Have you had (or received) any interest in bringing the Artificial Kid to film? Thanks.

When I first started working in IT, back in my early software days (as a tech writer), we did assemble a release report out of the defect tracking system, but then groomed it so that the descriptions were meaningful, and they communicated what the customer would actually see a a change. So many software changes don't leave much of a trace or evidence of a change at all that at some point you need to focus on the things you fixed/enhanced that could be appreciated. Occasionally, when there was a meaningful grouping of individual changes around a particular feature or piece of functionality, we were better served by an umbrella description that spoke generally about a swath of modifications and the area of functionality they affected. Further, we would "sanitize" (ugh, I hate that word) the descriptions so that they did not speak explicitly about protected IP in a way that would permit a casual engineering user to write their own stuff using the description as a template. It was also necessary to moderate the tone of individual defect reports in the summary to ensure that they did not come off as alarmist or use hyperbolic language -- you don't want to send out a report that says "Bezier curve clippings, when extended outside sections of the layout area, cause catastrophic, random, immutable, artifacts to appear in layout prior to full system crash" when it's a problem that (while bad, and fixable) doesn't happen in most situations and is only reproduceable if you use the tool in nonsensical ways. We used to have a couple layers of editorial review by the development management and sometimes legal if there was a sticky topic, but this was more to check work than to artfully craft anything. I had to help write release notes thereafter as a developer and as a manager, and the spirit is the same. If there is a bug in your stuff, your user community has probably already shared it with the world anyway, so acknowledging faults and fixing things is part of the virtuous cycle. You can actually gain user trust by demonstrating that you can successfully identify and promptly fix issues as they come up. Sales can be helped, too, if you had to solve some specific problems (or add functionality) before a customer will make a purchasing decision... they can recognize that their voice is being heard and the product is being maintained in a way that is attentive to their needs. All the same, there's no reason to shoot yourself in the foot in addition to having to fix your problems or make your enhancements.

I found your comment very interesting. I like the flywheel concept in cars (sounds neat), and it was proposed by "Rosen Motors" (not a great writeup, I'll admit. I seem to recall seeing it in SciAm, but whatevs) in a turbine hybrid awhile back, but they had to figure out where to put it such that it could move gyroscopically, how to contain it in a safe way so that the charge & kinetic energy would not become a problem in a crash. One interesting part of that model was to use a small turbine engine for the operation of the electric vehicle, with the flywheel really there to capture the charge necessary to start the turbine and offer up faster acceleration on-demand until the turbine could supply enough sustaining energy. Anyhow, my point is that for all the great things flywheels can do, they don't have an easy mesh with moving vehicles and are still best-suited for well-anchored stationary implementations. I would prefer advancement in capacitors, frankly, where cars are concerned.

If I may, I'd like to sharpen your point a little bit.
Helium isn't extracted from natural gas, per se.
Helium comes out of the ground alongside the natural gas (mixed with it, at a low percentage), and is separated from it, where it can be captured in sufficient concentrations.
Technically, it's a leftover waste or by-product of the process, but not all helium is captured (it requires infrastructure to capture and transport it) and a lot of it is simply vented away. If I recall correctly, there's a fraction of a percent of helium in the output of almost all natural gas wells, but until you get somewhere around 1%, there is little incentive to create and maintain the support structure to capture and transport it.
Anyhow, my point is that you can't just take a bunch of natural gas and somehow squeeze or pull helium out of it. There is still a finite amount of helium in the planet no matter now much natural gas may be trapped in the crust of the planet.
To your point, we'll have to see what happens to prices as supplies dwindle. I'm not so optimistic that any reserves we have now will be sufficient to meet the demands of current industry or research. I am hoping that we can exercise alternative gases or cooling methods to reduce the amount of helium needed in the future.

The utility company in Colorado (XCel) is already doing this. Their argument is that the solar companies (there are 3-4 major players in the population centers, of which Namaste Solar is probably one of the biggest) are not paying for transmission into the local grid, and maintenance of the local grid, and that it's an unfair subsidy. We'll see how it gets sorted out. They've been kvetching about the existing real gov't subsidies for residential solar, anyway, for a long time now. Most people I know who have solar installs have made the decision based on the 25-year estimated lifespan of the equipment and the 10-year payoff agreement (this is pretty much the norm), and have been satisfied. What we're not seeing so much of is a kind of upgrade/replacement element to these contracts. I think there would be more of these installs if home owners had a way of buying some kind of replacement guarantee in 5 years, with the option to replace at 10 years at install cost without the continuation of the contract. The quality of the panels seems to be going up very rapidly and the cost is falling very rapidly. Unfortunately, this is keeping a lot of people (who might commit to panel installs) on the fence. They don't want to emerge from contract in 10 years with panels that are 25% the efficiency of what's being regularly installed by that time. I, personally, think that it would be better for XCel and other providers to link arms with rooftop solar companies, hash out an agreement on funding contributions for infrastructure, and then leverage their own money to reduce the up-front costs for home owners. I'm not sure exactly how that might work, but I think both groups are fighting a partnership arrangement because they each want all the control and all the spoils.

... and while it does a good job of charging, it does have a "sparking" habit whenever I plug it in to a wall outlet. Honestly, if this was truly a concern for Apple, they should make their chargers cheaper, or license aftermarket production to the spec of originals. I saved a bundle (about 50%) by going with a Chinese knock-off.

I'll violate my own personal rule of not replying to ACs just this once, as I can see that I'm raising some libertarian ire, here.

Assistance in the form of government-backed loans is a pretty even-handed way to help get funding going, but loans don't have to be the mechanism, nor do they have to be for everything Aptera might need to launch -- perhaps not even loans, per se -- how about 3-year municipal tax credits for building a production facility or opening a parts and distribution center, somewhere?

There are a lot of businesses that depend on some kind of government assistance to get going, so it's not unheard of. Corporate welfare is everywhere -- from farms and petroleum companies to contracting companies -- I think the scale, here, is small enough and the potential is interesting. Let's not make it a giveaway, but also be open to offering some support mechanisms, eh?

Oh my. I'm very enthused by this news. I really hope that it rolls. I think they need to stay away from the all-electric pitch and go for the hybrid angle first. I hope also that they are permitted to borrow, perhaps with some government assistance, to get the product launch going.

I'm violating my own rule to not reply to AC, but in this case I think it's important to do so.

The difference between the 80s and today is that we have a plethora of new cluster bombs that can self-guide "bomblets" to hit magnetic or heat-identifiable targets. They're very accurate. We took out many hundreds of tanks in Iraq before they could ever get close enough to hit us. Sure, there would be some firing that could not be stopped, but we'd be able to inactivate most of the artillery within hours.

For my part, I've always liked the idea of "rice-bombing", where we would take a million or so 1-lb bags of rice, attach little parachutes to them and drop them all over the DPRK. It would sow (no pun intended) more chaos than any weapon.

You, sir, are an artist.

While not a Briton, I can offer that Greece's problem has as much (if not more) to do with their losing the ability to print their own money (by joining the common Euro currency) as it does with their own fiscal mismanagement and high levels of state support to people that don't work. It's both simplistic and easy to conflate the two, and should be avoided.

Ah! ... when Fry was thin. Thanks for these.

Well, you're right that it's an uneven match-up, but no device that the DPRK has tested has been very powerful -- not even to the level of the US nuclear armaments in the 40s -- and what they've managed to put together has been inefficient (even the most recent one) and dirty. Depending on the location of a detonation, casualties could be heavy, but nowhere near a million people. Truth be told, while they ramble on about what they'd do to DC, they could never get a device near it. I think that they'd probably hit a US base near Seoul, if they could. That said, they'd be kicking a hornets nest. Their greatest tactical threat comes from several hundred artillery positions they have spread along the DMZ, and those can easily strike Seoul, even for the ones that are positioned furthest back. The US has bombs, tested in Iraq against tank divisions, that would render most of those artillery pieces unusable within hours. Logistically, the DPRK would run out of fuel for trucks in a matter of months (perhaps weeks) and run out of food in about the same timeframe. Assuming that the US would leave Pyongyang untouched for the first few weeks (unlikely) they'd be trying to support a front line with starving soldiers and prisoners with pack-bikes by then, and that would not last for long. At the same time, the DPRK has created lots of dug-in defenses, and there will be a ton of dead-enders to deal with. At the longest, I think the DPRK might last six months. The US would never have to retaliate with nukes. Even if we did, our arsenal has pretty clean weaponry, so the impact of drifting fallout would not be that big. Still, there's no need for the US to use nukes. China, if they played their cards correctly, could seal their border with the DPRK, flood the place with humanitarian aid to prevent a mass exodus of refugees, and wait for the US to eliminate resistance. I wonder what kind of weirdos would step into the vacuum left by a KJ-U defeat, though.

Who wants to watch a pope mumble and groan his way through the last years of ministry? I mean, I'm not catholic, but watching JPII in the last years of his post, it was downright painful to see. If they're only going to elect 70-to-80-year-old guys as pope, they're going to have to get a new pope every five years or so.

You got modded "informative" but I'd give you "insightful", had I the points (I don't comment much anymore). Thank you for making these observations.