Curious to see what happens in the Gulf given Zack Golden’s speculation from a few days ago. Are they really going to retrieve a booster that’s hundreds of meters below sea level? Feels hard.

Unfortunate for this to happen on a high profile flight, amid all the regulatory bickering.

I’m glad my concerns about these suits were overblown! They look like a big improvement over status quo.

Pretty confused about why SpaceX released this - it’s a vague, whiney, entitled message, even if they’re right!

Parts of the regulatory process are clunky, and the goals of an environmental assessment don’t always align with the goals of SpaceX - that’s the point. I’d be concerned if the company was happy with the process.

I don’t want to write an essay right now. I know it’s messy, and the process needs to improve. I just wish SpaceX had brought receipts before starting…whatever they just started.

This makes a lot of sense! I’m going to give it another shot with these insights in mind. I think if I frame it as a future-facing tool like you describe I’ll avoid a lot of my previous mistakes.

Thanks for explaining :)

This is really helpful, thanks!

I think I need more practice with knowing when to create a node. In the past, every single entry would look like this:

I went to [Alice] birthday party and met [Bob]. We talked about [clouds].

And that got very cumbersome. I like your suggestion of using back links to create a better summary document.

Got it, I see what you mean. Thanks for this!

I keep failing to make Zettelkasten and org-roam work for me. Do you use a single knowledge base for your whole life, with millions of tags and pages? Or should I be making separate directories for each project? Is the “daily journal” the best place to put everything, with well tagged entries?

You don’t have to answer all of those!

Interesting, thanks for explaining. I agree with the aspiration but maybe not the practicality?

In a perfect world elections would be about hard policy discussions, but in 2024 policy barely matters. Campaigns don’t even release real platforms any more. The first party to take the emotion out of politics would lose horribly, because so many voters respond to it.

Personally, I also like when people acknowledge that policy discussions impact real people. I think there’s an important role for displayed genuine emotion in rational discussion.

I also don’t think that what we’re discussing is relevant to Gus Walz. We have every reason to believe that was a genuine and beautiful apolitical moment.

I don’t think I understand. Are you suggesting that it’s impossible to prepare a speech about something you care deeply about?

Or are you saying that people only cry the first time they tell an emotional story?

I’m sure there are people with those experiences, and maybe you’re one of them. If it helps, I can attest that there are “well rehearsed” stories that I’ve told dozens of times, and I still cry during each telling.

NieR: Automata

For some reason this New Scientist cartoon lives in my head. Maybe because it challenges the way I think about the future? Or maybe it’s just cute.

Original source, by Tom Gauld

Thanks so much for doing this! I almost forgot to enter.

I won’t be using these features, but I’m not sure there’s cause for concern. The implementation seems very sensible and legitimately privacy-centric. The LLM runs locally and is meant as an very basic email proofreader. The crypto wallet is a likely an extension of the password management tech they’ve already developed, with transaction features that some people care about.

I can see why some people want these features, and I’m glad there are new alternatives.

Great points. I think my concern is that a failed catch has the potential to look very dramatic, even if nothing significant goes wrong. I worry that a lengthy investigation will be triggered. But admittedly I don’t know how that process works!

I wonder if a successful catch will be what accelerates the launch schedule.

I hope a failed catch doesn’t mean a six month pause…

They have, and that seems to be the industry standard. I don’t expect issues. But you can’t test everything in a full gravity vacuum chamber and SpaceX has never made an EVA suit before.

I’m sure the depressurization process includes tons of safety measures and tests, but I’m still creeped out by a tourist flight being this experimental!

As far as I know these EVA suits aren’t going to be tested sans people, and that gives me the creeps!

Musk is gross and SpaceX has some questionable marketing claims that you’ve identified, but I don’t see how anyone could claim that anything about the company’s products are a shitshow.

Falcon 9 has radically changed the economics of the space industry, and has no competition to force lower prices.

Starship has had a very successful testing campaign, and operates within a different development paradigm than Saturn. They’ve shown more progress on more technology in the last year than almost any rocket ever. It won’t be long before Starship has demonstrated all the capabilities you mentioned. While the price tag is large in absolute terms, it will be very cheap relative to the competition.

Dear Moon was not canceled by SpaceX, and no one who follows the industry has ever believed Musk’s timelines.

I guess I’m confused, because everything I know about Starship points towards it being one of the most incredible engineering accomplishments ever. There are lots of other problems with SpaceX’s leadership, environmental impact, and work culture, but aren’t the products inspiring?

This is really well done!

What a weird situation. I suppose it’s nice those workarounds exist, even if they’re not ideal.

I think I’ve come to a similar conclusion after IFT-4. Reusability is the top priority, not a stretch goal like with Falcon-9. As such, the expected value of testing reentry is a lot higher than that of orbital maneuvering.

What an insanely aggressive development approach!