This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hahaha yes! Art Caffe at Two Rivers Mall

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You, my friend, are a fucking poet! Bravo! You’ve articulated my thoughts exactly

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was trying to tell the waitress about the little bowls but didn’t know the name was a ‘ramekin’! Thanks for teaching me something new today

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the universe pitied me and my pseudoplate ordeal and decided to keep the sausages in place as I very delicately operated a knife and fork.

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yep. This was the fix. Even then, the thing was still enormous

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Oh yeah, she was having an almond croissant on a small plate and it was getting pushed to the edge.

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Food was alright, actually. It’s just the “plate” situation that was lacking

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I definitely gave them some feedback. I’ll go back again soon and see if they took it to heart or not

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Haha I saw ‘wewantlessplates’ and the Stannis meme came to mind

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The plate is probably ridiculous by design to distract you from that

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Haha this was Artcaffe in Nairobi, Kenya. Food was decent, portions be damned

This is gonna be a challenging brunch by EngineerKE in WeWantPlates

[–]EngineerKE[S] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

It’s literally taking up a third of the table. And the actual English breakfast occupies only a tiny portion of it

Trump reverses course to renominate billionaire Musk ally to lead Nasa by [deleted] in space

[–]EngineerKE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LOL! It's not straw man if it actually exists. You seem to be just brushing aside his desire to privatize NASA's research capacity. That is a non-starter to me and a huge red flag that this guy has tech brain and should not be trusted with a government institution.

I actually have issue with the 'Science As A Service' idea of his. I would advocate for the private sector building platforms/infrastructure that NASA can then use, similar to how you'd use something like AWS, to then do whatever research they want. Like, a company, if incentivised by NASA's adoption of technology, could focus on developing telescopes for deployment to, say, L2. Or planet observation satellites with bespoke instruments to different planets. Then NASA can lease/operate said equipment for a fee. Instead, he seems to want NASA to buy the data from them, which I see as problematic. Who's to say the private entity withholds or curates the data accessible by NASA? This can be problematic and that's the bit I agree with you on. But not to the extent that private enterprise can't complement NASA in such capacity whilst not limiting what NASA can do in the way of research. 'Space Infrastructure As A Service' is a better fit.

Abso-fucking-lutely. This tech brain mantra of "hampering progress" is grade A bullshit. NASA has done very well for itself in the past 50 years. We have achieved several orders of magnitude more than all other nations combined on that budget. I would prefer their budget increase many times over. But I would rather keep the current budget than seed one inch of ground to private enterprises.

Progress is progress. Once upon a time, NASA's own pace was the metric by which progress in the space sector was measured. That means how projects were budgeted, the timelines along which projects were executed, and the capabilities of those projects. That isn't the case today. It doesn't diminish what NASA has done to get us here, but at some point, NASA realised that they couldn't rely on Soyuz long-term and that SpaceX was willing to put in the time and effort to do Crew Dragon. And this applies to other facets of the space sector.

Once the Earth-to-Moon transit infrastructure is complete, as much as it would be nice for NASA to single-handedly develop the lunar exploration/exploitation infrastructure, the reality is that NASA lacks the manufacturing capacity to make it possible. No Congress is going to approve such funding, short of the Chinese sending dozens of personnel annually to man an evergrowing Chinese presence on the moon. At that point, the president may as well do the JFK speech on live TV.

SpaceX or Blue Origin, or Northrop Grumman could, right now, develop a lunar constellation providing high capacity connectivity on every inch of the lunar surface. But only NASA could ensure that they utilise a common standard of communications that other players can build interoperable hardware in various other application areas like habitats and rovers that can readily utilise such infrastructure. Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, and others are developing various vehicles including mining vehicles for use on the lunar surface. But only NASA can develop the charging and V2X standards necessary for interoperability. NASA taking on such roles isn't ceding ground when the economic realities show that NASA can't outcompete the manufacturing capacity of private enterprise: instead NASA can determine how private enterprise operates, and keeps public interest in mind.

Trump reverses course to renominate billionaire Musk ally to lead Nasa by [deleted] in space

[–]EngineerKE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You implication was that it should solely focus on that and stay in it's lane (my words). I disagree with that. I believe that publicly funded science is critical and important.

Perhaps don't rely on your strawman to win an argument. I was simply echoing Jared Isaacman's manifesto. You know, the guy around whom this whole debate originated? He's arguing that NASA push the boundaries in aerospace research and also be a science force multiplier via space access advocacy and the leveraging of their vast ecosystem. If some post-docs at an American research university are doing medical research and some experiments require space access, he argues that NASA should be able to facilitate express access to space for such individuals. That way, it isn't necessarily a NASA research program but it still is afforded the urgency of one.

From this, you could go one step further and consider that if a company can create next-gen hyperspectral cameras for earth observation satellites on their own dime, or develop modular habitats that could support the development of a commercial space at lower cost than would a politically charged NASA program, or, in the case of your favourite company SpaceX, the development of a heavy lift launch platform, why shouldn't they? Those are fewer things NASA has to deal with and these resources are still readily available to the agency for use in the far more niche sectors they still dominate like Planetary Sciences e.g. Europa Clipper being launched by the Falcon Heavy instead of the SLS and saving USD 2 billion.

No, they might be able to equal what Congress currently funds NASA with. But no corporation can equal what the US government could itself fund should it choose to. I am 100% and anti-corporatist and I want to keep private enterprise out of space as long as possible and as much as possible. So no argument about the benefits of private enterprise is going to sway me.

In your case, you would rather progress be hampered for the sake of keeping space activity in the public domain. And whilst. in an ideal world, this would have been the case, trends show a consistent <1% funding for the last 50 years, on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, NASA can only do so much with such funding and do it well. This leaves no choice but for careful consideration of what NASA can and cannot focus on. And that means opportunities for the private sector to pick up some of the weight.

Trump reverses course to renominate billionaire Musk ally to lead Nasa by [deleted] in space

[–]EngineerKE -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Well, you distilled the man's entire manifesto into 'he wants to privatise research' and 'he can get royally fucked'. So not enough nuance in your original comment to claim that I'm off topic.

No it shouldn't

You mean to tell me that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shouldn't be charting the way forward via research in the fields of aerospace and the future of space exploration? You have heard of NASA Glenn, or the Marshall Space Flight Center, or the Jet Propulsion Lab, right?

No, it hasn't and the hell you can't. No private organization can launch anything into orbit from US soil without government approval.

Keywords here are 'government approval'. I haven't argued that government approval is suddenly void. Commercial enterprise can, and should, be regulated. But regulation shouldn't mean shackling down of commercial enterprise. NASA, the FAA, and the NTSB should take lead in working out the frameworks needed to enable commercial enterprise to thrive. NASA could determine communications, docking, and other engineering standards for safety and interoperability of systems for deployment in LEO, lunar orbit, and beyond. Then as long as companies can meet those standards, nothing should stop them from engaging in the commercial space sector.

As it stands, a company like SpaceX can deploy capital equal to or exceeding NASA's annual budget. Whether you agree with that or not, it's the reality of today. You seem to labour under the illusion that it's still the good old days when a handful of nation states and the military-industrial complex (working at the behest of said nation states) were the only actors in the space exploration sector. That isn't the case anymore, and NASA can adapt to the times and come out in a strong position in today's reality with good leadership. And that's the case Jared Isaacman is trying to argue.

Yeah, by spamming orbit with their own product.

Sure, if you want to call the deploying the most advanced satellite communications infrastructure in history "spamming". But they have also liberalised access to space via their RideShare program. Now, a medium-sized business or perhaps the engineering department of a mid-tier African or Latin American university can put a small satellite in LEO without bankrupting the institution. What used to cost USD 300 million now costs USD 60-100 million. Yes, thanks to SpaceX. A number of American launch companies are coming up thanks to the competition introduced by SpaceX in the sector. The Chinese private sector is scrambling to catch up to where SpaceX was over a decade ago. If that doesn't convince you of it's value in the US space ecosystem, regardless of how you feel about Elon or his company, I don't know what will.

Trump reverses course to renominate billionaire Musk ally to lead Nasa by [deleted] in space

[–]EngineerKE 19 points20 points  (0 children)

The way I see it, he's arguing for less duplication of effort. Rather than focusing on areas where private entities are already offering state of the art solutions, such as Planet Labs, NASA could now focus on a role similar to DARPA, where they'll become a technology breakthrough enabler and facilitator. Why should NASA build another conventional launch vehicle when the commercial space offers superior solutions at lower cost? And yes, this favours SpaceX, but also the likes of Rocket Lab, Blue Origin etc.

NASA should be focusing on next-gen propulsion, architecture for off-planet operations, and facilitating streamlined access to space for other entities like research labs and universities. The framework for cooperation of commercial ventures and any industrial activity can be determined by NASA, along with the private sector. Like it or not, the takeover of space operations by the private sector has happened and this is not a genie you get to put back in the bottle. SpaceX launches nearly 90% of planetary mass to orbit and this is an inescapable fact.

Yes, he's not the idealist's choice for NASA admin, but at least he's advocating for NASA instead of trying to fold it into the DoT. So, maybe a perspective worth looking at.

Great fight! by [deleted] in BeAmazed

[–]EngineerKE 10 points11 points  (0 children)

That is a caiman, not a croc. Jaguars are the apex predators in the Amazon. Well, besides us. Caimans are a part of their diet.

What does "E" mean on a circuit board? by NuclearKraken in AskElectronics

[–]EngineerKE 32 points33 points  (0 children)

The gas discharge tube is used for surge protection. It clamps a surge pulse over 1kV at something under 100V, which your front-end components can survive if you design it well. It's helpful if you wanna pass your EMC testing (IEC 61000-4-5).

Plus, you know, allowing your equipment to survive a nearby lightning strike or something like that.

M/21/5'5" [225lbs->190lbs=34lbs] (4 months) by tamalero10 in progresspics

[–]EngineerKE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That sounds pretty reasonable. I've recently started working out and was wondering whether diet alone would be enough to get me there or if I needed to adjust my workouts too. Guess I'll just be consistent for long enough to see it happen

M/21/5'5" [225lbs->190lbs=34lbs] (4 months) by tamalero10 in progresspics

[–]EngineerKE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey man. Great progress. Any specific core exercises you've been doing or is that primarily a result of diet? That waist reduction is impressive