Space

Vision

Blue Origin is moving and expanding its facilities in Seattle:

Blue Origin’s mission, according to a brief description on the company’s Web site, is developing reusable launch vehicles and technologies “that, over time, will help enable an enduring human presence in space…”

…During an interview that lasted a little over a half-hour, Bezos discussed his plans to develop reusable suborbital launch vehicles that could carry passengers nearly into space, the couple said.

Simpson said Bezos hoped to be able to begin offering commercial passenger flights within three to five years of the initial test launches, with the ultimate goal of helping humankind achieve space colonization “in his lifetime.”

Well, I’m glad to see that someone is working on this, since NASA obviously isn’t.

Administrative

It’s Always Something

I’ve been spending the weekend getting stuff working after the hurricane.

I had to reaim the satellite dish, which turned out to be a major PITA, because the mast wasn’t (and has never been) vertical. So I had to shim up the base that it was attached to to get plumb, then reattach the dish, and reaim it. It was still tough, because the elevation indicator seemed to be miscalibrated, but if I’d had to do it with a cockeyed mast, it would have been much worse.

Then I started having computer problems. I have a brand new motheboard, Sempron CPU and gigabyte of DDR 4200 RAM in my main (Windows) machine, and it’s been fine until last night, when I got up this morning to find that it woke up dead. I rebooted, and it came up, sans mouse, and after it was on a while, I started to get strange patterns on the screen af which point it locked up again. After trying this several times, it eventually quit booting at all.

Anyone have any theories? The problem is that this is the first mobo of its generation that I’ve bought, so I’ve got no other processors or memory to swap out to see if they’re the problem. The only thing that I can hope is that the video card has died, which I can test with another.

I’m posting this from my Fedora box, if anyone is wondering. I also have a couple laptops, so it’s not urgent–just annoying.

[Update on Sunday]

I finally got around to playing with this. I swapped out the video card, and it booted right up…

Administrative

It’s Always Something

I’ve been spending the weekend getting stuff working after the hurricane.

I had to reaim the satellite dish, which turned out to be a major PITA, because the mast wasn’t (and has never been) vertical. So I had to shim up the base that it was attached to to get plumb, then reattach the dish, and reaim it. It was still tough, because the elevation indicator seemed to be miscalibrated, but if I’d had to do it with a cockeyed mast, it would have been much worse.

Then I started having computer problems. I have a brand new motheboard, Sempron CPU and gigabyte of DDR 4200 RAM in my main (Windows) machine, and it’s been fine until last night, when I got up this morning to find that it woke up dead. I rebooted, and it came up, sans mouse, and after it was on a while, I started to get strange patterns on the screen af which point it locked up again. After trying this several times, it eventually quit booting at all.

Anyone have any theories? The problem is that this is the first mobo of its generation that I’ve bought, so I’ve got no other processors or memory to swap out to see if they’re the problem. The only thing that I can hope is that the video card has died, which I can test with another.

I’m posting this from my Fedora box, if anyone is wondering. I also have a couple laptops, so it’s not urgent–just annoying.

[Update on Sunday]

I finally got around to playing with this. I swapped out the video card, and it booted right up…

Administrative

It’s Always Something

I’ve been spending the weekend getting stuff working after the hurricane.

I had to reaim the satellite dish, which turned out to be a major PITA, because the mast wasn’t (and has never been) vertical. So I had to shim up the base that it was attached to to get plumb, then reattach the dish, and reaim it. It was still tough, because the elevation indicator seemed to be miscalibrated, but if I’d had to do it with a cockeyed mast, it would have been much worse.

Then I started having computer problems. I have a brand new motheboard, Sempron CPU and gigabyte of DDR 4200 RAM in my main (Windows) machine, and it’s been fine until last night, when I got up this morning to find that it woke up dead. I rebooted, and it came up, sans mouse, and after it was on a while, I started to get strange patterns on the screen af which point it locked up again. After trying this several times, it eventually quit booting at all.

Anyone have any theories? The problem is that this is the first mobo of its generation that I’ve bought, so I’ve got no other processors or memory to swap out to see if they’re the problem. The only thing that I can hope is that the video card has died, which I can test with another.

I’m posting this from my Fedora box, if anyone is wondering. I also have a couple laptops, so it’s not urgent–just annoying.

[Update on Sunday]

I finally got around to playing with this. I swapped out the video card, and it booted right up…

Administrative

Back In Business

I got home this morning, and after doing a little rewiring on a phone jack, seemed to get everything up, including DSL.

Driving home from Fort Lauderdale International, I was impressed at the damage. You’ve all heard the expression, “Gee, it looks like a hurricane came through here.” Well, it really, really looks like a hurricane came through here. Lots of dead and uprooted trees, bereft of leaves, toppled palms, skeletons of billboards, piles of debris. And it’s been almost two weeks since the storm. The house is all right, other than a lot of damaged foliage, and screens blown out on the pool patio. Fortunately, the frame is in good shape, so it’s just a matter of screen replacement.

Now to catch up on a couple weeks of business around here.

Administrative

Back To Florida

I’m flying home tonight from LA on a red eye. We got power back last night (ahead of schedule, which was nice), but I don’t know if I’ll have Internet. If I do, I’ll check in tomorrow, and if not, I’ll check in when I do, so if you don’t hear from me, that will probably be why.

Space

Missing The Point, As Usual

In another dispatch from Planet Strawman, Mark Whittington writes, among other nonsense:

Settling the Moon or any place else in space without a government presence is a fantasy.

I haven’t seen anyone propose that space will or should be settled without a government presence. Mark confuses legitimate concerns about the architecture that NASA has chosen to return to the moon with proposals for anarchy. He’s apparently impervious to irony when, in his indefatigable NASA worship, he accuses others of being kool-aid drinkers.

[Update at 10:18 AM PST]

Jon Goff has a much longer response.

[Afternoon update]

Robot Guy has further thoughts.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!