IANAL but the basic sniff test is could "Postwoman" be confused with "Postman?" I think the answer is yes. With the author calling it an alternative to "Postman," you have the author acknowledging Postman is a strong trademark. And it's not like it's the only one available fitting the "{HTTP-METHOD}{MAN|WOMAN}" construct-- you could rename it "HeadWoman" and probably be okay.
Why do you say that? With the slope and adjustable suspension I'd think it'd be easier-- you just lower the truck and brush the snow down in a few swoops.
Snow sticks it's not always like magic light fluffy movie snow. And ice can seem like it's been welded on. Plus it looks like a very long reach to get to it.
I drive a Dodge 2500 4x4 and my roof is 1/3 the size of that beast. And it's 6'6" high which makes it awkward to be able to remove ice. If ice flies off and hits another vehicle while I am driving I am in big trouble, and rightly so.
> When their entire business depends on very carefully managing their PR
You really think this?
My perception is that their PR is fairly blunt and upfront. while they may not tell you everything they dont seem to be trying to "spin" anything
TBF the NASA report came much later than the SpaceX explanation. However it might be of interest to compare:
SpaceX explanation of why looking at the right telemetry is hard vs "Technical Finding 4" from NASA.
SpaceX explanation of the strut's "certifications" and max load vs "Technical Finding 1" (and the longer explanation earlier in the document, you can do a control-f for "Where the IRT differs with SpaceX is in regards to the initiating cause")
"SpaceX chose to use an industrial grade (as opposed to aerospace grade) ... cast part"
Hmm.. Isn't this a common cost-cutting strategy for Musk's companies? The touchscreen in the Model 3s was (is?) also industrial grade, if I recall correctly.
> The touchscreen in the Model 3s was (is?) also industrial grade, if I recall correctly.
Isn't that exactly what it should be? Or would you expect aerospace grade material there? Or is there yet another grade in between called 'automotive'?
Yup! I think the common electronic tolerances go: commerical, industrial, automative, military, aerospace, and then space, though I may be missing one or two.
There was a public accusation that a competitor shot one of their rockets with a rifle, causing it to fail. If they had reasonable suspicion of that, they should have kept it to themselves and the FBI/law enforcement. What really happened is that a strut failed due to faulty batch of material that wasn't tested before fabrication.
I'm not sure if this was deliberate spin, but it seemed pretty shady to me at the time.
I don't think SpaceX ever made that accusation. At the time (2016) Musk said the cause of failure was unknown. He was asked directly about sabotage on Twitter and replied that they didn't rule that out. As far as I can tell, the first time anyone at SpaceX talked about the rifle hypothesis was Musk simply saying SpaceX looked into it (the implication being it wasn't sabotage).
> Eli, 7, was secluded more than a dozen times in kindergarten and nearly 50 times in first grade while attending The Center in East Moline, records show
I'm with you. You're contributing a thought piece and unobtrusively include a link to your bank at the bottom. It's not overtly biased, and it's neat you're getting attention for your banking app by, instead of describing it, simply saying you're doing something "interesting."
I think, by focusing on the $5000 emergency cash proposition, your customer segment will generate more costs and hassles than their debit card fees and whatever interest spread you eek out in today's world. You'need a way for your customers to generate more value-- what have you thought of? Ads?
thanks perspective1! I find overt self-promotion to be distasteful, so glad it came across well. We are using the interchange fees to pay for the $5000 emergency fund, they have to move their direct deposit over to switch "ON" the safety net. We do break even based on our current estimates of annual spend and claims, but looking at a few different ways, upselling insurance is the big one! Will write about it and make sure to post on this comment thread!
In that quote the CEO's describing operating cash flow, a GAAP measure. Nothing about it is unconventional. And it includes real-world depreciation to a large degree since maintenance costs are part of operating expenditures. The problem is the article's author omitted discussing profit per se, not that the CEO's goal is having positive operating cash flow.
You could argue that roads ought to be fully funded according to use and therefore turn a profit. Something like a value-added tax. Just about every other essential business turns economic value into profit-- if Amtrak services were so valuable the business could raise its prices and people would pony up. But its services just aren't that much value-added and passengers have plenty of alternatives. Namely, buses.
Catch 22. If you underinvest in rail, you end up with trains slower than bus, which makes them a bad option. If you actually invest in rail, you end up in a situation where the rail is faster than bus and has less externality on the environment
Worse: if you underinvest, you end up with an unreliable and cost-inefficient train service that becomes ever more difficult to support politically. Which is exactly what we're seeing in this thread, good news from Amtrak notwithstanding.
This is a common libertarian argument. And I think it'd be very interesting to see in practice. I live in a state with many toll highways and people complain about the cost. But those highways are well maintained. And they complain about the potholes on the free roads. So I think it's more of an issue of people wanting everything for nothing.
One problem with a private road system is that roads take up space and prevent people from using that space for something else. I think that property tax on road surface area would be prohibitively expensive if a private entity were to own it.
Another problem is that building or expanding a road through an already populated area basically requires eminent domain.
As strange as it is, the average person has many an opinion on roads and road maintenance, but very little understanding of the costs involved and where the money comes from. Also, I agree that everyone does want everything for nothing and complain vociferously if those free things are taken away.
Any subsidization of transportation requiring costs such as an automobile, insurance, licensing, and gas are also regressive; making a great argument that tolls should fund public transit (but with opportunity that that goes towards busses, rideshares etc in the private sphere too)
Roads would still be built and planned by governments. But privately owned. See Highway 407 in Toronto, which was "sold" (100 year lease) to generate revenue.
Private ownership should be the product of private development in my opinion. Especially when what you'd be doing is granting a monopoly over a public asset.
We should never privatize profits deriving from public investment.
Highway 407 is a great example of what for profit highway systems look like: high prices, dynamic pricing, tons of hidden fees. Prices per mile are something like $0.80-1.00USD (for passenger cars), not including a few bucks in fees. When I traveled to Toronto for work, my bill per trip on the 407 was at around $50USD. This was in around 2014 and I imagine that prices have gone up a lot since then.
According to wikipedia, for each dollar collected by the 407, $0.21 goes to maintenance, and $0.79 to profits ($0.66 are paid out in dividends). The 407 collects $1.3 billion dollars annually with double-digit annual growth.
Private roads are economically unsustainable and serve only to leech wealth from society.
I do not agree in the least. Roads should be publicly owned and maintained. Private corporations will always seek to squeeze every last drop of money out of commuters because they are effectively a monopoly, especially on very long chunks of highways.
I didn't say I agree with that position. I think it's a terrible one, and the government that sold the 407 was incredibly misguided. But that's how it would work.
Which are? Having ridden on buses and Amtrak, buses go to the same places and more, cheaper, faster, with more available times, and keeping on schedule (the NE corridor may be faster and on schedule, I'm not in that part of the country-- but that would be the exception). There may be a small pollution difference but its probably negligible.
Amtrak absolutely can. Simply by raising their prices.
The iPhone revolutionized mobile phones and greatly expanded the interconnectivity of the world. And yet nobody is demanding that the general public should subsidize Apple.
They should be dropping prices, not raising them, at least for longer trips. It costs about the same to take Amtrak vs an airplane for a direct connection 750 miles away, which is ridiculous because it should be far cheaper to run a train at 60mph than an airplane at 400+mph per passenger, and trains can carry far more people than airplanes. They also need to be way faster (120mph at least, ideally faster than that) to be a reasonable alternative to airlines.
The only way Amtrak gets to raise rates is if it drastically improves service.
Trains need infrastructure all 750 miles of that trip. Airplanes need infrastructure only at each end of the trip. Thus airplanes are cheaper to run very long distances.