It’s good that this article avoids naming the US an authoritarian state. Instead, the US remains the leading light of freedom among the developed world!
Starlink isn’t for areas served by fiber it’s for areas that don’t have have good Internet access available, which are far larger than the area served by fiber.
Starlink isn’t for areas served by fiber, it’s for areas that do not have have good Internet access available, which are far larger than the area served by fiber.
If you were looking for future upside in space, you will face the same disappointment that everyone enthusiastic about space manufacturing has had for four decades now. Space manufacturing is even in the SpaceX S-1. They're really scraping the bottom of the hype barrel.
Nobody is making a profit in space. Not even Starlink. Once you add in the costs of sustaining their constellation, it barely scrapes by into profitability by underestimating launch costs and an over optimistic projection of future costs.
Starlink can't serve more than a small fraction of an urban population because each bird has a pretty low capacity limit, and terrestrial wireless keeps chipping away at their TAM out in the countryside. Terrestrial wireless infrastructure has a track record of declining costs. The rate at which it eats up the customers Starlink is counting on accelerates.
The total market size might be low this year or the next. But, for better or worse, humans will continue to push into the unknown.
Reusable rockets will change the economics of space travel beyond recognition. Jevon’s paradox will strike hard and fast. Starlink is the initial proof of this.
Maybe Starship will be the first to achieve the fabled dream of rapid reusability. Maybe not. Either way, it’s a tractable engineering problem at this point and the path has been made pretty clear.
I have no idea what the valuation of SpaceX should be. But, in general, I’d bet a lot on the launch industry growing enormously in the coming decades.
The increasing amount of space debris will likely change the economics of getting satellites into space and keeping them there. The more junk there is, the more likely that it's going to hit something and create yet more debris.
Except the environment in the U.S.—better air quality than almost all of Europe. Except natural beauty in the U.S.— the U.S. has some truly beautiful places to visit and to live. The people are very friendly, especially outside of the cities. These are all good things about the U.S. that has nothing to do with the fact that the U.S. is rich (actually the U.S. being rich is one reason air quality is improving and better than Europe).
Not at all - cities are worse in Europe than in the US. European policy pushed diesel cars for a long time, and Europe burns a lot more biomass for heating than the US does. Both of those are localized - it's particulates, especially during winter, that are much worse.
BTW, you cannot compare a country ("USA") with a whole continent ("Europe"). The countries in europe aren't all in EU or EEC and are much, MUCH more different than US' states are.
"the environment in the U.S." ... and yet you have abysmal drinking water quality in some areas. A friend of mine from Florida was astonished that you can drink tap water in all of Germany. We can all see how bad USA is with it's environment if we link hydraulic fracking to tap water quality.
Many people over here think that a good amount of US americans are so dumb because of lead poisoning.
Air quality: currently https://waqi.info/de/#/c/5.69/7.058/2.8z doesn't indicate that the USA is vastly better. Yes, there are green areas ... but these are areas devoid of people. Europa has this in Scandinavia. In areas where population and industry density is high the USA isn't that good either.
"beautiful places" I grant you that, but that has every region on earth. You also have many, many more awful places to visit. The last two times I was in the USA locals warned me about "no go" areas. That doesn't exist in Germany, for example.
"people are friendly" no, they aren't. You have the highest crime rate in the developed world. People robbing or mugging me aren't friendly. That "no go" areas even exist is also not a sign of friendly. Your immigration officers are exceptional rude and unfriendly --- virtually the first experience a tourist travelling the USA has with their "friendlyness". And your ICE is even more rude: a swiss journalist from NZZ was e.g. detained for about 2 weeks. Instead of just denied entry and put into the next airplane heading to back Zürich. And the detainment was in one single room with about 30 other illegally-jailed inmates with zero privacy. Even the loo was visible for all. That's US friendlyness ...
Even not rutal... the last time I was in TX I heard on local radio that some whites put a colored man with chains on behind an oversized US car and drove him to dead. And if you are an outlier, e.g. you are from a minitory, or LGBTQ or whatever, then you have a hard time in the friendly rural-ness. Many people leave the ruralness towards towns to gain freedom.
Mind sharing a video of what you're talking about? I've heard this response many times since the inauguration, but I've never seen an actual video showing a comparable gesture.
How much of these low prices is a result of the Chinese government subsidizing these companies to unfairly compete with established brands? Although, I will grant that having workers available at nearly zero cost is also an advantage.
I’ll be interested to see how the quality of these compares over time with Tesla etc…
Plug-in hybrids also have their interesting use cases. If you do live in an area with cheap electricity, that 20-60 miles of electric-only driving can produce savings.
You also get regenerative braking with hybrids.
Until charging times get better at most chargers, many people will prefer the convenience of gas fillups.
They weren’t “trafficked”, they were “relocated”.
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