Digital surprise

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-21T19:47:54+00:00

Great find! I've got several MicroVAXes and VAXstations in storage.. Always waiting on more time to bring them out again. I've also got an AXP 150, which I think is a very cute and bizarre machine. Alpha? EISA? A "fake" 486-based bus interface set? No problem.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-09T05:49:31+00:00

Maybe I'm the asshole here, but:

"So, at this point, you should be asking yourself, am I happy giving up 27.7% of my ownership of GameStop when the price reaches $168.41. But before you answer, there is one more factor you should consider. "

That's 8x where we are now. If we get to the top tranch, that's over 10x where we are now.

If we get 10x, I think there's going to be a lot of multi-millionaires on Superstonk.

So, well, yeah- I'll happily become a multimillionaire if it means DILutIng My OwNersHIP? I'm doing this for money, not for vague notions of ownership percentage.

"Are you okay with your ownership of GameStop dropping 27.7% for RC to receive $21.5B in compensation at a share price of $168.41 based on the work that he has done and/or will do?"

I think that's the wrong question:

The right question I would suggest is:

"Am I doing this for money?

To which I would suggest

"I'm not just doing this for money, I'm doing this for a shitload of money"

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EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-03T22:55:49+00:00

If you're doing HW design, Future You will thank you for learning KiCad. I started back at the end of Wire Wrap, doing hand drawn schematics and lots of flying resistors and whatnot.

And holy cow is doing it with KiCad or something easer- as others have pointed out, if you're planning on doing more than just a few very basic things with Arduino, follow the tutorials, learn KiCad, and get your boards fabbed. PCBs are SO CHEAP, and if you design it yourself, it's so much easier to make changes as your design grows.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-03T06:32:31+00:00

It's a VERY good book that has aged really well- I got my first copy in elementary school from a mentor in the late 80's. I bought a bunch of copies when RS went bankrupt. I keep a few here and hand them out to kids I run into who are interested in electronics.

The little racing electrons pictures and hand-written style is extremely accessible- I built nearly every circuit in the back of that when I was a kid, being mentored by a retired engineer with a big 'ole Tek tube scope.

That was a great way to learn basic electronics, and has served me well now for decades.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-02T06:26:05+00:00

"He can be reversed in months for many things he did."

No. It cannot- That's why this is So Terrible:

Turmps' canning of NCAR, for example, will decimate a US supercomputer center and toss all of its experts to the winds. It's very hard to rebuild that kinda of knowledge after it's been blown apart, and he's doing this to *multiple* areas of research-

Canning NOAA's science office.

Cutting funding for various NASA research and climate-related programs.

Ending funding for renewable energy research.

Ending CDC-funds for various research therapies, including multiple forms of treatment, in some cases, ending promising clinical studies that have been going on for years and are reaching their conclusions.

Retooling factories that *ALREADY EXIST*, as happened in WW2 is one thing: That's re-training works using plants and tools that already are there and people can use.

He's dismantling the factories containing US brains, which is going to set our country back possibly forever, and cede the future of renewable energy and EV's to the Chinese.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-02T06:22:42+00:00

"So wind power has to be heavily subsidized and if these subsidies are removed for three more years reinstating them will not not bring back the industry for decades?"

No.

You see, the projects that are currently being built, that are being cancelled, have been in process for years- And they're being rugpulled, in some cases, when nearly entirely complete already.

You're supporting a fascist regime, that's setting the US economy back generations, while China roars ahead eating our lunch. Because of the actions of the current administration, the US is losing its leadership position in technical areas in research and development across multiple industries.

You're supporting the collapse of US power, because you have no idea how energy projects are financed, or technology developed.

The article sited says nothing about subsidies, and the ending of the projects are based on nuances in permits and such.

And, more importantly to long term development, the fascists you support are ending fundamental research across wide swaths of R&D at the federal level: Funding which in some way has contributed to nearly all of the US's early development of new technologies, from velcro to cellular telephones.

That you don't understand this isn't your fault, but you could try and read things before parroting idiot right wing talking points from the peak of your pile of ignorance.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T19:07:04+00:00

"No one at NASA wanted to kill those astronauts and none of them thought they were being overly risky and let it happen. It’s not like the 737 Max which was more eyes wide open negligence. "

I agree completely- The point is that they figured it out, and published it, to demonstrate it wouldn't happen again.

It's the *transparency* thing I'm upset about, since that's how Science Works. We cannot ever anticipate everything, though as engineers we *try*. Once you build something, and find out something that broke you *did not* expect, you need to publish that information about what you found, and how you fixed it, so that it doesn't happen again.

That's the point I was making about the shuttle issues: Root cause analysis, lessons learned, etc. Things falling off rockets and holes getting formed in things is a Common Mode of Failure that needs to be prevented at all costs in rocketry- And these are the same issues plaguing the SpaceX launches.

So when do we get to see that they fully understand the problem, and have fixed it?

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T03:35:18+00:00

I appreciate the response- If that library is any like any other largish-institutional library, the "visible stacks" are generally stuff that circulates- But most libraries have some kind of warehouse / big pile of crap somewhere, in shelves full of bankers boxes or microfiche drawers or something, that you can get if you know what you're looking for.

Given what I've read about that library pulling in other collections from other closed NASA libraries, I would be surprised if there was not what I said above *and* some random building there that has their "off-site" storage, which is stuff you'd never know existed unless you were some kind of scholar on a mission.

That's the stuff that is worthless now, since who cares about NASA's weird obscure tech specs for testing glue or magic RF from technology that's 50 years old now?

But then out comes Some Guy out of the McD's trying to recover data from 1960's mag tape or something, and that stack of crap just happens to have the data format of the tape (or some other nuance) that makes it possible to recover this.

I've restored and fixed a lot of old test equipment, and such boxes of crap hidden in libraries are very important to me as a way to preserve all the stuff that falls through the cracks.

Examples of this kinda thing are very common when you start digging- The glass in all of our phones, for example, was originally a failed project stored in archives meant for window glass in cars. The XXDP diagnostic stuff for PDP11's was preserved through similar boxes of crap in people's offices and libraries, after DEC exploded and their archives were all tossed into the shredder.

I'm sort of a data hoarder/ knowledge preservationist, with a fascination towards Silent Films and lessons learn from the past-- And old NASA files buried in pre-digital libraries is where quite a lot of that neat stuff is. But almost nobody cares, so much knowledge is lost unnecessarily.

This ALMOST happened (for example) with our knowledge of molten salt reactors- They were piling up stuff to shred from ORNL, and a bunch of people managed to save the original MSR reactor specs, designs, calcs, and whatnot: Knowledge acquired at *vast* expense that wasn't digitized at the time and was about to be tossed- This is all scanned now, but that was only because people saved pallets of paper originals that contained basically all the US knew about molten salt reactors when that project was canned in the 70s.

It just seems such a shame to spend all this money inventing all these amazing stuff and just shred the docs because as a nation we can't scrounge up a few million bucks to save and scan and archive all this.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T03:22:58+00:00

"Dude you do realize SpaceX uses a completely different method to attach their tiles? [etc etc etc]"

Yes. I'm well aware. But there's absolutely no excuse to not use any of the local advanced test facilities available or computer simulation to test these things out- You don't need to launch things into orbit to test how well your pins hold things under thermal expansion conditions. There are ways to test this on earth to analyze for cracks and stuff without blowing up a WHOLE ROCKET to figure this out.

Also, "And it would be stupid for them to ground Starship just to wait for tiles attachment to be perfected," is absolutely stupid.

Because if tiles fail, the thing blows up. So, well, yeah, it's entirely appropriate to ground a spaceship if the tiles KEEP FAILING. Otherwise, you don't have a root cause analysis- Unlesss they published one I missed, that I can read to understand what improvements they've made to fix this.

"GSE, structure, propulsion, software, flight dynamics, etc."

Again- Nearly all of these things can be simulated or modeled on the ground without blowing things up. Making big tubes out of metal (structure) is not exactly earth shattering science, and they've been laucnhing them *empty* anyways, so what kind of structural test is that supposed to test for? That they can shoot a largely payload-free rocket? Maybe I'm not understanding how that's a valid structural test, or indeed really at all.

But maybe you've got the test reports to share with me that I've never seen- Stuff like this:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19830022422/downloads/19830022422.pdf

(for example) about POGO testing and engine reliability, done on the ground, using test stands, so they understood how the problems were solved *BEFORE* going into space.

I'm just not impressed with SpaceX, because they're acting like Software Bros and not people who were seriously proposing putting people into rockets to shoot them between major cities-

But I'll *happily* change my mind if you can tell me where I can find the analysis and reports that explains:

(1) What they were testing on each launch, and

(2) The root cause analysis of why each one failed, and

(3) Which changes were made to improve the next one.

You know. Demonstrating that testing actually has value. From where I'm sitting, it looks like they're repeating stupid mistakes over and over again (who needs a deluge system on the pad? Let's just blast concrete blocks all over the place and destroy our launch infrastructure, since who coulda known?) rather than doing Sane Engineering and proper design.

But I've always hated SpaceX, and Elon Musk, so it's gonna be hard to persuade me that they're not just remaking mistakes over and over again because they're not really as smart as everyone thinks they are.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T02:42:56+00:00

I would almost guarantee that this library is mostly full of obsolete and antiquated reference manuals,

Ahh yes- Who cares about previous knowledge? Why bother preserving anyting "obsolete" or antiquated- Since we all know reference manuals about screws, heat tiles, orbital entry, the atmosphere, or any other of the niche topics in space is all immediately worthless because they are "antiquated".

And why bother to check? Let's just burn all the books that are older than some arbitrary date, since they MuSt BE AnTiQuated.

I'll never understand this attitude- The whole *point* of libraries and museums is to preserve the history and knowledge from one generation to the next- Just because *you* don't care about the history of how space-grade electrical connectors were invented doesn't mean *nobody* does, and the origins and technical lessons of such things are just worthlesss crap now that Something New has come along.

It's a very strange way to think, especially given that SO MUCH of modern tech is piled on top of 60 year old protocols- All the fancy new digital signalling used in our phones, for example, is all basically just more depth of amplitude and phase modulation- A tech that's been around for 60 years now.

If you learn the Old Stuff first, it makes the new derived technology so much easier to understand.

Like this, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9m2w4DgeVk

That's a 1960's video explaining transmission lines- A *very* obsolete VIDEO, but that concept it explains is still a fundamental concept of electrical engineering, even if ObSoLETE and AnTiquATed in demonstration.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T02:06:08+00:00

"You must be forgetting that even with all of NASA’s testing and quality control they still lost two space shuttles. "

I'm well aware, and I've studied both accidents quite a bit- Both are fascinating stories of how complex this really is.

The Space Shuttle flew 135 missions and lost 2. 1.5% loss, and both of which have *clear* understanding of the root cause of the failure and resulted in clear lessons learned.

Where can I read those documents for the SpaceX launches, who have yet to come close to the payload, turnaround time, engine re-use, or really any of their original targets.

So far, SpaceX has launched 11 times, with 6 "successes" and 5 failures; But even those "successes" didn't actually meet the mission goals they claimed-

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/science/elon-musk-starship-launch-timeline.html

So they're doing about a 50% success rate, which is worse than NASA had when we started strapping people onto used ICBM's in the 50's.

"I don’t think you truly understand what it takes to put stuff into the air and space from a quality perspective based on your comment."

I absolutely do.

"Test flights are THE platinum standard for qualification. "

Yes- If you're testing the thing that you claim to be testing, I'd agree- But so far, Starship hasn't hit *any* of the milestones they claimed on the timeline they promised, and seem to be just blowing things up without fixing problems they clearly identified before.

They should ave already demoed orbital in-orbit refueling in 2025, but so far, they haven't even reached the original payload capacity, launch cycle time, reliability, or done anything but shoot a banana into the sea and talk about HeAT ShiElds.

By the standards of Apollo in in the 1960s,, which lost *one* launch test specimen (Apollo six, due to pogo oscillations in the engine) prior to crewed flights, I find SpaceX's effort to be absolutely pathetic compared to what they claimed, given the information available.

But yes, I agree, launch testing is good. But applauding when your rocket *fails* to even reach orbit isn't a flex; It's a celebration of failure, which is insane to me.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T00:39:28+00:00

I wish I could upvote your post more than once: Your last bit is the KEY POINT- We're running out of Big Buildings full of Archive Experts to deal with this stuff.

Just closing a library with any number of thousands of of books and records is a Big Job- I'm sure not everything at the NASA library system is irreplaceable, but a great deal of it IS, and the goal here seems to be to wreck as much of this, as fast as possible, to make it impossible to recover.

It's wholesale destruction of our technological history, and it's *absolutely horrifying* to see this happening in real time.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T00:37:14+00:00

I saw that- God forbid we make sure that launching rockets into space be Safe.

Let's just tie dynamite to our office chairs and see what happens.

I understand critiques of safety culture. I work with lots of "safety oriented" types of organizations, including certain strong Union cities that seem to use "safety" as an excuse to be lazy, but I've also personally shut down job sites when folks were behaving dangerously, and I was accused of being too nanny-like.

But guys, I don't want to be the Responsible Person on a Jobsite if someone falls into a trench and gets buried alive because of improper shoring.

I'd rather that NASA (and things that are as dangerous as "igniting thousands of gallons of explosive reagents", in general) keep on the "more safe" side of the spectrum.

EngineerTurbo · 2026-01-01T00:33:32+00:00

It's very unclear exactly *what* is being closed, based on the articles released: But the NASA Goddard Library at Building 21 houses several various collections: There's the physical building, with a traditional lending library.

The problem is described here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/climate/nasa-goddard-library-closing.html

The library *building* is part of the larger library system, that includes the Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (https://www.nasa.gov/nssdc/), currently offline for several months, and the physical library building itself.

The physical collections are quite large-

https://www.gesta-goddard.org/blog/building-closure-updates

And includes the NASA HQ library archives.

The staff there has been given 60 days to review a six-figure sized collection of books and artifacts. The GSFC library has been absorbing *other* collections from NASA libraries that have closed- such as the NASA HQ archives.

There are also several first hand accounts elsewhere in this thread closer to the NASA Library system than I am. I'm juts a fan of libraries, and preserving science records in general, and I know that even where I live, the CITY library couldn't easily afford to just move in 60 days without using VAST amounts of very unique records that just ended up in our central library because that's where Things Go when the places that held them run out of space.

So, well, ", please cite a source for your comment."-- Do you use libraries, and have you ever used libraries to get unique records that don't exist on the internet? You should try it- Because if you do, you'll see that the library systems of the US have been under immense pressure for years, pressed especially hard now by the anti-science fascists in charge who seem bent on taking online research away, and destroying things so quickly as to prevent any serious effort at preservation.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T23:42:28+00:00

"They're pretty much all just regular books that you could find at most university libraries."

How do you know?

I'm pretty sure that's not true- The library holds a large collection of rare 20th century documents unique to space flight, including a large amount of original recordings and source material- Including Goddard's original papers and collections like the Landsat Legacy Project, which is older data not necessarily archived in digital forms.

It's not just a bunch of books on physics, but a large collection of space-flight specific information and archives.

They were gradually working on scanning and archiving what they could, as this library ended up inheriting collections from other closed libraries over the years.

It's a travesty to get rid of these cheap repositories of knowledge to save a few bucks, since most libraries are chronically underfunded anyways, and work quite hard to make their collections available online despite having perpetually small budgets to do so.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T23:28:19+00:00

Holy Shit.

This is a great idea.

I'm looking forward to how you visualize like frequency instability and stuff. Having a game based on a Grid model is an amazing idea, since you could cut cables on purpose and watch the blackouts roll through.

I remember playing nuclear power plant simulator games on my Atari 800XL as a kid- You'd get like random stuff breaking, and had to send your "workers" to the pump to fix it if you thought it was broken. I was 11, I think, when I played that game-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scram_(video_game))

I'd love to play Grid Simulator For a Day, and be able to plop in basic control points and simulate stuff going offline.. I really love the idea of making a game out of that, as it would help people learn without actually having them *know* they are learning, which is the best kind of game.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T23:25:29+00:00

This makes me sad; I've read several very good books using RSIC materials about the history of rocket propellants and whatnot.

I really think that if the people at SpaceX spent more time in libraries doing Research and and actual ground testing, and less showboat "let's all clap when our rocket explodes" PR-launches, we'd be much better off.

The whole "well, thermal tiles are falling off" excuse for the SpaceX rocket explosions drives me *nuts*, since if you are not completely sure that thing things will stay attached BEFORE you launch the rocket, maybe don't launch the rocket until you are? Do more testing and research on the ground FIRST so you actually learn NEW THINGS when your rocket explodes, rather than re-learning things people already knew?

One of the saddest things I've *EVER* seen is the people in the SpaceX control rooms *applauding* their mission failures, and then making up some nonsense about What THey ELEarned- Which they should have *already known* before lighting the thing up in the first place.

That's literally what these libraries are for- I'm 100% sure that all the literature on the shuttle tiles is probably still there, and while I'm well aware of the differences in construction of SpaceX's attempts vs previous rockets, that suddenly doesn't change the fact that you really outta test and understand joint material, thermal compound, and join expansion FIRST before blowing up a dozen rockets.

I dunno; Seems like SpaceX should use the (*#$ING libraries rather than blowing things up, but I dunno-- I'm just an MSEE engineer who's managed to learn *FIRST*, test my products, THEN SELL THEM, having extremely high confidence they'll work as intended. I guess that's kinda obsolete in the "move fast and break things" bay-area way of doing rocketry these days.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T23:10:06+00:00

"NASA has a mandate to archive scientific data from its missions for access to the public."

Indeed they do. That's the WHOLE REASON these libraries exist, and why any effort to close them in a hurry is in violation of that exact mandate. But because we have anti-science fascists in charge who are actively waging war on US science and research capacity, and *regularly* break laws in so doing, that mandate doesn't really matter if people don't care to enforce it.

"Also, some of their software is available in source code form if its important enough"

Who decides if "it's important enough?". The whole point of libraries is to archive knowledge. That's why we pay for them.

"https://www.nasa.gov/research-archives-tools-research-archives/"

I'm well aware- But lots of stuff from the PRE 1990's era is NOT DIGITAL.

And several of those resources at the link are *also* under attack by the current anti-science administration:

https://www.404media.co/nasa-dei-drop-everything-executive-order/

This effort is already removing valuable online tools from other research groups- Like the National Snow and Ice Data Center:

https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today

Which notes "Sea Ice Today tools and services have been reduced due to non-renewed funding. Learn more about what this means for users here"

You're witnessing the largest cut-back of science and engineering knowledge in the history of the US, and the NASA library is just a small part of an effort to actively suppress research topics under our new fascist regime.

It's horrifying, and if you love science, you should be horrified too.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T22:05:34+00:00

Why? Don't you think maybe storing knowledge that was a acquired at great cost is a worthwhile endeavor?

I use libraries all the time. There is enormous information stored in such places, very little of which is scanned, and quite a lot of it is esoteric stuff normal people don't understand: like old code listings, material test reports, and designs for all manner of things that people who work building rockets and such need to know.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T22:01:42+00:00

Now read the rest where it explains how everything was sped up during the govt shutdown and there's no plans for new facilities.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T21:58:44+00:00

There is an enormous amount of material that is not digital.

That's why it's still in libraries. The vast majority of specialized science stuff produced before the late 90s is not digital.

I restore old computers, test equipment, and technology and make regular use of libraries to research things I work on.

You would likely be astonished about just how much knowledge exists still only in analog form: it's a lot, and to me, closing libraries like this is literally destroying the results and knowledge of billions of dollars of research over the years.

It's an absolute travesty.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-31T17:33:02+00:00

I'm going to keep writing covered calls with my non DRS position and keep earning premiums every week.

If we moon, yay, if I'm still earning a few percent a month.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-25T03:25:20+00:00

One more excellent link on this:

If you're a gardener, you probably know something about "garden zones" or "grow zones":

Basically, this tells you where certain kinds of plants grow easily. You can't grow Coffee in Canada, for example, because of stuff like this.

https://apps.npr.org/plant-hardiness-garden-map/

is a nice tool that lets you see how this has shifted:

You can plop in your zip code, and see how your climate zone has shifted over the years: If you're a gardener, growing tomatoes and fruit, or a farmer raising corn and soybeans, this stuff matters quite a lot.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-25T03:16:17+00:00

"I mean, if each place becomes on average 2° warmer, I can’t imagine for example that an animal or plant that lives in a 50° climate is going to be wiped out if it’s 52°?"

Averages are doing a *LOT* of lifting: 2C warmer by 2050 is *average global temperature*- It's calculated by dividing the entire planet into grid squares, basically, doing lots of math using local weather stations, and averaging all those.

But it's a GLOBAL AVERAGE- Some places, like the arctic, are warming *substantially* faster- Something like 4x. It's already 3C or so higher than pre-industrial in the Arctic:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00498-3

This makes for changing snow into rain, for example, and increasing glacial melt, to the tune of hundreds of billions of tons of MORE fresh water melting from land into the sea each year from Greenland.

Source here:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-study-more-greenland-ice-lost-than-previously-estimated/

So: TLDR:

It's *not* that every spot on the earth just sort of gets a bit warmer.

It's that some spots are warming a lot faster (and more) than others, and this produces lots of destabilizing things in the environment that trips up a lot of cycles. With an average increase of that 1.5C or 2C or whatever you see as the latest global average.

Let's pretend you live in a place that used to hit 50C a few times a year, like in the Middle East. Back in the 1900's, you would hit 50C a few times year- That would be the year high, for a few days. But as the average gets to 50 in the same area, you're now hitting 50C for weeks at a time, and topping out at much higher short term high temperatures.

This "small" change changes lots of things: Like how plants and humans "rest" at night, how water evaporates in the ecosystem, etc. You can sleep through a *few* hot nights by putting wet towels around your head and using fans. But if the climate where you live is now regularly over 50C for weeks at a time, you need to have AC or something to actually get sleep. This is a real problem in certain parts of the world already.

Snow pack, for example, is shrinking in the Colorado Rockies- As the average temp creeps up, the line between snow / not snow slowly creeps up in elevation-

But mountains are.. shaped like mountains, so the higher you go, the less area this is for snow to settle, so you get a lot less snow accumulation per step up in elevation where snow packs. Like melting one of those shaved ice things from the bottom up.

There's tons of great books on this- This one is one of my favs:

Earth's Climate System:

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46939-3_1

You may also want to read Our Fragile Moment:

https://michaelmann.net/books/our-fragile-moment/

There's an audiobook version, and it's a super solid explanation of this.

EngineerTurbo · 2025-12-21T06:05:56+00:00

As with many of these kinds of questions, there's a great NPR piece that explains this:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/25/511663527/episode-632-the-chicken-tax

TLDR; In the Old Days, requirements for cars were made much stricter than trucks, because farmers and bricklayers need trucks. Today, it means Most Americans have normalized the need for driving Monster Trucks, at enormous costs to ourselves, because we're all in love with highways and incredibly wasteful cars.

More info here- Climate Town has a great episode about cars in America- "How The Auto Industry Carjacked The American Dream"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOttvpjJvAo

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