jccooper

23 ms·

241.
by jccooper 6y ago
Looks like the moon to me.
242.
by jccooper 6y ago
Starship is big because it's meant to do other things. The mission parameters didn't require it.
243.
by jccooper 6y ago
I presume even reading a Facebook post (or clicking on a Google search results link) provides a signal about popularity. Probably a little too far down the slippery slope for the law, though.
244.
by jccooper 6y ago
Well, that, and no one wanting to update the orthography. Though speaking of lingua franca, that language also has a very outdated orthography.
245.
by jccooper 6y ago
Indeed. The lettering is not Tolkien-map-style, and it uses the movie "style" of dropping unnecessary (and incorrect) tengwar diacritics all over to make it look "fantasy".
246.
by jccooper 6y ago
Well, they are doing that, just not quite as much yet. To the extent they're not, the difference is that ISPs don't have their logo on the services they host.
247.
by jccooper 6y ago
Commercial real estate does this, because the leases are so long and turnover is expensive with buildout allowances and such, and they sometimes have weird financing schemes that penalize the owner if they lease too low. Residential has non
248.
by jccooper 6y ago
Transfer switches are standard for pretty much any generator setup. An automatic one is a bit more expensive, but hardly a deal breaker.
249.
by jccooper 6y ago
Many (most?) vaccination centers are still supply constrained, and will use up most of their supply early in the day, just serving stragglers later. This is good news, in that it means that it's pretty easy to scale up distribution as
250.
by jccooper 6y ago
Most material they're scraping is copyrighted, and reproducing it without permissions would be prohibited save for the various "fair use" provisions. Google would probably make a "de minimis" defense of the practice
251.
by jccooper 6y ago
If a customer wants capabilites you don't have, and don't otherwise have a use for, they get to pay for it. The customer being a government doesn't make it a subsidy.
252.
by jccooper 6y ago
The USG is paying SpaceX less than their (older, better connected) domestic competitors. Usually substantially less. Arianespace gets large direct subsidies, in addition to being paid more per launch by European governments (and commercial
253.
by jccooper 6y ago
Sure, except that's it's already happened. The US currently has something like twice as many vaccinated as recorded infections, with vaccination growing at something like 5x the rate of infections.
254.
by jccooper 6y ago
It does not. F9 FTS is onboard and entirely automated. There is no ground trigger.
255.
by jccooper 6y ago
There are no commands the other way. F9 flies entirely autonomous, including termination. Based on the FCC filings, I'm pretty sure it doesn't even have receivers.
256.
by jccooper 6y ago
A previous "mosquito fence" claimed to be able to recognize not only species, but also specifically female mosquitos, by wing beat characteristics. So it should be possible.
257.
by jccooper 6y ago
See also: Vitrified forts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrified_fort
258.
by jccooper 6y ago
Employers do witholding the US. Filing at the end of the year is doing a calculation to determine if the withholding is correct and if you owe extra or are due a refund. The factors determining total liability aren't simple enough that
259.
by jccooper 6y ago
> Are those the foil sheets that basically vaporise the object (and part of the shield) so it won't penetrate the inner hull? Yes. Orbital hypervelocity impacts basically vaporize immediately on hitting anything, so you can offset a
260.
by jccooper 6y ago
Yes; someone willing and able to try was also a missing ingredient. None of the incumbents seemed interested in trying anything particularly different (and for the most part, still aren't) so who knows how long we'd have waited fo
261.
by jccooper 6y ago
Propulsive landing has been possible since the 70s. But cheap and easily available sensors (especially but not exclusively navigation--gyroscopes, accelerators, altimeters, GPS), cheap and light high-performance compute hardware, and exis
262.
by jccooper 6y ago
Letter boxes are also legally protected, but that's not the main reason only USPS does letters. They could dump them on your porch like they do packages. It's because it's a legal monopoly. And no, I'm not making it up.
263.
by jccooper 6y ago
Yes. It's illegal for private carrier to delivery letters, except for "extremely urgent material". This exception allows FedEx document services and couriers... but only for express categories. You cannot send standard-speed
264.
by jccooper 6y ago
Clear field of view of the sky is necessary, which may be a problem in the woods. The field of view will narrow with more sats; now it's quite large. Apparently they have an app to visualize it.
265.
by jccooper 6y ago
It was ready to go, they got a week's jump on setting it up, and it isn't as close to the landing site as it looks.
266.
by jccooper 6y ago
Demisability is a significant regulatory concern... but I suspect it wasn't flying before mostly because they didn't have it working yet.
267.
by jccooper 6y ago
Starlink's too low to offer reasonable coverage for orbital stations. Even payloads lower than the constellation (and there aren't many) would only see very small beams, and would pass through them quickly. And the laser system, I
268.
by jccooper 6y ago
NASA runs satellites for this purpose, TDRS, in GEO. But they're for NASA use only, so SpaceX only gets them on Dragon flights (and maybe other NASA payloads.)
269.
by jccooper 6y ago
Piston engines (running leaded high-octane fuel) in general are common in small aircraft. Radials do exist, but most, I think, are inline engines (usually opposed).
270.
by jccooper 6y ago
EINs don't accumulate Social Security, but when you file taxes you'll pay "self-employment tax" on earnings from that "business" and those go to your personal SS account. When you use an EIN you're basical

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