Posts by Rustident Spaceniak

Those sounds prior to the explosion

Close your eyes and just listen to the tape of the explosion, from the screeching sound to the big bang.

What it sounds like exactly is something gets loose near the top of the strongback, drops down inside there - hitting the structure (and possibly Ox tubing) a few times - then lands on the launch pad. Unfortunately for SpaceX, it seems they didn't have many sensors outside of the rocket to find out what it was. But I'd take a good look at the debris down there and search for something that looks like it was damaged cold, before the explosion; that should be their trace.

Why would NASA want to turn a strip into a crisp? (Or into smoke)

This is not your granddad's Apollo 1 anymore, hasn't there been a requirement around to use only non-flammable construction materials for, well, almost ever? [scratches head]

...Or is it that they came to realize some materials classed as non-flammable still may be ignited, given the right amount of heating?

They passed over the Levi stadium?

It's clear - the launch was one hour late due to a mix-up in the timezones! That dear short ingenious leader just wanted his own independent aerial view of the final Superbowl moments. Give the man a break, those constant supervillain comparisons must be getting on his nerves.

More seriously, who'd ever want a nuke to communicate? Who with?

Siri, launch Cortana!

- I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.

Two bodies joined in eternal embrace?

So what would they be in egyptian lore - Isis and Osiris maybe?

Paris 'cos it's not Helen.

Meanwhile, on the underground Telesense network of Mars -

- The docudrama "Invasion from Planet Earth" is going into its nineteenth season since Viking I arrived, back in 1976.

Young Martians still can't understand why the high council hasn't put a stop to this yet.

NASA is just playing catch-up again

The LMP-103S propellant is already in use by the Swedish on their PRISMA satellite. It's a technology demonstration that apparently showed the stuff works, which in turn interested NASA enough to sample the Swedish liquor for themselves.

Putting them up there is certainly the big issue -

Although designing and building hundreds of sats on a shoestring budget, but with quite up-to-date capabilities, is no mean feat either. Yet, there's absolutely no reason to be concerned: Richard Branson is on the board of OneWeb and is understood to have a contract in his conveniently-sized pocket for launching the satellites - on a vehicle yet to be revealed to the astonished public. And we all know that Sir Richard has never failed to deliver, don't we? Don't we really?

Did I miss anything?

How will they deal with non-Japanese speakers?

Ah, neural networks!

It must have been like 1989 or so when I last read about a serious attempt to do these things. But can it do self-reference? Recursion? Can it take us to where Douglas Hofstadter was trying to take us in book form way back in- what, was it really that long ago??

Dark matter particles are a bit like singing talents -

All those people keep scouting for them, and every time they think they've come up with one, after a while it's just another dud.

Maybe we should just organize a particle contest?

Go away 67P!

We don' need no stinkin' comets round here.

So - modern humans were interbreeding with Neanderthals in 70k AD - and before that?

Who else may they have boned before? Various early human species among each other? Maybe those faraway love-ins laid the foundation for our tales of strange creatures, like elves, dwarves, and giants, meeting (and loving, or fighting) humans in some far, faraway past? Mind, no matter how old a fairy tale, the action alway plays "long ago".

The question is, do you *have* to use the software SIM card?

-- or can you just swap it like an ordinary one, for whatever other SIM you like? In that case this would be at best a nice feature, at worst a sneak peak of the future you describe.

In any case, if great income fosters great investment - something that does not seem to be borne out by the financial industry, at least not investment into innovation - then it won't matter much, on a global scale, who makes that profit, as they will all have an incentive to make you spend as much as possible for the possibility to send your data around.

Minas - wasn't that the one that looks like Pacman in infrared?

This one really seems to hold mre than meets the eye.

So, to Hell with the Nobel prize!

Great job Stefan, Eric, Bill, I'll drink to you later tonight.