Posts by fishman

Used are far cheaper

There are a couple of lightly used lunar rovers already on the moon - just bring a set of new batteries, a replacement fender, and you are set to go.

Vulcan

Since this is being launched on an untested rocket NASA must be getting a fantastic deal on the launch costs.

tight schedule

Even if all three of the other rockets (Ariane 6, Vulcan and Glenn) make their initial launches "on time", there is a big difference between that and having the sort of launch cadence needed for Kuiper. Heck, can BO put out enough BE-4 engines for both New Glenn and Vulcan to meet their schedules (which also include non-Kuiper launches)? While NG's booster is to be reusable it's going to take a number of launches before they will be reflying boosters - more BE-4 engines.

I would be pleasantly surprised if all three launch providers could meet their schedules. But I expect SpaceX will get at least a dozen extra Kuiper launches to cover it.

Driving costs down.

The way to drive costs down is through reusability and a high launch cadence.

The high launch cadence means that the costs of the rocket development and the costs of the launch, landing, and test facilities can be spread over more launches. The problem for an "Ariane 7" is that they will be competing not only with the Falcon 9 but also New Glenn, Neutron, Terran R, reusable rockets from China and India, and ..... Starship. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a market for an Ariane 7, but unless someone wants to use it to deploy a massive satellite array like Starlink it will have trouble getting a high launch cadence.

Limits to size

Airports are designed for a maximum wing span for a plane. The MD90 is a small plane, but scaling this up to a much bigger plane might not be possible or at least limit the number of airports it could fly to/from.

Trampoline

Rogozin probably was using his trampoline and ended up landing on his head too many times.

Launch costs

"ISRO hopes the vehicle one day makes it possible to launch payloads to orbit for just $4,000/kg – well below the cost of competing launch services."

I'd assume that their launch cost estimates are for a rocket with a reusable first stage. By the time they have the full stack flying SpaceX will have Starship/Superheavy, RocketLab will have Neutron, etc - all fully reusable. But currently the Falcon 9 costs $67M and can take as much as 17,400kg to LEO in reusable mode which works out to $3850/kg.

It's not the data.

The real problem is the algorithms that suggest videos to watch. Subtle promotion of pro-chinese, anti outgroup videos.

Wait on buying new

If you wait a few months after a phone's introduction you can often find pretty good discounts. Buying used means you don't know if the previous owner abused the battery.

Escape pod

Hopefully they can get it fixed - after all it's how the Russians will get back to earth.

And limited use of Starliner

Another problem for Boeing is that they use the Atlas V booster to launch Starliner - which is going out of service. They will have to get it requalified on a new booster (Vulcan, New Glenn, ....) if they want to use it on future missions beyond the current number contracted with NASA.

Recession?

If there is a worldwide recession Nvidia may end up sitting on a whole lot of product. And if they slash prices to move it, they will piss many off those who paid the original price.

They're broke

With what money are the Russians going to build a space station? Their economy is in shambles and the sanctions will take years to end even if Putin is deposed. There is a huge brain drain away from the space program to other fields even before the war, and now there is a brain drain away from Russia due to the war. Their military is a mess - depleted material and manpower - which will have a higher priority than a space program. And their space program has lost its profit centers - commercial space launches, selling Soyuz rockets to ESA, and flying other countries astronauts to the ISS.

Good enough

It doesn't take that new of a smartphone if all you do is surf the web, text, make phone calls, and take some pictures. After almost 5 years the battery is still in good shape - I try to keep from going below 30% very often, and never below 20%.

Electric car rebalancing

Electric cars will become the main type of vehicle in the future. To help the grid just control the charging of the cars - when the spikes occur reduce the charge rate on the cars.

Stock kernels

I'm running a Ubuntu variant, Mint. It's been years since I've used the kernel that comes with the distro (except during initial installation), I just download the latest release from kernel.org, compile and go. I started doing that when I had some problems with the distro kernel.

The irony...

It's always amazing to see politicians who expouse cutting spending turn around and vote for endless pork like the SLS........

Named just a few..

Had a Mercury Sable station wagon (estate). My sister told me that teenagers like her son wouldn't get caught dead driving one (irony is that they had a minivan). So I named it the "chick magnet".

Bought a red Miata. Wife named it the "Little Red Car".

Bought a red Golf Alltrack. So I named it "Big Red".

BO losing top management

Quite a few of BO's top managers are leaving - even on projects not directly related to the HLS. Losing key people has to hurt.

And Tory Bruno is wondering "Jeff - where are my engines?"

I'd prefer a 10MP normal lens and a 10MP 3x telephoto. A 48MP is too much considering the quality of the lens they use.

Easy peasy

Add cameras on the exterior to record the images that are blocked by the pillar.

Use sensors to determine the driver's eye position.

Cover the pillar with screens.

Compute the amount and position of the video to show and display it on the pillar screens.

No sympathy.

So if Epic wins, will users see a 30% discount? At best there may be a small discount at first, and then the prices will go up to the "what the market will bear" level which is probably what it is at now. 30% is probably too high but it's not like consumers will see much savings if any if it is reduced or eliminated.

All that I care about is getting security updates to my Android smartphone - I don't care about running the latest version of Android.

Happens with closed source.

Years ago we had a project that used Informix. They got bought out by IBM who dropped some of their products - including one that we required for our project. To "fix" our problem would have required a good chunk of funding and manpower - something that wasn't available. So the project got shelved and died.

Sprint - T Mobile merger

It should be noted that during the worst recent large merger - Sprint / T Mobile - Hawley was silent.

Oracle. How to make Google to be the good guy.