Spyke

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Outstanding idea.

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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?

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Proton launches LLM and crypto wallet

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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.

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Why I Lost Faith in Kagi

I expected to roll my eyes at this article but it's actually quite compelling and well written. The Kagi website's lack of nuanced privacy discussion already turned me off, and now I'm just going to pretend the service doesn't exist.

nba

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The automated bot threads are suppressing participation

Just to keep things balanced, I'll add that I think the mod did a great job building the bot, and I'm excited that it exists. As the community grows, it will play a really important role. The stats tables are great.

Perhaps we could use the bot to automate portions of a catch-all gamethread? Alternatively, have a Featured Game each day that gets its own thread? It's tricky right now, since most of us don't follow summer league closely.

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NASA says it is “evaluating all options” for the safe return of Starliner crew

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I was firmly in the "nothing is actually wrong and the media coverage is silly" camp, so this report is pretty shocking.

If there are real engineering reasons (as opposed to anxious bureaucrat ones) that Dragon needs to rescue them, this seems like one of the bigger crises in the modern era?

Will wait for more details, but clearly I was wrong about media coverage!

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket explodes in second test flight | CNN

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They've been pretty transparent about their expectations for these early test flights, and today's achievements match those expectations. For example, they didn't bother securing all the thermal tiles because they didn't really expect to survive re-entry.

The rocket didn't go to LEO. This was intentional, because they knew that this flight was unlikely to survive and they're as concerned about space debris as you are. All the debris either burned up or fell into the ocean.

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NASA says it is “evaluating all options” for the safe return of Starliner crew

If NASA defers to its fallback plan, flying on Dragon, it may spell the end of the Starliner program. During the development and testing of Starliner, the company has already lost $1.6 billion. Reflying a crew test flight mission, which likely would be necessary should Starliner return autonomously, would cost much more.

Through this lens, I get why they're taking their time with the decision.

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Linus does not fuck around

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I agree that some people need harder tones, but I don't think anyone needs the abusive language that Linus used. If that feels like the only option, I think it probably means the person has gaps in their social toolbox.

spacex

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[META] The future of this channel

I think you're right that this conversation is a great idea, here are disjointed thoughts that may not be helpful:

  • I've quit reddit permanently, and my only complaint is that there doesn't seem to be an alternative to the Starship development thread.
  • This community should exist!
  • This community should have its own identity!
  • If the reddit mods are onboard, I like the idea of cloning the development thread. But I don't think it's necessary.
  • I like the auto-posting idea. One possible downside is that many posts will have no comments, but maybe that's okay! I'll probably use this space as a news & rumor feed.
  • Agree that we don't need strict rules or high-effort moderation right now