Consensus says fiber costs anywhere from $18,000 and $22,000 per mile. If we go with the low end of $18K, that would equate to little over 8 million miles of fibre. But that has to be cut back as city managers, planners, contractors, delays, restarts, etc. etc. take their cuts to put food on the table looking at what 35% loss, which gives around 5.5 million miles.

How many rural people are there? Estimates place it at 60 million. Lets pair that down to a 4.5 family, then estimate of a little over 13 million rural homes. Now the average cost to connect a house from the street where the fiber lays costs $600. So we are looking at just under 8 billion dollars to connect the homes to the fiber lines.

So backing up a bit. We take $150 billion and cut out the $8 billion needed for hookups. We take the remaining $142 billion and cut 35% for overhead, which gives $92 billion. Then we take the average $20K per mile, which gives us 4.6 million miles of fiber coverage.

So as long as all of those rural homes total needs to hook into a ISP is less than 4.6 million miles then the plan sounds good. Given that last count we have less than 200K miles of fiber optic cable laid in the US right now.

I just need 1/2 a mile of the stuff. That's how far my house is away from the AT&T fiber optic junction box I am at. I don't have the $10K handy to pay AT&T to dig and lay the cable to my small farm house.

I think failures like this diminishing the meaning of "wunderkid" if a business folds with that much backing.

I practice recycling even though my city pseudo supports it with large communal dumpsters you have to drive to. If I had the time, I would setup a non-profit that would accept shipping boxes (after a quick inspection) for free to advocate local recycling and then turn around and sell them a cheaply as possible as moving boxes. The cost would be to cover employing at risk youth, single parents needing a boost, or homeless. People are always moving and storing stuff. If I could get it down to 25 cents or less a box, it might work. Maybe?

Once the Cybertruck hits the market I expect the following videos:

• CyberTruck vs {FILL IN THE BLANK} Pulling Contest
• CyberTruck vs {FILL IN THE BLANK} Climbing Contest
• CyberTruck: 0 to {FILL IN BLANK MPH/KPH}
• CyberTruck: Burn outs
• CyberTruck: Tear down and rebuild
• CyberTruck: Will it work after being dropped from {FILL IN BLANK FEET/METERS} in the air?
• CyberTruck: Will it work after being submerged in a pool for {FILL IN BLANK MINUTES}?
• CyberTruck: Will it survive a {FILL IN BLANK CALIBRE} shot?
• CyberTruck vs Hydraulic Piston
• CyberTruck Overhauled
• CyberTruck vs Godzilla

So Ford has nothing to prove, the internet will do it for them.

Until Alexander Fleming discovered a true antibiotic, every year prior to 1928 was crappy. Romanticize any year prior to that as much as you want, but before antibiotics life was really really harsh.

The DoD is the one that writes the contracts, not the manufacturers. The DoD has enough sway and swagger to write the right to repair into any contract being bidded on. Every civilian defence manufacturer is chomping at the bit to win those contracts. So if the DoD says in the contract they want Marines to repair a generator in the field, under fire, knee deep in mud with a knife and a grenade pin, then that is what will happen. This isn't even close to the issues with John Deere and Apple in the civilian market where no one has a say. At least the military has a controlling organization that can tell the manufacturers what to do. The rest of us have to wait on state reps and senators to get paid off.

Living near Midlothian, Texas which has two massive cement factories, I know they run 24x7 (or as close as possible to that schedule). The cost of burning fuel all the time, this could be a saver over the long term if a portion of production could be offset during the day with solar. The problem is insuring that the furnaces don't cool down, so I would suppose that the same furnace would be used for both solar and fuel based heating. It could be just during right conditions, more solar is used and less fuels are consumed saving the companies money. Cement plants are known to be very dusty too (think white film on everything) and those mirrors would require lots of cleaning time. Unlike the Odeillo, this option from Heliogen doesn't require concentrator mirrors. It just uses heliostats that automatically concentrate into a receiver. Heliogen looks like they use fewer mirrors to achieve the needed temperatures for the job. As for "AI", that's marketing term for "we have an algorithm that controls the logic to move stuff." So don't read to much into that part. But for cement plants with multiple lines and furnaces, it would be nice if the heliostats can adjust to different furnaces during line change overs. I don't see this technology replacing fuel based furnaces, but rather reducing the running fuel costs as long as maintenance cost doesn't overrun the cost of fuel savings. It will be interesting how they funnel solar energy into the furnace that is typically shielded/insulated to preserve heat.

The CEO was so single minded, that they can only focus on one thing which in turn missing one of the biggest digital transformative moves? Not likely. More like the CEO was sleeping at the wheel and didn't have the insight or vision of where pocket computing coupled with telephony would take society.

I owned a Windows phone for 2 years as my daily driver. I wanted to believe. It sucked so bad. Apps were completely garbage and I'm talking about the apps put out by Microsoft, not external vendors. Support, what support? No help from the OEM, no help from the provider.

I think the greater "we" of humanity is better off that MS missed this opportunity. MS is not in a position to crank out cheap phones for 3rd world countries where people need them for micro-transactions for daily survival.

I for one cannot get past the iMessage crap that floods phones with meaningless tags; i.e., "Like", "Laughed at", etc. etc.. iPhone users are instant message spammers. So until Apple corrects this terrible functionality in iMessage, I don't care about the camera that can take pictures of the dust particles on flower petals in the dark.

Children of DoD employees, that small clip of your antics in front of your mom and dad working on their laptop might be leaking national secrets.

Sorry, what are their stances on these topics. Hard to vote, when I have no idea what they stand for or are being bribed to stand for.

This signals China is now in a position to start designing and thinking about experimental aircraft. Just as other countries have. Regardless if it works or doesn't, this is more of an external international signal to other countries that China will be investing more into its military programs.

Thanks global capitalism. Turns out capitalism doesn't spread democracy, rather it funds military build up in other countries.

Apple represents capitalism values and is not the arm for democracy. That is what governments are for. Capitalists bend to the local laws to sell more which in turn is to make more. We cannot expect companies to be the emissaries for politics. If I travel to China, I have to follow Chinese laws. If I travel to Norway, I have to follow Norwegian laws. US law and policies do not trump (ha!, made a joke) local sovereign rights. That includes business practices too and maybe msmash should wise up to the facts.

Those researchers live in a bubble. Wages are low globally because companies can pay insanely low wages for manual labor across the board. Far cheaper than buying robots and to maintain them. At a fraction of the cost of spinning up a robot factory to assemble or make a product, I could go to Vietnam hire a cheaper workforce to make things. And if it's not Vietnam, then I go to Bangladesh. Once Bangladesh gets to expensive, go to Ghana or Peru. Robots aren't cheap to run, aren't cheap to maintain, they are efficient, they are fast. It doesn't make sense that a 5 million dollar robot is driving down wages, compared to a day laborer making $1.25 a day and they are willing to do that 18 hours a day.

I suspect the first rancher able to successfully breed in zebra stripes into cattle could have a lucrative breeding rights business if it can be proven the less bites would yield lower veterinarian costs and healthier cattle. Plus the novelty of the leather could fetch a good price. Of course I think lions could also enjoy these new fat and lazy zebras too if they were to wander into a reserve.