Jump to content

smokebomb

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    243
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by smokebomb

  1. Reminder: Today at 2pm CDT the InSight Lander will land on Mars. InSight is not a rover but lander that

    Quote

    ...will deploy a seismometer and burrow a heat probe. It will also perform a series of radio science experiments to complement the studies of the internal structure and rotation of Mars.

    The landing itself will be pretty interesting (from Verge )

    Quote

    Once the lander hits the top of Mars’ atmosphere, it will perform a complicated multistep landing routine that will last between six and seven minutes. During the first phase, InSight will free-fall through the atmosphere using a heat shield for protection as the surrounding air slams into the spacecraft, heating it up to temperatures of 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmosphere will slow the lander significantly, but InSight will need to deploy a supersonic parachute to slow even further. Eventually, the lander will ignite onboard thrusters, which will lower the vehicle to the ground.

    Another interesting part is the Cube Sats that are following InSight:

    Quote

    During the descent, InSight will send out data about each major step of its landing process using one of its less powerful onboard antennas. Scientists will try to pick up these signals from Earth, but two nearby spacecraft will also be listening in. Those two probes are the MarCO spacecraft, which launched with InSight in May and have been traveling to Mars ever since. The MarCO probes are made from a type of standardized satellite known as a Cube Sat, which consists of 10-centimeter cubes that can be stacked together. Cube Sats have become crucial tools for gathering data in orbit around Earth, but the MarCO satellites are the first to ever be sent into deep space.

    Coverage begins at 1pm CDT and you can watch the live stream at https://www.youtube.com/NASAJPL/live 

  2. 5 minutes ago, royiv said:

    Sounds like a similar system to SEA. It works pretty well there. They need to do something to alleviate traffic on the arrivals level so this is a step in the right direction.

    Yea - just read this Wired article on other cities diverting ride-hailing to other parts of the airport too. Seems like it might help. 

  3. Not quite sure how this is going to work out:

    https://www.statesman.com/news/20181119/ride-hailing-taxi-pickup-spot-at-airport-moved-to-new-spot

    Quote

    Ride-hailing, taxi pickup spot at airport moved to new spot

    Philip Jankowski  

    Posted Nov 19, 2018 at 2:09 PM 

    Many of those at the end of their journey to Austin at the airport will now have to add another leg to their trip: a 600-foot walk.

    That’s because officials at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Monday changed the pickup location for all ride-hailing and taxis from just outside of the airport’s main terminal to the rental car facility.

    Airport spokesman Derick Hackett said the change was needed to relieve congestion on Presidential Boulevard along the main terminal on the bottom level of the street, where cars can stack up while drivers weave in and out of four lanes of traffic to pick up recent arrivals.

    “We were looking at a way to reduce congestion at the Barbara Jordan Terminal,” Hackett said. “This was a solution that we looked at and thought it would be a win.”

    The move will reduce the amount of vehicle trips along that stretch of road by an estimated 3,700 cars per day, airport officials said in a statement Monday. The effect on traffic is not fully clear because Austin-Bergstrom International Airport does not track the total number of vehicle trips to the airport each day. Taxis and ride-hailing services can still drop passengers off at the terminal.

    To get to the new pickup spot from baggage claim, recent arrivals have to walk across Presidential Boulevard to the adjacent parking garage, take an elevator to the second level, walk along a pathway found in the center of the garage and cross another street to enter the rental facility. There, pickup spots for taxis and ride-hailing services will are marked with color-coded lanes.

    The airport also has vehicles in place at the parking garage to take passengers with mobility issues to the new pickup spot.

    “The way this is set up is pretty common in airports that have very high efficiency,” Hackett said.

     

  4. Correct - a wildcard for hr97.com would cover ousux.hr97.com, hr97.com/ousux, www.hr97.com and anything "*.hr97.com/*". 

    And like you said, you would need another SSL cert for ousux.com, of which you could get a single cert or a wildcard cert. A single cert would cover anything for "ousux.com/*" but not for *.ousux.com. 

    Add-on domain is the terminology that Hostgator would use while others would just simply call it another domain. 

    • Like 1
  5. 1. It looks like Hostgator provides free SSL certs but they expire every 90 days. This would be a pain in the ass for me but you may be ok with updating your certs every 3 months. They have info here https://support.hostgator.com/articles/ssl-certificates/hostgator-free-ssl and it looks like you can manage it with your cPanel. It also looks like they have a premium SSL certificate service which lets you buy certs with 1 & 2 year expirations. 

    2. You mention that you have subdomains but use one example:  hr97.com/ousuxshit. As far as certificates are concerned, this is a single domain. SSL certs only care about the hr97.com part and not about anything after the /.  If this is the case, you would only need one SSL cert for hr97.com. If you have other domains or subdomains (like ousux.com or ousux.hr97.com), you will need a certificate for each website.

    If you have more than 3 subdomains on a single domain (ousux.hr97.com, www.hr97.com), I would buy a wildcard SSL cert - which would look like *.hr97.com or *.ousux.com. This is the  easiest solution but they do charge more for wildcard certs. For instance, a single Gator SSL cert is $40/yr while a wildcard cert is $120/yr - https://support.hostgator.com/articles/domain-validated-ssl-certificates-for-single-domains.  

    Note: www.hr97.com and hr97.com are different domain names and would need separate SSL certs if you didn't use a wildcard. 

    Hostgator looks to have decent support for this and they would be able to set you up fairly easily. SSL certs are a common request and any hosting service has experience with them. 

    Hopefully this helps,

  6. 35 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:


    The new library is the first world-class public building this city has ever built. It’s a shame you can’t allow yourself any pride in that. Have you ever been in there? Among other things, a large number of freelancers and startups work there. That’s the opposite of bums.
     

    So basically - Austin spent $140 million dollars to look pretty on Instagram and help private tech startups. Yes - it is an amazing piece of architecture and a stunning building. Heck, I would suggest that anyone on a date go up to the patio/garden and use dimly-lit, amazing views of downtown and Lady Bird to impress.

    However, libraries should be built to help educate those less fortunate and not try to impress others in order to make yourself feel better. The people that really need a library will not travel downtown much to use it and the majority of people that will use it, will be high paid, downtown workers drinking their Starbucks. The money would have been better spent building 5+ smaller libraries in low-income areas of town to help provide services to those that need it. Instead, all Austin did was create a drop-in office space for a bunch of high-paid hipsters and a pretty architecture example the city council could point to that shows how progressive they are. 

    I will be voting on Prop B because it is what should have happened in the first place. And fuck the city council for making me pissed about what should have been a good thing. 

    • Like 3
  7. 59 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

    God help us if we lose.  The insufferable Ag's would be cackling like a murder of crows.  And it's KY.  MUCH rather draw FL, even though they are a more difficult match-up. 

    There is a time and a place for football platitudes...and this is one of those times:  take it one game at a time.  This team has exceeded expectations.  But we are teetering on the edge.  Getting Sam healthy.  Finishing games in the 4th quarter (offense, I'm talking to you).  Penalties.  Establishing an offensive identity.  We still have a lot to fix.  

    This. I know I’m still shell shocked by the last 10 years but we are a few plays away from being 4-3 or even 3-4. 

    • Like 2
    • Fuck You 1
  8. 1. Implements are never as easy to attach as the videos say they are. 

    2. Use grease on the PTO shaft when connecting stuff to it, makes it easy to get off later. 

    3. Learn where your nearest hydraulic repair shop is, they will be a lifesaver when you need to replace hydraulic fittings & hoses. 

    4. Be smart but don’t worry about damaging them. Tractors are tools & are made to get dinged. 

    6. If you’ve a shade or top, make sure you look out for low limbs...

  9. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/13/we-will-fly-again-nasa-to-keep-using-russias-soyuz-despite-failure

     

    Quote

    'We will fly again': Nasa to keep using Russia's Soyuz despite failure

    After Russian-American crew made emergency landing, chief of US space agency predicts return to flight by December

    Agence France-Presse

    Fri 12 Oct 2018 23.07 EDT

    Two minutes after the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft launched, captured in this long exposure photo, the rocket failed triggering an emergency landing. Photograph: NASA/Bill Ingalls/AP

    Nasa’s chief has praised the Russian space programme and said that he expected a new crew to go to the International Space Station in December, despite a rocket failure.

    Jim Bridenstine spoke to reporters at the US embassy in Moscow a day after a Soyuz rocket failure forced Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff in Kazakhstan. The pair escaped unharmed.

    “I fully anticipate that we will fly again on a Soyuz rocket and I have no reason to believe at this point that it will not be on schedule,” the Nasa administrator said.

    It was the first such incident in Russia’s post-Soviet history - an unprecedented setback for the country’s space industry.

    The Soviet-designed Soyuz rocket is currently the world’s only lifeline to the International Space Station and the accident will affect both Nasa and the work of the orbiting laboratory.

    Bridenstine, who is visiting Russia and Kazakhstan for the first time since his appointment as Nasa chief this year, observed the launch from Baikonur cosmodrome with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Rogozin.

    Appearing at times emotional, he said he was “confident” a new manned mission to the International Space Station would go ahead as planned in December, praising the “wonderful relationship” between the Russian and US space agencies.

    “Not every mission that fails, ends up so successful,” he said.

    The next Soyuz launch had been scheduled to take a new crew to the ISS on December 20.

    Russia said it was likely to bring forward the flight of a new manned space mission, but postpone the launch of a cargo ship scheduled for 31 October.

    “We will try to bring forward the launch of a new crew,” said Sergei Krikalyov, executive director of the Russian space agency and veteran cosmonaut.

    All manned launches have been suspended and a criminal probe has been launched.

    When asked about the accident, US president Donald Trump said that he was “not at all worried” that Americans had to rely on Russians to go to space.

    Krikalyov said that “in theory” the International Space Station which serves as a scientific lab could remain unmanned but added Russia would do “everything possible not to let this happen”.

    A space walk planned for mid-November has also been cancelled, he said. The crew had planned to examine a hole in a Russian spacecraft docked at the orbiting station.

    Thursday’s aborted launch was a huge embarrassment for Moscow, which has touted plans to send cosmonauts to the Moon and Mars.

    The Kremlin said experts were working to determine what caused the rocket failure.

    “It is impossible to draw any conclusions now,” said President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    Nasa casts doubt on Russian theory ISS air leak was sabotage

    Ovchinin and Hague have returned to the Star City training centre outside Moscow where they will be under medical observation for two days.

    Officials said the two felt fine and did not need any treatment. The NASA chief said he had spoken to Hague who he said was in high spirits despite the ordeal. “He was very funny,” he said.

    Industry experts say the country’s space industry has suffered so many mishaps including the loss of cargo spacecraft that a serious accident during a manned mission was simply a matter of time.

    The failed launch earned scathing criticism from the usually pliant Russian media.

    “The breakup of the Soyuz,” Kommersant broadsheet said in a frontpage headline.

    But the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta also said the astronauts survived thanks to the reliability of the Soviet-era rocket’s rescue system, which returned them safely to Earth despite the launch failure.

    But it added that Russia’s state space industry probably could not be saved “in its current form”.

     

  10. After the game it can take a long time to get a car. Last year, Uber paired me up with a driver in Round Rock and said it was a 30 minute wait until they got there. Unfortunately they got stuck in traffic on the way down and it took much longer. If you take one to the game, have a plan to do something for an hour or so after the game before calling one. 

    • Like 1
  11. Pretty awesome video of last night's launch since it was such a clear night. Successful booster return to land on the California coast for the first time.

  12. https://www.wsj.com/articles/blood-testing-firm-theranos-to-dissolve-1536115130

    Quote

    Blood-Testing Firm Theranos to Dissolve 

    Firm, tarred by scandal, will pay creditors its remaining cash 

    By 

    John Carreyrou

    Updated Sept. 5, 2018 12:10 a.m. ET

    Theranos Inc., the blood-testing company accused of perpetrating Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud, will soon cease to exist.

    In the wake of a high-profile scandal, the company will formally dissolve, according to an email to shareholders. Theranos will seek to pay unsecured creditors its remaining cash in coming months, the email said.

    The move comes after federal prosecutors filed criminal chargesagainst Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and the blood-testing company’s former No. 2 executive, alleging that they defrauded investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and defrauded doctors and patients. 

    The executives have denied the charges and face a coming criminal trial.

    The dissolution process was precipitated by the fact that Theranos breached a covenant governing a $65 million loan it received from Fortress Investment Group last year. Under the loan terms, Fortress was entitled to foreclose upon the company’s assets if its cash fell beneath a certain threshold.

    In the email to shareholders, sent Tuesday, Theranos General Counsel and Chief Executive Officer David Taylor said the company is trying to negotiate a settlement with Fortress that would give the New York private-equity firm ownership of the company’s patents but leave its remaining cash—estimated at about $5 million—for distribution to other unsecured creditors.

    Under a liquidation process known as “an assignment for the benefit of creditors,” getting that remaining cash to the unsecured creditors could take six to 12 months, Mr. Taylor said in the email. Most of Theranos’s two-dozen remaining employees worked their last day on Friday, Aug. 31. Only Mr. Taylor and a handful of support staff remain on the payroll for a few more days.

    The action followed a failed bid to sell the company. Over four months, investment bank Jefferies Group LLC reached out on Theranos’s behalf to more than 80 potential buyers, and executed nondisclosure agreements with 17 of those parties, the email said, adding: “We assisted those parties with diligence and had numerous follow-on conversations.”

    The big-name investors who poured money into Theranos will get nothing. All told, investors in Theranos have lost nearly $1 billion.

    Theranos’s founder and chairman, Ms. Holmes, and her ex-boyfriend, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were indicted on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in June. Mr. Balwani was Theranos’s president and chief operating officer until he retired from the company in May 2016. If convicted, they each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution to those found to have been defrauded, on each count.

    The indictments followed months of reporting by The Wall Street Journal that raised questions about the company’s technology and practices.

    Ms. Holmes sought to disrupt the blood-testing business. At the height of her fame, the Stanford University dropout claimed to have invented groundbreaking new technology that could run the full range of laboratory tests on just a drop or two of blood pricked from a finger.

    On the strength of her claims, Theranos rolled out its vaunted finger-stick blood tests in Walgreens stores in California and Arizona and rocketed to a valuation of more than $9 billion, making Ms. Holmes a billionaire and media celebrity. Her bold talk and black turtlenecks drew comparisons to Steve Jobs. The pharmacy chain has said it was misled by Theranos about its technology and prospects.

    But as the Journal revealed in a series of articles beginning in October 2015, Theranos’s blood-testing device was unreliable and the company used it for just a fraction of the more than 240 tests it offered to consumers. Behind the scenes, it performed the vast majority of the tests with commercial analyzers purchased from other companies.

    Theranos become a symbol of the excesses of the current technology boom. Its failure was dramatic and painful for many. A biochemist who worked at Theranos for eight years committed suicide in 2013 after becoming distraught by its culture of fear and secrecy and its lack of progress with its technology, according to his widow. Tyler Shultz, a grandson of former Secretary of State George Shultz and the first employee to blow the whistle to a state regulator about what he saw as troubling practices, became estranged from his grandfather, a Theranos director.

    The roster of Theranos investors—most of whom poured money into the company after its commercial rollout in Walgreens stores in late 2013—included the Waltons, heirs to Walmart Inc. founder Sam Walton; Atlanta’s Cox family; the family of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos; and Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of 21st Century Fox and of News Corp , the Journal’s parent company. Each invested $100 million or more in Theranos—investments that are now worthless.

    images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTU3cdCPvgK6op1xcudujq

    • Like 1
  13. On 8/8/2018 at 9:13 PM, TKthunder2 said:

    So based on the recommendations on here I read Hyperion and really enjoyed it, but was pissed that it ended with a cliff hanger so I read Fall of Hyperion and while the ending was satisfying it seemed like he didn’t really want to write another book and filled it full of unnecessary bullshit just to fill pages. 

    Trying to decide if I’m going to read Endymion or not now.  Any input would be appreciated.

    I haven’t read the series in a while but remember liking them all even though Simmons sometimes tends to drag. However, the 3rd & 4th books are their own series and remember them only being vaguely related to the 1st & 2nd. 

    If you like Dan Simmons, I’d also highly recommend Illium & Olympos. 

×
×
  • Create New...