The NY Times has a story about Tesla Motors asking for a $400M piece of the $25B in automotive bailout money. Randall Stross clearly doesn't think they should get any of it. Complaining that Tesla is merely making cars for the rich, and asking why tax payers should pay for any of it. Honestly I'm almost with him on that part.

Tesla has a very long waiting list of people who already spent $109,000 for their cars. Even with that money already in they are having trouble making ends meet. That's just poor business.

However what they are doing is too important to let them go under. None of the major auto makers wants to make cars that don't have ICEs. Mostly because electric cars have virtually zero maintenance cost. Rotate the tires and refill the washer fluid twice a year. That's it. They will run a decade before they need anything else. At that point you buy a new battery that lasts longer, and your good for another ten years. Also the roadster is simply the beginning. If they get the money, in two years they will produce a 4 door sedan for around $50K. In every way it is an investment in the future

Tesla is currently further along with this technology than anyone else in the world. $400M is literally pocket change compared to what the government spend money on. When was the last time you heard anything about sombody requesting less than $10B from the government? If they say they need $400 million, I say give them a Billion. Make them the next big auto manufacturer. The market desperately needs a kick in the pants. Tesla is trying to deliver it.

This is not a prediction merely a wish. A vision that I believe will be the best solution to the communication infrastructure and market. This is not it.

Currently I buy electricity from Central Hudson. They are a government regulated monopoly that maintains the local electric grid. They buy power from anybody who wants to start a power plant. They sell to anyone who wants the power, or people can pay the power plant directly to try for a cheaper rate. The state decides what the prices are. Central Hudson has to ask to change the rates, and they need to have thorough documentation to support the request. The system works. The whole national power grid works this way. My contention is that the national Data Grid should work similarly.

Verizon is currently running all purpose fiber optic data lines, directly to people's homes and business (FiOS). It is capable of carrying massive amounts of data. Enough to bring superbroadband internet, HD video on demand, HD video phone even! With this they transcend the concept of a phone company, they become the data company.

The job of the Data Company is simple. Give people access to any data they want. as fast as they want, anytime they want. Just like you can pay the power company for giving you access to electricity, you pay the data company for access to data. And just like the power company, it needs to be a government regulated monopoly.

The rules would be pretty simple. People pay for bandwidth, not bits. All bits are equal, none get any preferential treatment. People pay for two things, guaranteed bandwidth, and possible bandwidth. Guaranteed bandwidth is exactly what it sounds like. You are always guaranteed at least this level. Flexible bandwidth is possible, but if used too much, may be temporarily limited. The rules for exactly how much guaranteed and possible bandwidth would cost, and how they would be regulated, would probably best be decided by others. But I would imagine that if your flexible bandwidth is maximized for more than a two hours, you may be throttled down until its no longer maximized for six hours. The price should probably be something like 10 to 1. As in $10/month if X bandwidth is guaranteed and only $1/month if it's flexible. Oh yah and one more rule. The direction of bandwidth doesn't mater. Both directions would be the same.

This would work because the data company doesn't care about what data they are delivering. Their only concern is that it gets delivered well. As technology evolves people will want more bandwidth, and so the Data Company has incentive to upgrade their network to supply it. The local or state government would dictate the profits allowed. So the consumer demand for bandwidth would balance with the amount spent on infrastructure.

Sorry this post was so long.

Lately my head has been chewing on a lot of politics. I apologies for that. But this just was just too good to pass up.

It speaks for it's self pretty well I think.

My mother sent me a chain email. My reply follows.

I did the math. Theirs is not quite right.

> A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

Nope. 1976

> A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

Nope. Would have been 106 AD. Jesus was dead by then. Unless you believe the Bible then, Jesus is still alive today.

> A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

That's about right. Of course the stone age covers everything from 2.5 Million BC to about 10 Thousand BC, so its a big target. Unless you believe the Bible, then the stone age couldn't have been much more than 5 Thousand years ago.

> A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

That's not true. Lots of animals walked on 2 feet 2.7 million years ago. Just none that looked very human like. Unless you believe the Bible, then nothing was walking the Earth more than 6,000 years ago, silly. Even the Earth didn't exist.

> A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

George's (unapproved) 2009 budget request of 2.7 Trillion, would burn through a billion dollars in about 3 hours and 15 minuets.

$2.7 Trillion / 365 days / 24 hours equals $308,219,178 per hour.
$1 Billion / $308,219,178 = 3.24444445 hours.

This allows the president to conduct “Untargeted� surveillance of all communication entering and exiting the US. In other words, Bush can record each and every overseas phone call… Yes even to Canada and Mexico. They can do this without any direct judicial oversight. No judge has to know the names, or specific reasons.

And even if a judge says no, they can still tap your phone until they find an appeals judge that says yes.

And nobody can sue the telephone companies for information about if their phone was tapped, or about who the recordings or transcripts went to.

This is the kind of control and privacy invasion, our government was designed to protect us from. But given an infinite timeline, power always gets corrupted. So I guess it’s just the normal status quos… Right? For the people... Right?