First, Ranger was a sequential TV system. not a "Gatling Gun of Cameras" . Someone with a movie script should certain know that, particularly since the TV system cause most of the later failures in various ways.

      There is no particularly good reason to do the near side first. The only consequential bit of added complexity is the lack of direct communications. That, too, is a long-solved problem and China has already landed on the far side and has a workable communication method. Putting that aside, all the critical events are automatic anyway, the one difference from near-side mission being a dual-burn return trajectory, but that is a relatively simple matter. If you can do one of them automatically, you can do more than one, it a few lines of software.

      Point being, the mission complexity for either location is pretty high, but only marginally more difficult than once you have a way to communicate with the lander.

      Whether it is *worth* doing is another matter, but it's vanity/tech development project, not a scientific one, so the return may be useless. Just being able to do it all is the point.

For the most part, the various levels of American law enforcment are reasonable, helpful, and rational. But that is not what gets you on the news.

Normally you would think so, but the entire specttrum is very narrow and noritiously subject to interference. This is just them not wanting to have to shield the electrical system sufficiently to avoid massive static.

I know that, I was just commenting on the notion that it would harm the range - which it will not.

      AM radio is being destroyed by other forces related to this - switching regulators and switching power supplied spew RF that caused tremendous interference, and EVs are chock full of them, including the main drive power.

I am no fan of congress regulating things into existence, but the concern over decreasing the range is utter and complete bullshit. Running an AM radio, and presuming that the power amplifier and digital interface are already there for any other audio source, takes about ** 10 milliamps **, that is 1/100th of an amp. At 12v that is a mere 0.12 watts. Turning the display screen 1 notch higher is about 10 times that, it's nothing at all and will be utterly imperceptible effect on range.

People have all the "freedom" in the world, they can use a second rate Android or other garbage phone and have all the "freedom" to do anything they want on it.

While I have been working in a very high technology industry for decades - a lot higher than the software gadget business - I don't care anything about cell phone software. I do not want to endlessly grub around in it and find the 2 things that work and 50000 things that don't. I want an appliance I am singularly uninterested in even understanding it or the software. I am paying a premium *for other people to do it for me*.

      There are far more people that only want to have a phone that works, without knowing anything about the guts, than a few zealots with a "principle" that they should be able to dick around with it. That is why Apple has been so incredibly successful, and also why no one here seems to grasp why this nonsense it so insidious.

H0w do you think they got in this position (a pathetic backwater existing on handouts and protection from the USA) in the first place? This sort of lowest common denominator thinking is exactly why they can't compete, and have to sit around thinking up ways to suck money out of successful companies.

They don't have Apple money. The EU will be around with a hand out soon enough.

Soldering it in the first time, and desoldering it safely, are two wildly different things. When you are installing it, it's easy enough to do it a pin or two at a time. To desolder it you usually need to get them all liquid at once to be able to pull it up.

      SMT soldering is something that can be done if you have enough of the right equipment. I have done it with a $100 soldering station on *rare* occasions, but that is after almost 60 years of conventional soldering experience. It is not trivial and doing it half-assed like I did carries a certain potential for disaster.

They do once the know they are under investigation and instructed to keep all relevant documents ,

I don't think they sold too many Mercedes' during World War II. Not doing business with the enemy is pretty much standard policy. And make no mistake, China is the enemy,

+1. This is just more extortion, and the EU is just a protection racket.

Security "flaw"? As it if were some accident?

Long since accomplished. It's much more expensive to make that it is to mine.

I have no problem with people making money, I have done it every day for 50+ years. But the diamond business stands is a toxic combination of all the most extreme negative cartoonish stereotypes and abuses of a capitalist system. DeBeers, etc, deserve every bad thing they have coming to them. If synthetic diamonds put them out of business tomorrow, it will be a great step forward for western society.