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Space

Blue Origin Rocket Exploded Thursday Night During Hot-Fire Test (cbsnews.com) 73

Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames."

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." (SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted "Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.")

It's unclear how this will impact future launches. "The rocket was destroyed," reports CBS News, "and as the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the erector-gantry used to move the New Glenn from its hangar to the pad and to raise it from horizontal to vertical. Likewise, one of two tall lightning towers was no longer visible." It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016... Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test. The New Glenn, which has launched three times, is a heavy lift rocket designed to compete head-to-head with SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During New Glenn's most recent flight in April, an upper stage malfunction prevented a commercial internet satellite from reaching its planned orbit...

The New Glenn destroyed Thursday was to send 48 Leo internet satellites owned by Amazon into space [which were not on board for the hot-fire test]

Blue Origin posted on X.com that "Debris from our recent hotfire anomaly may wash ashore in the coming days/weeks. If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety."

"Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult..." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X.com. "âWe will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader symbolset for sharing the news.

Comment Re: Grundfos? (Score 1) 60

If "The vibrations can be heard in the entire home" then it's still wrong. It maybe the wrong type somehow, but I'm thinking it's probably way oversized and so working too hard to push way too much water through the pipes. If the run is really 300ft (you must live in a huge house...) then maybe the pipe itself is undersized or so poorly insulated they need to keep the flow unreasonably high. in any case, sorry for your situation but it ain't right.

Standard controls for domestic recirc is a timer and return temp thermostat. Pump only runs during set times and only if the water in the return pipe near the water heater is below a set temp. so it'd be cycling on and off throughout the day.

If your house is really that large then I'd have recommended what I usually do for light commercial buildings and retrofits; a demand recirc system. This is really close to what you describe with the motion control sensors etc. in that the recirc only runs when there is anticipation of hot water demand, but typically there is a tiny pump near each point of use which uses the cold water supply as the recirc return until it senses the water is getting warm. This also eliminates the need for a third recirc line, which is great for retrofits. If at some point in the future you decide to try something again, it's a strategy worth considering.
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Comment Re:Pinball machines are still made (Score 2) 51

Because the original only ever existed as a video game, the proportion of the parts are not compatible with off-the-shelf parts.

So the choice is make his own components to the proper proportions and get something faithful to the game version, or completely redesign the table layout to make standard parts work.

He got a resin printer for making smooth parts where required. What he really needs, from what I've seen in the video, are more powerful solenoids.
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Comment Profits? (Score 1) 151

"the pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs."

This, we only need to settle on what profits are justifiable. And ignore the 'systematically', I doubt it much matters how the jobs are 'sacrificed'. In fact, delete 'sacrificed', 'eliminate' so do just fine here.

Technology has repeatedly changed the workforce, with winners and losers.

Comment Re:This is great. (Score 0) 71

> you're really splitting hairs, that's not what is meant. a serial port is very much the physical rs232 "connector" or an emulation of it.

Key word "or an emulation of it." From the software point of view, all it's doing is sending and receiving bits at some baud rate. The physical hardware interface no longer matters. That's kind of the whole point of these things. Beyond the hardware interface, modern keyboard and mouse speak exactly the same protocol as they have since the PS/2 days. In fact USB keyboards usually still have PS/2 port hardware in them, which is why you can use those USB-PS/2 adapters (which are entirely passive).

They don't "identify as" serial devices. The are serial devices. Always have been. It's not unthinkable that a poorly made device could be vulnerable to a firmware hack and not unthinkable that giving javascript access to serial ports could be a vector for such an attack. Not even hard to imagine a fancy keyboard with programmable RGB lights or OLED displays (that definitely have microcontrollers capable of executing arbitrary code) getting exploited.

> of course, which is why the browser asks the user for permission to acces all these devices!

That's a strange way to admit you don't know how security vulnerabilities work. "There's no way someone could get in uninvited; there's a lock on the door!"

> they can already do that.

Maybe? But adding a system where javascript can directly and explicitly interact with serial ports is definitely not going to make doing it any harder, is it?
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Comment Re:This is great. (Score 0) 71

> this api is about ports that everyday hardware (like e.g. mice and keyboards) hasn't used for decades,

If by "decades" you mean to this very day. A serial port is not the physical connector. Your keyboard is almost certainly USB (no points for guessing what the "S" in "USB" stands for). It presents as a serial device at the hardware and OS level, like all USB devices do. If your OS puts it into a special category and doesn't explicitly label it as a serial device, that still doesn't mean it's not a serial device.

Now, whether or not any particular mouse or keyboard actually has a vulnerability where they have firmware available to be overwritten is an entirely different subject... but it's not unthinkable some devices may be exploited in such a way.

I can definitely see some shenanigans where a malicious website uses this as a vector to keylog. That's *already* well within the realm of plausible exploits, even without the WebSerial API. This is just another surface to attack.
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Comment Re:Mathematician commentary included (Score 2) 83

As I've pointed out before, I have an actual PhD in number theory. I've explicitly discussed here specific results which are due to me and linked even to one of my papers before. You should be able to think that maybe, just maybe, people who are subject matter experts might know what they are talking about, and maybe know something you don't. But for some reason that possibility seems to be one you immediately and completely discount.

Comment Re:Hmmmmm... (Score 5, Informative) 65

Nothing.

There is a 30 year old law that prohibits releasing audio from aircraft black boxes. They accidentally "released" the audio by publishing a spectrograph, which is effectively a violation of the law.

So now they're going through all their stuff making sure they aren't accidentally releasing data they are legally prohibited from releasing.

No conspiracy needed.
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Comment Re:Mixed feelings (Score 2) 81

> Remember this part? "Privacy? ...

I do. In fact I even quoted it in my message, which you clearly didn't read.

"They can already track you, so we might as well make it easier for them" is not the persuasive argument you think it is. Just so you know, historically, you can lick that boot until you can see your own reflection in it and it's still gonna stomp on you. Literally any resistance is better than the rolling over you are clearly so eager to do.
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Comment Re:Average is doing a lot of work there (Score 1) 27

My first thought was, "So three CEOs got $10B each and everyone else gets a $5 gift card and some pizza."

Of course, the bonuses are in the form of stocks that only a third of which can be sold right away, so they're not actually paying the workers a bonus just the promise of a bonus with the caveat that the bonus value is tied to the ephemeral value of the company months or years from now and not on the actual labor that was already performed or value already created.
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Comment Re:Mixed feelings (Score 2) 81

I don't know if you noticed, but you're just as likely to BE kidnapped through the use of these systems than be saved from a kidnapping. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people give power to fascists under the guise of law enforcement. There can't possibly be a better tool for a fascist regime to quash dissent than the ability to identify and track individuals nationwide. Hope you never turn out for a protest, or even be in the wrong place at the wrong time to but Uncle Sam reason to think it's worth getting rid of you.

> Without the tech, cops will be driving around all day hoping to spot him walking his dog.

And with the tech they'll at best arrest the wrong person, with the very real risk that they'll murder them or a bystander in the process because, y'know, American cops are prone to shooting first and asking questions later.

https://www.businessinsider.co...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cou...

https://coloradosun.com/2025/1...

https://www.dailyjournal.com/a...

https://www.americanpartisan.o...

And that's before we consider that cops may (and absolutely will) intentionally abuse the system to stalk people.

https://www.theguardian.com/co...

> Privacy? We all handed that over on a silver plate wearing butler gloves when we signed the service contract for your internet and your cell phone

Yes, but you can still leave your cell phone at home. Really hard to leave your FACE at home (And if you think the cameras can or will only ever read license plates you're delusional). So if you recognize the problem, why are you so gung ho about making it orders of magnitude worse?

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