Yep, and what you'll have when you finish is a kludged-up helmet that does nothing unless you manage to source the hard-to-obtain Arduino Motorcycle Helmet Edition that does all of the navigation, phone interface, etc. You're also assuming you'll get it completely right the first time. which you won't, because nobody does. Price in a few helmets and at least two sets of hardware and you're already into the same price as a finished AR1. Don't forget the value of your time to do all of the hardware integration and write all of that nifty software.

More fun: Your modifications will invalidate any safety certifications the helmet you started with, making it not legal for road use almost everywhere. As a free bonus, you'll get to ride around with a niggling question in the back of your head about whether or not the helmet will do its job properly during a crash.

If the photos I've seen reflect what will be produced, it doesn't stick up any further than the breath guard, is in a location where vision is not all that important and isn't any larger than Legal Speeding's H.A.R.D., which is often installed in the same spot.

Verizon has pointed that out. Multiple times:

http://publicpolicy.verizon.co...
http://publicpolicy.verizon.co...
http://publicpolicy.verizon.co...

The government develops tons of its own software.

What law says that everything has to be contracted out?

I think his point was more that if it breaks, there needs to be a way to disconect the rear wheel from the motor so the bike can be pushed around. I'd think that from a practical standpoint, you'd have to have that for everyday use anyway unless you can run it in reverse.

The range problem has vanished if your benchmark is bikes with tanks so small they have a range of about 150 km. I ride further than that before my first stop most days. The benchmarks for range are touring and sport-touring bikes with large tanks that are capable of 350-450 km between stops.

When an electric finishes the Iron Butt Rally, I'll say the range and charge time problems are licked.

More likely, you live in a place where there are surfaces behind the riders for the noise to reflect and bounce back in your direction.

Go to a wide open area sometime and have anything with an audible exhaust drive by you. You'll hear a lot more if it as heads away than when it's coming toward you.

I'm as excited about electrics as the next guy, but there's a fistful of gassers that will run rings around the current crop of electrics on performance measures alone and an armload if you factor range into it. That will change, but I'm not holding my breath for something that fits my needs (fast, comfortable and capable of 500-mile days without gaps in the middle) in the next 5-7 years.

The Livewire has marginally better torque- and power-to-weight ratios than HD's Sportster 883, which isn't a stellar performer by any measure. What it does have is full torque available from zero, and that makes it a good (but not fantastic) stoplight racer.

Want to take a wild guess at who's providing the underpinnings for that line?

That's a red herring. Why would patients all of a sudden have to understand the ICDs? Will doctors start telling them they have severe cases of 681.02 instead of hangnails?

The insurance industry makes medical billing complex because there's a financial benefit in doing it. The ICDs are just a classification shorthand developed by the World Health Organization for statistical purposes. The insurance industry uses them for its own benefit, which is just fine; if there's a standard, it should be used.

What I tell people about hobby projects is that I tend to do them only if I'm not getting my software ya-yas out at work. Keep me busy with interesting work and almost 100% of my development energy will be yours.

That said, I do write a bit of software outside of work even when work is good. Those cases are the little things that pop up when I have a need I can't easily find something to satisfy.

Which is, amusingly, exactly Tesla's business plan.

Google isn't bound by the Constitution.

Hee hee. I worked for Jack in the early 1980s when he had a teeny little company called Softaid. He had a very down-to-earth take on things, and I suppose that extended to today, he'd advocate picking the tools that make sense. The zealots seem to be the ones that adopt things blindly and hope they'll work, all while declaring those who don't adhere to the "one, true way" as apostates.

'Cept that the order is "worldwide."

Google can comply, but if I put a copy of it up on my web server in the U.S. and refuse to remove it, how are the courts in Ireland going to force me to take them down if I have no interests there?