CatastrophicFailure

I could never be a teacher, I’d use this line way too much. With full costume and theatrics. “Uh oh, someone’s flunking, prof’s got his good robes on today… “ Don’t trouble yourself too much, English is a silly language. Shall is more just formal these days, or for trying unsuccessfully to sound overly British.

High thrust, lousy ISP.

So speaking of tanks on the highway, today I had to venture down here: And of course by that I mean downtown Seattle. Of course, took the opportunity to try giving Full Self Drive beta a real challenge… aaaand that was a complete non-starter. Wigged out as usual on the I-5 express lanes, which according to every nav system ever do not actually exist. Couldn’t get more than a hundred yards in the city before disengaging, the city planners down there have a long line of… shall we say altered consciousness… Absolutely cannot blame the car tho, it’s like driving with a frazzled teenager, and having once been a frazzled teenager in Downtown I can’t say I did much better. A tank would have been nice, tho. Then it was on to the traditional yearly Costco trip, because sometimes you just need that 55-gallon drum of mayonnaise and pallet of paper towels. One of the few times I really miss my old so-big-the-S-end-has-it’s-own-zip-code SUV. Nothing like vehicular Tetris in the pouring rain. Had to stop and laugh at all the people idling in line waiting for gas tho. Not because I have an EV, but because the AM/PM up the street is always like 5 or 10 cents cheaper.

After Tory gets his engines I would think…

This is mostly rhetorical but… will that ball even fit in a Soyuz fairing?

Crank up the damping on the chopsticks maybe? SS is smaller, that gives more distance to slow a fall… if they can really catch it…

MechaKraken.

So, finally got my FSD beta yesterday. And then lost it. And then got it again. Because apparently this happened: Beta software gonna beta, but yeesh, it was dang near undrivable for a stretch there, FSD or no. And now that I’ve had a couple drives with it… yeah, it’s kinda like driving with a flustered 16 year old at the wheel. This should be interesting. but it does seem to have finally stopped diving into turn lanes.

How to toilet train your Dragon…

Yup… demand problem all right…

Because that’s slow, and ultimately more expensive. You learn more from, ahem, integrated systems testing. Keep in mind, this isn’t the first time they’ve fired Starship with tiles attached. This has been an ongoing campaign since what, SN8? 9?

I had to look it up… Raptor exhaust velocity 3.26 km/s, lunar escape velocity 2.38 km/s, so… seems plausible…

…Flipper? thanked him for all the fish…

Better yet, just have Starship hover over the surface and excavate it’s own hole.

Well, looks like the install was indeed a success.

Things You Can’t Tow with a Tesla, Episode… er, 3. 4200lb bucket lift. Ok, this one I actually felt. High CoM, narrow track, and surge brakes makes it a bit but a new personal best for the “glorified golf cart.” And then a weekend of risking life and limb to do things I prolly shoulda just hired a professional to do, but tree limbs can’t be that heavy, right? let me just lean way over with this here chainsaw in one hand, what could possibly go wrong? Tho I’ll say I dunno how those SpaceX guys on the 150-foot lifts do it, I was never more than maybe 20 feet up and just… yeesh…

So you’re saying… someone needs to start a “what funny/interesting thing happened in some random stranger’s life at some point in the past” thread?

BO's former PR guy: BO's new PR guy: [ominous heavy breathing]

Disenchanted, former, and would-be fans...

Kinda been their whole MO lately…

Wow… So… got an email from the Through the Looking Glass forum about a reply to an old post of mine… very old… If anyone’s ever played the Thief series of sneak games (kind of created the genre), originally from Looking Glass Studios, back in the day I cobbled a few fan missions together.* Apparently people are still playing and enjoying them… one week shy of twenty years since the first release. Mind blown right now. Also I feel really, really old right now. My illegitimate digital child is almost of drinking age. *and by “cobbled” I mean slaved over for hours and hours a day in virtually every minute of my spare time