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Comment Re: Denmark Has a History of This Behaviour (Score 2) 40

What a load of crock.
If you want to know what caused this behaviour, google the second Schleswig war. Otto von Bismarck broke us in a way, from which we never really recovered.

On the other hand, we didnâ(TM)t fork over Greenland when tin-pot dictator wannabe Trump wanted it.

Comment Re:The problem is theft (Score 1) 178

I only rode rusty, shitty old bikes during my school and university time. I will avoid that at (almost) all cost, now that I have the dosh for a proper one. Not sure the on-line delivery times are as short (at least not around here) as you seem to believe.

These kinds of promotions aren't new. In the Netherlands and Denmark bicycles are 100% tax deductible. In Germany many work contracts will provide you with a fund for bicycles.

Not to be picky, but: I grew up in Denmark, and I'm pretty sure you can't deduct shit on bike purchases. Might be in NL, though.

Comment Re:The problem is theft (Score 5, Informative) 178

I went to a bike shop last week to order a new bike. Stock: none. Delivery date: Unknown. I'll get it in September. Maybe. Maybe the price will have changed as well. People are buying bikes like never before. Also: Luxembourg is giving up to 50%/up to 600 EUR support for *any* bike purchase. Now would be a good time not to have your bike stolen.

Comment Re:Self-driving cars (Score 1) 76

Yes, I guess there's a pretty good business case in LEO earth observation/SSO orbits for the time being. For anything else, they would have to tug the speculative German launch barge closer to equator or ask France nicely to borrow a launchpad in Kourou, French Guyana (with all the bureaucracy that entails).

Comment Re:Self-driving cars (Score 1) 76

Anybody aspiring such a job in Europe would almost without exception move to the USA.

Not entirely true. Private launcher companies are starting to surface. This one is backed by OHB group, with an already well established relationship to the EU, delivering Galileo satellites and whatnot. The UK and Germany are working on establishing launch facilities (launching over the Atlantic and the North Sea, respectively) for smaller launchers.

Comment Re: At Least It Is Not A Lawyer (Score 1) 120

I hear you. Especially some electrical engineers, and especially when they spout their own armchair physicist theories. Having been taught a little about classical physics apparently entitles them to trash quantum mechanics. I know of one talented EE who is convinced that the Ether exists. They are completely entrenched like a Trump voter, thereâ(TM)s no arguing with them. My own degree? EE (takes one to know one)

Comment And now for the real reason (Score 4, Insightful) 139

Having been in the space industry for a couple years, I have the following observations:
  1. 1. Harnessing and connector selection and cable planning is the lowest prestige job in the whole org, typically being filled with inexperienced entry-level applicants.
  2. 2. No subsystem designers, typically OBDH, comms and ADCS, or even system engineers are interested in harnessing or external interfaces. Their brains refuse to acknowledge the fact, that they need to give connectors and interfaces serious attention to detail.

When cabling and connector keying becomes an afterthought, this happens.

Comment Re:Not part of the cult... (Score 1) 274

Not the original poster, but for me it would be engineering applications. CAD, fluid dynamic simulation, electromagnetic simulators, FPGA synthesis, PCB layout tools. The professional versions of these exist, for the vast majority, on MS Windows. A handful will run on Linux as well, and very, very few on macOS. Yes, there are open source solutions for some of these, but they are almost always more clunky, more limited in functionality and have a lousy model library support.

For home and hobby use, macOS could be an option, but I find the planned obsolescence of Apple hardware to be quite annoying.

Comment Re:The problem is that energy is too expensive (Score 1) 54

Solar power on the moon sounds like a great idea until you realise that the lunar day is 708.7 hours long. So for about 350 hours the panels would be running at over 100C which reduces their efficiency, and for the next 350 hours they will be experiencing temperatures below -100C. That kind of thermal cycling is pretty hard on the connectors and cables.

Hordes of companies are aching to sell you "space grade" connectors and cabling which will withstand a wide temp cycle, radiation, vibration and even atomic oxygen in low earth orbit. Only problem being, each little component costing a fortune.

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