Bob Zimmerman has a familiar problem, one that I and many friends do (Leonard David’s is particularly acute, after half a century of space reporting). My own archives, such as they are, go back almost four decades.
Forget Mars
A planetary scientist who would prefer to live on Titan.
As usual, destinations are a secondary issue. What’s important is the ability to affordably get wherever we want in the solar system. Elon is at least paying lip service to that now.
A Minimoon
NASA has confirmed the existence of another “moon” around earth. It’s a captured asteroid (and this happens occasionally). This seems like a very near-earth object. I wonder what its composition is?
Moving AST Out Of FAA
Laura Montgomery discusses the legal and bureaucratic implications.
Lisa Bloom
Wow. Like her mother, she really is a hypocritical piece of work:
‘You know what is truth, Lisa? I feel like people should know that you’ve been calling my literary agent and saying there’d be money for me if I got on the “Harvey’s Changed” bandwagon?’ the actor wrote.
‘You told her that I should care about HIS reputation. How HE has a family now and how HE has changed. Well, guess what? I’ve always had a family and that didn’t stop him from assaulting me.’
Lord Acton identified problem w/Hollywood (and a lot of other places) a long time ago. And not only does it corrupt, but evil seeks power.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) October 15, 2017
[Update later morning]
Hollywood’s masculinity deficit.
WiFi Security
This is wonderful. WPA2 has a critical flaw. One more reason to continue to distrust wireless.
[Update a few minutes later]
Well, apparently, so far Netgear is not on the case, so not clear what the implications are for our Orbi mesh. Guess until our phones get patched, good idea to not use wifi.
[Update a while later]
Here’s more information. My new phone is Android 7, so it’s affected, but I don’t generally use it with wifi. I’ll definitely avoid it, or at least avoid it for anything mission critical (like bank accounts), until it patches.
[Update a while later]
Now wondering about the Sony Blu-Ray player. Does this make it vulnerable to becoming a DDOS attacker? Wonder if there’s any way to patch it, and if there is, or will be a patch?
[Mid-morning update]
Nothing on line about patching the player; I’ve tweeted a request to @SonyElectronics. Meanwhile, here’s more info at Ars Technica.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here is the web site for the attack technique, with a lot of technical detail.
Morgan Stanley
…says that Elon Musk is building an elevator to orbit. Not literally, but certainly functionally.
[Update a while later]
Some news from Blue Origin as well, revealing more details about BE-4 and New Glenn. I found this curious, though:
Becoming a government supplier doesn’t happen overnight. There is a series of certifications one has to go through. Right now having ULA using our engines and qualifying our engines into that supply system is a good thing for us. They will fly a year ahead of us, in 2019. We will come into the market in end of 2020, 2021. And at that point if we choose to go into government contracting, it will imply setting up cost accounting systems that are geared to the government.
I don’t understand what he means, unless they plan to provide launches cost plus. For a fixed price, their accounting is none of the government’s business.
[Update later morning]
Chris Bergin has an update on the SpaceX launch manifest. Among other things, FH launch in December remains a possibility, NASA is OK with a flight-proven rocket for CRS missions, and first landing at Vandenberg will happen with the Iridium 4 mission. Plus, a mystery payload next month.
[Noon update]
Elon revealed more technical (but not financial) details on an AMA Saturday.
Trump And John Roberts
Trump has done what Roberts would not: Start to bring ObamaCare into Constitional compliance.
I continue to believe that there was something very disturbing about Roberts’ last-minute change of position, possible including blackmail. Recent revelations about other instances of the Obama administration spying on its political adversaries do nothing to reduce that belief.
[Update a while later]
ObamaCare was built with intrinsic flaws that Trump is now exploiting. It’s what happens from the hubris of thinking that such landmark social policy doesn’t need bipartisan support.
[Late-night update]
Sorry, everyone, but Trump didn’t instigate the ObamaCare acapolypse.
Nope. It was baked into the cake.
The Twilight Of The Liberal Gods
This is a couple weeks old, but I don’t think I linked it at the time, and it’s well worth a read, from Sarah Hoyt.
Gun Control
No, “feel good” remedies won’t solve the problem. As noted over there, an attempt to confiscate Americans’ guns would be tantamount to the government making war on its own people. It would not end well.
[Update a few minutes later]
No, there were not 273 “mass shootings” by any sane definition. There were nine.