Honestly, everything Elon Musk does is almost immediately followed up with news articles claiming that he'll fail.
I wonder if this was published in English already, only saw it in Russian:
We'll talk when they have a prototype to show We'll talk when the rocket flies We'll talk when they deliver a payload We'll talk when it lands We'll talk when a used rocket flies <=== you are here We'll talk when Falcon Heavy flies We'll talk when there's a manned mission We'll talk when they fly to the Moon We'll talk when they fly to Mars We'll talk when Mars is colonized
In an open-source project aimed at in-house usage - I don't want my "customer" to suffer denial of service just because a 3rd party neither of us controls (or the internet provider) went down.
I wonder what the proper procedure could be? Put it under/3rd-party? Add as a build-time dependency? Something else?..
The cost of a failure should scale proportionally to the size of their market because it means a standstill in launches, the same reputation hit, etc
Scaling up means having multiple launchpads, so a disaster would slow down the launch pipeline rather than halt it completely. Also scaling up means getting their insurance right, so that a lost rocket "only" costs as much as the rocket itself. Still no fun to lose, but unlikely $2.5B, and maybe not even this time's $250M.
They don't want to reliably deny Russian citizens access to some specific sites (why would a sane government ever want that?).
They want to be able to quickly suppress any protest rally on the internet when the hour comes (if it comes at all). To achieve that, they don't need to patch all the holes; it's enough to know where holes are. Should the hour come, all sites used for hosting protestant communication will be shut down "due to technical reasons" (if not completely legally by that time - new legislation is being passed all the time) and all proxy IPs will be banned on ISP level.
This means that one needs to block sites which few technically savvy people need badly, but which are not crucial to the general public. Such tactic reveals proxy/vpn endpoints and other evasion methods without causing an uproar. Which they did twice to github (re-allowing it back both times), and which they seem to be doing to linkedin now.
How is this law impossible to comply with? Put some servers in Russia. That's it.
It's not that easy in practice. For instance, one can run a fairly big site on MySQL, but if there's requirement to put part of the storage in a specific place, the choice is limited:
1. Rewrite the software to handle distributed database; 2. Run a totally separate entity in Russia (same logo, same software and nothing much else in common); 3. Move ALL data storage to Russia.
In theory, a common database with master-master replication is possible, but that's not actually compliant with the law because Russian citizens' data gets stored abroad in the end.
For giants like Google and Facebook who already use distributed custom databases that's peanuts. For a (say) low-cost airline, not so much.
There are hh.ru and moikrug.ru (which effectively mirrors linkedin's functionality) for those looking for a job in Russia. I bet there's a party at both offices! (Well, given the time difference, they should be already drunk).
However, the trend is disturbing. Roskomnazgul is taking on larger and larger targets. If they get an uproar, they fall back immediately (like with github and wikipedia). If there's no uproar, they move on. One bit at a time.
I wouldn't be so skeptical. Things like this happen (happened to me, too). However, the "interns saving the world" cry wolves far too often, while lacking the confidence or knowledge to break the news straight to the right people (the devs in GP's case). And as one gets older, it's easier to remember the times when you were right:)
A corporate sabotage version is unbelievable. What if it comes out? Why do it from their own building?.. Won't believe it until an official admits in court they did it, and would doubt even then.
However, what about an employee going postal and acting on their own, out of envy, hatred, or fear of being laid off? It looks like it's possible to buy a suitable rifle in USA (I'm not a resident), so if only they could bring it to the building... And a ULA employee *should* be able to know when to shoot, and what happens if LOX equipment is hit.
That said, the chance is still beyond slim. On the other hand, making unsound sabotage accusations in this circumstances would be a PR suicide. SpaceX better have rock solid evidence if they do.
I'm not sure I get it right, but here's my impression.
One-time rockets impose tight conditions on all parts' lifespans and quality: they must live through the launch with five nines reliability, yet making them last any longer is a waste of resources. Putting backups is a waste as well.
The reuse, on the other hand, means that (1) long lasting parts are not a waste and (2) backups are not a waste. This means that longer lasting, less reliable parts (i.e. closer to civil manufacturing, think commercial aircraft) can be used which in turn means much simpler production and QA. And *that* will drive the price tag down (eventually), not saving half the mission cost at half the mission cost.
*If* my assumptions are correct, *then* we're going to see a slight increase in engines number/power, and a series of successful launches/landings *despite* failing engines.
It's not that hard. In a gravity-dominated, rotating frame of reference, one always has two special directions, namely the rotation axis (north-south) and direction towards the mass centre (up-down). The east-west axis for given point (unless these two are the same, which only happens at the poles) can be defined as a direction perpendicular to both, with east heading forward relative to rotation speed.
Earth's orbit, Solar system, and Milky way are all such systems. And there's little chance they get beyond Milky way soon.
1. c4, leading to the English opening, is a perfectly valid move.
However, openings are not played by engines, but rather stored in a database. Likewise, endgames are played using more or less fixed algorithms. It's complicated positions with lots of pieces and no forced winning combination that count.
Re-learning to use ins instead of ctrl-ins shouldn't be that hard. There have been interface changes much worse.
After all, Ctrl + ins might be synonymous to just ins (unless redefined by specific application), and sysrq+ins could do the INS/OVR switch. Oh wait, the sysrq...
I have a ton of tiny shell scripts invoked by Win + $key (via xbindkeys):
"Grey+" / "Grey -" -- volume control G -- google current selection (see xclip (1)) W -- search Wikipedia (or Russian wikipedia with shift) A -- open terminal K -- invoke xkill (1) L -- lock screen and some more
On the other hand, the invenror of the Insert key deserves a mousetrap being put right under the light switch in their room.
As a followup, how long until we see a netmainframe?
This particular one would probably evolve into a "netcluster". See: 1 instant-on Linux/ARM, 1 Linux/ARM in the network controller, 1 Linux/GPU in the videocard, and 1 Linux inside the BIOS.
Oh, and I forgot the dual-core Atom running Windows.
1% of users run Linux 10% of users know that "Linux is something other than Windows" 89% of users don't know what Linux is at all.
So saying "It runs Linux" it's 1% advertisement, 10% confusion (since it ALSO runs Windows) and 89% unneeded technical details. Not saying "It runs Linux", on the other hand, is 1% wtf?, 99% unnoticed, and 100% safe from legal or commercial point of view.
Or, putting my worn tinfoil hat on, it might be a requirement from MS to not say "It runs Linux" to get their nice OEM discounts.
An antivirus is useless without constant updates, which makes it relatively easy to reveal cracked copies and/or duplicate serial numbers.
In fact, I see a number of people here in Russia who pay for the AV but not for Windows, Office, or e.g. Photoshop. Why? They are tired of constantly searching for cracks and getting infected in the meantime.
Now those freeloaders are given a choice: a pirated OS and paid-for AV, or a paid-for OS and a free AV.
That was in 2000. A friend of mine brought me a Slackware clone (I didn't even know what Slackware meant at the time) on four floppies. After some effort we managed to install it.
I noticed that the keyboard layout didn't exactly match my keyboard. "No problem", he said, "just edit that text file and tell the system to use it". I did it, and it got a bit better. Then I tried once again, and again, and finally could not save the file any more.
I had to reinstall from scratch.
It took me several years to switch completely, but Linux had won my heart already.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if this was published in English already, only saw it in Russian:
We'll talk when they have a prototype to show
We'll talk when the rocket flies
We'll talk when they deliver a payload
We'll talk when it lands
We'll talk when a used rocket flies
<=== you are here
We'll talk when Falcon Heavy flies
We'll talk when there's a manned mission
We'll talk when they fly to the Moon
We'll talk when they fly to Mars
We'll talk when Mars is colonized
In an open-source project aimed at in-house usage - I don't want my "customer" to suffer denial of service just because a 3rd party neither of us controls (or the internet provider) went down.
I wonder what the proper procedure could be? Put it under /3rd-party? Add as a build-time dependency? Something else?..
I guess I need to hurry and buy some flowers wile I stil kan kount.
Scaling up means having multiple launchpads, so a disaster would slow down the launch pipeline rather than halt it completely. Also scaling up means getting their insurance right, so that a lost rocket "only" costs as much as the rocket itself. Still no fun to lose, but unlikely $2.5B, and maybe not even this time's $250M.
Yeah, must do so in order to bring back the manufacturing jobs from that foreign SpaceX to America's Roskosmos!
They are nowhere near stupid.
They don't want to reliably deny Russian citizens access to some specific sites (why would a sane government ever want that?).
They want to be able to quickly suppress any protest rally on the internet when the hour comes (if it comes at all). To achieve that, they don't need to patch all the holes; it's enough to know where holes are. Should the hour come, all sites used for hosting protestant communication will be shut down "due to technical reasons" (if not completely legally by that time - new legislation is being passed all the time) and all proxy IPs will be banned on ISP level.
This means that one needs to block sites which few technically savvy people need badly, but which are not crucial to the general public. Such tactic reveals proxy/vpn endpoints and other evasion methods without causing an uproar. Which they did twice to github (re-allowing it back both times), and which they seem to be doing to linkedin now.
How is this law impossible to comply with? Put some servers in Russia. That's it.
It's not that easy in practice. For instance, one can run a fairly big site on MySQL, but if there's requirement to put part of the storage in a specific place, the choice is limited:
1. Rewrite the software to handle distributed database;
2. Run a totally separate entity in Russia (same logo, same software and nothing much else in common);
3. Move ALL data storage to Russia.
In theory, a common database with master-master replication is possible, but that's not actually compliant with the law because Russian citizens' data gets stored abroad in the end.
For giants like Google and Facebook who already use distributed custom databases that's peanuts. For a (say) low-cost airline, not so much.
There are hh.ru and moikrug.ru (which effectively mirrors linkedin's functionality) for those looking for a job in Russia. I bet there's a party at both offices! (Well, given the time difference, they should be already drunk).
However, the trend is disturbing. Roskomnazgul is taking on larger and larger targets. If they get an uproar, they fall back immediately (like with github and wikipedia). If there's no uproar, they move on. One bit at a time.
I wouldn't be so skeptical. Things like this happen (happened to me, too). However, the "interns saving the world" cry wolves far too often, while lacking the confidence or knowledge to break the news straight to the right people (the devs in GP's case). And as one gets older, it's easier to remember the times when you were right :)
A corporate sabotage version is unbelievable. What if it comes out? Why do it from their own building?.. Won't believe it until an official admits in court they did it, and would doubt even then.
However, what about an employee going postal and acting on their own, out of envy, hatred, or fear of being laid off? It looks like it's possible to buy a suitable rifle in USA (I'm not a resident), so if only they could bring it to the building... And a ULA employee *should* be able to know when to shoot, and what happens if LOX equipment is hit.
That said, the chance is still beyond slim. On the other hand, making unsound sabotage accusations in this circumstances would be a PR suicide. SpaceX better have rock solid evidence if they do.
I'm not sure I get it right, but here's my impression.
One-time rockets impose tight conditions on all parts' lifespans and quality: they must live through the launch with five nines reliability, yet making them last any longer is a waste of resources. Putting backups is a waste as well.
The reuse, on the other hand, means that (1) long lasting parts are not a waste and (2) backups are not a waste. This means that longer lasting, less reliable parts (i.e. closer to civil manufacturing, think commercial aircraft) can be used which in turn means much simpler production and QA. And *that* will drive the price tag down (eventually), not saving half the mission cost at half the mission cost.
*If* my assumptions are correct, *then* we're going to see a slight increase in engines number/power, and a series of successful launches/landings *despite* failing engines.
It's not that hard. In a gravity-dominated, rotating frame of reference, one always has two special directions, namely the rotation axis (north-south) and direction towards the mass centre (up-down). The east-west axis for given point (unless these two are the same, which only happens at the poles) can be defined as a direction perpendicular to both, with east heading forward relative to rotation speed.
Earth's orbit, Solar system, and Milky way are all such systems. And there's little chance they get beyond Milky way soon.
1. c4, leading to the English opening, is a perfectly valid move.
However, openings are not played by engines, but rather stored in a database. Likewise, endgames are played using more or less fixed algorithms. It's complicated positions with lots of pieces and no forced winning combination that count.
Re-learning to use ins instead of ctrl-ins shouldn't be that hard. There have been interface changes much worse.
After all, Ctrl + ins might be synonymous to just ins (unless redefined by specific application), and sysrq+ins could do the INS/OVR switch. Oh wait, the sysrq...
I use the middle mouse button, since I'm a Linux (and therefore X Window) user.
As for the ins key... Ok. I was too hard, it's a mere key after all.
Let it live, just change the behaviour: Ins copies, Shift+Ins pastes, and Ctrl+Ins switches insert/overwrite more.
This way it's harder to destroy data by accidentally hitting a tiny key residing right between Home, Delete and Backspace.
Winkey is very useful.
I have a ton of tiny shell scripts invoked by Win + $key (via xbindkeys):
"Grey+" / "Grey -" -- volume control
G -- google current selection (see xclip (1))
W -- search Wikipedia (or Russian wikipedia with shift)
A -- open terminal
K -- invoke xkill (1)
L -- lock screen
and some more
On the other hand, the invenror of the Insert key deserves a mousetrap being put right under the light switch in their room.
just as soon as you can make coins with one side
You mean, Moebius strip-shaped? Those would have one side and one egde!
A bit tricky to manufacture and store, and therefore impractical, but still possible.
I don't know reliable statistics for Linux usage, however, I still think this holds true:
N(knowingly use/like linux) < N(think it's "not windows") < N(don't know what it is)
Which was my point.
Using linux through the net is irrelevant in this context.
As a followup, how long until we see a netmainframe?
This particular one would probably evolve into a "netcluster". See: 1 instant-on Linux/ARM, 1 Linux/ARM in the network controller, 1 Linux/GPU in the videocard, and 1 Linux inside the BIOS.
Oh, and I forgot the dual-core Atom running Windows.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Also what's "Arm"?
Arm is Core's antagonist. Lighter, cheaper to build, but a bit less powerful.
1% of users run Linux
10% of users know that "Linux is something other than Windows"
89% of users don't know what Linux is at all.
So saying "It runs Linux" it's 1% advertisement, 10% confusion (since it ALSO runs Windows) and 89% unneeded technical details.
Not saying "It runs Linux", on the other hand, is 1% wtf?, 99% unnoticed, and 100% safe from legal or commercial point of view.
Or, putting my worn tinfoil hat on, it might be a requirement from MS to not say "It runs Linux" to get their nice OEM discounts.
I started out with Slackware in 2000, and run Linux exclusively since 2005.
However, the specific social group I'm talking about is probably the hardest to switch.
They have enough knowledge to feel confident with Windows -- but not with FOSS; they seldom pay for software -- no "but it's free" argument.
An antivirus is useless without constant updates, which makes it relatively easy to reveal cracked copies and/or duplicate serial numbers.
In fact, I see a number of people here in Russia who pay for the AV but not for Windows, Office, or e.g. Photoshop. Why? They are tired of constantly searching for cracks and getting infected in the meantime.
Now those freeloaders are given a choice: a pirated OS and paid-for AV, or a paid-for OS and a free AV.
Smart move.
That was in 2000. A friend of mine brought me a Slackware clone (I didn't even know what Slackware meant at the time) on four floppies. After some effort we managed to install it.
I noticed that the keyboard layout didn't exactly match my keyboard. "No problem", he said, "just edit that text file and tell the system to use it". I did it, and it got a bit better. Then I tried once again, and again, and finally could not save the file any more.
I had to reinstall from scratch.
It took me several years to switch completely, but Linux had won my heart already.
http://www.freedrweb.com/livecd
AFAIK it's a linux livecd with drweb antivirus installed. I have not used it myself, though.