Really? But by implication you'd be totally fine with closed source (as in Microsoft)? Just asking.

So you think fsck is something besides a descriptive abbreviation for File System Check? What about ls (List), rm (Remove), cp (Copy), or touch (literally, Touch File). Oh, I see. It's a pre-teen double entendre.

I'm not impressed by what it is named. It *IS* an amulator; fact; get over it.

Emulate: reproduce the function or action of (a different computer, software system, etc.).

So it's not an instruction-set emulator like qemu (was originally). Big deal. There are other things than instruction sets you can emulate.

On the other hand, if the stock goes DOWN 0.01%, he will lose the equivalent of bankrupting a bunch of software engineers. And still be one of the richest sons of bitches in the history of the world. Hell, the stock could go down 99% and he would still be very rich.

Sure, the regenerative braking probably reduces the wear on the brakes.

Point being, brake pads and rotors are normal replacement items. You should expect to replace them more than once in 12 years on a normal vehicle. I can wear down a set of pads in a weekend at the track. It depends a lot on how you drive.

I will agree that on the Tesla I test drove, I barely touched the brake pedal. The regen was turned up to maximum and that does a good job of slowing the car down if you are paying attention.

BMWs also tend to have static negative rear camber, and are RWD like the Tesla. But the wheels are smaller dia, which means the tires are more affordable.

I think over 12 years you will spend similar or more on Tesla model S brake and tire components as compared to an average BMW. I look forward to hearing from Model S owners 11 years from now...

If we go by the 85th percentile range, there's 45+ Million potential households that could afford/buy this car.

Error. The number of households above the 85th percentile of income is nowhere near 45 million. From your own citation, the number is about 18 million.

Heck. At 12-years on a BMW, there are any number of wearbale parts that replacement may exceed car value (tires, brakes (you have to replace the rotors with the pads on a BMW), etc).

Not unless the car has been damaged.

BMWs have very high resale value. 12 year old BMWs are currently 2002 models. Very few model year 2002 BMWs can be found for under $5000 in _any_ condition.

In fact, if you do a quick search on autotrader.com for model year 2002 BMWs, you'll see that there are 1200 listings with an average asking price of $9700

I happen to be quite familiar with the running costs of old BMWs. The drive train of a BMW will easily last 12 years without substantial work. The exceptions would be the plastic cooling system components, and, on some models, premature VANOS failure. Sadly, on the newer N54 engines the HPFP is a disaster, but that is not the majority of used BMWs, and certainly not MY2002 cars.

Even paying dealer prices, to replace brakes, suspension rubber, tires, cooling system, etc, will not cost you $9000.

The brake rotors and pads are a few hundred dollars per corner, and you could replace them yourself in your own garage with a jack and hand tools.

FWIW, I really like Tesla. I look forward to a time when buying one of their cars makes sense for me.

However, your consideration of the repair costs of a 12 year old BMW is way off. Thus, my response.

Also, Brakes and Tires are functionally identical between a BMW and a Tesla, and, on the Model S, the Tesla replacement parts are probably more expensive (I haven't priced them to be certain), because the Tesla has very large low profile tires and very large brakes, especially compared to the "average" BMW (instead of their X5 trucks with big wheels, or their high performance M models with larger brakes)

So comparing a 12 year old BMW and a 12 year old Tesla, the wear and maintenance parts differences are the Tesla's battery vs. the BMW's conventional drivetrain. The latter requires coolant flushes, oil changes, transmission fluid changes, air filters, etc.

The one maintenance surprise that I learned about when chatting with a Tesla service technician was that on the model S, the A/C refrigerant is serviced regularly, because it is an integral component of the battery cooling system.

Really? Not even a little bit surprised that random samples outperform endurance specs by ONE HUNDRED TO ONE THOUSAND TIMES?

The article actually mentions 100 TB, not 100 PB (for the 128 GB). That's the equivalent of only about 100 full rewrites.

He's too polite to call you a brainwashed dope.

I'm far from the only one talking about realities. Sucks to be you, volunteering no specifics that work.

So OK, oh wise one. What are you going to use if not carboniferous fuel? Nuclear? The sole place I can see where that is advancing is China and India. The Luddites elsewhere will never allow it, even if safety and waste disposal are ever adequately addressed, which they never have been to date. Fusion? Snort. See you in 1,000 years. Maybe. Solar and wind? They are extremely unsteady and require topping from - wait for it - carboniferous sources. And they cost vastly more. That's going to put the lower part of the 99% into energy poverty because they can't afford it. Oh, you're going to socialize and subsidize energy costs? That's going to hammer the economy into a depression.

In the real world, as in the game of Hammurabi, you have only so many resources and you can either spend them wisely and effectively, or unwisely and with sad effect..

What makes it so?

Embedded X86? Many have done this before Intel. Few still are around because X86 isn't a compelling instruction set for this sort of thing. It's very much NOT efficient- and you don't need Windows these days on most of the stuff (which is the reason you did X86, you had a DOS/OS2/Windows application you were just simply insisting had to be embedded...).

Quite simply put, it might be dour, but the parent poster's closer to the truth than you're probably ever willing to admit. Is it better than the AVR solution Arduino's fielding? Yes. Is it better than much of any of the ARM solutions in the space? Depends. If you're talking an RPi in a non-display context, it's a push. The ecosystem's more "there" with RPi. The Edison's more powerful at the price of much higher power consumption (which, folks, CAN nuke your use of the Edison from orbit...) It isn't really in the same space as the BBB, BananaPI, pcDuino, and others- and they trounce the Edison in many of the applications in the space.

I consider it a bit of a coup for SparkFun, yes. But I think they're not going to be having the grand time of things that you're claiming they will. It's a niche within what is honestly a niche market to begin with. If you don't "need" X86 instruction set support, you're going to find a better answer with any of a number of ARM (and with Imagination Tech pushing MIPS again, MIPS...) boards out there that will be cheaper, at the same performance with a better envelope, etc.

This isn't a win for many. It's only really a win for SparkFun since I'm sure Intel showered them with MONEY and they moved to the new location on the north side of town as opposed to being over by Spine in Boulder to accomodate the new fabrication capabilities they needed to do this stuff in the first place.

You appear to have taken no trouble to acquire any knowledge at all of the subject, but are nevertheless willing to spout nonsense. Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone are both gigantic compared to Edison. They are not addressing the same segment. Arduino is absolutely collossal compared to Edison, but again it is in still a third completely different segment. At present there are zero modules that are comparable to Edison. It has its segment all to itself. That will certaimly change, but what can never change is that Intel's Edison got there first, and in stellar fashion.

Edison has a bit more processing power than Raspberry Pi and is quite close to Beaglebone, but that is not the point. The point is that it is far tinier. The fact that you can get the processing power, plus ample RAM and flash, plus WiFi, plus Bluetooth, all in the size of a GODDAM POSTAGE STAMP is a freaking amazing breakthrough.

Obviously this has nothing whatsoever to do with the x86 instruction set, and everything to do with basic capabilities vs size and cost. Don't you get it? You program in C or C++. It doesn't matter a damn what the instruction set is. What matters is the power drain, and that is entirely competitive with ARM. You're completely full of bull about the power consumption.

All Edison is doing is leveraging Intel's expertise and process technology, and it is doing a capital job of that.

How long it takes to boot depends on what software it runs. If you choose to code in straight C or C++, it will "boot" in the blink of an eye. If you boot suitably pared-down embedded linux, I suppose it might take a second or so. There is no BIOS, which is the usual time-waster.

Odds are, Edison will sink without trace. I'd rather it didn't take one of my favorite suppliers with it.

That is a peculiarly dour way of looking at it. For my own part, I am impressed as hell that Sparkfun landed this coup. I happen to think Edison will be one of the standout innovations of the decade.

I think Intel really missed the boat with this thing. Originally it was just "look guise we put a x86 computer in an SD card" but now they actually want to try to sell it to people. They got too wrapped up in keeping it small when they should've made it BB/RPi sized, with equivalent features. The tiny connectors are totally hobbyist unfriendly, you will be forced to buy 3rd party boards to do anything at all with this platform.

It must suck to be utterly unimaginative. Instead of just making nothing more than a dreary me-too, copying an already excellent product that doesn't need to be copied (the Beaglebone, not the Raspberry Pi), Intel has surprised a lot of people by proving they can fundamentally innovate. Everybody else is looking pretty stupid right now, because ARM is the obvious choice for something this tiny, but not a single one did a goddam thing to make it happen. Intel proved ARM is not the only way for tiny and power-sipping.