moftz

The parts for the helis might have come from an old factory that shut down, the parts might have been bought very cheap. Someone then decided to build some helis with the parts but clearly decided to forego the permit process and just forge all of the paperwork the customer gets. Someone buying them might have just been expecting a good deal on an older design but still legit helis or they knew they were not legit and were planning to resell them to other groups. I'm not sure anyone would actually want to fly in a heli they knew had forged paperwork.

The part that screws me up is whenever the USB port is upside down, meaning the plug goes in with the retention holes facing down.

At the chip gas pumps, I'm seeing paper signs left by the owner that say "Leave card inserted". I'm glad everyone is going the chip route but I still wish that pins would be required for credit cards. Just having a 4 digit pin is loads more secure than expecting some cashier to verify a signature on the back of the card (which never happens). I can still bypass the pin on my debit card in most situations by just entering in nothing unless I'm doing cash back. I'm not really sure how that's supposed to protect me, whats the point of a pin if you don't need to type it in? Card companies are quick to refund you for any fraud but it creates an inconvenience for the user that really just isn't necessary. I've been on vacation abroad when my credit card was used fraudulently which I had to cancel immediately. Luckily I had access to my corporate credit card I could use to pay my hotel bill since that was the only thing I couldn't afford with the cash I had on me but I very well could have been shit out of luck. I paid the charges off myself and wasn't in too much trouble after I explained the situation.

Nobosy wants to be branded a racist despite how minor the faux pas may be. The correct attitude is to just apologize and move onto networking. Instead, these VCs are assuming that their mistake is going to anger the black man and that they need to get out of there before it turns ugly. A better understanding of how these mistakes are made would allow someone to realize that it's just better to acknowledge the mistake and work towards not doing it again. I think in this case, the problem and symptom are reversed. The subconscious racism of the VCs caused the black CEO to miss out on vital networking opportunities. It seems like that guy turned out ok but what if that was a critical time for him when that meeting could been the last shot at getting some investors before his company went bankrupt? Simply ignoring the issue and trying to get out of it was more harmful than just acknowledging it and moving past it.

Being the same race as someone else is one more thing you may have in common with someone when getting to know them. It's not that every white person or every black person has had the same life experience but when trying to connect with a new group of peers, you may be subconsciously drawn to approach someone that looks more like you before you approach someone that doesn't. Humans are still very tribal animals so we should be trying to make more diverse connections to others, to be more inclusive. Diversity in this sense doesn't just mean race but can also mean different genders, age groups, faiths, socio-economic classes, personalities, and physical abilities. Making more inclusive connections (other than based on appearance) can be hard because it requires actually getting to know someone first.

I'm sure the parent comment doesn't mean that they only like the company of other black people. It's more likely they feel like an outsider on their team simply due to looking different and having a different cultural upbringing than their other teammates. A more inclusive team would have likely made the parent comment not feel this way.

If you were on a team of 148 people of another race and there was only one other person that was the same as you, would you feel a little out of place?

Just for some comparison, a bit error rate of 0.001% is a typical benchmark for digital satellite communications.

That works until some consultant sees that one employee seems to be pretty quick getting their tasks done so management is told to have even more work assigned to them. Why give someone 30 hours of work if they are being paid to do 40 hours? The demand of work is going to inevitably fill the supply of time. As an employee, the proper way to deal with this is just find the proper amount of work you feel comfortable doing in 40 hours and make that your permanent pace. Work too fast and you'll be expected to perform like that forever. Work too slow and you'll be closer to the chopping block whenever the time comes. I'm not suggesting to be lazy and goof off as much as possible to fill the 40 hours but I am saying to expect typical management to be more concerned with how much more you could be doing rather than how much you already do.

I hate whenever I get asked by a manager if I've got enough work. Usually I can say yes and they move on but sometimes I know that I'm supposed to say no and accept whatever new task they want to add to my backlog (along with the expectation that the new task is most important). It usually happens with the management that are not totally aware of all of my responsibilities and what I'm currently working on. They see what little I'm doing on one project and ask for more of my time, yet I'm already working nearly full-time on other projects. I know when it's about to happen too. It will occur during a meeting when my functional manager isn't in the room and a program manager sees a task that they don't want to handle themselves. It's usually a task that's been on their backlog for a while. Their eyes light up, they turn to me, and say "Hey, are you busy?"

I really do appreciate being given enough work to keep me busy, it's better than being laid off. But I really hate being given all the extra junk that no one else wants to do simply because I'm not 100% full time on that project.

Very little in terms of what you would consider AI or ML. It's a lot of trig and control theory. You do a lot of the math beforehand to figure out the script the craft will follow to reach the ISS. Once it gets close, you either use manual controls or let autopilot do the docking. The autopilot is basically looking some dots on a camera and firing the thrusters to make the dots line up right. It's more like a dumb PID controller than an AI. The autopilot isn't learning anything or somehow making connections that weren't already programmed. This is all stuff NASA figured out how to do in the 60s so it's nothing novel except for the mission and the hardware the math is done on.

I'm sure an easy workaround would be to use Houston as a relay rather than direct communication.

FPGAs can sometimes be one-time-programmable using anti-fuses that basically disables the JTAG interface or can be set to disable the interface if the FPGA detects attempted tampering. Most of the time, an FPGA is going to be set to OTP to prevent competitors from stealing source code for applications where upgrading the firmware via JTAG is not necessary.

The FPGA also can have a massive unique key that allows the designer to create a whitelist algorithm that only lets certain unique IDs run that firmware. Other options involve setting a time limit for how long the firmware will run, disabling certain features, or totally bricking that FPGA forever. Spartans have this feature but it would still allow for someone to build a new design that doesn't check the device ID.

Additionally, the bitstream can be encrypted so that if a field update is necessary or the firmware is stored in a stored in a separate flash chip, someone can't reverse engineer it.

Overall, the more you pay, the more security features there are available. An example secure design would disable JTAG pins permanently and have a microprocessor inside that would handle new updates. The processor would authenticate any new encrypted firmware before programming the internal flash.

Sweden is 7th in confirmed cases per capita. I'm not sure you can point to them as a success story.

The govt asking Google to help keep the spread of misinformation down is totally different than the govt forcing Google to do so and arresting anyone that posts anything contrary to the official position.

No, they are saying that having a discussion about how to deal with the pandemic is a little more above board than someone arguing that it's a 5G conspiracy.

It's probably easier to just have some sort of magsafe-like connector for power and data inside the vehicle. Charge the batteries with something like USB-PD to get the most out of the time a soldier might be stationary in the vehicle. Use the data connection to allow everyone's communications to go through the vehicle radio.

All that Land Warrior tech is pretty much available now in the form of a small PAN that includes a radio, android tablet, and headset. Additional sensors like cameras can hook into the radio to give live video to a command center. The radio battery can run everything or the soldier can wear a larger battery. Everything hooks up through what is basically a USB hub combined with an ethernet switch.

Here is an example of a setup: https://cdn.glenair.com/star-pan/img/star-pan-vi-capability-...

How many people on the boat do you need that know celestial navigation? Sounds like something you could have someone go to school for to specialize in and then make sure you've got at least one on every boat rather than make everyone learn. We've got plenty of ways to defeat jamming, the newest block of GPS satellites have ways to increase signal power in certain areas and anti-radiation missiles can blow up a jammer. GPS only comes from space so it's pretty easy to find someone on the ground messing with it. We also have things like star trackers that are used on satellites to determine position without GPS that could easily be implemented on a boat if not already on there. These systems could be hardened against EMPs and only brought out in case of absolute emergency. I don't see the need of every navigator having their own sextant.

My state does something like that. You do an associates at the state community college system in a field geared towards your planned university major and as long as you get good grades, you get guaranteed admission to a state 4 year school. It helps the student by reducing cost and helps the 4 year schools by reducing the number of incoming freshmen.

It's all a betting game. Go to trade school and get a decent job making good money but have little upwards mobility other than opening your own business. Or go to university and hope you pick a worthwhile major and get a great job out of school where you have a lot of upward mobility. University is risky but if you can pick something like electrical engineering and end up at a top firm, you are probably set for life. I've got friends with university degrees that have done very well for themselves and those that just couldn't find a job in that field so now they work in retail. Some of them did everything right but just couldn't find high-paying work (computer science), others choose majors that fit their passions but don't have any immediate real world use (english).

I think some people have huge expectations for what their degree will get them that just aren't reasonable. I picked a engineering major that would pay big but also fit my passion, got the job I wanted, and have constant work lined up for me for the next 5 years. I got very lucky at the university betting game. If I hadn't gotten into college or decided to drop out when I had to take an semester off due to grades, I probably would have decided to try trade school.

I really dislike trying to have conversations on a mic that uses a closed design. I can't really hear myself so I feel like I end up talking very loud.

I'm in the same boat. Loved my Nexus 6P but they bungled the warranty response to the bootloop issue. I didn't buy a pixel because they were out of my price range. Everyone I know in real life that has one really likes it. The branding is confusing, I guess Pixel is just Google's phone hardware and accessories brand now.

It's an experimental satellite, it's downlinking data rather than just being a bent-pipe relay. This is right before SGLS and the mass adoption of S-band (USB) so it's going to likely be a basic VHF BPSK kind of signal. This is also before encryption was easy so it's likely going to be in the clear.

Macaroni and cheese predates the Kraft corporation by hundreds of years. I'm referring to the traditional noodles with cheesy béchamel sauce.

It may but your eyes are definitely a path for UV exposure of blood.

In the US, this is usually called the "broil" setting. The gas ovens usually have the lower compartment for broiling but electric ovens just use the top heating element in the main compartment.

Käsespätzle is like if a Bavarian chef was asked to make "macaroni and cheese" but didn't really know what the actual ingredients were and just tried to wing it with what they had on hand.

I remember a custom CSS server doing this. The admin would fire off some command and a typical in-game browser window would show that would immediately go to a site the admins ran that hosted audio files. One would start playing. You could turn it off but they could push out the link again.

Seems like the government should just remove the risk of being the business of critical supplies. Obviously we didn't have enough supplies in stockpile it would benefit the US to have a dedicated factory to produce a constant stream of PPE for the next 10 years. This stuff is so cheap to make that not stockpiling it is just stupid. These kind of supplies are used by everyone everywhere that it's a waste of time and money trying to negotiate critical supply stockpiles on the local or state level. This needs to be at the national level to be able to leverage the power of the US govt. Using the DPA, the govt can come into 3M or any of the other manufacturers and say "you are going to sell us 50M masks per year for the next 10 years". After a couple years, you have a healthy stockpile that can either be used in a pandemic or changed out for fresh supplies over time. It's a shame to throw out expired medical supplies but having a consistent supply chain going for years is good to make sure that there is a standard product out there that you don't need to worry about changing.

SpaceX seems big enough that they pay for a self-hosted meeting suite. I've worked at a couple places that use WebEx that is self-hosted. You can only access it via dialing the number (from any phone) or by being on the VPN to see the shared presentation. Trying to log into the public version of WebEx gives you an unknown user error. Someone could still wardial their way into the call but it would require getting the non-public phone number and guessing the meeting number AND possibly guessing a meeting password.

In the example directory, it looks like you could compile a binary that takes a text file of ape code as a command line argument and interprets it. Sounds just like how something like python works. You could have this interpreter running on an embedded processor that could take in new ape code via serial or from a textfile on removable media or even from some sort of OTA update if you want to get fancy. It's much easier to have a small bootstrap/interpreter running on a chip that can load up new code than having to flash new firmware every time.