Camacha

Ryzen 5 has been released and is looking good. No huge surprises, but it seems the chips offer a lot of bang for buck. Absolute performance wise, they are holding their own too. It looks like AMD is a serious contender for the gamer on a normal budget, with boards and chips being feature rich and affordable. You can buy something similar to an-K i7 and a motherboard for the price of just that i7. The next year will be exciting. Everyone is still coming to grips with the new architecture and every day seems to bring new firmware that improves performance. It will also be very interesting what the first refresh will bring, when AMD has had time to tinker with their design, eliminating weak spots. They have shown this ability with the Phemom to Phenom II update. Intel seems to have taken notice too. It is hard to quickly make large changes in CPU land, but the announcement of various chips with slightly bumped specifications seems to indicate they are not feeling too sure. It will be most interesting to see what Intel comes up with the next two to three generations, or that they might even pull a Pentium D on us and cobble some chips together.

I would not recommend going for the absolute minimum. Video cards have a somewhat peculiar distribution when it comes to price. The bottom end is very close together, with cards with huge performance differences costing almost the same. Then comes the sweet spot, which contains cards that offer a lot of bang for the buck. Then there is the high end, where you will find absolute performance, but at a fairly substantial price. It seems best to go for the sweet spot, which I gather ranges from the RX 460 up to the RX 480, or the 1050 up to the 1060. Those cards also allow you to play other games well. For a bit over a hundred dollars and up, it is not going to break the bank either.

The latter should be fixed, thanks. Even though there are good reasons to monitor OS usage more closely, since the development cycle can be a lot tighter, Microsoft does it in a way that leaves a lot to be desired. Especially in corporate environments this could be a serious worry.

Microsoft finally released a full list and an abbreviated version listing the data Windows 10 collects and ships back to Microsoft. Obviously, the list being as long as it is, having no option to opt out and the fact that we had to wait quite some time before ever getting a list are all fairly unfavourable, but at least we now have a list.

Please do not tell me that Parc de distractii is Bulgarian for amusement park. That is awesome

I do not know why you are continually looking for conflict, but I have no interest in empty discussions over hollow semantics and judging by the other replies here, nor do other people. Anyone who is not a computer, and recently has not been a computer, will be capable to correctly interpret that "[...] landing rockets upright was stuff that only happened in comics and movies. It was a ridiculous science fiction fantasy [...]" refers to this: and this: and not this: Coincidentally, SpaceX did land this: The similarities and differences appear to be fairly self-explanatory. The fact that it took about 50 years to get from Stumpy Moonlandy to Rocket McUpright indicates that the difference also is more than trivial. To drive the point home, I will ask what people, even NASA people, will invariably think of when you use the words Moon rocket. Would that be this: or would they rather think of this: If you are a proper pedantic, you will point out that the term Moon rocket for the latter is a gruesome misnomer, since most of the rocket did not go to the Moon at all! The former craft surely must be the Moon rocket. The pedant will feel very smart, while the rest of the world will understand what the others meant perfectly fine, think unflattering things about the pedant behind his back and cross him off their birthday party invitation list. I must admit, you do have a flair for drama.

Okay, I will bite. They landed rocket powered craft, moon landers specifically. None of them landed a rocket upright. The difference is not even close to trivial.

Forget the private part - I never thought I would be typing that sentence in earnest - this is all about space flight and mankind as a whole. People are pretty blasé when it comes to space, but everyone forgets that we are just, just getting started. The space race was not even the birth of our endeavours; that birth is still going on. We are still figuring out how to do even the most basic things and how to keep ourselves aloft and alive. One tiny collection of even tinier tin cans that float by every few days constitutes our entire carnal presence in everything beyond our atmosphere. Lest we forget: that is a lot of everything. Even that can be contended, as dem cans could be considered to be skimming our atmosphere. Though it is understandable, people systematically forget how alien and hostile this environment of nothingness besides intense radiation is to the Nude Plain Ape. Death and disaster are everywhere and our smartest and brightest fight hard to keep them both away. Just away enough not to die horrible deaths, even though astronauts are invariably worse for wear upon return to the safety of the barely solidified crust we call our home. Just yesterday I was thinking how I, someday, would have to explain to young people that landing rockets upright was stuff that only happened in comics and movies. It was a ridiculous science fiction fantasy, until someone who made his fortune during the tumultuous beginnings of our internet put down his foot and actually did it. They will take it for granted, while it will probably forever be a miracle to us.

They need the Pakistani air force on the front to count for the US air force?

Well, the link obviously refers to a message from Musk. Whatever the case, few of us could ever dream to achieve what either Branson or Musk have. Both men have achieved remarkable things in their lives, far beyond any reasonable expectation. I never quite understand the need some keyboard warriors have to put highly achieving people down. Besides, if you do not shoot for the stars, you will never end up there.

Using the term under produced is rather brave, considering the achievements of SpaceX so far. We are not even mentioning the other companies.

They have tested the egress system I posted earlier. I have no knowledge of EVA tests. Are you talking about just a literal seat? It seems obvious you need to adjust your solution to the application. The comparable solution for space flight is an escape tower or pod.

In space flight, humans have always been a little bit better protected than unmanned spacecraft. It seems obvious to me that some sort of backup would be present, especially considering they generally always have and that SpaceX has already tested an egress system. Of course, even a singular landing system could be designed in such a way that failure does not have to be the end. Using multiple engines, controlled by separate systems means you have a built in backup system. That is one of the reasons the Falcon 9 has so many engines. Yes. For this reason, your exit strategy is important. I will point again to jet fighters, which are essentially slow rockets with wings. Very light, very powerful and, more often than not, very filled with combustible go juice. If you want to land on a tiny huge metal sliver in an even huger ocean, you make sure you have a plan B if the cable essential to plan A does not cooperate.

It seems you are creating problems where there are none, or where well tested solutions exist. Egress systems exist, have existed for quite a while and have been built and tested. Jason-3? Very slow topple and therefore an easy escape. Fire your escape system and you are well clear of any explosion. CRS-6? Same story. CRS-5 is probably the most dramatic failure and even that provided ample time to egress. As long as the craft is not inverted or anywhere near that, you have the option of using the escape tower like system. That is exactly what they are designed for. Ejection seats save pilots from aircraft that were heading towards the ground uncontrollably, ejecting at about a 90 angle and close to the ground. Being on top of a rocket at near standstill is, by comparison, a much better starting position. Being on top of a tower has been solved by humanity a while back and was successfully used in space and other bodies. All Apollo craft that reached the moon employed a ladder system to allow the crew to exit their craft.

Ehm. No? Landing in such a fashion is no different from a take-off, except, again, the direction of travel is in your favour. Slowing down to get out of the way is much easier than speeding up to outrun your rocket. See for yourself:

If you solve the latter, you solve the former. It seems to me that being at the back or top end of a craft is the most ideal position for egress. It is the same as it is with a launch, except that the direction of travel would be in your favour.

What reasons are those?

To whatever module you shoot up first.

Does it matter? A folded Canadarm or even a dedicated tug would easily solve that problem.

I am curious how we will turn out to be doing that in the near and not so near future. Something tells me that launching payload and crew separately might be more efficient. We all know part of the massive cost of the Space Shuttle came from having to man rate everything every time. Also, a system with just crew is simpler and has less things that can go wrong with it. If launches are rare occasions, it makes sense to shoot everything up in one go. If you do it all the time, why not hedge your bets? Meeting up in space is, by now, pretty much a matter of routine.

If Mr. Musk thinks it is, I am not going to argue. Remember that these rockets are designed from the ground up to do this.

From the stream today: a full Falcon 9 costs 62 million dollar. The fuel costs about 200.000 to 300.000 dollar. First stage is about 80% of the costs, which means roughly 50 million dollar. They explicitly intend to fly an airliner style scheme. Having a fleet of first stages that get worked on in between does not really line up with that goal. They want a quick turnaround.

Let us, for the sake of the argument, say we take along a KSP plushy that gets delivered in space, or even a couple of cubesats. Would that make you happy? The first stage is fully reusable, without having to replace a large and vital part. The first stage is capable of orbit. If you would prefer to wait until the second stage also becomes reusable, that is fine too. Whatever floats your barge.

Denying the Shuttle is only partly reusable is demonstrably untrue. I do not know why people get so upset over that, but I suspect it has something to do with the Space Shuttle being the end-all Spacecraft in their youth. Even today it is pretty impressive, but mainly for its huge payload capabilities, flexibility, contributions to science and various big space projects and just neat visual appeal. The reusability really was not its strong suit. But apparently that does not jive with what people have been told all their lives.

That is not vital for a relaunch, which is exactly the point. At this point in time, it makes a lot of sense to use two, one for each launch, but it is not required.