kwaugh

Those are fair points. I guess I'm most confused by the inclusion of mid section rims. This makes me think they're targeting people who want to go really fast, but then their other choices don't pair well with going fast enough to get the gains out of the wheels.

I definitely agree that high gears are overrated except for racing, but when the bike markets itself as a lightweight semi-aero bike, isn't the point to go fast? If you're not going faster than 25kph, then why are you need deeper rimmed carbon wheels?

> A double chainring setup likely offers smaller gaps between gears but likely a comparable overall range from lowest to highest.

This isn't true. This bike is using a 40 gear crank in the front with an 11-40 cassette in the back. That puts the gear ratio at 1.0 on the low end and 3.64 on the high end. The corresponding Shimano GRX setup with a double chainring would be a 46-30 in the front and a 11-34 in the back. This gives a 0.88 ratio on the low end and 4.18 on the high end, which is actually quite a big difference. One could argue that the difference in gear ratio on the low end isn't a big deal because this bike has pedal assist, but the difference on the high end is quite noticeable.

I mean no offense, but many of the advantages that you've cited are more of claimed advantages from the marketing departments of big manufacturer rather than proven advantages that the tech gives you. The author of the comment to which you replied does seem to understand the trends in bike designs these days and feels that these trends do not fit well into the market segment of e-bikes. I agree.

> it’s not only the weight that carbon frame bike owners are after - the material gives much better ride quality than aluminium.

The affect the frame has on the ride quality is significantly smaller than other components of the ride like the tires and seat post[0]. Carbon often has a very small weight improvement over a well made steel or aluminum bikes, so if you're buying an e-bike because you want pedal assist, I don't understand the need to shave 1 or 2 pounds off the bike.

> Deep rims are nothing spectacular either, their weight penalty is nicely offset by aero gain.

This appears to be true. Most of the aero penalty of the bike comes from the wheels and having deeper wheels does reduce the drag a lot.

> One chainring is all the rage in bikes now

It is all the rage, but it's not clear yet whether it's justified or just a ploy by the manufacturers to save costs on their end. The gear ratio of this bike goes from 1.0 on the low end to only 3.64. 1.0 is pretty good for going up hills, especially with the motor assist, but 3.64 is really low, especially for a bike trying to tout itself as really fast! I don't understand this choice. Most road bikes have a top end ratio of around 4.54.

> Mudguards and simple handlebars make this bike utilitarian and well-suited to commuting

The mudguards are nice, but I don't understand the choice of handlebars. Why do you want a super aero light-weight bike but then put flat handlebars on it so you can't get in an aero position like you can with drop handlebars. This doesn't make sense. Furthermore, the bike doesn't have mounting points for a front or rear rack, which is a huge downside for commuting, if not a dealbreaker.

[0] https://www.cyclingabout.com/why-impossible-steel-frames-mor...

[edit] you're right that trends do matter when affecting people's purchasing decision since most people aren't very informed about the actual pros/cons of the tech they're buying, but this doesn't undermine the original commenter's opinion that this bike doesn't make sense from a technical standpoint.

They let you get third party cases valued at up to ~$30 for free. This wasn’t just for Apple branded cases. In fact, I believe this was before Apple sold first party iPhone cases.

Apple handed out free cases for the iPhone 4 for a while to mitigate issues where the cell signal would drop when you held the phone a certain way. This type of action wouldn’t be unprecedented.

No

> Now, that being said, there is one minor question I have, and that is, how would backpropagation apply to this apparently one-way model?

The author mentioned that this is only for inference of neural networks (not training), so this does not support backpropagation.

Aarsonson has since commented on this paper on his website. He still believes that it's a bogus proof.

Aarsonson has been one of my favorite professors. His undergrad quantum information sciences class was great. Super smart guy, approachable, good lecturer, good person. A+ dude. I recommend following his blog if you don't already.