The video I shared of the Alef? That's the "VC comedy" video. There's also an "engineering comedy" video: Those three smiling individuals above are getting checks for "stuff" from Tim Draper. It's kind of like getting checks to pay off your campaign debts except you don't ever have to run for office. It's funny seeing the same faces around the same faces around the same terrible ideas - it's how you get dumb money to give to the smart money without being accused of running a Ponzi scheme. And hey - it's VC! 95% of them are supposed to lose money, right? So if you've got a "sure thing" like fuckin' WeWork for some dumb reason? That means you can literally light your Alef money on fire. http://www.youtubemultiplier.com/64b6f782d1187-life-is-parody.php
And hold the fuck up. CNN says that the company says that it tested a skeletonized version of a full sized prototype, while their own stupid video says they have only made "tiny" models fly. Bullshit that they have a full scale working prototype. To make a car drive 200 miles let alone fly 100 you need batteries that weigh thousands of pounds, and ain't no way they have fit a ton of batteries in that tiny little cockpit.
Oh it's a marvelous contraption. - Take a quadcopter. - Make it big enough to haul 200lbs of cargo. - No, not that big. Make it car-sized. - Now cover the top surface with venetian blinds. - Now put a bubble in the middle of it. - Now turn the bubble. - Now turn the bubble again. - Now go through the air perpendicular to the ground. - No, you don't get control surfaces. - You get tires for some reason. - The ones on the right of your craft steer, by the way. - Enjoy. ________________________________ The ukraine war shitposters dug up something marvelous last week. It reminded me very much of this. May I present the combat debut of the legendary T14 Armata:
That's some offshore content farm cranking out random weird shit. Their whole thing was that the FAA granted an airworthyness certificate to them a couple weeks ago. As my professional pilot buddy pointed out, you can get an airworthyness certificate for a kleenex box. But that offshore content farm? They didn't make that video. They stole it from somewhere. So at some point, someone with a vested interest in proving that bricks can fly if you only make them out of nothing, doodled up the world's ugliest Jetsons future.