This is so easy to solve, so no need to panic. We just need to water them with Brawndo. Afterall, Brawndo's got what plants crave.

I believe that's why all of the eVTOL companies, which were initially focused on the commercial market, have pivoted to the defense market. They've realized that the growth of the commercial market is going to be much slower, and with a military market desperate for solutions and actively courting industry, they can get money to stay afloat.

This is going to be a very long while before it ever scales. First, don't ever underestimate the time it takes to certify a new aircraft. It takes years for traditional platforms which have established certification paths (conventional fixed wing aircraft and rotorcraft) - with the Bell 525, one of the latest helicopters seeking certification still not certified after first flight eleven years ago. Then the FAA is struggling even more with how to certify "powered lift" aircraft where eVTOL platforms are. Second, Joby, Archer and others are not yet solving the core problem that has capped this industry - the lack of pilots. The real promise of eVTOL was that the platforms would be autonomous, but, going back to the certification challenge, the FAA has yet to figure out how to certify autonomous aircraft let alone manage the air traffic in a sky full of them. The platforms today still going to need pilots which will limit their adoption. The Chinese are farther ahead in this space, with the CAAC leaning forward and even certifying a handful of autonomous eVTOL aircraft, but I'm curious how rapidly they will proliferate outside China until the FAA and EASA figure out how they want to move forward...

Believe me, if it was up to teachers, they would all ban phones in the classroom. The problem is that any time a school tries to ban them, parents step in aggressively to stop them. I think the reasons are a bit over reactive, but this reddit thread and this opinion piece gives some good perspective on the topic.

Elon is late to the party on this epiphany. Mark Zuckerberg has been wanting to evolve Facebook toward a WeChat model since 2019. Apple, Alphabet, and others have also been trying to figure out how to get there to the ultimate Silicon Valley Vision: the One App to Rule Them All. However, unlike in China where there wasn't (yet) any vested infrastructure in place, the West has struggled in development of such a super app because a lot of different and very powerful interests are (rightfully) afraid of one company securing all that power - credit cards don't want to lose control of de facto e-payment control, banks not wanting a repeat of credit cards strangling them on e-payments, telecom companies wanting a piece of the pie, and all of them genuinely afraid of one or two of these massive Silicon Valley players stealing it all. Then of course the civil liberties question: WeChat has also done well in China because it provides a convenient, one-stop shop for the CCP to monitor citizen activity and find individuals to "invite to tea".

Tolkien's quote never felt even more relevant whether from a capitalist or an authoritarian dystopia: One App to rule them all, One App to find them, One App to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Maybe we could mitigate it with an increase in vaccinations, additional medical research funding, stronger workplace safety, environmental policies to reduce ri --- NAH, MAN. ALIENS. AND ISLAMIC COMMUNIST LIBERALS. CUT THAT NONSENSE OUT AND PUT IT INTO DEPT. OF WAR TO PREPARE FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

Ah yes, let's trust the guy who couldn't even build (or convincingly lie) about electric cars and trucks to build a much more complex system like an airplane. Let's trust him on his AI approach that both traditional aircraft primes (Airbus, Boeing, COMAC, UAC, etc.) and startups (Anduril, Joby, Archer, etc.) are wrestling with and spending boatloads of money to figure out. What could possibly go wrong? The only reason you'd give this guy any money is if you've figured out a plan to con the conman.

It would not be an understatement to say that Bloomberg is THE global information broker for the financial sector - no one else has the same amount of data and analysis that they do. The Bloomberg Terminal is the defacto tool used by financial professionals globally, involved in moving trillions of dollars in assets every day. The amount of information hosted there is incredible: split second latest numbers for just about every financial and economic metric on the planet along with historicals going back decades, news before even news orgs start reporting out, proprietary intelligence and analysis that provide details into the supply chains of individual firms that the firms may not even have as clear of a view on, etc. They have a massive network effect advantage - their internal chat system has networked just about every major financial professional on the planet. There is also a regulatory advantage - the terminal is setup to navigate the complex web of financial regulations across dozens, if not hundreds, of regulatory bodies from a compliance perspective.

They are the defacto tool not just because they bring that data together in a way no one else on the market has, but it has a level of vetting, security, and support for a system that you'd expect for a tool that the entire financial sector depends upon. AI could do some of the data manipulation, but it would take years to negotiate access to the sheer number of proprietary data sets they have access to and find professionals to train the models.

Per the article, semi-annual reporting is already the norm in European stock exchanges, although companies are welcome to report more frequently if they desire. So one could see it as the US markets actually better aligning themselves with international norms.

They should have first announced that the vehicles would be built in a deep-red state like Alabama or an important swing state like North Carolina or Arizona. Then they would announce the cancellation and discuss mass layoffs and have the panicked MAGA governors put pressure on the administration to ease up at least for Honda. In the end in Georgia, they were practically begging the Koreans not to pull the plug after the ICE raid they pulled.

This re-affirms my view of the Trump administration as a "monkey's paw": it's addressing legitimate problems in the most hamfisted, corrupt means possible. In this case, the administration is aggressively driving toward open source / open systems architectures across the board to avoid vendor lock. However, they want to accelerate the ability to do so to easily bully and shakedown anyone who doesn't kiss the ring and deliver gifts to their cronies.

But you miss the point of this entire effort, this is about kicking out the old defense contractors to start feeding the "new space" and "defense tech" contractors instead with commercial space station leases!

Maybe that's why President Trump has been so eager to do Netanyahu's bidding.

I think most people agree that it's a stupid system, but they argue whether or not to adopt standard or daylight savings time. Each has their special interests and are dug in on the issue. Thus, like everything else in American politics, Congress gets trapped in a stalemate, and nothing happens.

This market has been evolving rapidly for a decade - a lot of advances have been made in the eVTOL space. I think one of the remaining, big cost drivers is going to be pilots, or the lack thereof. Joby and other western eVTOL firms are a long way off from certifying autonomous, passenger carrying platforms. All their certification applications to date have been for piloted versions of their platforms. Those pilots however are expensive and few in number, which limits the number and hours of flight. I don't blame the companies - it's more the aviation regulatory bodies like the FAA and EASA which are still wrestling with autonomy certification. China is worthy of a whole different post; it's actually a really interesting case study on Chinese vs. Western innovation markets.

Don't hold your breath on hydrogen. Yes, Joby did do a short demonstration of it, but for a practical aircraft, we're probably at least a decade out. It's not just the technology, but you need a lot of infrastructure to make that happen.