On Costliest U.S. Warship Ever, Navy Can’t Get Munitions on Deck - perfunctory
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-30/flawed-elevators-on-13-billion-carrier-miss-another-deadline
======
sramsay
From the article: "The elevators aren’t the only issue plaguing the ship,
which has had problems with two other core systems -- the electromagnetic
system to launch planes and the arresting gear to catch them when they land."

So let's see, the only the problem with this aircraft carrier is that it has
trouble with airplanes taking off. And landing. And carrying, you know, bombs.

~~~
zipwitch
The real scandal isn't that the _Ford_ is having (lots) of problems with it's
new technology. That can happen. It's not even that a decision was made to put
multiple novel, unproven systems into a major warship.

The biggest scandal is that the US Navy accepted delivery of the _Ford_ and
commissioned it when it was non-functional. This should be ending swathes of
careers at the top of both the US Navy and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

~~~
rootw0rm
I still have an HII access card for when I worked on the USS Chosin and USS
O'Kane right underneath the Coronado bridge. I was still in the custody of the
San Diego sheriff's department at the time. Many of the few hundred of us that
worked there were either currently in a halfway house or ex-cons. None of us
received any safety training on asbestos, yet we handled a-cloth every single
day. We only had rudimentary safety equipment. Some guys would cut asbestos
cloth with a hand grinder, sending fluff everywhere. Equipment marked "TOP
SECRET" was covered with a simple piece of butcher paper...assuming it hadn't
torn or fallen off. It was pretty much a shit show.

~~~
godzillabrennus
The United States government and "unconventional" approaches to labor for
building military equipment is not new.

One of the most interesting stories to me is how the Mafia helped break some
bones of laborers during WW2 to ensure the USA was victorious. They knew they
couldn't operate without a free society.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak)

Lots of other ways that the Mafia helped in Italy.

[https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret-
Allian...](https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret-
Alliance/dp/0760324573?sa-no-redirect=1)

------
readams
It's worth noting that problems like this are pretty normal for new weapons
systems. Th V-22 Osprey is a good example here: it seemed like a disaster when
it came out, but it's now got its kinks worked out and is performing really
well.

~~~
kwindla
If you're interested in big engineering projects and how they work
culturally/politically as well as technologically, Richard Whittle's book
about the V-22 Osprey is really worth reading.

_The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey_

~~~
ware_am_i
Thanks for the recommendation! I'm in the midst of a big and
culturally/politically challenging engineering project and eager to learn...
so much so that I signed up for a library card and checked out the ebook from
the LA Public Library!

~~~
JBlue42
That library card comes with tons of other benefits too. Free streaming on
Kanopy, NYT membership, museum discounts / passes
([https://www.lapl.org/explorela](https://www.lapl.org/explorela)).

------
maximente
> “I am concerned overall that the Navy is under-equipped in key areas,” the
> Oklahoma Republican said in a statement.

if there was any - any doubt at all - that this machine feeds itself, this
hilarious statement should remove all of it

~~~
vidanay
The only thing the US Navy is under-equipped for is something along the scale
of the aliens from Battleship.

And just as likely to actually occur.

~~~
User23
Nah, the Russians and anyone they’ve shared the tech with could easily sink a
carrier or any other surface ship with hypersonic anti-ship missiles[1].
That’s assuming they don’t just ram into another ship on accident. The US Navy
is in a very bad place now and the next war that isn’t just picking on some
totally helpless country will show it.

[1][https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25684396...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25684396/zircon-
hypersonic-missile/)

~~~
greedo
Easily? Nothing involved would be easy.

~~~
eloff
Nonetheless, it seems the US Navy is still fighting the last war. Carriers are
extremely vulnerable to missiles. I think fast missile boats and land based
launchers probably make large warships obsolete. Tough to say for sure since
that hasn't happened, but it seems likely to me.

~~~
greedo
Killing a carrier isn't like a video game where you see a carrier on screen
and issue a launch command. Killing a carrier involves a chain of events;
break anyone of the links and the carrier is safe.

First you have to locate the carrier. Easy to do in peacetime, in war time
much more difficult. If you want to kill it with a ballistic missile, you need
to locate it within a few square kilometers. This means either a radar
location, or a satellite overhead.

Radar is problematic because it has to deal with the curvature of the earth.
This is typically solved by using airborne radar. Well, carriers and their
airgroups are very well versed in both detecting this surveillance and killing
it. Either with aircraft, with SAMs, or with cruise missiles that target that
airfields of the surveillance (ISR) aircraft.

So say that you somehow manage to get a location fix on a carrier battle
group. Now you have to prep your missiles for launch which takes time. Let's
say 30-60 min. The carrier can steam at over 30 knots, so now your targeting
data is out of date. Again, not like push button warfare. Your ballistic
missile now has to find the carrier in a roughly 1000 sq mile area. Fine,
missiles are relatively cheap. So you just target each square mile with a
missile and hope its internal radar can pick out the CVN.

So you launch 1000 missiles, and just like in Battleship, one of your missiles
manages to be in the right spot. Now it has to deal with the SAMs protecting
the CVN. Aegis is pretty good these days, so you've got to make it past them.
That'll be tough. Then you have to make it past the ESSM missiles, as well as
the ECM jamming suite of every ship in the carrier group. Fine, you have
robust electronics.

BOOM! You've hit. But it turns out that your radar on the warhead was small,
with insufficient processing power to discriminate between a carrier
(especially with all the jamming going on) and an escort ship. You've sunk an
LCS, or a refueler (they're big and have a big radar image), or maybe even an
Arleigh Burke DDG or Tico cruiser. Sucks for those crewmates, but that's their
job. Protect the carrier.

And what has this failed attack cost you? Well, ballistic missiles are cheap
compared to a CVN, but not that cheap. Say $5M a piece since it makes the math
easier (though the DF-21 and DF-26 will cost much much more). 1000 missiles is
$5B, plus the cost of all the ISR assets used to locate the CVN.

Now if hypersonic missiles start to take off (pun intended) and become
deployable weapon systems, it will make things more difficult. But that's
still in the future.

~~~
CapricornNoble
>>First you have to locate the carrier. ...This means either a radar location,
or a satellite overhead.

These aren't just "weather satellites". It's highly suspected they are capable
of tracking carrier groups via infrared:
[https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/06/05/chinese-weather-
satell...](https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/06/05/chinese-weather-satellite-
successfully-boosted-into-orbit/)

>> Now you have to prep your missiles for launch which takes time. Let's say
30-60 min.

China's DF-21D and DF-26 are solid-fueled and fired from mobile launchers. In
a deliberate carrier-hunting attack the sensor-shooter killchain is also
likely to be streamlined, even taking into the account that the Chinese still
suck at Command & Control. Overall preptime and killchain delay should be
negligible (<30 minutes for the Chinese).

>>> So you just target each square mile with a missile and hope its internal
radar can pick out the CVN.

No. These long-range anti-carrier missiles have an almost vertical terminal
trajectory and are looking down from high altitude. AN AESA's fast scanning
should be able to find and fix a target with a signature as gigantic as a
carrier's over a 30km-radius circle without too much difficulty. I haven't
crunched the numbers on this personally, but I'll add it to my list of "radar
scenarios to do the math on"...

>>>But it turns out that your radar on the warhead was small, with
insufficient processing power

The DF-21 and DF-26 are both about 1.4m meters in diameter. You can stuff an
AESA as good as any on a fighter into a nosecone that large.

>>>Aegis is pretty good these days.......Then you have to make it past the
ESSM missiles.

Even in controlled tests we don't have that great of a pK (probability of kill
aka "intercept") against high-speed ballistic missiles. The ships need to use
SM-2s and SM-3s. 1x Tico + 2x Arleigh Burke are packing about 300VLS total,
and that has to include Harpoons and Tomahawks. Let's assume ~250 SM-2/3s for
air and missile defense. It's customary to launch 2 missiles per incoming
threat (again, due to that low pK we've demonstrated) but that is still enough
to stop 100 incoming (probably bigger than any realistic incoming salvo
anyway). Assuming you can LAUNCH the SM-2s fast enough. Each ship would need
to fire off 80+ missiles in probably 30 seconds, and I think there is a
practical limit for how quickly you can fire from VLS (due to the exhausts and
whatnot). It's probably something like 1-2 missiles per second, from non-
adjacent cells.

>>>> Say $5M a piece since it makes the math easier (though the DF-21 and
DF-26 will cost much much more). 1000 missiles is $5B, plus the cost of all
the ISR assets used to locate the CVN.

I've seen estimates of $10-20M for DF-21/26\. -200(don't need 1000) x $20M =
$400M -3 x $100M(??) surveillance sats = $300M -Sinking the centerpiece of
your opponent's Navy, exploiting their Critical Vulnerability to defeat their
Center of Gravity, AND achieve major Information Operation success (PR
victory)? Priceless.

~~~
greedo
Warheads on the DF-21/26 aren't the same size as the missile diameter,
especially if they're using MARV. So sensor size will drop. And the missiles
won't have that much maneuverability.

Plus you're forgetting about SM6. This will eat these for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. Assuming that the DF21 can even burn through the ECM that will be
blasting it.

And it'll take more than one direct hit to kill a CVN. An 1100lb warhead will
be similar in effect to a Harpoon. You might get lucky and have a mission
kill, but if you fire 200+ missiles at a CVN you better kill it.

And if we go to war with the PRC, we won't be using one CVN. We'll be surging
2-3 CVBGs, and they'll run out of missiles. I also think that it's more likely
that the PRC will be using nuclear warheads on the DF-26 in a purely defensive
posture. The idea of them using as conventional weapons is too risky.

~~~
CapricornNoble
>>>>Warheads on the DF-21/26 aren't the same size as the missile diameter

For some reason finding physical radar dimensions is not easy. Even if the
warhead is ~1m to the DF-21/26's 1.4m, that's still enough to stuff in one of
these: [1] one of the most powerful A2A radars ever. [2]&[3] are <60cm
diameter. [3] is known Chinese tech, and is therefore most within the realm of
feasibility for employment.

>>>And the missiles won't have that much maneuverability

They shouldn't need much, just enough to turn a near-miss into a full miss
(assuming a frag detonation and not a more difficult kinetic kill anyway).
Topol-Ms are rumored to have evasive maneuver capabilities, to establish
precedent.

>>>>Plus you're forgetting about SM6. This will eat these for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner.

Nah I just lumped them in with the SM2/3\. Regardless of the actual SAM used
you're going to shoot 2 of them per incoming contact. The SM6 tests listed on
the Wiki all used 2 missiles per MRBM target.[6]

>>>Assuming that the DF21 can even burn through the ECM that will be blasting
it.

Ummmmm, pointing insanely powerful radio emissions into the upper atmosphere
in an attempt to blind a ballistic missile is a great way to broadcast your
position. If anything, might be a good idea to configure several DF-21s for
passive direction finding. Not sure if the DF-21s have any kind of datalink,
the speeds and atmospheric conditions will make that difficult, but P-700
Granit missiles have a networked cooperative capability and those things are
decades old.

>>>>An 1100lb warhead will be similar in effect to a Harpoon.

A Harpoon has a <500lb warhead [4]. 1100lbs is closer to a Tomahawk. For
reference, the P-700's warhead (and it's definitely considered "carrier
killer" ordnance) is ~1600lbs.

>>>You might get lucky and have a mission kill

A 500kg warhead with a vertical attack profile, if it hits, is practically a
guaranteed mission kill. The CVN will lose catapults or an elevator at the
least, and suffer a gigantic detonation inside its hangar at worst. Either way
it's a PR victory and its entire air wing is no longer contributing to the
fight.

>>>>>And if we go to war with the PRC, we won't be using one CVN. We'll be
surging 2-3 CVBGs, and they'll run out of missiles.

If they run out of anti-carrier ballistic missiles they'll send drone-
converted 3rd-generation aircraft, which is a great way to burn up our anti-
air ordnance.[5] If anything they'll use those FIRST to exhaust our defenses,
then fire the DF-21/26s, then follow up with a land-based strike package to
finish the task force off. China's land-based strike aircraft all outrange the
combat radius of carrier aircraft + ordnance by a significant margin. We'll
run out of ordnance within the Nine Dash Line / First Island Chain before
China does.

Oh, not that I ever expect a 100-missile DF-21 salvo anyway. I don't think
they have anywhere near that many launchers, and our best bet would be
Tomahawk strikes from submarines against the launchers early in the war.

FYI: I've spent ~5 years in the west Pacific Theater, 3 of those at a Corps-
level combined arms headquarters that regularly wargames _ahem_ a "peer fight"
against a fictional country with a ballooning blue water navy and an
authoritarian government, if you catch my meaning. I've spent a LOT of time
reading exercise AARs, intel updates, and threat briefs from the past ten
years on this problem set, courtesy of the ///SECRET Intelink portal. But I'm
arguing entirely from open-source info here.

Oh, and check out RAND's site here:[7] It's 2 years out of date but if
anything the US's relative situation has deteriorated. But it's a good quick
summary of the balance of power. [1][https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT-
xI3U/SOke7iN2vaI/AAAAAAAAA...](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT-
xI3U/SOke7iN2vaI/AAAAAAAAAJs/2pgY49MFzZ4/s1600/Phazotron+JSC's+Radars-4.jpg)
[2][https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT-
xI3U/SOkeIyMnjDI/AAAAAAAAA...](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT-
xI3U/SOkeIyMnjDI/AAAAAAAAAJk/nsjPL6tqDlk/s1600/Phazotron+JSC's+Radars-3.jpg)
[3][https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/jf-17-block-iiis-proposed-
aes...](https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/jf-17-block-iiis-proposed-aesa-radar-
klj-7a.458854/page-18)
[4][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_(missile)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_\(missile\))
[5][http://aviationintel.com/as-highlighted-on-this-site-as-a-
th...](http://aviationintel.com/as-highlighted-on-this-site-as-a-threat-for-
years-chinas-converted-surplus-fighter-drone-force-eyeballed-from-space/)
[6][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM)
[7][https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/us-china-
scorecard.html](https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/us-china-scorecard.html)

~~~
greedo
For maneuverability of the warheads, I was focusing more on them being able to
adjust to a shifting target location, not avoiding SAMs. I don't think decoys
and other countermeasures to ABM defences are currently relevant to non-ICBM
platforms for the near future.

I think that the bigger issue with protecting the CVBGs isn't DF-21/26 but
that lack of missile magazine depth and reloading. We can't even fill most of
the VLS we have now, and as you mentioned, it'd be pretty simple to degrade
our AD with threats that require a response but aren't as dangerous. And since
replenishment at sea for VLS is not currently practiced, ships would have to
cycle through Yokosuka (assuming it's still a functioning base after whatever
the PLAN does) for reloads.

And since we have relatively shortlegged "interceptors" for the CVNs, with
shortlegged AAMs (as currently deployed), I wouldn't be surprised if the PLAN
decides that ALCMs still have tremendous value. Hell, we don't even deploy
with full airwings these days.

At least the PLAN is pretty far behind in subs. For now.

~~~
eloff
I just want to say this was a fascinating and eye opening discussion from you
two. Thanks for the content.

------
chewz
German Engineering Yields New Warship That Isn’t Fit for Sea

> ”There’s a whole generation of German engineers who haven’t worked on a
> major defense project,” said Mr. Mölling, the defense expert. “It’s not that
> they lost this skill; they never learned it.”

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-engineering-yields-
new-w...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-engineering-yields-new-warship-
that-isnt-fit-for-sea-1515753000?mod=rsswn)

~~~
Havoc
So they would have you believe...

------
hirundo
I can't build a little software app without going over schedule by
approximately double, if I'm lucky. And if I get it wrong the consequence is
my boss looks sad. These guys are building one of the largest most complex
gizmos in human history. And if they get it wrong sailors die. So personally
I'll cut them a little slack.

So it's probably a good thing that I'm not their project manager.

~~~
pmontra
The USA built 4 to 6 carriers and their fleet per year during WW2 [1] [2].
They were complex gizmos too back at the time. Ok, the whole county was fully
committed to that so it could be an unfair comparison but it shows the
difference between wanting to ship a product that works on a tight schedule
and trying to build the dream project. Plenty of examples on the history of
IT.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex-
class_aircraft_carrier](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex-
class_aircraft_carrier)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-
class_aircraft_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-
class_aircraft_carrier)

~~~
mythrwy
I have a theory that on the rise of a civilization soon after comes the rise
of career bureaucrats who proceed to strangle the civilization and this has
been going on since at least the Sumerians.

------
nimbius
The question Ive been wondering is not whether the Ford is a total dud, but
were its changes even reasonable? or were they just tacked on as some
misplaced future-chasing value-add.

For example, the electromagnetic launcher. Why have a launcher at all? the
USSR's Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier solved the aircraft launching
problem ages ago and for far cheaper. just slope the deck.

and Magnetic elevators? why? was there a specific concern or reason behind
using magnets instead of tried-and-true cables? why were we redesigning doors
and hatches when the old ones ostensibly performed fine?

~~~
thunderbird120
STOBAR[1] carriers like the Kuznetsov are vastly less capable than CATOBAR[2]
carriers, they're the budget option. Using a ramp rather than a catapult means
that the types of aircraft you can operate are more limited and the weapons
and fuel loads they can actually get into the air with are significantly
reduced.

As for the new systems in the Ford class. The EMALS system replaces
conventional steam powered catapults because it can be more finely tuned to
individual aircraft types. This means less stress on airframes which
translates to longer operational lifespans. It also allows for easier
launching of a wider variety of aircraft weights.

In the case of both the catapult and the elevators, the new systems are
mechanically much simpler than the old ones leading to reduced operating
costs.

All of the changes mentioned exist for a good reason, the issue is that they
weren't implemented competently.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOBAR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOBAR)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CATOBAR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CATOBAR)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
People are gonna say "how hard is it to send a marine down there with a grease
gun" or "how hard is it to R&R a major system every 20yr"

Wartime operations beat the shit out of things. Stopping a system so some
marine with a grease gun can do preventive maintenance is a low priority and
gets skipped when you have to go from bombing dirt farmers one day to fighting
a peer the next. Systems like this is what you get when you're expected to be
running a decade long low intensity conflict yet still be ready for a peer
adversary.

------
chiefalchemist
One of the key tools of the 9/11 attacks were box cutters.

It's said the Russians influenced - and are still influencing (per Mueller) -
our elections and (said) democratic processes with a few buckets of cash and
some well placed internet misinformation.

The threat of a cyber-attacked is very real.

And we're still building multi-billion-dollar 20th century-minded war ships???

~~~
nordsieck
> And we're still building multi-billion-dollar 20th century-minded war
> ships???

That's the thing that gets me. If the US is going to buy naval ships, at least
get ones with a real purpose.

The ships that are good against 3rd world nations are something like patrol
boats. Cheap, small, fast boats with a shallow draft.

The ships that are good against 1st world nations are submarines. Everything
else will get sunk by ballistic missiles. One of the side effects of the
second space race is that the knowledge to build medium range ballistic
missiles is becoming increasingly more common.

To a certain extent, it doesn't matter what the US builds; the last time it's
been challenged militarily was the Korean War. It doesn't matter... until it
does. And at that point, it'll be too late.

~~~
wbl
What happened to Vietnam and Afghanistan?

~~~
nordsieck
> What happened to Vietnam and Afghanistan?

My understanding of Vietnam is that the US was defeated politically, not
militarily. Afghanistan poses even less of a military threat than Vietnam.

~~~
wbl
And yet we're the ones walking away.

~~~
erklik
not just walking, negotiating with the Taliban ( what happened to "we don't
negotitate with terrorists" )

------
m0zg
Sounds like the same problem Germans had during WW2: weapons are too advanced
and as a result very easy to fuck up when they see action, expensive to make,
and impossible to repair. Same with planes: all that nice anti-radar coating
loses effectiveness after a just few combat sorties.

Military gear needs to be simple as a shovel, and not require a PhD to operate
and repair. It also needs to be cheap and easy to manufacture (for some
definition of "cheap" and "easy", given that this is an aircraft carrier), so
you could make more of it if needed, reasonably quickly. None of the stuff the
US military industrial complex has been producing for the past several decades
fits this description even remotely.

What was wrong with the older, tried and true systems? Sure, they were slower,
but nobody else in the world has anything that comes close anyway, and won't
have it in the foreseeable future.

~~~
mschuster91
> Sure, they were slower, but nobody else in the world has anything that comes
> close anyway, and won't have it in the foreseeable future.

China has a billion people combined with (thanks to spionage) modern aircraft.
Give them a decade and they'll build their own aircraft carriers.

~~~
m0zg
Yeah, and they could land people on the moon, too. One day. Maybe.

------
duxup
I'd like to know what the development cycle for new weapons is and how it
usually works.

It's not the same but all new code I write doesn't work at some point / needs
to be reworked / etc.

I guess what I'm saying is it is really hard to know what not working at this
point really means.

It's so easy to walk into any situation and throw up your hands and panic when
you don't know.

~~~
colechristensen
Decades.

The JSF (F-35) program began in 1993, the first flight was in 2000, the first
time in combat was in 2018, and they're currently shaking out production bugs
on the few hundred which have been built. They're slated to be operational
until 2070.

------
mjevans
The article seems to claim the issue is with fabrication tolerances. Two
issues come to mind.

1) How to fabricate to those tolerances reliably? (Robots come to mind).

2) How easy is it to operate these shafts in a degraded capacity if there is
physical damage to the vessel during operations?

The first issue probably should be solved by improving automated construction
tech. The second issue... these things need to operate well under worst case
load scenarios, not just right out of the dry-dock... and it sounds like they
can't even get the ideal scenario working.

~~~
appleiigs
Robots do not come to mind when you are producing custom pieces.

~~~
mjevans
You're thinking assembly line robots. I'm thinking more general purpose
machines that are designed to move independently and automatically adjust
themselves to the correct position relative to a design and perform the task.
Alternatively, at least something that a set of humans can move in to place,
bolt on, and have it do the above.

------
anovikov
No problem here really. It's best to debug the ship while it is already being
used - issues come up more frequently. It's not a dangerous time in the U.S.
history now - probably, safest time ever (no real enemies left since 1992 and
nothing to fight for since the U.S. achieved oil independence recently). It's
the best to do it in exactly the way it's done - spend another 5 years
debugging the ship while it's being used in some sort of reduced capability
mode, then another year to retrofit all fixes to the 2nd ship of class, and it
will still be okay.

People who see delays in major weapon programs as catastrophic, forget that
the potential adversaries either protracted their equivalents for decades, or
cancelled them altogether. F-22 looked like a mad dash to arrive to the 5th
generation fighter ahead of Soviet Union, in 1991. It's been developed, all of
them are built, fully learned by their crews and already start to age, and
Russian 5th generation is still nowhere on the horizon - their abortion sort
of project has even been discarded by the Indians as not matching their
minimal requirements, and is in limbo since then. It's more or less the same
with all similar projects.

~~~
mschuster91
> no real enemies left since 1992 and nothing to fight for since the U.S.
> achieved oil independence recently

There is one big enemy on the horizon: China, which gets ever more and more
aggressive. That trade war may very well escalate in a real war, with the
Chinese holding an absurd amount of leverage since the US doesn't have much
manufacturing at home any more.

In addition, there is Africa - which is the only market that hasn't been
saturated already and only needs a bit of kickstarting. China has seen this
and massively invested, and _they_ will sell to Africa and grow on that, not
the US.

~~~
anovikov
What's the problem with that? How does rich and prosperous China threaten U.S.
security? If anything, destitute and hopeless one does - they would have
nothing to lose and would push through some radical agenda for the rulers to
stay in power. If China becomes richer and more influential, there is nothing
bad for the U.S. in that. World isn't zero-sum.

Soviet Union was dangerous because it pushed through Communist ideas which
threatened to uproot everything the Western world stands upon, starting with
family and religion. China isn't going to do any of that shit, they are a
super-pragmatic nation and they don't believe into any "ideas" themselves for
that matter.

If their way of government threatens Western democracy i'm more on the side of
them rather than Western democracy: i strongly believe that market capitalism
is incompatible with (universal) electoral democracy and for them to coexist,
you have to turn one of them, or both, into fakes. It's time for West to get
back republican model of government back to it's roots when only responsible,
tax-paying immovable properly/production asset owners voted. If Chinese
pressure will nudge them to do it sooner, good for them!

~~~
mschuster91
> What's the problem with that?

That a superpower that basically shits on human rights has no one to tell them
to fuck off?

> If China becomes richer and more influential, there is nothing bad for the
> U.S. in that.

It is, because (actually right now) China holds leverage over the US. They ban
exports to the US, the US economy grinds to a halt.

> Soviet Union was dangerous because it pushed through Communist ideas which
> threatened to uproot everything the Western world stands upon, starting with
> family and religion.

What's the problem with communism, per se? And communism has nothing against
families.

> China isn't going to do any of that shit, they are a super-pragmatic nation
> and they don't believe into any "ideas" themselves for that matter.

They're only putting Uyghur muslims into concentration camps and exterminating
anything visible from their culture (e.g. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
china-religion-islam/sign...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-
religion-islam/sign-of-the-times-chinas-capital-orders-arabic-muslim-symbols-
taken-down-idUSKCN1UQ0JF)).

> If their way of government threatens Western democracy i'm more on the side
> of them rather than Western democracy

Chinese way of government threatens not only Western democracies, it also
threatens the entire concept of "human rights"!

------
cosmodisk
Looks like a perfect ship for peacekeeping operations: you can't start a war
with a carrier that can't launch/land jet fighters or bring bombs from the
storage facility below the deck.Perfect. As always, this boils down to three
main things that have been valid since day one of the humanity: stupidity,
corruption and negligence.

------
Animats
Amazingly, this seems to be a software problem.[1]

[1] [https://www.military.com/defensetech/2019/02/21/after-
carrie...](https://www.military.com/defensetech/2019/02/21/after-carrier-
fords-elevators-failed-navy-building-new-test-site.html)

------
peterwwillis
It's useful to remember, when we end up with incredibly expensive and totally
ineffective weapons systems, that our military budget is more than double that
of the next highest-spending nation, that it's about 3/4 of our federal
discretionary spending, and the 3rd largest category of federal expenditure
overall, at roughly 692 Billion dollars. We spend more on social security and
health care, but _far_ less on Veterans, Transportation, Food & Agriculture,
Education, International Affairs, Housing, Energy, Science, and Labor.

------
ruytlm
Relevant from 2017: [https://warisboring.com/how-not-to-build-an-aircraft-
carrier...](https://warisboring.com/how-not-to-build-an-aircraft-carrier/)

------
chewz
[https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?t=82](https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?t=82)

------
dwighttk
I mean, they can, just at 2/11ths planned capacity.

------
Causality1
Cost+ needs to die. These massive companies should be required to deliver on
budget or bankrupt themselves trying.

------
crb002
Gone are the days of Grace Hopper.

------
simonblack
If it works, don't fix it.

~~~
simonblack
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

It's best to have a steam catapult that works, even if not so well than an
electromagnetic catapult that doesn't work at all.

Ditto for the elevators.

------
speeder
Usually military wants cutting edge and precision-ly made tech, that often is
also very expensive...

Yet... I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why?

What changed between the construction of A-10 and the F-117 and the F-35 for
example?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
A specific scenario to optimize for.

The A10 was designed to swiss cheese just enough Russian tanks and to buy the
time for C5s (designed to transport main battle tanks) full of M1s (meant to
kill Russian tanks) to make it to France before the Russians could steamroll
Germany.

The F117 was designed to slip past and strike infiltrate Russian air defense
systems so our bombers could make it to the target.

All the weapons systems of the cold war era were built to fight a specific
peer adversary first and needed to fit into that portfolio. Capability to
handle other tasks was pursued (especially during and after Vietnam) but at
the end of the day systems had to be able to fit into a strategy in which we
fight the Russians or if not they had to have some other specific and narrowly
tailored purpose (e.g. AC130).

Right now the armed forces are in this weird state where they have to be able
to handle anything from some rowdy poppy farmers to WW3 in no particular order
of priority and that manifests itself as poorly thought out feature bloat.

~~~
theseadroid
You could say in some degree that not only the military needs a purpose. The
deteriorating of infrastructure, the lack of vision of politicians, the
increasing inequality are probably all the result of a lacking of a purpose.

~~~
vincent-toups
Maybe absent the purpose, we don't need quite this much military. Its a rather
frightening prospect, the other way round.

------
arethuza
Well, at least you didn't build it to only be able to operate the F35B and no
other fixed wing aircraft!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_(R08)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_\(R08\))

~~~
magduf
I see no indication that that ship can only operate the F35B. It's designed
for VSTOL aircraft, so it doesn't have catapults like American carriers. This
isn't new for the UK: they previously had carriers that only used the Harrier,
another VSTOL jet.

This new ship can surely use the Harrier, but of course the Harrier is pretty
old at this point compared to the F35B, but if they needed to, they could go
back to it. Or if someone built a different VSTOL jet, they could use that
too. Maybe they could also buy some V-22s from the US.

Building a carrier that only operates VSTOL aircraft is not an unreasonable
thing to do. The US does it too, with their "amphibious assault ships" run by
the Marines: these are basically mini aircraft carriers that are just like
this ship in your link, and operate only VSTOL (F35B, V-22 Osprey) aircraft
and helicopters. If it's good enough for the US Marines with their ships like
this one[1], why is it a problem for the Brits?

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America-
class_amphibious_assau...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America-
class_amphibious_assault_ship)

~~~
arethuza
The US has loads of carriers though - the UK will only have two and to have a
direct link between the design of the carrier and a particular design of
aircraft seems particularly risky.

~~~
magduf
1) There's nothing stopping BAE or Eurofighter or whoever from making their
own VSTOL jet.

2) A carrier with catapults is a much, much larger and more expensive ship.


"We must consider the possibility that the book may not be around much longer" - ksvs
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/people-of-the-screen

======
ojbyrne
I like that the article uses a word I thought I coined (but probably read
somewhere) - "techno-utopian."


Zenefits Adds $15M From A16Z To Become The All-In-One Solution For Startup HR - sohailprasad
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/22/zenefits-adds-15m-from-andreessen-horowitz-to-become-the-all-in-one-solution-for-startup-hr/

======
jason_wang
I'm a big fan of Zenefits.

At my last startup, we grew from 0 to 65 employees without the help of
Zenefits and it was painful. Employee on-boarding, HR paperwork, and
healthcare enrollment were all done manually.

Now, Zenefits can handle all that for us. We could send new hires the
paperwork they need to fill out before they even start. This makes onboarding
so much easier.

(Note, I'm not affiliated with Zenefits. Just a big fan.)


Let it crash (the right way) - EGreg
https://mazenharake.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/let-it-crash-the-right-way/
======
makecheck
(2009)

Also:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9491313](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9491313)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876911](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876911)


Gender, Race, and Age Inclusive Makeup Recommendations Through Facial Detection - ajmurill
https://www.facebook.com/BelloFacialDetection/
======
ajmurill
For Bello to be inclusive for all genders, ethnicities, and ages where anyone
can use our technology to pamper themselves and show self-love. We strive to
deliver consistently accurate and detailed results to our customers and to
take into account their needs, dreams, and wants.

Steps to get beautified:

Step 1: Like our page and click the blue "Send Message" button located in the
top right of this screen. Step 2: We will send you a quiz where you answer
questions like, “What is your favorite/least favorite feature on your face”
and “Do you prefer drugstore or high-end products”? Step 3: You send us a
picture and from there we run our facial detection software on your picture.
We gather information like your skin tone, age, eye color, blemishes, etc.
Step 4: We send you personalized feedback, products, and advice based off your
picture and the quiz. This can include eyeshadow colors that will make your
eyes pop or tips to deal with under-eye baggage


Solar eclipse measured on Mars, affects interior - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-solar-eclipse-mars-affects-interior.html
======
Chris2048
Mars (mean diameter 6780 km) has two known moons, Diamos (mean diameter of
12.4 km) and Phobos (mean diameter of 22 km). So Phobos is ~0.3% the diameter
of mars, and Diamos is ~0.2%; for comparison the moon is 27% the diameter of
Earth, though is considered abnormally large. Also, "Mars may have moons
smaller than 50 to 100 metres".

I'm surprised there's no lower limit on what is considered a moon. Wikipedia
suggests smaller objects are called "moonlets", but I guess Russell's teapot
would count as one, but for the uncertain fact it might not be considered
"natural"?

~~~
lizknope
We have changed the definition of "planet" multiple times so I'm sure we will
redefine "moon" as well.

Pluto was recently demoted but this has happened before to Ceres and others.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet)

By 1851, the number of "planets" had grown to 23 (the eight recognised today,
plus fifteen between Mars and Jupiter), and it was clear that hundreds more
would eventually be discovered. Astronomers began cataloguing them separately
and began calling them "asteroids" instead of "planets"

------
andy_ppp
"Its orbit passes between the sun and any given point on Mars about once each
Earth year. Each time it does so, it causes from one to seven solar eclipses
within the space of three days."

Does anyone have an explanation of how this works? Seven solar eclipses seems
like a lot and I can't seem to visualise what is happening, presumably it's
Mars spinning and Phobos staying still that causes this, but I can't
understand why the difference is so huge.

~~~
mercurywells
Phobos is extremely close to Mars so its orbital period is only 8 hours. Its
inclination is also very low compared to our own moon. Therefore it is far
more likely to cause an eclipse and it occurs in sets.

------
est31
Has slightly more comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24383060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24383060)


Adding Easy SSL Client Authentication To Any Webapp - scriptjunkie
http://www.scriptjunkie.us/2013/11/adding-easy-ssl-client-authentication-to-any-webapp/

======
deftnerd
It's sad that I didn't realize he easy this was to implement now. I'm building
several sites that implement bitcoins and this has clear advantages over
simple usernames and passwords.

My thought is allow the user to authenticate with the SSL cert. If they're at
an IP never seen before, require a password.

Thoughts? My concern is with people that have a compromised computer that has
a Remote Access Toolkit installed on it. Perhaps always require the SSL cert
AND a password pair? Not that passwords would be safe on an infected machine.

These days it seems that the only way to be sure is to require additional
authentication from a second device such as a phone with a 2FA app like Google
authenticator or Authy or a hardware device like a Yubi key. Even sending one-
time text message confirmation xodes .

~~~
deftnerd
I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice my auto-correct mangling my comment. I'll
comment from my desktop in the future.

I meant to say that it's amazing how easy this is to implement now and even
sending one-time text message confirmation codes during every authentication
attempt works.

------
nly
Imho the gaping hole with client certificates at the moment is that, in
current browser implementations at least, I don't think they are well secured.

Notice when using his demo pages you are asked by your browser for
confirmation before you use your shiny new certificate, but otherwise no
credentials are required. It's relatively easy for someone to steal client
certificates from my machine whether I'm here or not.

        [wf9bhh4z.default]$ pwd
        /home/nly/.mozilla/firefox/wf9bhh4z.default
        [wf9bhh4z.default]$ strings cert8.db | grep nly.*junkie
        nly's scriptjunkie.us ID

... I'm not sure if this default behaviour is a switch that can be flipped
somewhere, or whether they are actually encrypted, but that protection can
only ever boil down to some other credential like the users Windows password
(which will be weak).

When it comes down to it today, I feel a mobile solution, like Google
Authenticator that can live comfortably in my pocket, is just more workable as
a 'something I have' credential, and I then don't have to entirely trust
whatever random PC I'm using. With QR codes it's even almost as convenient. (I
also don't think password auth need be totally disregarded, see :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6767249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6767249)
).

That said, I commend the author for seeking alternatives to password
authentication and doing all this excellent work to make it easy to use. It's
good, desperately needed work.

~~~
derefr
In OSX, client certificates are stored in the Keychain, which must be unlocked
with your password. The problem with almost every "security product" comes
down to the fact that Windows (and Linux, I think) don't have equivalent
protected-storage APIs integrated throughout the desktop environment.

~~~
mhogomchungu
linux has "equivalent protected-storage APIs integrated throughout the desktop
environment",KDE has kwallet[1],GNOME has libsecret[2] and lxqt has lxqt
wallet[3].Firefox has an extension to store its passwords in KDE's kwallet[4]
and GNOME's gnome-keyring/libsecret[5].Chrome has support for both wallets[6]

all linux destributions ships with libsecret and that will be the API to
target if anybody want to store sensitive information securely in a linux
desktop session.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KWallet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KWallet)

[2] [http://lwn.net/Articles/490518/](http://lwn.net/Articles/490518/)

[3]
[https://github.com/mhogomchungu/lxqt_wallet](https://github.com/mhogomchungu/lxqt_wallet)

[4] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kde-wallet-
pa...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kde-wallet-password-
integratio/)

[5] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-Us/firefox/addon/gnome-
keyring...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-Us/firefox/addon/gnome-keyring-
integration/)

[6]
[http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/r65mTFM...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/r65mTFMrT9o)

------
michaelmior
"Private keys cannot be guessed – Because users didn’t choose them!" I don't
follow this logic. Sure they're likely to have more entropy than a user-
selected password (and almost certainly be longer). However, there's nothing
about the fact that the key isn't selected about the user that makes it un-
guessable.

~~~
scriptjunkie
Private keys should have over 128 bits of entropy, which is enough to make it
un-brute-forceable with at least the amount of energy likely to be obtained by
any human organization on earth. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-
force_attack#Theoretical_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-
force_attack#Theoretical_limits) That's what makes it un-guessable. Also, some
users do choose passwords with at least as much entropy and are also
unguessable. But most don't.

~~~
dmix
I use automated high-entropy password-generators and a surprising amount of
websites cap lengths to 30-50 characters (or even 8 chars sometimes like a
Canadian bank I won't name). Allowing super-long passwords would be a good
starting alternative to SSL.

~~~
tmikaeld
The problem with this is that some sites still only support max 20 characters.

------
jakozaur
Love it so much! An easy way to detect user and could prevent quite a lot of
phishings attack.

One issue is the browser compatibility. It work on Chrome, but I tried it on
my iPhone Safari and it doesn't work. Is there any way to fix it?

------
bsilvereagle
As far as I can tell, client certs can't be cross-device. You would need a new
cert on every device you plan to use with the site.

~~~
dmix
I've used PGP keys cross-device (using both android and osx clients), why
can't SSL?

~~~
geofft
You can export and import certs between devices, the UI is just awful.
Possibly more awful than all the PGP UIs, if such a thing is possible.

Certainly you can't drive this flow from the website alone. The best you can
do is point your users at various browser-specific instructions.

~~~
zaraflan
At which point you're back to the same basic problem with passwords: the
weakest link and root-problem is the average user's lack of knowledge. There
wouldn't be such a mad scramble to find a decent alternative to passwords if
everyone was using KeePass or the like, and no alternative is going to be
near-future viable if it relies on something too complicated for the nearly-
everyone who isn't using strong generated passwords.

2FA is working because all the user has to do is get a text. Anything beyond
that level of difficulty is simply a non-starter at this point.


Ask HN: So, does my startup need an office? - BenjaminDyer

I am a man of two hats, my first hat revolves around a very established business. We have customers, battle scars and have been in the space for years. Its a great company to work for, although I am very senior, I am not the founder and I wasn't there at the beginning.
My second hat revolves around my startup Powered Now. We are a 5 person team spread over the globe. Our product is a business administration platform for the Field Services world, we are hoping to launch into private beta within a few weeks.
My established business is a bit of a hybrid. We have two offices in the UK and a distributed workforce of about 20 working at home. I really get to see both the advantages and disadvantages of office / home working. It works for us, but we have been doing this for a long time and I wonder if I am being blinded by the convenience factor.
With Powered Now I have a distributed team, half of us are in the UK the other half are based in Budapest, we try to meet up to work together once every 4 to 6 weeks. When we do its insanely productive, but I wonder if it would be better if we were under the same roof?
If you believe the guys at 37 signals home working is the way forward, and to some extent I believe them, its enabled us to go to the best people instead of hiring in a limited area. However I'd be interested in your stories, have you consolidated a team into an office, or did you do the reverse? Are our productive meetups that good because they are a relatively rare event or would it be like that every day? Also if you were founding a startup today, how would you do it?
I'd love to hear your stories and advice.
Thanks,
Ben
======
georgespencer
My startup began life working from home/remotely. We had a team spread between
London and Brighton.

We moved into a shared office space in London which an early investor helped
to hook us up with. It sucked. It was a crummy, distracting environment. A lot
of people there were working on pretty weird/lame projects (including a
Russian "get rich quick!" motivational speaker, who was apparently had eight-
digit wealth but worked from a £100p/m office space).

Things which are poisonous to your productivity:

• "Networking" events of any kind • Talkative people who are working on
projects which they don't believe in • Talkative people who are working on
projects which they do believe in • People from other projects who want your
advice on something • People from other projects who have heard you just did a
raise and want to ask questions • People from other projects who want you to
test something really quickly just this once • "Oh you must just meet this
person they're so relevant to your project" • Anyone talking on the phone for
any length of time (this is personal. I find it annoying to hear one-sided
conversations).

We just moved in to shared office space with a YC company and another company.
It has only been a week or so but already we're more productive and it feels
more like "work" (in a good way). Fewer meeting rooms but fewer distractions.
More focus.

Don't go to a shared workspace. You'll do poor quality work with a ton of
distractions. Find another company who have some spare desks, and go there.

Working from home is not productive for most people (hence all the "HOW TO BE
PRODUCTIVE WORKING FROM HOME" linkbait articles you see all over Lifehacker
and occasionally on HN).

It's also a psychological help to have somewhere that you invite people: you
invite investors to your office, you don't go to them. Even being able to say
"we can do it at our place?" makes you seem like you have clout.

HTH.

~~~
BenjaminDyer
Thanks for the reply George,

Did you bring the whole team under the same roof including the guys from
Brighton?

~~~
georgespencer
So when we hired them (just after the start of the project) they worked
remotely. They were a small agency who we essentially block-booked for large
chunks of time. They would occasionally come to the shared office but not
regularly enough to close all the gaps on the project. I estimate that to keep
things running reasonably smoothly (and there were still major problems which
led to me firing them and hiring brilliant software engineers), I probably
spent north of £1k on travel to and from their location to manage them, which
was painful both financially (I could be spending that money on almost
anything else and it would be better-spent) and emotionally (it's a lot of
energy).

Now everyone is in the same room and on the same page. I'm sure there are
occasional productivity hits (conversations, phone calls, stand up meetings),
but it's a quick "Hey I just deployed this" instead of Email > New Message >
everyone@startup.com > I just deployed the XYZ feature we talked about > Send.

It's also more helpful for me to work this way because I am a hands on product
manager. We can iterate things very quickly, I can break them and suggest
improvements, and we can then iterate them again. Irrespective of whether my
benevolent dictatorship is a good way of working, the fact is that I will
always work like this and to do that over any kind of distance greater than 5
metres is inefficient and frustrating.

------
chriskemm
Having an office makes such a difference to work flow and production. Also
good to have a hub, where people can always drop in.

We use a number of freelancers they like to work from home, but its great they
can always drop in and work in the office for a few days.

~~~
BenjaminDyer
Thanks for the reply Chris,

How has the office impacted the way you hire freelance staff, do you look for
people within reach of your office?

------
Nick5a1
A combination of co-working + working from home is low cost and provides space
and collaboration when you want it.


AppLogic - Grid Operating System for Web Applications - babul
http://www.3tera.com/AppLogic/

======
babul
Have a look at the AppLogic live demo:

<http://download2.3tera.net/demo/applogic20demo.html>

Amazon AWS competitors are now emerging all over the place (and I found this
one is particularly interesting if you are scaling Django and and choosing
between EC2 and others).


Preorder your Galaxy S5 Friday; Samsung Gear smartwatches arrive next month - periferral
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/samsung-galaxy-s5-gear-2-and-gear-fit-prices-and-us-availability-announced/

======
amits89
It would be interesting to see if Samsung Galaxy S5 can set up some new
record.


37signals' Chalk: a fun little browser-based app for iPad - eng
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2637-introducing-chalk-a-fun-little-browser-based-app-for-ipad-inspired-by-our-new-office
======
jbail
Seems like a remake of their Draft app with a chalky UI.

To really make a mobile web app be cool, it's still gotta work on the web.
Otherwise, it's not cool. I'm making that a rule right now. Visiting a URL
that says I have to be on an iPad is not cool. It's like saying I need to
install a plugin that costs $500.

~~~
derekdahmer
Its still a work in progress, but check out my project <http://blotjot.com>
Its a collaborative whiteboard that works in any browser that supports canvas,
including mobile safari on the iPhone and iPad. Runs on node.js + socket.io

Example: <http://blotjot.com/heyhn>

~~~
jbail
I made a little canvas demo app myself about a month ago. Works on web or
mobile (least on Dolphin Browser in Android). I haven't tested a ton though.

<http://napnote.com>

It's more of a concept app to draw on Chipotle or Starbucks napkins than a
serious endeavor. Some fellow engineers and I were joking about it at lunch
one day and I promised to make a kick ass web 2.0 app that did indeed enable
you to draw on napkins. Then I added some other backgrounds because it seems
that whatever medium you draw on affects your thinking in subtle ways.

So yeah, it's more or less pointless. Google wouldn't even give me AdSense for
it. :)

------
nopal
And here's the magic: <http://chalk.37signals.com/chalk.js>
<http://chalk.37signals.com/stylesheets/chalk.css>

It's fun to look at this stuff, especially from the perspective of someone who
hasn't gotten into HTML5 yet.

~~~
jbail
it would be super easy to add support for mouse events.

[tutorial]

They are attaching events using jQuery's bind method. Like:

canvas.bind("touchstart", ...

You can add multiple events into bind. To add support for mouse events, you'd
just add in the requisite mouse events, like so:

canvas.bind("touchstart mousedown" ...

canvas.bind("touchmove mousemove" ...

canvas.bind("touchend mouseup" ...

[/tutorial]

------
kilian
Cool little detail: the eraser actually removes a layer of "chalk dust" from
the chalkboard as well. Very nicely done.

------
steveklabnik
If you're wondering if this still works in a non-iPad browser... it doesn't. I
was curious if I could still draw with the mouse.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I was hoping to swoop in with a "User Agent Switcher to the rescue!" message.
However: switching user agents works in Firefox but the app layout looks
broken [1] and it doesn't do anything; and switching user agents doesn't seem
to work in Chrome.

[1] <http://postimage.org/image/1z21v9nhg/>

~~~
ceejayoz
The events are touch-specific. Would be pretty easy to add in support for
mouse events too, but they've clearly no immediate interest in that.

------
destraynor
I believe they're releasing this, as a fun way to test the water with HTML5,
Javascript, etc.

I believe they're pissed off with iOS development, as it's significantly more
hassle than their usual routine of web development. I think they're lining up
HTML5 as their solution to mobile. So we'll see Basecamp,Backpack,Highrise,
etc move to HTML5, this way they'll have iPhone,iPad,Android supported.

I believe this based on the snippets of JS they've generously released, and I
believe there is more to come.

I think this is far more likely than it being a publicity stunt.

------
fourfour
For a 3 day side project this is pretty cool. Say goodbye to pen and paper at
client meetings. I think it'[s cool that it looks like their office too.

------
TamDenholm
Seems to me like a free version of 37signal's iPad app Draft. Much simplier
idea but still awesome.

~~~
apgwoz
> Much simplier idea but still awesome.

Why is this "awesome"? I don't have an iPad, so I haven't tried it first hand,
but it seems to be a simple drawing tool disguised as chalk instead of a solid
line. They're a dime a dozen.

I went back and re-checked it out to ensure that I didn't miss anything. This
would certainly have been more noteworthy if it was collaborative in real time
amongst multiple iPads (e.g. etherpad).

~~~
tptacek
I missed the part of the blog post where they said "this will revolutionize
the way you do work!" It seems to me that they called it a "fun little app".

~~~
apgwoz
Sure, but a "fun little app" is hardly news in my opinion, especially for a
well established company like 37 Signals. We're one step away from having
"OMG, DHH picked his nose" blog posts on the front page.

~~~
tptacek
You don't think it's a bit d$*chey to compare these guys spare time project to
DHH picking his nose?

~~~
apgwoz
I think it's pretty obvious that I was exaggerating. I really don't see
anything of value here. If you do, fine, go have fun with it.

------
twymer
Slightly unrelated, but anyone know why they put chalkboards in their offices
and not whiteboards?

~~~
cpr
See [http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662465/for-a-company-that-
sells...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662465/for-a-company-that-sells-
productivity-a-space-that-fosters-it) and find the part starting '"I can't
stand whiteboards," says Fried.'

------
parfe
Is 37signals treading water? The frequency of these worthless blog posts
attempting to draw attention to themselves has been increasing. They say they
have a lot of customers but something feels wrong.

~~~
tptacek
You seem to be looking for drama where there's none to be found. Two guys
wrote an web-backed iPad app and wanted to share it. If I dinked around and
came up with something like Chalk, I'd want to blog it too.

Yes, 37signals is wildly more successful than most people on HN, and yes, it's
sometimes hard to tell the difference between their "attempts to change the
world" blog posts and their "look what I did with my 3-day-weekend" blog
posts, but: it's a blog. They don't owe you anything more than blog posts.
This is an _above-average_ blog post; it came with a new app!


Password generation and safe offline storage - hackthisuk
https://www.hackthis.co.uk/articles/password-generation-and-safe-offline-storage

======
0x6C77
Nice to see some information that is clearly from a security expert, who has
real world experience of using such tools to try and break encryption.


GitHub faces more resignations in light of ICE contract - logic
https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/github-faces-more-resignations-in-light-of-ice-contract/
======
ratsmack
That is how it works. If you have issues with your employers business
decisions, then you are free to leave and move to an employer that you can
agree with.


App A/B testing startup raises money from ex-VP of FB and Cassandra co-creator - pratkar
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/01/appiterate-raises-seed-funding-from-saif-partners-joins-growing-list-of-ab-testing-startups/

======
algoritmus
The video looks promising! Is it that easy to publish changes?

~~~
mayankkumar
Yes. The visual editor helps you do drag and drop changes and publish them in
realtime.


How to make breaking changes and not break all the things - mceachen
http://matthew.mceachen.us/blog/how-to-make-breaking-changes-and-not-break-all-the-things-1315.html?hn

======
lsh123
One important point is missing from the article: make sure to have
unit/functional tests to run to make sure your changes are indeed are not
breaking anything.

~~~
mceachen
Absolutely. Thanks. I've added Step 0 to reference this, and added an
attribution at the end of the post.

One thing that surprised me when I started at Twitter was the requirement for
_every line of code_ to be reviewed by another engineer—and if you change or
add implementation, you can't ship if there isn't corresponding test changes
or additions. More tests isn't a panacea, of course, though. There's
definitely a spectrum of good, explanatory tests and tests-that-just-cement-
the-implementation-details.

~~~
lsh123
The automated tests are not panacea of course. Yet, you need to have enough
tests to give you confidence that the change indeed is breaking nothing. It is
one story to perform a deep refactoring on a C++ or Java code with 95% tests
code coverage where either compiler or tests will pickup things for you. And
it is a completely another story to do a refactoring on a PHP frontend code
w/o any compiler/static analyzer and w/o any tests where your best tool is
search-and-replace. Even the "depth" of safe refactoring will be very
different in those two cases.

~~~
mtdewcmu
Something that works in PHP's favor is that you can write very concise and
clear code.

At some level you have to trust your eyes.

------
polemic
This is a good starting point. One thing I'd add is the need to consider the
effects of table locks during changes. It's a nasty surprise when you've
tested your multi-stage process in dev, only to find during production updates
that a long running select is blocking, or that your change causes request to
queue until you exceed connection limits.

------
jakozaur
Very good approach. Also having some controls like feature flags per
customer/user is very useful. Sometimes migration takes a while and it is
useful to move users gradually through those phases with ability to rollback.

~~~
MaxGabriel
When we were switching a contained part of our codebase from Mongo to MySQL,
we ran both in parallel and stored a key in Redis to let us turn off the MySQL
backend (we re-used our feature flag utility for this).

This turned out to be quite useful. If we were throwing exceptions in the new
MySQL code, or even just suspected the new system of causing problems, we
could switch it off. We also switched it off so that we could easily run
migrations without taking down the site.

------
quest88
Thanks for the article!

~~~
mceachen
I actually wrote it for some coworkers at Twitter—they were struggling with
this, and it's a surprisingly non-trivial problem to tackle.


A BNF Parser in Forth (1992) - akkartik
https://www.bradrodriguez.com/papers/bnfparse.htm
======
DonHopkins
Here's a FORTH program to simulate a 7 bit paper tape puncher. Type PTAPE <cr>
and then start typing. It will terminate and cut the tape when you type a
<null>.

        \ FORTH PAPER TAPE PUNCHER:

        : PT# ( L --- L/2 )
          DUP 1 AND IF
            ASCII @
          ELSE BL THEN
          HOLD
          2/
        ;

        : PT. ( N --- )
          <# PT# PT# PT#
             ASCII . HOLD
             PT# PT# PT# PT#
          #> TYPE
        ;

        : CUT
          ." -----------" CR
        ;

        : PTAPE
          CUT
          BEGIN
            KEY ?DUP WHILE
            DUP ." |" PT. ." |"  SPACE EMIT CR
          REPEAT
          CUT
        ;

PS: I rewrote PTAPE in PostScript for NeWS, so it makes a window with actual
holes punched into it in the shape of a piece of paper tape with the text you
pass in as a parameter:

[https://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/news-
tape/fun/ptape/...](https://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/news-
tape/fun/ptape/ptape)

Can anybody write that for X11 using the SHAPES extension to punch the holes
in fewer lines of code? ;)

(The comments about an elliptical canvas and round shape must have been copied
from some other old code, because the shape of the window (and icon) it makes
is rectangular with lots of round holes punched into it.)

------
dvdkhlng
There's another parser generator written in Forth, that I have personally used
myself: Gray [1-3]

The zip file [1] has english documentation, the papers [2,3] are unfortunately
only available in german.

This [4] is a mostly working grammar for the Verilog language written using
Gray. It uses a lexer that sits on top of Gforth's regexp [5] package that
directly compiles regexps into forth code (BTW quite a few bugs in the regexp
package were triggered by the lexer and subsequently fixed upstream).

[1]
[http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gray4.zip](http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gray4.zip)

[2]
[http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/papers/ertl89.ps.gz](http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/papers/ertl89.ps.gz)

[3]
[http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/papers/ertl97.ps.gz](http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/papers/ertl97.ps.gz)

[4]
[https://sourceforge.net/p/fourhdl/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/parse...](https://sourceforge.net/p/fourhdl/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/parser.fs)

[5]
[https://github.com/forthy42/gforth/blob/master/regexp.fs](https://github.com/forthy42/gforth/blob/master/regexp.fs)

~~~
siraben
Here's a toy parser generator I wrote that works for context-free
languages[0].

[0] [https://github.com/siraben/meta-yacc](https://github.com/siraben/meta-
yacc)

------
ChrisMarshallNY
Argh. BNF. I had enough of that to last me a lifetime by 1986 (I used to do
X.400 stuff).

That said, it’s pretty cool.

------
DonHopkins
Oh wow, that's old school, and brings me back. I haven't thought of "SMUDGE"
in a long time! One thing I love about FORTH is how completely off-the-wall
and arbitrary some of the words are, even weirder than LISP's CAR and CDR.
Most modern FORTH don't have SMUDGE any more, which has been replaced by HIDE
and REVEAL.

Perl programmers may savor and fetishize their weird arbitrary unreadable code
like letter-sparse sigil-saturated line noise, but Perl can't hold a candle to
the subtle beauty and enigmatically punctuated surrealistic symmetry of FORTH
code:

        8 : BNF:   [COMPILE] : SMUDGE COMPILE <BNF ; IMMEDIATE
        9 : ;BNF   COMPILE BNF> SMUDGE [COMPILE] ; ; IMMEDIATE

>b) Line 9 shows a recursive production, <S>. During the definition of a
production, its name is automatically unSMUDGEd.

Of course it's still possible to write self documenting FORTH code:

        : C(-; LICK SMILE NOSE WINK ;

comp.lang.forth: Why smudge?

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.lang.forth/olO-...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.lang.forth/olO-
VHXJa1Q%5B1-25%5D)

>Does "smudge" have any other use than to stop the current word being found
during a dictionary lookup? If not, then its only use would seem to be to
allow a word to be defined in terms of another (older) word with the same
name. Are there some useful things that can be done with this ability that
make up for the (minor) extra complication?

My other favorite (and much more useful and powerful for metaprogramming)
FORTH words are <BUILDS and DOES>, but <BUILDS has been replaced by CREATE
now, so they don't look as cool when used together.

[http://amforth.sourceforge.net/TG/recipes/Builds.html](http://amforth.sourceforge.net/TG/recipes/Builds.html)

<BUILDS is the older sibling of CREATE. It has been in use in pre-ANSI Forth’s
and is still around as an supplemental tool. It is a parsing word that takes
the next word from the input source and creates a dictionary entry in the
current word list. Unlike CREATE it does not add an execution token. Thus the
word list entry created is unfinished and calling it will crash the system.

The definition of the word list entry is finished with the DOES> section, that
makes the word list entry a proper callable word.

The big advantage over CREATE is that CREATE requires a rewrite of the
contents of the execution token. That is on microcontrollers with the flash
based dictionary only possible if a single cell can be re-programmed. The
Atmegas can do that with little efforts, the MSP430 lacks essential ressources
to do so.

From the programming perspective there are no differences. <BUILDS can safely
replace CREATE in defining words that contain a DOES> section as well. All
other occurances of CREATE should remain unchanged.

        : constant create , does> @i ;
        \ or
        : constant <builds , does> @i ;

~~~
dvdkhlng
> Most modern FORTH don't have SMUDGE any more, which has been replaced by
> HIDE and REVEAL.

I think, the modern Forths (i.e. since 1994 ANS Forth standard) need neither
HIDE nor REVEAL as these are made superflous by RECURSE.

Other edge cases could be handled using a mechanism like DEFER [1] (which can
be implemented in terms of ANS Standard words).

Just looking through the manual, even the modern Gforth has something like
RECURSIVE [2] which is just a differently named implementation of REVEAL.

[1] [http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/Docs-
html/Defe...](http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/Docs-
html/Deferred-Words.html) [https://forth-
standard.org/standard/core/RECURSE](https://forth-
standard.org/standard/core/RECURSE) [2]
[http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/Docs-
html/Call...](http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/Docs-html/Calls-
and-returns.html#Calls-and-returns)

~~~
DonHopkins
One thing I love about SMUDGE is that SMUDGING again undoes the effect. If
only that worked for my glasses.

DEFER is great! But the word that resolves it should have been named REFED.

------
java-man
When I coded a Forth virtual machine in 8080 assembly in 1985, I soon realized
Forth is a write-only language.

Fun, but totally unusable for a mediocre programmer like myself.

~~~
haolez
It has less syntax than any other language and it's very good for making a
thin DSL layer above your hardware. Please share your experience on this :)

~~~
anadem
"My" FORTH was done in 6502 assembler, and used for a water company records
and billing system which included interfaces for the company to get the local
water flow rates! The meters reported with synthetic voices. Back then BT
owned the phone system and were very resistant to letting us pass data from
the flow meters to the head office: was it voice or was it data? We argued
over that for weeks.

~~~
java-man
I am almost afraid to ask: is it still in operation? Some of these systems are
kept for surprisingly long time (don't fix if it ain't broken)


Falcon 9 attempts ocean platform landing - butwhy
http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/12/16/x-marks-spot-falcon-9-attempts-ocean-platform-landing
======
annapurna
"During previous attempts, we could only expect a landing accuracy of within
10km. For this attempt, we’re targeting a landing accuracy of within 10
meters."

I thought previous landing accuracy was more than 10km. Regardless, it's
highly impressive that they are working to improve the accuracy by 1000x. I'm
curious if this accuracy improvement is a combination of the grid fins and the
autonomous spaceport drone ship (with the ship constantly communicating with
the Falcon to be an "easier" target).

~~~
smackfu
It could also be a matter of "expected" vs "actual."

------
alexggordon
This is an absolutely huge test. Musk's entire vision for SpaceX[0] involves
cheap, reusable spaceflight, simply because there’s no other way to colonize a
different planet without it. According to Musk, abandoning “disposable” rocket
technology would result in a 100 fold reduction of the cost of rocket
launches[1]. While it might not be that significant, I fully believe than NASA
could utilize the minute budget it has much better without throwing away
millions of dollars of technology every launch.

Based on that, landing this rocket perfectly is the proof Musk needs to show
the world he can launch that rocket again in 10 hours, essentially turning
rocket launches into a daily—not monthly—occurrence.

Musk’s vision aside, it would be so cool to land a fucking rocking on floating
object in the middle of the ocean. It’s basically a reverse missile maneuver.
They’re not ramming the object, they’re just gently touching down, but with
all the more accuracy.

[0] [http://www.space.com/25636-spacex-reusable-rocket-test-
elon-...](http://www.space.com/25636-spacex-reusable-rocket-test-elon-
musk.html) [1] [http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/npc-luncheon-with-elon-
mu...](http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/npc-luncheon-with-elon-
musk-2011-09-29) (paragraph 13)

~~~
smackfu
For efficient re-usability, you need at least three things. The first is
reliable launches that don't have lots of delays. The second is reliable
recovery. The third is efficient readying for another launch.

That last one is trickier than people think. It was the main thing that
stopped shuttles from launching faster, for instance. It took months of work
to verify that all the systems were as reliable as they were before launch. It
will be interesting to see how SpaceX handles that.

~~~
antimagic
The shuttle is in no way comparable with the SpaceX solution. The shuttle was
notoriously slow for turn around because it was a massively complicated
machine that had to be man-rated. A Falcon 9 first stage is a much simpler
machine. On top of that, the shuttle had to go through re-entry, with all of
the G forces, and thermal shock associated with that. The Falcon 9 first stage
has neither of these problems.

~~~
jcoby
The Falcon 9 still has to deal with heat cycles, vibration, and soot/chemicals
byproducts from the engines. The heat cycles and vibration lead to work
hardening and cracking or softening of components. Soot can and will get into
everything and destroy bearings and connectors.

Even the spray from the ocean combined with the heat from the latent heat in
the craft can lead to accelerated corrosion.

They're shooting for a final touchdown speed of 2m/s which seems fairly slow
but that's still a lot of mass to stop very quickly. The ocean helps soften
touchdown for sure.

It would not surprise me if the turn around procedure was to r&r the entire
bottom third of the craft and (possibly) the fuel tanks. The removed
components could get inspected and rebuilt and flown again.

It won't be anywhere near the scale of the shuttle turn around but it won't be
as simple as hosing it off and fueling it up.

SpaceX has of course considered all of these things and it will be an amazing
thing for space travel if they pull it off.

~~~
Crito
> Even the spray from the ocean

The ultimate goal is to land at least most of the cores on land, not the
barge, in part to avoid this.

------
techdragon
Damn I can't wait for this. Its going to be great. Will be interesting to see
how the grid fins go. I'm wondering if there could be any trouble from
generating too much load from drag while they are in supersonic flow as
opposed to high subsonic flow and hypersonic flow where they are known to work
fine.

If i were to guess, I would imagine they are going to deploy the fins after or
during the 2nd burn / the retro propulsion burn, so that they can only open
them after the reach their target speed.

Course I'm probably wrong since I have no idea just where in the powered
return flight plan they are supersonic, and they could actually be using the
drag from the fins to 'slow down faster' and have engineered the fins to deal
with the drag load. Which wouldn't surprise me, but will impress me if its the
case.

~~~
antubbs
There's been Russian military use of grid fins on supersonic rockets and
missiles for many decades. It's my understanding that supersonic flow is not a
problem, rather transonic (mercifully a relatively short period on either an
accelerating or decelerating rocket) behavior is the problem.

------
FD3SA
The SpaceX launch manifest states that their next mission is Dec. 16, and
hasn't been updated to reflect their schedule change to Dec. 19th:

[http://spacexstats.com/mission.php?launch=19](http://spacexstats.com/mission.php?launch=19)

I know I'll be glued to the livecast for this one. If this works, it'll be the
greatest (early) Christmas present of all time.

------
phkahler
Its very interesting how they get to use commercial flights to do landing
tests. If 50 years from now rockets are reusable and there is competition,
they'll be depending on the cost saving of reuse. Any new competitor will be
at a significant disadvantage. It's development that is dirt cheap by todays
standards, but will be considered expensive in the future.

~~~
taf2
How to do it will also be easier to learn about because it would presumably be
done and published either openly or as a patent. People working in the field
would know how to do it lowering the barrier to entry - hopefully making the
high costs to study and research today pay dividends to the rocket industry.
You are correct it would increase the cost to do similar research. Hopefully
though the economy of the sector will be so much larger one off rearch focused
launches can be easily done with the excess capital... At least that's my
hope.

~~~
oroup
SpaceX does not file patents. [1] The assumption is that the protection
offered by the patent is outweighed by the downside of giving your competitor
a roadmap of how you did it. My guess is that just knowing it can be done will
be a huge part of enabling someone else to develop similar technology.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-
patents-2012-11](http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11)

------
iandanforth
Can anyone shed more light on how the "four hypersonic grid fins" work? Why
are they grids and not very small fins?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Watching their example video I'm guessing they act as steerable "fins" where
the working area of the fin is spread across a number of "vanes". Not clear if
there are two degrees of freedom or just one for each one.

As the rocket travels through the air each one can be rotated on its axis
perpendicular to the body of the rocket. If all are rotated the same way they
would impart a spin, if two were rotated one way and other two rotated the
opposite direction they would simply slow the rocket down. If two adjacent
ones are counter rotated the provide drag on one side (imparting a pitch
change).

I was thoroughly impressed when I saw the video, that is a really cool
technique.

~~~
mitchty
On the second video they show them gimbaling towards the rocket and down as
well as rotating so I think they have at least 2 degrees of freedom to aide in
control alongside the engine gimbal.

------
sparkzilla
Stupid question probably: Why are they trying to land it on a tiny barge in
the sea, instead of trying to land on land?

~~~
Gravityloss
1\. You launch eastwards so you get the bonus speed from earth's rotation.

2\. You launch over the ocean (or other sparsely populated areas) for safety
purposes. All rockets so far have dropped stages or engines on the way.

3\. To get to orbit, you have to do mostly horizontal acceleration (8 km/s or
so). That's why the rocket points eastwards soon after launching, and staging
happens already far from the launch site and why the first stage has a lot of
horizontal velocity towards east. You don't want to fly a dog-leg as that
wastes energy.

~~~
trose
You have some valid points but I think you may be incorrect on this one.

> 1\. You launch eastwards so you get the bonus speed from earth's rotation

Once the ship leaves the ground the earth's rotation has little to do with the
flight except for landing location.

source: I play KSP

~~~
Gravityloss
In Florida (28 degrees north) the earth surface travels at 400 m/s eastwards.
(earth circumference * cos(28) / day)

A spacecraft that would launch from the ground and start _westwards_ , would,
after gaining the first 400 m/s relative to its starting point only be
stationary relative to the earth's center. Then after 800 m/s, it would travel
at 400 m/s westwards. Say if your orbital velocity is 8.0 km/s. Your total
delta vee would be 8.4 km/s.

In comparison, an _eastward_ flying rocket would start from 0.4 km/s , and
would need rocket propulsion only for the remaining 7.6 km/s. A 10% saving
compared to the westward rocket!

In reality it's a bit more complex as you don't launch straight east or west
anyway, and ISS is at a 50 degree inclination etc...

~~~
peeters
Exactly, and this is maximized by putting launch sites close to the equator.
This is one reason why the European Space Agency launches from South America,
by the way:

> Kourou lies at latitude 5°3', just over 500 km north of the equator. Its
> nearness to the equator makes it ideally placed for launches into
> geostationary transfer orbit as few changes have to be made to a satellite’s
> trajectory.

> Launchers also profit from the ‘slingshot’ effect, that is the energy
> created by the speed of the Earth’s rotation around the axis of the Poles.
> This increases the speed of a launcher by 460 m per second. These important
> factors save fuel and money, and prolong the active life of satellites.

[http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Launchers/Europe_s_Spacepo...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Launchers/Europe_s_Spaceport/Europe_s_Spaceport2)

------
anseljh
Hilarious watching neighboring cows freak out at 2:26 and 4:23 of the grid fin
test video.

~~~
HackinOut
Well not your regular cows, they surely belong to a spacex farmer! :D
[http://www.spacex.com/careers/position/5749](http://www.spacex.com/careers/position/5749)

~~~
riffraff
wait, why would they need this? Is this a joke I'm not getting?

~~~
prawn
Discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8679855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8679855)

~~~
riffraff
awesome, thanks.

------
annythesillicat
Will we see the barge landing live on webcast?

~~~
andygates
r/spacex think almost certainly not - it's definitely going to be filmed and
usually that footage gets released, but previous cams on the test stages
didn't transmit live. The actual mission's likely to get the livestream.

OTOH, it would be incredibly cool to cut to the barge and a dainty,
Gernsbackian landing. So, who knows?

~~~
smackfu
This is where you can really tell that SpaceX is a private company. If
something has a chance of going wrong, and they can avoid live-streaming it,
they will.

------
rhia
Why is SpaceX not using a shuttle design? From a layman's perspective, having
something that basically works like an aeroplane would be much easier to get
reusable, or am I missing something here?

~~~
madaxe_again
Because you have to haul up a great big airframe, and you need a landing
strip, and you limit your configuration.

With this variety of thing you can strap multiple first-stage rockets
together, blast a great big payload into space, and then the first stages
return safely for rapid re-use - while your payload stays up.

The space shuttle had a pretty small payload bay, and only came in the one
configuration - no flexibility, like this provides.

Also, with a passively slowed vessel, like a shuttle, you have a huge amount
of heat to dissipate, which requires thermal tiles (yet more mass and refit
each launch), whereas this slows in several burns throughout re-entry, meaning
that the thermal stresses are nothing like you have on a shuttle re-entry.

------
kurokikaze
When will it happen? I cannot seem to find this info in the article.

~~~
jccooper
Who knows? Weather and technical issues can scrub a launch, which is why they
don't say in their PR materials. But it's scheduled for Friday 19 Dec. 1:22
pm.

[https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/events/2014/december/laun...](https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/events/2014/december/launch-
falcon9-crs5.aspx)

------
italophil
I always wonder how much fuel this rocket needs for landing and if this
reduces the maximum payload compared to the disposable Falcon 9. Find they
ever release that information?

~~~
avian
> In order to make the Falcon 9 reusable and return to the launch site, extra
> propellant and landing gear must be carried on the first stage, requiring
> around a 30 percent reduction of the maximum payload to orbit in comparison
> with the expendable Falcon 9.

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_reusable_launch_system_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_reusable_launch_system_development_program#Economic_issues)

~~~
madaxe_again
But the point is that by making the stage re-usable, you significantly cut
your cost/kg, meaning that even with a decreased capacity it's more cost
effective, as you could do several launches rather than just one to lift
whatever.

Of course, also bear in mind that this isn't technology just for the Falcon 9
- this is the test-bed. Once we have the systems in place for a reusable first
stage, this can be applied to the heavy (which of course uses falcon 9's), and
other future generations of craft.

Until we've got SSTO spaceplanes or space elevators, this is pretty much as
good as it gets.

------
iamcreasy
Anyone knows if we can see the retropropulsion form Florida coast via naked
eye?

~~~
ceejayoz
Not a chance. Here's the map:
[https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERV...](https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERVk.koWeOnV6-O-o)

------
marak830
Wow. I really hop they nail this landing (if not this timw then next time). A
very interesting read, ill have to make a calendar entry tobkeep an eye on the
news!

------
robertfw
One thing I have not seen - what are the plans post-landing? Has there been
any information on how they plan on securing the landed booster?

~~~
jccooper
I think for previous flights they've had couple of ships outfitted for stage
recovery, in case they were able to pluck them out of the ocean. Presumably
one of those can go pick it up off the barge. Or maybe just tie it down and
tow the barge home.

------
smegel
Can someone explain to me the value of landing a tall, cylindrical rocket
vertically like this?

It just seems like such an odd thing to do.

~~~
DuskStar
Rockets are extremely weak in any direction other than straight up/down. The
reinforcement to allow a Falcon 9 core to even lay on its side unpressurised
would probably weigh more than the entire set of recovery hardware (legs, grid
fins, extra rcs fuel, etc) to land vertically.

~~~
marktangotango
Falcon 9 stages are stored on their sides unpressurized, see any of the
numerous roll out videos, and factory images. There are launchers that require
pressurization for handling (atlas 5?) but falcon is not one. Musk has
mentioned this as a cost reduction and simplification withyou respect to
encumbent providers, don't have a link unfortunately.

~~~
outworlder
Yeah. But storing and gently moving are one thing. Flying and landing
horizontally would require much more structural reinforcement.

~~~
XorNot
Bingo it's all about dynamic pressure: to be reusable the hull of the rocket
has to land intact and not having undergone plastic deformation of any kind,
so it's as close to "factory condition" as possible.

------
RoboTeddy
What portion of the fuel in the rocket is burned to slow down and land?

~~~
duskwuff
Very little, actually. Most of the weight of the rocket is fuel; once it's hit
its target altitude, it weighs practically nothing, and takes very little fuel
to land.

~~~
motoboi
It weights so little that, in fact, they have to use just one engine, and
throttle it down to its minimum.

------
curiously
curious why don't they deploy parachutes or floatables and then slowly do a
controlled descent using the rockets? I mean is this most efficient way of
landing the rocket, essentially going backwards on re-entry? What if the
rocket catches a gust of wind and flips on its side? Bad weather?

~~~
InclinedPlane
For exactly the same reason that doesn't happen when landing an airplane, it's
not efficient, it's complex, it's error prone. Parachutes means you have a
_recovery zone_ not a precision landing. Efficiency is all about operational
efficiency, and fuel is the cheapest thing in the whole system. Burning a
little fuel so that you can have a fully powered, highly controlled, high
precision landing means that you are able to recover tens of millions of
dollars of spacecraft reliably, and that's far more important than saving a
few dollars in fuel. Precisely the same reason why airplanes do powered
landings even though they have wings and it would be far, far easier for them
to coast to a landing without using parachutes or whatnot.

As for wind, the rocket isn't going to be launched if there's a risk of high
wind gusts regardless, and most anything else the vehicle is capable of
compensating for with its thrust and fins.

~~~
outworlder
They might use drag chutes after touchdown however.


Esperanto is not dead: Can the universal language make a comeback? - hyperlingo
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/13/413968033/esperanto-is-not-dead-can-the-universal-language-make-a-comeback?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150613

======
JohnyLy
I personally think the language will become bigger and bigger in schools as it
helps to understand latin languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Romania and
Portuguese). I believe in the future it will be more taught in classes than
now but I don't think it will ever become one of the main languages.

------
Tomte
Personally I'd be more interested in a renaissance of the Latin language. I
think it's the "logical" trans-national language for Europe (and that's mostly
enough for me).

------
dang
Recently about Esperanto:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9625048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9625048).


Glossary of Stand Up Comedy Terms - rfreytag
https://stand-upcomedy.com/glossary-of-stand-up-comedy-terms/
======
DyslexicAtheist
I'm a big fan of stand-up. I love the old stuff a lot (Richard Pryor, Billy
Connolly, Bill Bailey) and I'm happy to see so much emerging talent that has
hit the scene in the past decade with smart+critical content. (Sarah
Silverman, Bo Burnham)

My fav one right now is Stewart Lee. He is often called the _" comedian's
comedian"_ and I think people here appreciate smart content so you might enjoy
him. ("Content Provider" is his latest show
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1UCt5iItcw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1UCt5iItcw)
Stewart Lee is incredibly smart without being overly offensive - something
that gets old after some time (e.g. Jimmy Carr or Franky Boyle I both like but
it's a bit shallow imo and lacks an overreaching arc in their story).

Lee is more demanding than shows that are made for mass-audiences (Michael
Macintyre, etc) and will probably always remain on the fringe. He also has
some great tips about writing vs not writing.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrXVaytvJtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrXVaytvJtQ)
incredibly intelligent guy which seems to defy all the traditional rules of
the trade. He also helped Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett become popular with
"The Mighty Boosh" material at the Edinburgh fringe. (TMB is incredibly
obscure but once hooked people usually either love it or hate it (it's hard to
feel just partial about it).

~~~
mlevental
>Sarah Silverman, Bo Burnham

i don't mean to start a fight but neither of these comedians are even remotely
smart or critical (re silverman the episode of louie on fx about marc maron
where she describes her own humor as "gee did i do that" and burnham is a meme
star).

i'm surprised you appreciate pryor and lump them in with him. in my humble
opinion you almost have to be poor and black to be funny these days because
really good comedy is about transgression (with a few standout exceptions like
mitch hedberg/steven wright) and there's nothing transgressive about people in
power either taking pot shots or being purely critical. it's why dennis miller
was never funny (and nor is bill mahr). you have to be outside of power for a
criticism to be transgressive. this is why chappelle's last two standups were
hollow - he's too fat, too rich, too comfortable. go back to first hbo special
where he talks about the hypocrisy of the lewinsky scandal, or to his second
(post chappelle show) special where he talks about incongruence of how the
media treated elizabeth smart and erica pratt. in his most recent special his
attempt to contextualize cosby drew eye rolls because it's quite plausible he
himself will be eventually accused (this is not a statement about his moral
character but simply his relationship to power).

but of course it can't be purely criticism right - there has to be showmanship
and surprises and vulnerability.

i think hands down the funniest comic of the last 10 was patrice o neal. i've
watched his last special probably 15 times and what i admire about him is that
he gets you to be complicit in the transgression (e.g. the value of a white
woman bit, gender roles in the office, relationship dynamics) by a sort of
socratic dialogue where the you yourself actually (by virtue of acceding)
deliver the punchline. he's also incredibly smart and vulnerable in that show
in discussing his diabetes and similar challenges most people face with things
like work ethic. sadly he died in 2011.

and yes both chappelle and o neal are raucously vulgar but it's directly in
the service of punchline, rather than the punchline itself.

louis ck was an exception in that he was white and male and etc and still
funny but only because he often identified with power (e.g. the picking white
vs black joke). it was in that identification that you grew to trust him over
course of the show and warmed up to the more absurd jokes (like fucking a dead
kid and bag of dicks). he also was very clever in how he revealed the
irrationality of culture (raising my kids gay and cutting grass around gay
people on your lawn). but now (after his scandal) he's not relatable anymore.
listen to his leaked special where he tries to pretend to be ashamed of not
being as politically active as the parkland kids and it's hollow - you end up
suspecting that he really doesn't empathize with them.

~~~
james_s_tayler
Where do you place Bill Burr?

He's the stereotypical 'oppressor' as one might consider it these days, but
his joke about moms having the hardest job in the world where he says 'Really?
How many moms died on the last season of Ice Road Truckers?' cracked me up.
Maybe it's funny because he's just so willing to transgress that it's almost
refreshing.

~~~
Fezzik
I rank Bill Burr as a top comic right now - his off the cuff wit is just
fantastic. He did election coverage with a bunch of other seasoned comics and
had them all in fits for the entire ordeal. His podcast is the same: him just
being hilarious about everything. And his interviews are awkward and brilliant
at the same time.

The one classic comedic tool I think he lacks is jokes that reference
themselves within bits (Eddie Murphy was great at this).

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
> "The one classic comedic tool I think he lacks is jokes that reference
> themselves within bits (Eddie Murphy was great at this)."

I miss that too. Guess not every comedian uses all tools from the box
consistently. If you don't mind artists with "funny accents" :) then Ross
Noble (guy from Manchester living in Australia) and Billy Connolly are
brilliant in this. Ross Noble is a genius in the way he spins elaborate
stories and plots inside the mind of his audiences. His flavor is also often
surreal (e.g. never put a blanket over an owl
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFA7_Q-
tpHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFA7_Q-tpHg) ... <\-- needs to be
watched as a whole to see his back-referencing and layering ... but just to
give a taste) ...

------
gkoberger
I've gotten really into standup, since it fills a weird niche. I love
listening to people who care about their craft talk about it (like Jiro or
Chef's Table, for example), however that's often hard to come by... except for
comedians! Since their job is to talk, and they all tend to be pretty free
during the day, there's thousands of hours of comedians talking about their
craft online.

If you're looking to get started with a podcast, I recommend WTF, You Made It
Weird, Good One and The Old Ones. Guests worth listening to (on any podcast)
are John Mulaney, Bo Burnham, Mike Birbiglia, Conan O'Brien [1], Bill Burr,
Louis CK on WTF (I know I know), and Kumail Nanjiani/Emily Gordon. And all
three Harris Wittels episodes of You Made It Weird are heartbreakingly worth
listening to.

[1]
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2eoAIsZClo4bnlNM3JCb0hoSlU...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2eoAIsZClo4bnlNM3JCb0hoSlU/view)

~~~
retsibsi
The Comedian's Comedian podcast
([http://www.comedianscomedian.com/](http://www.comedianscomedian.com/)) is
another take on exactly that: comedians talking about their craft. The guests
come from all over the world, but the host (Stuart Goldsmith) is English and
so it skews a bit more in that direction. Recommended guests depend on your
taste, but I think most people would find the Stewart Lee episode interesting.
The Jimmy Carr episode was also very enjoyable -- surprisingly so to me, as I
always considered his standup rather cynical, crude, mean-spirited. Getting a
peek behind the curtain changed my perspective a bit. Of recent episodes, my
favourite was probably the one with (Finnish stand-up comedian) Ismo.

A couple of others that half-qualify:

* Adam Buxton's podcast is much sillier and more of a banter/chat show, but a lot of his guests are comedians so they sometimes cover similar ground.

* Richard Herring (Leicester Square Theatre Podcast) is at least as silly as Buxton and much cruder, but again, many of his guests are comedians and occasionally the conversation is surprisingly insightful.

------
fitzroy
cached version:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190202141614/https://stand-
upc...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190202141614/https://stand-
upcomedy.com/glossary-of-stand-up-comedy-terms/)

------
stblack
Thank goodness for reader view.

------
defen
Walk the room: Offend the audience so much or bomb so badly that everyone
walks out.

------
thebesthacker
I've heard comic groupies also referred to as "Chucklesluts"