.

I like being able to buy a random electrical device and be reasonably sure because of regulations that it it nulikely to burst into flames. Likewise I like being able to order random taxis with good liklihood that I won't get a criminal, nuinsured, sleep deprived nutter.

I can confirm through painful first-hand experience that the word 'angry' is entirely superfluous in that context.

People still steal car radios? Even the stock manufacturer fitted ones? Crikey.

I find I sometimes want music or the radio for distraction. If I get bored while driving I'm more likely to take unnecessary risks. If I'm enjoying my drive I'm more sedate.

So your answer is what? Destroy the quality of life for people in San Francisco?

I'd fucking love the US urban sprawl here in the UK. It would mean we had the masses of land available to spawl over.

More relevantly, it's not a felony to not drive without a licence. Sadly this seems to be an option many people are ignoring.

I've never used my driving license as ID for boarding an aircraft. Other forms of identification are available. Do you really think that people that don't drive also never fly??

Trains can take you between towns, not just across them.
Snow does not preclude bike riding.

Other than for commuting, taxis are cost-competitive to car ownership in the UK. They're frequently less convenient, but not more expensive, especially if you live in an urban location that lets you use public transport for a proportion of your journeys.

I appreciate you're playing devil's advocate but the barriers to not owning a car aren't insurmountable, even in the US. As someone else in the thread suggests, learn to drive safely or move to New York.

"Driving is a privilege" is not an excuse to penalise people unfairly for non-driving related matters such as child support.

The importance of driving for an inclusive social life and employment is not an excuse for dangerous driving.

Well that just sounds like mean-spirited carping. This for example is demonstrably not true:

And he sort of ran all the standards committees with a whip and a chair. And he said "no" to no one. He put every feature in that language that ever existed.

The committee process is very open and one can see how it works. and it doesn't work like that. And it certainly doesn't have every feature: most proposals get rejected.