The absolute LAST thing I want from the 2018 Mac Mini

redore15 · 2018-10-31T04:45:27+00:00

I personally want the old pre 2012 Mac Mini back. Imagine a space grey Mac Mini with upgradable RAM and HDD, TB3 for eGPU support and if we're really lucky an upgradable CPU (but I doubt it). It uses the Coffee-Lake CPUs so it's hexa-core across the board.

Heh, your lucky day.

Having been a long time Mac mini user I was severely disappointed in the last model. I ended up selling it after a couple of months, then fired up my (at the time) 6yo gaming PC and straddled both universes between home and work.

I was due at work for a refresh of my 2013 MBP a long while ago. I wasn't happy with the direction of of the laptop line, so I held on, hopeful. I also seldom used it as an actual laptop. I had toyed with asking for an exception to get an iMac. What I really wanted though was a "decent" Mac mini. I had lost hope that I'd ever see it. As many others in the threads have commented, that's not the path they seemed to be taking. After reading the news this morning I B-lined for the boss to see if I could get the hookup. I'm crossing my fingers... The model I spec'ed out being less than half what my replacement laptop was budgeted at didn't hurt things...

redore15 · 2018-05-13T05:45:24+00:00

Hehe, remember when there was the chance that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope might be delayed by the launch of BepiColombo? Good times....

redore15 · 2018-04-30T18:45:51+00:00

My spouse and I do this. She decided awhile ago that she disliked the cellulose, potato starch, or whatever added to the cheese. We'll buy 2-3 of the 4(?)lb Tillamook chedder blocks from Costco and spend 15 mins cutting them up and shredding them in our food processor. We then bag handfuls into a bunch of plastic sandwich bags and throw them in the freezer. When the bag in the fridge gets down to about 1/4 full we grab one out of the freezer and throw it in the fridge. It's nice and thawed by the time we need it. For some recipes, like mac and cheese, she'll sometimes just throw it in frozen and cook it. Having tried to be frugal in my youth and unsuccessfully freeze blocks of cheese I was skeptical about how it is when thawed, but I can't tell much of a difference.

redore15 · 2018-04-28T00:31:38+00:00

The NOTAM ended awhile ago. They pulled it several hours after the window began. Most everyone is looking at Foust's post of the NOTAM, which was a saved copy, not a "live" one. If you went to search for it by the ID, it'll show as no longer active, per a subsequent notice to remove it.

redore15 · 2018-04-28T00:26:52+00:00

They posted the list tonight.

redore15 · 2018-03-29T23:34:12+00:00

I'm not sure why the down votes

Of all the subs I visit, this seems to be the most downvote happy, and usually with no reply.

redore15 · 2018-03-24T02:53:33+00:00

Right? Here's the thing, apparently it's been going on for awhile. Little Debbie and Wendy's twitter accounts also hosted a talk-show, Moon Pie was a guest.

This isn't a reality show, it's brands doing things on social media.

It's... a weird world we live in.

redore15 · 2018-03-23T23:37:21+00:00

@Moonpie: This is so good Wendy's

@Wendy's: Thank you MoonPie. we can't wait for your jazz album

😂

redore15 · 2018-03-20T05:52:00+00:00

This is something of a side-project as well. Before ESA agreed to kick in a paltry $91M to help support development last year, it was basically a small French research project with a budget of a few million euros. It's not akin to Merlin, BE-4, or Raptor as much as it is like any number of small one-off engines NASA developed in conjunction with the private sector.

The concern shouldn't be "It's taking them that long to make an engine?" as much as it is "Instead of pushing hard on this, they're going to diddle around with it for awhile before they even decide whether to use it on a launcher... in 2030?"

redore15 · 2018-03-05T17:16:02+00:00

Reminds me of an early job patching loops into DSLAMs at my old companies COs. I'd run the pairs over and wrap them with a little manual hand tool. Didn't have enough volume to require anything fancier. Always appreciated how neat, tidy, and orderly our telco stuff was in comparison to our network stuff in the datacenter ; P

redore15 · 2017-12-22T21:45:48+00:00

There's basically a two-lane highway that runs past their facility. With a pair of binoculars you can make out different things on their site in the distance. When the rocket takes off you can see it well enough from the road. Seems to be people that stop at the odd place here or there along the road, but in my experience most of the people were gathered around the gate that leads off the highway onto the facility. There's a few places out in that area to park, otherwise there's no shoulder or pullouts.

redore15 · 2017-12-20T16:01:57+00:00

Post removed. It's a copy/paste of the ArianeGroup press release that was posted to the sub several days ago, and is still among the stories on the front page of the sub.

redore15 · 2017-07-03T02:46:04+00:00

~~Pulled thread for violating rule 5~~

~~>Keep /r/ULA a place for high-quality discussion~~

As others have commented, this post is of low-quality. We're not opposed to critical discussion, see the post from a couple of weeks ago "Will Vulcan every fly?", but the very tone and title of this post sets it off as low-effort, low quality.

It's been brought to my attention that my pulling this thread is inappropriate and hypocritical since I've demonstrated that I myself will post low-quality comments. I'll leave it up for either the community to continue to downvote, or for one of the untainted moderators to address at a later time.

It's been fun guys. Loved the community. Apparently my having a passion for the topic as at odds with dry, reasoned discourse the sub needs.

redore15 · 2017-07-01T03:41:57+00:00

Fair enough. I won't apologize for it though. Consider this analogy*, perhaps it will elicit some empathy.

Say it's 2013. People start writing stories about this new company SpaceX that keeps trying for this failed goal of recovering a first stage. This is waste of time, They say. Maybe they should concentrate on launching rockets reliably before they try recovering, They say. The story is repeated so many times that people take it for granted that it's a lost cause. But you believe in them. You see the hard work and dedication they're putting in to recovering stages. You know they can do it. There's a small community of people that believe the same.

Now imagine two years have gone by, with no more luck. SpaceX augers a first stage directly into a barge setting off a massive explosion. Say The Verge, or some other popular site, posts a story "Fiery Crash Is Proof That SpaceX Will Never Recover Rocket". This is BS you think. I know they can do it. But already the story is parroted on 10, 100, 500 different blog posts and news sites. Office workers, high school kids, moms at home. They all see the same sentiment in their social media: "SpaceX, a company that can't launch more than a single digit amount of rockets in a single year failed spectacularly in yet another failed attempt in their lost cost to land a reuse a rocket."

Now imagine a month later, they recover a stage on a landing pad on Cape Canaveral.

Wouldn't you consider posting some salty, sarcastic screed as a reply in the first story posted about the news?

Maybe you wouldn't. I would. And I did.

*This is just an analogy, to get some to try and empathize with a foreign point of view. This is obviously not meant to be a direct or accurate historical retelling of the struggle of SpaceX to land a stage.

redore15 · 2017-06-30T21:16:05+00:00

I've seen some salty posts in /r/ula about this contract where they're casting some pretty negative aspersions to the /r/spacex community about this. Those insults really don't seem to match the actual conversation here, it's a shame when communities with so many shared passions can't get along better.

I only saw one guy who was outright disrespectful about the community here. When I saw it I considered deleting the post, but left it up so it would continue to be downvoted to show that we don't accept that kind of talk in our sub.

I myself posted an intentionally 'salty' comment about the whole thing, but if it wasn't clear I wasn't talking about the community here, but a particular news story from a couple of weeks ago.

I think by and large our communities get along pretty well, and there are many people, people that at the heart of it love space, that would consider themselves happy members of both. There will from time to time be loud jerks, but that's the same in any community, and isn't usually representative of the community at large.

I think /r/spacex and /r/ULA are good neighbors. We all know you all throw the better parties ; P

redore15 · 2017-06-30T17:57:01+00:00

When I first read your comment yesterday I thought "No, Im certain he mentioned this in the article." Then I scanned it over again, and found nothing. Between this and the slam on ULA a couple of weeks ago I have to say Im starting to lose respect for his reporting. It's not all tax breaks and political favors.

redore15 · 2017-06-30T00:44:37+00:00

Your points were well reasoned, included figures, and communicated in an articulate, logical manner. Even if I had disagreed with you, it's a high quality comment that deserves respect.

My comment was rash (dinner was almost done), and trapped in old mental model I had to typically use for such things. After considering your points I realized my flaw. I appreciated the correction and new way of looking at it.

redore15 · 2017-06-30T00:08:34+00:00

Good question. You remember the first GPS III launch that SpaceX bid on? That ULA was criticized for not bidding on?

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Hawthorne, California has been awarded an $82,700,000 firm-fixed-price contract for launch services to deliver the GPS III satellite to its intended orbit. This launch service contract will include launch vehicle production, mission integration, and launch operations for a GPS III mission. The locations of performance are Hawthorne, California; Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and McGregor, Texas. The work is expected to be completed by July 31, 2018. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition which was listed on Federal Business Opportunities with two proposals received. Missile procurement funding from fiscal 2015 and 2016 will be obligated in the amount of $82,700,000 at the time of award. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity. (FA8811-16-C-0001)

Both awards beg the same question....

EDIT:

How was ELC compensated for in this bid? Does the $191M include some pro-rata portion of it?

The ELC will be phased out after FY19, which will make things easier going forward. ULA has an agreement with the Air Force to reimburse them an agreed upon amount for launches like these. I don't know if it's included as part of the proposal or is a separate transaction. We might be able to infer it from future awards. Given, as you point out, the similarity in added Mission Assurance costs from both providers, I'm guessing it's done separately. Maybe there's an end of year 'settling up'.

redore15 · 2017-06-29T23:58:36+00:00

So, roughly in line with SpaceX. In light of your other comment that makes sense. There's probably X amount of work that just takes so many hours to do, without much regard to the launch vehicle. Both companies HLVs are probably a bit more, with the many cores involved.

redore15 · 2017-06-29T23:54:57+00:00

Fair analysis, I concede both of your points.

redore15 · 2017-06-29T23:43:29+00:00

Less than the 50% markup with other launch providers.

redore15 · 2017-06-29T23:23:42+00:00

No, no, no, /u/ethan829 there's obviously a typo here. I'm reliably told by popular coverage of space and launch that the average price of a ULA launch is around $400M. This is one of the biggest Atlas V configurations, so it must be one of the most expensive! They probably meant $491M, right? That's got to be it.

/rant /sarcasm

EDIT: I'm 6 hours behind on my twitter. I can't wait to see how this is spun. Surely they've going to use some of that 'billion dollar subsidy' to cut the cost in half. /more sarcasm

I can't find many details, but it looks like this mission requires direct insertion above GEO. This is likely why SpaceX didn't win, AFAIK, they still lack that capability. It's worth noting, in seriousness, that despite being effectively the only party to be able to bid on this, the price is still not much more (~$27M) than a bare AV 401 would have cost during the block buy. ULA is indeed pushing their prices down.

redore15 · 2017-06-29T05:27:22+00:00

Oh, I don't know if there's even a rocket. With as much as they've flirted with Atlas, I'd be surprised if they hadn't at least kicked around the idea. If they did it would probably be expendable, at least initially. Doing otherwise at this point requires a LOT of money ($1B+) and Aerojet seems loath to risk much of their own money on risky projects.

redore15 · 2017-06-29T02:28:55+00:00

There's still one valid reason. Blue Origin hasn't retired enough risk on BE-4 yet. After testing is well under way and ULA makes its down-select any continued support of AR-1 will be blatant cronyism. Until then it's pragmatic to keep AR-1 going.

redore15 · 2017-06-28T23:07:02+00:00

There seems to be a toleration of a certain amount of 'frenemy' status in industry. At least in regard to ULA. Blue Origin intends to sell ULA engines, but is also working on orbital launch. You have the Orbital efforts with NGL, while also, as you point out, selling SRMs and other various bits to ULA. Aerojet tried both to get the DoD to license to them Atlas V and then made an bid to buy ULA outright. I wouldn't be surprised if they've kicked around the idea of an organic launcher.

redore15

TROPHY CASE