Posts by Gene Cash

Re: winds down the window, and asks directions ??

Now I know a new phrase... and there's a Wikipedia page on it? WTF?

Re: Thank god I only use my github login for comments on other devs projects.

This has nothing really to do with GitLab vs GitHub or anything like that. Anyone stupid enough to put their cookie files on GitHub can be stupid enough to put them on GitLab.

These are the same morons that make their AWS buckets public and store cleartext passwords and write firmware update systems that don't require authentication.

Re: Raises hand from back of room

That's one reason they were tracking it so closely. They were monitoring sink & drift rates. They can then calculate loads from that, and figure if they're in the ballpark for being feasible.

I remember the spy satellite film canisters captured by line trailing from a plane. It's just a bigger version.

I don't see it scaling though. There's obvious limits to how big of a thing you can catch.

Re: Nice

Rockets are 100% engineering tradeoffs. For example, liquid hydrogen has more bang than RP-1 (a refined kerosene) but the tanks are huge and need cryo insulation... so first stages use RP-1 because the rocket overall ends up a lot lighter and smaller, and that's important in a first stage.

It's not a cost saving. It's a space & weight saving. Cubesats have a hard size and mass budget. If you exceed it, you're not a cubesat any more, and you don't fit into the standard launcher or the ride-share.

Re: Will be interesting

There are other online sellers - often cheaper than Amazon.

Sure there are. And their websites don't work.

I tried to buy a sheet for my 3D printer printbed, and the site worked in nothing but Chrome and the WINDOWS version of Chrome. If it had a Linux useragent, it shit the bed. Then I got a tracking link, and that site (deliverr.com) was broken too.

Do not order from Fulament.com.

Re: Server simplification, really?

Page 8 of that PDF is the thing of nightmares with no fewer than 11 variations.

And WTF is this doing marked "Company Confidential"?

FTFY: "that the CEO tries to use a couple of times"

I've never seen a videoconference room that worked without a lot of faffing around, followed by a call to IT to find someone that knew what all the unlabeled switches did, even in a nearly-billion-dollar company. Result was usually an hour's delay rendering the meeting useless.

On this side of the pond, you could dial 3 digits to disable it for the call. That always went into my dial string.

The new Space Race: NASA vs SpaceX

I'd seriously not be surprised if SpaceX lands on the Moon first.

Re: But it's up to us

Please point us at the eco-friendly technological alternatives!

That aren't greenwashed to hell and gone.

Re: Wood Panelled Offices

My mother nudged me into computers by teaching me how to flowchart. Even let me use her genuine IBM template.

Re: Bit by bit, the USA is returning to being a normal world citizen

I'd say "not if I can help it" but the Dems have a habit of putting up people about as electable as Stalin and Hitler after passing over many far better folks, so I would end up not even bothering to vote.

Isn't that a sign of the Apocalypse?

I use FVWM. I don't think it's even been updated in a decade.

Actually, the Kennedy Space Center visitor's center uses Hololens for a "walk on Mars" as one of their exhibits, and it's pretty goddamn cool.

(Edit: and I'm glad to see it's not Oculus, and money is not flowing to that dickhead running Facesbooks. I'd much rather it be Microsoft, as much as I hate them.)

Re: Finals...

Allegedly Tom Stafford Frank Borman held it all the way to the Moon and back on Apollo 8.

That's determination.

Re: Near Real Time

Perhaps, but he does have a point.

Re: Reminds me of x-ray film fun and games

I had jury duty so I rode over and went through courthouse security. Since I was on a motorcycle, I had a key ring with a firm attachment to my belt.

Apparently this was a romper room no-no since it was A Serious And Lethal Weapon.

So I ask what to do? The guard tells me to take my keys and lock them in my car. Seriously.

So I turned around and left.

I got an annoyed call asking why I didn't turn up for jury duty, and I recounted the above story. There was a long stunned silence, then she told me in a tired voice that I was excused and she would deal with it.

Re: Perspective

I can't remember the machine, but I remember typing in a 2 or 3 page magazine listing. This was early '80s or so.

I remember typing "run" and all it did was say "syntax error"

No line number, nothing else. I think that machine went in the garbage soon after.

Re: Forks are a sign of success.

not down to Firefox's decisions

My reasons for abandoning Firefox are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT down to Firefox's decisions. They're the ones that dropped the features and functionality I needed and drove me away.

Features that have disappeared:

* Ability to turn off javascript

* Ability to not use tabs

* Activity indicator

* User profile manager

* Tab groups

* Fine-grained cookie management ("accept/deny this cookie" dialogs)

* Sound (now PulseAudio only, no ALSA)

* RSS reader

* "Save tabs and quit"

* Ability to export history

* FTP

Re: Start Stop

I assume you've never been in a vehicle where the battery's shit the bed, and you're a college student too poor/busy to replace it until the end of the week and you still need to get to school.

So the engine stops, and the battery's too duff to restart it. You're fucked. In the middle of the intersection. With horns blaring behind you. I would think that'd be annoying.

DST is NOT an easy problem to solve.

There is a whole team of people monitoring the laws around the world governing timezones and DST and updating the timezone database appropriately. (It used to just be Arthur David Olsen, all by his lonely)

Every time I update Debian, there's a timezones update.

- Palestine will fall back 2021-10-29 (not 2021-10-30) at 01:00.

- 01-no-leap-second-2021-12-31.patch: No leap second on 2021-12-31 as per IERS Bulletin C 62.

- 02-samoa-dst.patch: Samoa no longer observes DST.

- 03-jordan-dst.patch: Jordan now starts DST on February's last Thursday.

Re: Hope

Well, as high as it is, it's going to be up there for at least a century. No need to "maintain" the orbit.

Re: Yet another explanation

A more modern version of "don't feed the trolls"