Lotus also retooled the production line that Tesla was using, which is another thing that killed the Roadster. Lotus didn't have a problem with Tesla continuing their relationship (well, sort of), but that would have also required some additional engineering effort to retool the customized components that Tesla was using.

In short, like you said... it would require a whole new redesign from basically a clean sheet of paper that only superficially looks like the original Roadster. The battery technology would still be largely the same, but even that has evolved over the years.

Summary: Lots of improvements in a number of areas can make a big, big difference.

Since ~2008 I know they've increased the energy density of their 18650 cells by 20-30%, which would correspond to a 20-30% increase in range no matter what. After that it starts adding up quick.

I wonder if they might end up restarting roadster production. For a small car manufacturer that could even be fairly logical - produce as many as you can for a relatively short period of time(few years), then shut down production for a few years to let the demand recover and grow.

Perhaps more importantly, increasing the range of a car from 250 miles to ~400 also means that you could put a smaller battery pack in that costs nearly half as much, making it more affordable.

It also helps show the longevity of Battery Electronic Vehicles. Though it's only been two years since they stopped producing it, they're still producing not just maintenance parts, but serious upgrades.

Having looked at the XML files they provided, while some are marginally useful, about 1.4 million reply comments are simply dumped into CDATA sections without any consistent formatting or separators. After much regex splitting, it was readily apparent that the downloads they provided were missing about 700k comments. Glad to see they're actually admitting it and may even remedy it.

Even if it was sold for a penny, there may still be contract restriction on resale as well as criminal and civil restrictions on what other things they can do with such things. North Korea in particular is banned from the sale of munitions (including computer software in some cases), so I think ITAR would definitely apply to a used but functional aircraft carrier. At the very least, a "right of first refusal" clause could be put into any sales contract where the DOD would need to be offered and informed about any resale in anything close to its current form. Historical easements might also be applied by the various historical organizations that could further complicate any resale or even use by anybody except for demolition without having those easements being cleared.

I would agree with you that turning it from a sale into a contract does make some legal distinction though, as it can mean that the DOD would be required to address issues like asbestos found in compartments that weren't documented, classified documents that weren't properly removed before the contract, and a few other minor issue of mainly liability that the Department of Defense would need to address in a demolitions contract that instead would need to be held by the company doing the demolition work.

What on earth makes you think that NK has to have the native talent? The didn't figure out how to make nukes on their own either. They didn't home-grow their substantial currency counterfeiting operation, either. They likewise don't design and build their own military equipment. But that doesn't stop them from having nukes, from doing big business in phony currency, and sinking other people's ships.

Thank you, Brave Warrior for The People's Democracy! Your commemorative Kim Jong Un medallion will be delivered to you. In person. You may wear it your choice of northern work camps, where you may be able to trade it for a piece of moldy cabbage before you die.

Sure they did. They stole time from millions of people. They deliberately screwed with the expectations and plans of millions of people, all for a little bit of cash and bragging rights among their fellow assholes.

You're right, all those people should have chosen to buy fun, well-developed, richly supported gaming platforms from one of the many providers who offer open source, freedom-minded, anti-IP, systems that have a large selection of really cool massive multiplayer games with giant networks supporting all of that activity. There are so many to choose from that I'm sure it's why you just didn't have time to list them.

It's idiots like you, who think that businesses, networks, people's entertainment time, and the like "aren't real" that give comfort and encouragement to idiots like the guys who pulled this. They did it to be dicks, just like other dicks might throw a rock through your window and nail your TV right before you were going to watch the World Cup match you've been waiting weeks to watch with your friends. Or, in a closer analogy, waiting until moments before the game starts, and then cutting the cable that services your house or apartment building.

Let me guess: that soccer game's not real! They're not at the stadium in person, so denying them the chance to watch it as they planned isn't actually harmful! Destruction of the time someone plans to use in a certain way is a theft more real, in many ways, than stealing physical objects. You'll never be able to replace the time. Which is one of the reasons these guys are dicks. Deliberate, purposeful, not noble in any way, dicks.

Great, we look forward to seeing your new upstart-based distro, since everyone else has abandoned it.

The point is that that's the opinion of people who dislike systemd. That doesn't automatically mean they'll also dislike "a Systemd like init".

People like that might not (those who think it's implemented poorly). The people who will are the ones who insist on an init system that follows the "Unix philosophy". They're not going to be satisfied with anything other than sysvinit.

I do, actually. Well, they're more partners than customers, since we give them our code and they sell it. But, yes, I have a lot of meetings with outside parties. We convince about half of them to join our Hangouts from their laptops, the others we add to the meeting via phone. Outside of meetings, we communicate entirely via e-mail. Voicemail is still irrelevant.

At IBM, my role was entirely customer-facing. Voicemail was still fairly rare, though teleconferences were the norm. Most communication was, again, via e-mail or face to face.

Which means absolutely nothing because you can't actually use any of that firepower in any conflict short of "Civilization as we know it is coming to an end." That's not to dispute the rest of your points, which are mostly valid, but let us leave the SSBN out of the calculation of modern naval firepower. They have a specific mission: deterrence. The day they are called upon to loft their birds is the day that mission has failed.

There is an argument to be made that we need more ships, particularly attack submarines and surface combatants. The former will prove decisive in any conflict with the PRC and the latter are needed for missile defense, amongst other missions. Unfortunately most of the shipbuilding budget is going to the Gerald Ford CVNs while the looming Ohio replacement is going to consume billions more. Both are needed at the end of the day, so unless we're going to throw more money at the Navy I'm not sure what the solution is. I'd opt for throwing more money at them, since it takes decades to build a modern Navy, and it can't be used (as easily) for interventionist adventures in the same manner as a standing army....

Well said.