Probably the most hyped and most funded of all the hyperloop Elon Musk brain fart contenders is Virgin Hyperloop. They had grand plans for scooting people between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in just 12 minutes, but that's all gone to shit as Virgin Hyperloop sacked 111 people this week. They're now going to focus on moving cargo due to "global supply chain issues and all the changes due to Covid". Or, maybe, hear me out here - the hyperloop is a boondoggle. Oh and Virgin Hyperloop's major investor is DP World, a massive logistics company. That cares way more about moving containers than people.
The latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators report by the ACCC is out and it shows that regular punters are indeed price sensitive when it comes to their internet speeds - "150,000 connections dropped out of the 100Mbps plans, over 2,800 full fibre lines dropped out of the 500-1000Mbps/50Mbps speed tier, and the various 50Mbps tiers gained over 180,000 connections" as promotions run by ISPs, incentivised by NBN to lure users to higher speed plans (and increase NBN's ARPU) ended. Most people don't want to spend more than $60/month on internet, speeds be damned. There's also now 13 ISPs that service all 121 POIs across Australia. Just some trivia for your next BBQ or dinner party.
Jatan Mehta has a list of all the Moon related missions planned by global space agencies for the next 5 years. The biggest is NASA's CLPS which consists of 7 missions, operated by commercial outfits, to dump rovers of all shapes and sizes, made by all kinds of different organisations on the lunar surface. Japanese company ispace plans to drop a little tennis ball robot along with a bigger 10kg rover called Rashid, from the UAE. They'll do a second mission with a bigger privately made rover in 2024. India's Chandrayaan 3 will take another crack at a moon landing later this year. NASA's VIPER rover will explore the Moon's south pole in 2023. Canada is planning its own south pole mission too. Even Australia is getting in on the action to hitch a ride on a second iteration of NASA's CLPS program in 2026.
📻 Long Slow Goodbye - Queens of the Stone Age
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