> Tesla made one major innovation.

https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts#tbm=pts&q=inassignee:%22Tesl... shows "about 731 results" — 549 of which mention batteries.

Summary: novel way of breaking up natural gas into its constituent parts, hydrogen and carbon. Hydrogen can be used as fuel while carbon does not become CO2.

This sounds appealing but it reminds me of cocktail bars on airplanes or "too cheap to meter" commodities. Similar ideas rarely seems to work out. If this delivery model became popular I expect companies would want to optimize their investment in bots, and that tendency would work against the customer-friendly aspects of the service.

Background: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8985541

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Legacy

  > Apollo stimulated many areas of technology. The flight computer design used in both the lunar and command modules was, along with the Minuteman Missile System, the driving force behind early research into integrated circuits. Computer-controlled machining was first used in the fabrication of Apollo structural components.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

Ok. I guess I'd have to make a more nuanced argument that the same amount of money would have gone further in terms of advances somewhere else.

Thanks. It loads quite a few dependencies:

  Loading NaCl module.
  Loaded runnable-ld.so [1057 KiB]
  Loaded emacs_x86_64.nexe [5559 KiB]
  Loaded libppapi_simple.so [390 KiB]
  Loaded libpthread.so.1106743a [1529 KiB]
  Loaded libnacl_io.so [3626 KiB]
  Loaded libppapi_cpp.so [2489 KiB]
  Loaded libstdc++.so.6 [5583 KiB]
  Loaded libtiff.so.5 [659 KiB]
  Loaded libjpeg.so.8 [453 KiB]
  Loaded libpng16.so.16 [466 KiB]
  Loaded libz.so.1 [233 KiB]
  Loaded libm.so.1106743a [1270 KiB]
  Loaded libgif.so.4 [147 KiB]
  Loaded libXaw.so.7 [805 KiB]
  Loaded libXmu.so.6 [255 KiB]
  Loaded libXt.so.6 [773 KiB]
  Loaded libSM.so.6 [147 KiB]
  Loaded libICE.so.6 [244 KiB]
  Loaded libXext.so.6 [232 KiB]
  Loaded libX11.so.6 [1964 KiB]
  Loaded librt.so.1106743a [467 KiB]
  Loaded libncurses.so.5 [595 KiB]
  Loaded libc.so.1106743a [11743 KiB]
  Loaded libgcc_s.so.1 [336 KiB]
  Loaded libXpm.so.4 [222 KiB]
  Loaded libxcb.so.1 [296 KiB]
  Loaded libXau.so.6 [138 KiB]
  Loaded libdl.so.1106743a [314 KiB]
  Unable to create home directory in persistent storage: No such file or directory

At that point I thought it had failed, but after about a minute emacs came up. On OSX it seems to use about 215-240 MB, vs anywhere from 50-200 MB for my other chrome tabs.

Anyone have crouton handy to compare the overhead?

It looks to me like the "send to kindle" feature is broken unless you sign up for one of the free trial options. That fits with the email they sent out: "In order to upload new files you will need to pick one of the free 3-month trials". I suppose I can still move things around using dropbox, but it's not quite the same.

Yes, but working every waking hour is a good way to burn out. Cleaning your own toilet might be inefficient but it will remind you that you are human.

> Cleaning your own toilet might be inefficient but it will remind you that you are human.

Woah what? I know you're not being literal here, but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Are you saying that having a high-paying job automatically makes you feel like you're better than everyone else and doing mundane chores reminds you you're all people?[1]

The problem with that is "thinking you're better than everyone else" in the first place, not "missing out on mundane chores".

[1] Apologies if I'm misinterpreting you here: if so, what did you mean instead?

Why are you so certain that I didn't mean what I wrote?

In case you're talking about "I know you're not being literal here":

Because only a lunatic would think that high-status people think they're literally no longer classified as Homo Sapiens?

In case you're talking about "Apologies if I'm misinterpreting you here":

The word "if" is generally used to indicate conditioning on an event: i.e. "considering only the situation in which this is true". Nothing about the word indicates "certainty" about anything.

Lunatic? Well, I avoid making statements about my own sanity. But people sometimes decide that they are superhuman, or that others are subhuman. The ancient Greeks called it hubris. Nowadays we are more likely to say someone is out of touch, or living in a bubble. It shows up in comments like "Only the little people pay taxes".

I thought http://ideas.4brad.com/uber-price-la-approaches-robocar-chea... was interesting in that light. In short: as the cost of a ride approaches the cost of operating a privately-owned vehicle, it approximates owning a driverless car.