Posts by Tempest8008

Why not sell it?

They consider it end-of-life...which means it is no longer considered safe for people by people with wildly excessive safety margins. That's fine. So why not sell it? There are companies out there that will buy the station, refurbish it, and use it as a base to build their own new station.

Or why de-orbit at all? Use some ion thrusters (low thrust, but long term) to increase the orbital velocity, boosting the height of the orbit and taking it out and away from the Earth. Keep those firing for an extended period and you could push it into the Sun or impact it with one of several planets that are out there floating around.

For that matter, why not use it as the base the build a new station rather than just junking it and flying a new station (in pieces) up there? Though if Starship proves itself, lobbing large chunks up is going to become way easier.

And if we stay on the "sell it off" model....sell it by pieces. Those solar panels are still working, are you telling me that someone won't want to buy those to use on their own orbital startup? It just seems like blinkered thinking.

"We MUST de-orbit it! There are no other options!"

There may not be any standard options...but times are changing and space is becoming a place we can actually see more activity in. Things could be very different within the next 10 years.

A bit inaccurate...

The article states: "...Musk claimed wouldn't be launched until the company's Starship vessel managed to do more than explode on the pad."

What Starship news have you been reporting on? The last launch of it concluded with a successful landing and was in February of 2021. Since then they've been working on launch facilities and iterating the design of Starship itself AND the Super Heavy boosters, which most recently performed a static fire in preparation for their first orbital attempt which could happen as early as March. I love the Reg, but please report honestly. This boner you seem to have for attacking Musk needs some tempering. His companies aren't him.

Facilitate collaboration?

I love this part:

"Researchers have complained Uncle Sam hasn't done enough to facilitate collaboration and bridge the gap between educators, developers, and scientists involved in algorithms and developing hardware."

This being the US, there aren't any blockages here for the US Gov't to remove.

Pick up a phone. Write an email. Send up smoke signals. No one is stopping you.

If you read about something interesting, you can follow up yourself. Why do you need something special (ie Government money) to do that? There are a wealth of official journals, blogs, websites, periodicals etc. dedicated to quantum computing. It's a small enough community that most of them likely are familiar with each others' work and can reach out if they want. The biggest blockage I could see would be private companies being proprietary with their research. Like it or not, D-Wave isn't sharing with Intel, Intel isn't sharing with Microsoft, Microsoft isn't sharing with Google.

There are likely insights each of them COULD share with each other, but they won't because they all want to capitalize first on what their research produces. But the Government won't stop that. That's healthy competition and as long as companies are spending the money on all that skull sweat, the taxpayers aren't. No way in hell the Gov't will step in at this point.

Portability is key

We have customers who use them to perform on-site reporting and inspections.

The iPads spit the data back to a website and database where managers run reports on the data collected.

Much handier than a laptop for people in the field, though the lack of a ruggedized version is a detractor.

We ended up building an entire separate version of our platform for places to use iPads that didn't want to use other kinds of tablets. We were forced into doing that despite our concerns over the harsh environments they were going to be exposed to and the inevitable attrition that would result. We also had to engage a 3rd party to assist with coding for the app as most of our development is NOT iOS based.

The 'testing' iPad I brought home to do QA on new builds of the app we use has been taken over by my 7yr old. He uses it to chat with friends on Kids Messenger, play games, watch videos and install questionable apps that do odd things to his face.

Needs built in headphones

I'm imagining this sitting at my desk at work. Give me 6 huge monitors in front of me and I'll put up:

3 different customers whose live environment I'm monitoring.

The Teams meeting that seems to have been live for 36hrs and is still going.

The email I'm working on.

The website I'm referring to while writing my email.

Build in headphones and a mic and the only reason I have to leave is to use the bathroom.

Make it so I can tether them to my phone and be able to seamlessly carry those displays with me and I can be doing what needs doing IN the bathroom.

(full disclosure, if you're on the phone with me you have about a 25% chance of me going and doing that while we're speaking anyway. It's just efficient use of time. :D )

Test them?

IANA should be able to obtain access to a COVID-19 test.

Before they isolate themselves, have the participants tested and confirmed virus free, THEN lock them in together.

People living in the same household aren't held to the social distancing requirements...that'd be daft. Being locked in together for a few days would hold the same strictures, I assume. And if they've been tested and confirmed virus free the point should be moot, regardless.

El Reg seems to have a hate boner with regards to SpaceX

As mentioned previously, the headline definitely makes it seem like "another" SpaceX failure.

The headline would have been more accurate if it had been: Dragon Docker Down: No SpaceX Today

The Register really seems to have it in for SpaceX. The headlines and stories are rarely complimentary.

We're developing Hololens Apps

My company is developing some Hololens apps.

I can say with definite authority that we would NOT want our software on the regular Microsoft Store; our apps won't be for the general public.

If the only way they're going to allow people to download and install apps on the Hololens is via some kind of authorized "Store" setup, we're going to need our own to deliver our product, so that part at least makes sense.

Of course, now we need to think about Hololens 2. I hope the codebase isn't too different between models...

I don't get it...

The Dragon Capsule has proven itself in cargo delivery to the ISS repeatedly. It also separates, makes its way down through the atmosphere and splashes down intact when sent back with experiment results/trash. So that part works. The one launch failure in-flight, the Dragon capsule survived but due to a software oversight didn't pop its parachutes. This oversight has been fixed.

The Space-X boosters work to get the Dragon Capsule into orbit. One failure on the pad, one in flight out of 68 launches so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#Launch_outcomes

That failure on the pad was during a static fire test, and changes to that procedure means the payloads are no longer going to be on-board during those kinds of tests...so no astronaut danger there.

I understand 100% that NASA wants to make things as safe as possible. I think SpaceX and Boeing and all of the private firms reaching for space feel the same way and are working flat out to achieve the most safety they can.

But at some point you have to decide you've done all you can and light the touch paper.

5 of those with one BFR

Yeah, refusing to call it Starship. But a single SpaceX BFR would be able to loft the equivalent of 5.2 of those suckers at once.

We need big lifters and a bloody origami expert to fit it all into a neat unfold-able package.

Er....we also need the BFR to exist.

You! Yes, you! Get on that...

At first glance

I thought it said it was "near-composTable" and I was all, "Wow. Cray is really listening to the hippies." Then I started reading about the power requirements...

Right to information?

No wonder International Law is ignored when it's this damn fuzzy.

They say, "Access to information is a human right..."

WHAT?! So every human has a right to every piece of information on the planet?

Since when? I don't even have a "right" to know what my friend ate for breakfast if she doesn't want to tell me, let alone proprietary intellectual property or manufacturing processes.

And by that logic every human should have full access to a device that can access that information, the power to run it, and the education to be able to use it.

Talk about pie-in-the-sky claptrap.

If the people in these countries want to be able to access the Internet unfettered and uncensored then I'm afraid they're going to have to fight for those rights...like everyone else.

No "right" comes free.

COMMENCE THE DOWNVOTES!

Shows my age...

Shows that I have kids of a certain age:

To me, Zuma is a chocolate Lab' in the Paw Patrol.

*sigh

If the FAA moves fast on this I will be utterly shocked.

<cough> LOHAN <cough>

Collection of low cost cube-sats instead

Doesn't it make more sense for SpaceX to try a launch with a previously used rocket and have a cheaper, more disposable payload?

A bunch of school cubesats, for example.

They eat the cost of the launch, but now you have PROOF that your PL (previously launched) rockets work, and you can start hauling in multiple requests at the lower price.

You end up with quantity making up the money, and if something DOES go wrong your customer isn't out millions for a destroyed satellite.

And in the meantime they get to look like the good guys, providing a free launch for academia.

(I'm assuming the reason they didn't do this is due to an accountant somewhere)

Too many problems to count. I'm responsible for numerous sites around my Province of Ontario (Canada).

Location 1: Single rack with network gear, a DVR, UPS, and ancillary equipment. The room also houses the demarc and the phone system. By company fiat ONLY IT equipment is to be in this room.

But...

The site has put a drinks cooler in there, propped the door open 24x7, and is now using it to store janitorial supplies and tools.

Location 2: Same as above for the IT gear, plus a small print server.

But...

The site has removed all the venting from the door, resulting in NO air flow, and the night cleaning contractors put their half full mop bucket in there the other night. Hello humidity alarms at 3am...

Location 3: The MDF has a couple of servers, 3 separate network racks, the PA system, the phone system and acts as the demarc for two buildings.

But...

The site has decided to store sales paraphernalia, including sweaters, t-shirts, golf bags, posters, flat packs of floor displays and everything else they can think of in there. That's in addition to all of the PCs that I have recently lifecycled that they are requiring "be stored in a secured area" before I (literally) chuck them in a big wooden crate and the company we contract with comes and takes them away...in 6 months.

There is no longer any such thing as sacrosanct when it comes to IT gear. It used to be considered inviolate, sacred, and feared.

Now it's in the way...until it goes down.

Fun times...

You've all missed the most important point...

When do we get some of this cheesecake?

Go covert

You said in your email that you had other people in journalism who would be happy to give up a seat for you.

Time to work another angle. Find one of them who IS willing to give you up a seat and get in using their credentials.

Job done.

Or pull some Mission Impossible crap and crash it. Find out who the caterer is and get in that way, or better yet the lighting/multimedia company who is streaming the event (you can guarantee Apple contracted that out) and get in with them under the guise of reviewing their streaming setup.

Go for it!

Foreshadowing (spoilers)

Meh....he died in the end anyway!

No story today on SpaceX launch and sticking the landing?

I know the first time was a success, but the second time? That's a pattern...and it was from a booster on a geostationary launch, which is twice as fast as a LEO launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bMeDj76ig

In case anyone wants to see the video.

I just think it's newsworthy...

Not sure of the math

REALLY not sure of the math, but what would we be looking at regarding the destructive power of a 100Kg projectile moving at 0.3C?

Is this a feasible asteroid defense?

Or would it just be better to point the laser and shoot?

Make it properly Autonomous

I want it to be a true, autonomous robot. Not some glorified remote control experiment.

Have the remote control ready and a cutoff in place to be able to take charge if needed, but I'd really like to see it making its own choices and reacting on its own.

A truly, magnificently, barbed, bladed, and bad-ass autonomous death machine.

Hello. My name is Lester Haines, and this is my video application for the position of Technology Tart for The Register...

"Very funny. - Dr. Jones."

"ARRGH! Windows 10! Oh, look! A snake."

"The real reason the complaints about the new Register website went unanswered."

"No. I'm not a viper. No. I'm not a python. I'm a run-of-the-mill, non-venomous, ophidian. I'm sitting here because it's nice and warm. I am not amusing nor do I care to be. Like this laptop I am merely being used to further the advertising goals of The Register. Later on I'll be put back in my terrarium and fed some crickets...perhaps a small mouse or frog. Then I'll sleep for a week. This is my life. Could be worse, I suppose. Like most things, there's less complexity here than you'd expect. And if you're looking for the punchline at the end of this long winded ophidian's monologue, keep waiting. I'm not here to entertain you."

Pic editing is cheating, but...

I couldn't help myself.

http://s22.postimg.org/q1wjpdhxt/tarantula_and_10.jpg

Caption would be "The horror! The horror! Oh, look! A spider!"