One time I got hit by an SUV in the winter and twisted to land on my arms instead of my backpack to save my laptop.... So you may have something there. Made sure my computer made it to post before I noticed I was bleeding. Ok... pretty sure its my fault. But still! I usually use the power cord :/

Also, I was thinking about LiON not NiMH or lead which do last longer. I was under the impression that you could expect around 60% capacity by the 4 year mark. Which for a car that is already severely handicapped by range could mean the difference between making your daily trip and not.

If 8 years is typical for cars coming out I'll be impressed.

Won't happen, doesn't matter. Even with the conservatives in power.

You have a non smart phone and have battery life issues? That shit should be lasting a loooong time.

That'd shut people up about the 3$ a gallon bitching.

On a more serious note. Battery life span needn't be so poor from a physics POV. If my laptop battery life stayed at 9 hours I'd be very happy with it. The fact that it hovers around 45minutes today is upsetting. The same goes for cars. Possibly more so due to the huge investment. If they change the replacement cycle for batteries on electric cars from 2years to 10 it would be HUGE.

They'd sell like hotcakes in the middle east...

Thats plain evil. But even without that you can do this type of trading based on the limiting speed of light. If you are geographically well positioned you can beat out the market by a couple miliseconds.

That and chrome will probably flop so hard no one will really notice outside of 6months.

If it drops the cost of the device to some sort of sub 100 dollar range the thing suddenly becomes awesome again.

I'm actually supporting chrome devices having tons of ads. The more ads the bigger the drop in cost and I can just put linux on it. And google can bet on people not formatting and using it for a while.

Semi offtopic but a device maker getting paid per use really gives incentive to make a device that is addictive and lasts forever. It kicks the ass of planned obsolescence.

Depending on the day I could go either way on that...

"System comes back squeaky clean, but everything needs to be changed to my personal liking."

In chrome I imagine the vast majority of tweaking that you'd make in windows will be out in the cloud and it won't take much work to get it back the way you like it.

"They can and do face legal action for intentionally lying about the facts they are representing."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWcqxrQgcc

Adding to this since it is the best suggestion so far....I'm not sure I'd use etching stuff rather than a standard pegboard piece if I'm just hacking... if I'm finished then order one to be printed. Not sure about a couple of the bigger tools but it all depends on the project (could also go to manual tools if they wont be used much).

wall of drawers with millions of little compartments for components.
wire stripper
proper multimeter, capacitance meter
lots of wire!
Variable power supply
Scope/logic tester
solder station: Copper braid,solder,solder pumps, variable temp solder iron, brass sponge, flux pen, stand
May need a fan depending on ventilation or you'll all get sick and die.
heat shrink tubing
heat gun (for soldering surface mount chips or other annoying stuff)
Lots of handy outlets.

That said i'm thinking of a small robotics/electronics lab. Nothing heavy mechanical.

Nothing is set in stone yet. In the last couple days Musk was talking about a variety of possible avenues forwards. Those are indeed the plans floating around now though. But it would be premature to say anything is remotely decided.

I don't think SpaceX is even remotely near a position where they can tell NASA to take a hike. They are in very many ways in a partnership. Things would be a lot harder without NASA there. AND NASA is a huge source of money. Just recently there was talk of SpaceX making its super-heavy instead of NASA for the US government. That contract would represent another 2.5Billion just to go where they wanted/intended to anyways! Plus they would get continual flight purchases from NASA after that.

Also they already have a 2014 flight sold to Bigelow, I'm sure that number will increase as they prove themselves. And I'm unconvinced that SA would be worth that much to them since their goal seems to be mainly sub-orbital... there aren't many people with 10~20million to visit the space station... Though with a heavy lifter and a large enough group they may be able to cut that below 5million/person (if all of musk's optimism comes to pass)

All happening in nice and stable countries. Rwanda during that time period did not have as many advancements.