Hacker News Reader

ramidarigazon You don't have to be local

Also, the dum byriani (sp?) and various forms of masala in little India are freaking amazing.

ramidarigazon YC Rejection Emails Are Out

Bummer :( PressureNET is really cool. I can't wait to see where it goes!

ramidarigazon Quantum entanglement shows that reality can't be local

Diaspora?

ramidarigazon Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

I agree, and I think NASA does too. They're just really conservative about the safety of the ISS (understandably so).

ramidarigazon Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

You're right. I remember them discussing attempting to raise the orbit with onboard fuel, but I doubt that was possible.

My point was more that, prior to the engine failure, raising the orbit with the second stage was considered non-risky. You're correct that after the failure, raising the orbit with the second stage was risky.

ramidarigazon Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

Right. They were hoping the F9 upper stage would do that orbit raising for them (the non-risky version). The risky part was trying to do an orbit raising with the satellite's onboard fuel, which was the only option after the F9 lost an engine.

The expected outcome (F9 upper stage doing the raising) was considered non-risky, and I'm sure that's the premise the insurance company was operating under when they agreed to insure the satellite.

ramidarigazon Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

The beginning being as soon as they knew their satellite had been deposited well below the desired altitude. If the F9 engine hadn't failed, they wouldn't have needed to do an orbit raising maneuver at all and there would have been no risk of the satellite deorbiting.

ramidarigazon Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

Hah. Good point. A couple days of free testing in space isn't a bad deal at all.

ramidarigazon Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

They didn't expect it to fall. They were aware that their satellite was a secondary payload and would be abandoned if need be. I don't think anyone expected the Falcon 9 to lose an engine.

ramidarigazon Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

Shame. It doesn't sound like Orbcomm is too disappointed though. They were aware of the risks, and they did get to test some of the systems.

ramidarigazon AMA with Barack Obama

AMAs are strictly user-run. The mods of the IAMA subreddit do a lot of work, although I think they do get a bit of support from the admins.

ramidarigazon Curiosity Mars Rover Landing Timeline: What to Expect Tonight

I have proper butterflies in my stomach right now. I hope nothing goes wrong...

ramidarigazon Curiosity Mars Rover Landing Timeline: What to Expect Tonight

My workplace is hosting a landing party. I can't remember the last time I was this excited for something!

ramidarigazon Khan Academy now supports tau

That would be unbelievably confusing...

ramidarigazon Rockstar condemns Max Payne 3 cheaters to play only against each other

I don't think the votes actually go through on hellbanned users unfortunately.

ramidarigazon SpaceX to relaunch rocket Tuesday 12:44 AM PST/ 3:44 AM EST

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

Doesn't look like they have a countdown yet.

ramidarigazon SpaceX ISS launch webcast starts at 4:15 am EDT

Next window is Tuesday, so not too long. I was really impressed that they were able to abort nearly 5 seconds after ignition.

ramidarigazon SpaceX headed to the ISS tomorrow

SpaceX lists launch prices on their website. The prices for the Falcon 9 are a little ways down on this page: http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php

ramidarigazon Europe's space program heads to Jupiter

These things take time.

ramidarigazon A $20 Trillion Rock That Could Turn a Startup Into Earth’s Richest Company

Not quite exactly what you asked for, but Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars (and sequels) are absolutely fantastic hard sci-fi books. By far the best books on the colonization of Mars that I've ever read.

ramidarigazon Mosh: SSH for 2012

This looks really cool!

One question. I have a firewall (ufw) that is blocking most ports (I have a small whitelist). It looks like Mosh uses a UDP port between 60000 and 61000. Is there a way to pick a port for Mosh to use, or do I have to open that range of ports? It's not a huge deal either way, but it would be cool if I could tell it to use a specific port.

Oops. Nevermind. It looks like -p is what I want.

ramidarigazon Google's self driving cars can navigate drive-through restaurants.

I doubt a malicious map would be allowed to override the car's basic collision avoidance, however it would be a serious nuisance.

ramidarigazon NASA's Kepler Discovers 11 Systems Hosting 26 Planets

I completely agree! As much of a clusterfuck as the James Webb has been, I'm really looking forward to seeing it launch. I can't even begin to imagine the things we will see with it.

ramidarigazon Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

If Earth were in a situation of having to segment populations to prevent the spread of disease, all it takes is one little mistake to wipe out an entire intermingling group of people. I'm not saying we wouldn't have the tech to prevent that from happening, but humans are fallible creatures. Is it worth risking the entirety of humanity when we could have a remote colony that would be very well protected from those types of events?

ramidarigazon Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

Air is just one of many possible infection pathways. You would also need to quarantine people, food shipments, water supplies, equipment.

ramidarigazon Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

What about virulent plague? Chemical warfare? Disasters don't have to come from far away.

ramidarigazon Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

Insurance for humanity against disaster is a small ROI? Not trying to offend, but how do you define ROI of a colony on Mars?

ramidarigazon What is 'Space' expanding into?

The moderators of Askscience have done a fantastic job of keeping the quality of the subreddit very high. They're really strict about what can be posted as a top level comment, and I think the subreddit is much better for it. Memes and funny pictures have their place, but it's nice to have a serious subreddit where people can get their questions answered by people who (in theory) know what they're talking about.

ramidarigazon Dreamliner spells out "787" & Boeing logo over US during test flight

Massively reduced weight without passengers and cargo, maybe?

ramidarigazon Goodbye AdSense

To be fair, 2007 was 5 years ago.