I don’t know how many of my regular readers knew him, but he was a founder of the Los Angeles L-5 Society (aka OASIS) back in the late 70s, and he passed yesterday. I’ll have more anon, but if anyone did know him, feel free to comment. I’m in good health, but one contemplates mortality more and more as one’s cohorts pass on.
[August 14, 2025, update]
I’ve started a memorial page for him.
[Bumped]
I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I had a hernia repaired a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been having some post-surgery complications. I’ve also been writing an op-ed for the WSJ, and answers to FAQs for the Reason project. We’re going to Vegas on Monday for the AIAA ASCEND meeting, where we’ll be all week.
For those concerned, though, I should be fully recovered and back up to speed by next weekend.
[Monday-morning update]
Driving to Vegas today for AIAA/ASCEND. I’ll try to check in during the week from there.
[Bumped]
I just had a long-overdue inguinal hernia repair this morning, and between the pain and the pain meds, probably not doing anything serious on the computer today. Disport yourself gently in comments.
I had terrible flights, today. I have a cold, so I was miserable to start. Then at DCA, Americans delayed my flight to Phoenix, then had me go to a different terminal to catch it, while changing my seat from my window toward the front to a center toward the rear(with no explanation), with a woman in the window seat who had zero interest in what was going on outside, so I spent over four hours in a semi-claustrophobic condition. (As an aside, I’m kind of astonished at how many people in window seats have zero curiosity and desire to see where they are, keeping shades down throughout).
Then, when I get to Phoenix, my connection to LA is delayed three hours, which is why I have time to bitch about it. But I hope I’ll be home soon, with Patricia and the cats, after being gone for over a week.
ISDC is over, and I’m flying to DC in the morning. Driving down to Norfolk from there on Thursday to do a presentation on equatorial LEO at CRASTE. But I’ll have more time to check in this week once I’m ensconced there. I heard something about a bomber raid in Iran.
[Monday-afternoon update]
What next with Iran? Ten questions from VDH.
I’m heading off to Orlando for the International Space Development Conference. I’ll check in from there.
Patricia and I are going to Cabo San Lucas for a few days. I’ll have my laptop, but don’t know how much time I’ll have to use it. Be good in comments.
I’m driving up to the Bay Area for the weekend. I’ll try to check in from up there with my laptop, but we’ll be back on Monday evening. Disport yourself civilly in comments.
I’m at O’Hare, changing planes to go to DC for the Satellite Show. Not sure how much time I’ll have for blogging.
When I ‘dnf -y update’ it downloads all the packages, but at the end crashes with this error message:
Importing OpenPGP key 0x7FAC5991:
UserID : “Google, Inc. Linux Package Signing Key linux-packages-keymaster@google.com“
Fingerprint: 4CCA1EAF950CEE4AB83976DCA040830F7FAC5991
From : https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
The key was successfully imported.
Importing OpenPGP key 0xD38B4796:
UserID : “Google Inc. (Linux Packages Signing Authority) linux-packages-keymaster@google.com“
Fingerprint: EB4C1BFD4F042F6DDDCCEC917721F63BD38B4796
From : https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
The key was successfully imported.
Transaction failed: Signature verification failed.
OpenPGP check for package “google-chrome-stable-134.0.6998.35-1.x86_64” (/var/cache/libdnf5/google-chrome-6ed7e4f336f6863c/packages/google-chrome-stable-134.0.6998.35-1.x86_64.rpm) from repo “google-chrome” has failed: Import of the key didn’t help, wrong key?
Any idea how to tell it to ignore this and just do the other updates? I don’t see any obvious options on “dnf update.”
Thanks for the advice in comments. Unfortunately, I can’t deal with it until I get back from a trip on Friday.
[Friday update]
The problem seems to have resolved itself while I was gone. I updated last night with no issues.