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The #balloon: let me drop some knowledge. (A thread) I co-founded the largest high-altitude ballooning project in history and was for years its chief technical architect and lead designer. I’m referring to Google [x]’s Project Loon (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon_LLC). I have deep practical and operational knowledge about high-altitude ballooning; I’ve designed many iterations of these vehicles and personally overseen dozens of launch operations.

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One thing I'll say for the wave of Republican book-banning that's going on right now -- it's certainly making books seem powerful and *significant*

Book-banning is a terrible way to have the public re-realize the catalytic effect a good book can have on its readers

But here we are: boingboing.net/2023/01/31/unab

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"JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) has selected Microchip to design and manufacture the multi-core High Performance Spaceflight Computer (HPSC) microprocessor SoC based on eight X280 cores from SiFive ... with four additional RISC-V cores added for general-purpose computing"

eejournal.com/article/nasa-rec

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Hey folks:

Is there a word to describe atmospheric aero-braking with the intent to disintegrate the object in question?

Like the theories about intentionally destroying ice asteroids in Mars' atmosphere for terraforming.

I feel like "aero-braking" has the connotation of wanting to keep the object in one piece.

Is there a term for intentional aero-disintegration?

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This is the kinda thing that gets me real excited!

Heard this through Joss Bland-Hawthorn, this article discusses the need to set up a Lunar timescale.

Time, at the moment, is connected to Earth's clocks - even for spacecraft out in far reaches of the Solar System.

Eventually, we are going to need a timescale that works across the whole Solar System universally.

Steps are being considered for the lunar timescale ...

BUT .... IMHO, we need to think bigger ... (see next toot)

nature.com/articles/d41586-023

#Timing #Moon #Navigation #Astrophysics #Astrodon

It’s insane that a 30 minute Uber to the airport at 4am costs more than a round trip plane ticket between Phoenix and Denver

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I don't know who needs to hear this but

The postal service exists to deliver letters and parcels to people
Not to make money for shareholders

The transport system exists to move people to where they need to go
Not to make money for shareholders

The water, gas, and electricity supplies exist to provide people vital utilities
Not to make money for shareholders

The healthcare system exists to ensure (and that's ENsure, not INsure) the health of the population
Not to make money for shareholders

Shareholders in vital public services are a vampiric drain on those services

Capitalism is a disease

I don’t want to be the guy that uses ChatGPT for my resume but I really do feel like I’m tying a hand behind my back if I don’t.

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Advice for people who got a #3dprinter for Christmas: Enjoy making your benchies and flexi-rexes, but you should know now that the most satisfying things you'll ever print will look so boring that they become invisible.

#3dprinting

Fusion tech really seems like its the silver bullet that could stop climate change. Seeing this breakthrough get the attention it deserves gives me a lot of hope for the future.

Frontier charges me $90 to change my flight to an earlier time, but outright buying the ticket at the earlier time is only $60. Never flying with them again they are just so ridiculously hostile towards their users.

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Qoto new weekly signups appears to have peaked on Nov 11 at 4838 for that days trailing 7 days: qoto.org/web/statuses/10932507

Today, it was only 129: qoto.org/web/statuses/10944823

That's the lowest since Oct 29, when daily signups started increasing: qoto.org/web/statuses/10944823

Not sure how this compares to the trend in other instances. I blindly speculate that other servers haven't seen the same decline and the conflict between instance operators is impacting Qoto. Which is unfortunate, because from my tiny vantage point, Qoto seems well run, and I don't see its policy of very limited blocking of other instances having negative consequences.

Nonetheless, I want to have one Fediverse presence and want to be able to interact with people on Qoto and on other instances that suspend Qoto, so I may have to migrate.

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for folks who don't know, google specifically has like, the Most Advanced C++ Bug Catching/Mitigation Tools, to the point that they *took over the development of clang*

just using rust instead, even with 'unsafe' parts, completely blew all of that out of the water! holy shit!

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Can't even escape diet culture in Advent of Code, I see.

Advent of Code Day 2 in Rust 

gitlab.com/MisterBiggs/aoc_202

use itertools::Itertools;use std::fs;pub fn run() {    println!("Day 2:");    let input = fs::read_to_string("./inputs/day2.txt").expect("Could not read file");    println!("\tPart 1: {}", part1(&input));    println!("\tPart 2: {}", part2(&input));}#[derive(PartialEq, Clone, Copy)]enum Hand {    Rock = 1,    Paper,    Scissors,}#[derive(Clone, Copy)]enum Outcome {    Lost = 0,    Draw = 3,    Win = 6,}fn part1(input: &str) -> usize {    input        .trim()        .split('\n')        .map(|round_str| {            let round = round_str.split_once(' ').unwrap();            let opponent = match round.0 {                "A" => Hand::Rock,                "B" => Hand::Paper,                "C" => Hand::Scissors,                _ => panic!(),            };            let me = match round.1 {                "X" => Hand::Rock,                "Y" => Hand::Paper,                "Z" => Hand::Scissors,                _ => panic!(),            };            let outcome = match (opponent, me) {                (l, r) if l == r => Outcome::Draw,                (Hand::Rock, Hand::Paper) => Outcome::Win,                (Hand::Paper, Hand::Scissors) => Outcome::Win,                (Hand::Scissors, Hand::Rock) => Outcome::Win,                _ => Outcome::Lost,            };            outcome as usize + me as usize        })        .sum()}fn part2(input: &str) -> usize {    input        .trim()        .split('\n')        .map(|round_str| {            let round = round_str.split_once(' ').unwrap();            let opponent = match round.0 {                "A" => Hand::Rock,                "B" => Hand::Paper,                "C" => Hand::Scissors,                _ => panic!(),            };            let outcome = match round.1 {                "X" => Outcome::Lost,                "Y" => Outcome::Draw,                "Z" => Outcome::Win,                _ => panic!(),            };            let me = match (outcome, opponent) {                (Outcome::Draw, _) => opponent,                (Outcome::Win, Hand::Rock) => Hand::Paper,                (Outcome::Win, Hand::Paper) => Hand::Scissors,                (Outcome::Win, Hand::Scissors) => Hand::Rock,                (Outcome::Lost, Hand::Rock) => Hand::Scissors,                (Outcome::Lost, Hand::Paper) => Hand::Rock,                (Outcome::Lost, Hand::Scissors) => Hand::Paper,            };            outcome as usize + me as usize        })        .sum()}

Advent of code day 1 in rust 

gitlab.com/MisterBiggs/aoc_202

fn part1(food_input: &str) -> usize {    food_input        .split("\n\n")        .collect::<Vec<&str>>()        .into_iter()        .map(|elf| {            elf.split_whitespace()                .map(|food| food.parse::<usize>().unwrap())                .sum()        })        .collect::<Vec<usize>>()        .into_iter()        .max()        .unwrap()}
fn part2(food_input: &str) -> usize {    let mut elves_calories = food_input        .split("\n\n")        .collect::<Vec<&str>>()        .into_iter()        .map(|elf| {            elf.split_whitespace()                .map(|food| food.parse::<usize>().unwrap())                .sum()        })        .collect::<Vec<usize>>();    elves_calories.sort_by(|l, r| r.cmp(l));    elves_calories[..3].iter().sum::<usize>()}
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The best dating advice I ever got was to remember that if someone ghosts me, they were probably a hired assassin who fell in love and couldn't finish the job.

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"the secret scientists don't want you to know!!" Dude have you ever met a single scientist? My scientist friends are desperate for me to know about the changing mating habits of Brown marmorated stink bugs. They're screaming at the top of their lungs to tell you EVERYTHING.

The amount of work it takes to maintain header files in is honestly absurd

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