Personally, the moment you talk about 'in-flight' refueling, I'm thinking what you need to do is make a strong hybrid - battery assist, but also with an engine, most likely diesel*, perhaps even a turbine like what's in the M1(updated and smaller, of course).

This gives you monster power when you need it, and increased efficiency which also increases the range. Between the armor and the battery weight, many things that would normally stop a vehicle won't stop the presidential one.

*less likely to explode if attacked by something like an IED, RPG, and such.

My point was that car with more or less the same performance as the 40 year old car technology, just updated to be compatible with modern production techniques, would be substantially cheaper, inflation adjusted, than the original.

I understand that YOU might like that, but when I said 'people' I was meaning in general. In general I think that you'd find that so many people would prefer paying $100 more for this feature, $50 for that, and so on that producing a 'true' analoge to the older car would be such a niche item as to not acheive the economy of scale to actually be cheaper than the cars with more expansive feature sets.

Oh, and personally I'd prefer the safer car.

Translation:

Much like houses, cars have gotten fancier as opposed to cheaper. We could make a beetle analog with modern technology and have it be extremely cheap, but instead people have decided that they prefer buying more car.

Keep it quiet, we don't want the dealers to know that Tesla already has a way around their strategy.

Depends on the extent of the infrastructure, and I'll point out that the ISS was built modularly as well, so if you need 2-3 launches so be it. I'm thinking seed earth side, seed farside, and center station(which does things like control ribbon length for deployment). Once you have that initial cable you start lifting more cable and supplies as necessary.

Are you proposing an orion drive? Or did you meak 30k kg or 30 tons? Right now, from a risk assessment point I'd vote for staggering the launches - launch the station first, followed by the seed cable, then depending on the weight and placement of the station maybe a third for the balance cable/mass.

Every proposal I've seen has the first couple years of establishment of the seed cable being primarily lifting more cable. You don't need to be able to lift another whole seed immediately. Instead you lift 'strands' that are individually a lot less capable than the seed.

Having actually read one of Dr. Atkin's diet plan books, the most severe carb restriction is only in the beginning. After that it has instructions to re-introduce carbs in a controlled fashion and find a level that works for you.

Uh... Most burgers aren't 1500 calories. Not even most combo meals are that bad. Drop the fries and bread and that's like 500 calories saved, about what most diets recommend for your deficit for weight loss.

I don't see it mentioned in this article, but I've read that part of the problem is that existing cleanup methods cause more damage to the enviornment than the oil does. The scrubbing, soaps and such required damages the coastline as well. It's faster to let it degrade naturally, though that can take decades with the colder temperatures up there.

1. Define 'Brisk'
2. Where are you biking that you're not sweating? I bike in Alaska and I sweat. Your brisk might be awfully slow.
3. From what I've seen, they DO pedal, generally using the motor to provide extra speed, start and hill assistance.

Consider that this might be the difference between me using a bike to get groceries or driving - simply because of the weight of the groceries I'm planning on getting.

Worst case, consider the device a range extender - getting people so they're willing to bike for slightly longer distances encourages them to use it even more, and as they use it more they get into better shape, and as they get into better shape their range extends even more again.

It's already being done... "Zingo"

I agree with the other part. If it's $5 for a standard bike rental or $10 for the electric, if I'm going far enough the electric might make sense. Heck, going on a bike ride with an elder relative might be more realistic.

Yeah. The startup thing aside, after reading the NYC law I wonder how it'd handle an electric bicycle that uses some sort of strain sensor to decide how much 'assist' to give the rider. IE you could set it to 100% and it'd try to match the power the user is putting into the bike, 200% would be if you're old and out of shape, 50% if you just need a bit of assistance to get there on time/up that hill, etc...

It'd work a bit like those grid-tie solar systems that can't produce electricity at all if the grid is out.

It mentions 18 miles per hour in the article for the top speed, but I wonder if that's for 'not' or 'barely' pedaling. Can it take somebody with a max speed of 15mph pedaling on their own and get them up to 20 if they're really working at it?

Consider that there's a lot of work and sweat between 'fat&lazy' and 'slim&active'. Most people have limited choice about distance from work. A device that gets them started, to actually do it, can be of great assistance. I know there's a few hills where I would have liked this thing just for that spot. I'd still have to help it up, of course.

What about the guy who needs to travel 30 miles, and this is the difference between him biking and driving?

In other words, biking shouldn't be about exclusivity.

Selling millions - Not if it can only fit on one bike type. Fix that and maybe.

For all the corruption we hear about in the USA and Europe, it's nothing compared to the majority of other countries.

As for the laws, that's pretty much what I meant - grease the right wheels, which is easy, and you can indeed get away with that stuff for long periods of time.

I think that it's because the USA has sufficient court and enforcement systems that any such activities aren't worth it - major companies dominate the market, it's too hard to form a 'fly by night' company selling stuff for a relatively short period of time before you disappear(and show up under a different name) for selling substandard/defective crap.

I think they're also overstating the difficulty. At least for my mask(which is rated tougher than 95% of particles) there's 3 basic mask sizes. If you're extremely tiny you might need a different type.

Expedient fitting - put a sample of each of the 3 masks on, picking the one that's 'tight, but not too tight'. Strap it down, then block the filters. Can't breath with your hands over the filter openings? You have a good seal.

If I remember right, they do, and it's probably like their pollution standards - on the book as the best in the world, but having so little bite that you have to create a national/global scandal in order to actually have them enforced against you.

Such as putting melamine in milk. A couple people were executed for that one.