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China's Jade Rabbit Fights To Come Back From the Dead
Despite being declared officially lost, the Chinese moon rover may yet have some life left. Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "CNN reports that reports of Jade Rabbit's demise may have been premature as signs are emerging that China's first lunar rover may be up and running again. Following technical malfunctions Xinhua says that the lunar rover had lost communication with mission control but on Thursday the state news agency said that the rover was "fully awake" and had returned to its normal signal-receiving status. "Jade Rabbit has fully resurrected and is able to receive signals, but still suffers a mechanical control abnormality," says China's lunar program spokesman Pei Zhaoyu. "The rover entered hibernation while in an abnormal state. We were worried it wouldn't be able to make it through the extreme cold of the lunar night. But it came back alive. The rover stands a chance of being saved as it is still alive." The lunar rover's end seemed near when it signed off at the end of January with a poignant message: "Goodnight humanity." Yutu, as the device is known in Mandarin, had been out of action for two weeks following a technical malfunction, and media around the world filed its obituary late on Wednesday after a short statement on Chinese state media alerted the world to its apparent terminal failings. Should Jade Rabbit make a full recovery, it would cap another success for space exploration, which has seen NASA's Opportunity Mars rover, currently exploring the red planet, far outlast its expected lifespan."
and was recovering from all the partying and travel back to the Moon.
(Seriously, great news!)
Opposed to components made where? We don't any more. South eastern asia's slave labor camps? Seriously, it would have been smarter you just curse beta at this point.
I for one , welcome, Our Lunar Robotic Zombie Overlord!
The China National Space Administration has already announced they will no longer be sourcing components via Alibaba or eBay.
In reality, China already has a 3D printer on the Moon and they simply printed out another Jade Rabbit.
Then we could go on about whipping a Dead Horse.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Countries with engineering expertise, like Germany, any of the Norse countries, Japan, Taiwan, I could go on...
Thing about China is that their primary focus (permeates all of their culture) is to maintain high appearances even if everything underneath is complete crap. A good anecdote and analogy for this are their prize schools, which from the outside look like something you'd find in Abu Dhabi, but inside are literally falling apart and are a safety hazard to students.
With that in mind, if the Chinese are saying it is 'awake' with control abnormalities, I'd guess in reality it is about 5x worse than they claim.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Chinese have the skill to make both cheap crap and premium components. It's really only about the targeted price point and what the customer orders.
Chinese have the skill to make both cheap crap and premium components. It's really only about the targeted price point and what the customer orders.
Except when the customer orders premium components, they produce a few to prove they can do it, then deliver cheap crap.
Apparently Aston-Martin are having to recall most of their recent cars because they ordered premium components from China and... didn't get them.
it signed off at the end of January with a poignant message: "Goodnight humanity."
No it didn't. Some guy in a press office wrote it.
Can we please stop anthropomorphising rovers? They hate that.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's really sad that consumers here have been convinced by retailers that price is everything, Much of the rest of the world still remembers that it is often worth more over the long run to pay more for a better product, but here a blender that is two bucks cheaper will far outsell the more solidly-built one next to it on the shelf.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Who thinks that "Jade Rabbit" sounds like it should be the name of a sex toy?
Clearly it was the work of Chinese moon poachers. Jade rabbits can be make into slippers that give you vitality and speed so they go for $1 mil on the black market. There were definitely poachers on the moon waiting for it.
This sounds more like a phony story ordered by Party elites to cover up the embarrassment of failure. They can just pretend it started working again (with the camera mysteriously failing) and save face with bogus tweets and press releases.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Mostly dead is a little bit alive. A little bit alive they can work with.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Mission Control: "Brave, brave Jade Rabbit! You shall not have died in vain!"
Jade Rabbit: "Uh, I'm-I'm not quite dead, sir."
Mission Control: "Well, you shall not have been mortally wounded in vain!"
Jade Rabbit: "Uh, I-I think uh, I could pull through, sir."
Mission Control: "Oh, I see."
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Just needed a fsck and it was then in /lost+found
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
China's still saying it's dead; it's amateur radio enthusiasts who have detected its broadcast.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
To be exact, they're saying it's in exactly the same malfunctioning state it was before the lunar winter.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
well, it looks as we were able to have dialog with the locals. teacher will be proud.
Zombie Chinese Robots on the Moon . . . if only Laurel and Hardy were still alive, casting would be a cinch.
Apollo 11 landing? Meh.
Luna 2 landing? Meh.
Zombie Jade Rabbit landing? AWESOME!
Nice try though.
"Zombie Rabbit On The Moon!" :p
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
I see the opposite, that people think "free" means "worthless". I see people paying ten bucks for a cup of coffee because it's Starbucks. I see people buying bottled water. I see people paying two dollars for a can of corn when there are store brands of corn grown in the same field and canned in the same factory for sixty nine cents. I see people buying Tylenol and Alieve when the generics are chemically identical and a third the price.
Really, I can make a call or a text or an email or take a picture or video or do anything else on my $125 Android that you can do with an iPod, and mine's waterproof and doesn't have delicate glass like the iPhone.
My sister, who is fairly well off, bought a Lexus. My old Chrysler has more comfortable seats, better HVAC (kicks in faster), a better sounding radio, but when it was new (I bought it used) it cost half of what that Lexus cost.
A more expensive item is not always better, nor is it always better suited for your purposes.
Free Martian Whores!
Price is a lot.
First, you have to amortise the cost of the item over its lifespan. That blender that is two bucks cheaper may last just as long as the solidly-built one, especially if I only have light-duty uses for a blender. Or the TV I bought a week ago for $200 has a planned lifespan of no more than about 5 years by which time I hope to have a plan for a better, complete entertainment system - so there's no point in buying a $500 TV that's going to get replaced in 5 years anyway. Or the car that costs $20k and lasts 5 years is still a better deal than the car that costs $50k and lasts 10 years.
Second, you have to look at opportunity costs. Even comparing a $20k vehicle that needs replacing after 4 years (a real stinker) and comparing to a $50k car that needs replacing after 10 (a bit of a stinker, but these numbers provide nice, round numbers), the $20k vehicle is still a better deal - I only need to come up with $20k now, if I need a loan, I only pay interest on whatever I can't pay outright on $20k, not the extra $30k, and the rest of the money can be used for other purposes for 4 years, perhaps in a GIC or other investments, or paying off other loans (credit cards, mortgage, etc.).
And, finally, you have to look at money available. If I need a blender, don't need anything fancy, and don't really have anything budgeted for it, the cheaper one fits that budget better. Maybe it's better to have the blender than not, but I don't have money for it. Blenders may make less of an issue here, but often vehicles and food fit here better - this becomes one of my issues with organic foods - by driving up the cost of good, nutritious whole foods, you force a bunch of people who are struggling financially (i.e., the poor) to buy less nutritionally beneficial processed foods because they can no longer afford wholesome foods. Yes, it's better, but if you don't have the money, you just don't have the money.
The problem is that it is very difficult for the average consumer (or even techie) to tell when something is high quality and hence worth more. I have found that most of the time, the cheap stuff is adequate. If I want quality, I have to spend a lot of time researching. Sometimes you can trust brands to produce quality stuff and to stand behind it if it breaks. Other times, not so much, and the task is complicated by counterfeits.
A recent example... I wanted to buy a few standard 18650 lithium rechargeable batteries for a project. Going through Amazon, the prices ranged from $3 to $10 each. There were various brands Sony, Panasonic, Samsung which I know and trust and I also came across a brand called UltraFire which may be good but seems to suffer from a lot of counterfeiting. I ended up buying the most expensive Sony for $10 since they were the only brand with uniformly good reviews. All of the others seemed to have a number of duds and I didn't want to hassle with failures and returns.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Because this was fucking heartbreaking: https://xkcd.com/695/
I am tired of reading about how the Mars rovers miraculously lived so long.
It should be obvious to even the dumbest among us that the short "expected lifespan" of the rovers was just some contractual trigger for some bonus for some contractor and was in no way a design goal.
But luckilly at least one central european news outlet did report tech-news that JADE RABBIT is still operational, but so far not responding. Propably low batteries charge was to blame in order to power up off-the-shelf technologies used in this little piece of space-travel marvel. KUDOS to Chinese technicians, engineers and other scientists on board this project.
or the writer got lucky.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Except it's not usually 2 bucks. It's usually something like 19.99 or 349.99
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What is this magical phone without delicate glass on the touchscreen? I want one.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Should Jade Rabbit make a full recovery, it would cap another success for space exploration, which has seen NASA's Opportunity Mars rover, currently exploring the red planet, far outlast its expected lifespan."
Opportunity far outlived its projected 90 day operational lifetime. Jade Rabbit was supposed to go 3 months and has already gone belly-up just a month into it.
Is it in the heliopause, or past it? Is the cat alive or dead?
We all asked for it. We bitched and moaned. We wanted Slashdot to deliver stories faster, and we mocked it when it published yesterdays news.
The one time Slashdot listens to its users and it published a story so fast that it was wrong, and was debunked only hours later.
Good to see the little wabbit is still fighting on.
Thing about China is that their primary focus (permeates all of their culture) is to maintain high appearances even if everything underneath is complete crap.
Actually China is happy to manufacture whatever the market wants. Do you want cheap and dangerous electronics which spew RFI and may burst into flames? You got it. Do you want excellent optical components for high-end telescopes? You got that too!
The only question is what level of quality control and oversight you're willing to pay for. I've had circuit boards manufactured in china which almost fell apart when I got them. Holes weren't centred, silkscreen was patchy, and the solder mask was a mess. I've also had an 8 layer board manufactured complete with gold plating and custom materials for the RF path which came out perfect, it also cost 100x the price of the cheap one.
You can get cheap plastic computers from China that may or may not boot up. Or you can get Apple Macs made in China.
What are you willing to pay for?
So you got one case. Now explain high end telescope optics, high end computer products, and the many other auto components which have no problem which also come from China.
I think you've been watching too much Batman.
I agree that a Lexus is an overpriced Toyota... But it's still a Toyota and Toyota air-conditioners are built with two settings, off and Igloo.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
to read all the hateful comments about "Chinese junk" spouted by envious Americans, who now realize this rover is in fact superior Chinese quality, persisting through conditions it was not built to endure.
Click on the "The rover stands a chance of being saved as it is still alive" link, the "Translate" link performs a script injection attack.
Because Apple MAC's are designed in silicon valley where standards are superior to anything the CPC (Communist Party of China) can muster..
one might say.
It was probably on the dark side of the moon looking for Transformers...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Actually China is happy to manufacture whatever the market wants.
Yep, I'm sure we had companies wanting poisonous baby formula, lead paint, and dog food imported. Markets don't get what they want and are willing to pay for from China, they seem to get whatever China can get away with passing off.
Yet another reason for me to like mine better. Dial in the temperature you want and that's the temperature you get, summer or winter. In the summer mine starts kicking out cold air quickly (takes a minute to cool the pipes).
Free Martian Whores!
Apparently almost anything except an iPhone. I've only broken a single screen, and that was a cheap throwaway phone I slipped in the ice and fell on. But my daughter's an iPhone user and breaks all of them. I've seen other iPhones with cracked screens, but no other brands..
I suspect Apple uses thinner glass to make the whole phone thinner. I know of no other phone so delicate.
Free Martian Whores!
The Toyota (aka Lexus) was designed to last for half a million miles or more. The Chrysler was designed to fall apart after a hundred thousand. Literally. My great uncle retired from the Chrysler Proving Grounds, one of their jobs was to visit wrecking yards, find Chrysler products with >100,000 miles, and examine all the parts. If (for example) the starter and steering linkage were still in fine shape while everything else was uniformly worn management would go after the manufacturers of those parts and squeeze them on price until the quality dropped.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Thing about China is that their primary focus (permeates all of their culture) is to maintain high appearances even if everything underneath is complete crap.
Hence the iphone.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Have you ever worked in manufacturing?
Back in the early 80's I visited the "inward goods" department of Plessey Telecoms Edge Lane plant (building then "state of the art(*)" electonic telephone exchanges).
Random samples of every incoming batch of components were tested. fairly regularly whole batches were rejected. the suppliers were in Germany, Italy, the USA, Japan...
As the great Ronald said: Trust but verify.
These days people would rather just lawyer up.
((*) ok, not as good as the Ericsson AXE exchanges, but national pride...)
Watch this Heartland Institute video
N900.
It's delicate plastic, not delicate glass.
Maybe not the answer you were hoping for.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Yep, I'm sure we had companies wanting poisonous baby formula, lead paint, and dog food imported. Markets don't get what they want and are willing to pay for from China, they seem to get whatever China can get away with passing off.
That's nothing to do with China and everything to do with quality control. If you go to China and say I want a widget and make sure it's red, they don't know you have something against lead paint. If you go to China and say I want a widget and make it red, and make it meet the Australian standards ASxxxx and ASxxxx, and meet the following toxicity requirements, then you will get a different product and charged accordingly.
Or are you suggesting if I come to you to buy a "piece of metal" I automatically get something made of solid gold? Hell no, you'd sell me the cheapest rustiest steel you could get away with. That's the whole reason specification documents are as long as they are. People don't know the rules of other countries, they sell only what you ask them too. Heck Vegimite, the staple died of Australian children was banned from the USA in 2006 because it didn't meet the FDA regulations on foliate. No one saw that coming because it's par-for-the-course here. Many countries have banned the use of MDF which is still heavily used in building in Australia. In South Africa you can buy asbestos fibre sheeting at the hardware store. (Note don't ever order a pre-fabed house from South Africa without specifying no Asbestos in your spec sheet).
You need to specify EVERYTHING. When we order valves from China we specify exact materials (yeah of course) but also specify that all valves will be subject to an independent 3rd party Positive Material Identification check and x-rayed for quality control prior to payment. It's all about trust and China with all it's reputation simply needs some quality control checks to keep them in line.
Odd, mine has 160,000 miles and I've used it hard. All I've had to replace were some steering parts when I had it aligned last year (besides tires, oil, wiper refills, etc). I guess I got lucky.
Either way, it's foolish to pay a premium for an item to last twenty years when you're going to trade it in in three.
Free Martian Whores!