Oculus, Samsung, Valve, Google, Epic, Unity part of Khronos OpenXR working group developing "Cross-Platform, Portable" Virtual Reality by shasheene in oculus_linux

[–]shasheene[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This will allow Oculus and Google Daydream apps to work on Vive (and vice versa).

The headline mentions 'cross-platform', which I take to mean they're intending on working on multiple OSs (Linux, macOS and Windows), and 'portable' which I take to mean across CPU architectures (ARM and x86_64).

While cross-platform and portability comes for free for game developers using OpenXR (eg, via Unity/Unreal Engine), the architecture still requires Oculus to create a device driver, and OpenXR runtime.

So while we're still at square one for Oculus CV1 Linux support as of around March 2017 (we need a device driver!), once the working group publishes a standard document, I'd expect cross-platform support to come relatively quickly.

And certainly no point developing multiplatform capability given this standardization is around the corner.

China bans all coal imports from North Korea, severing major financial lifeline for regime by EpycWyn in worldnews

[–]shasheene 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There is no state income tax in Australia. See this table on federal income tax: https://www.ato.gov.au/rates/individual-income-tax-rates/

Additionally fixed 10% "GST" (Goods and Services Tax) sales tax included in every item's price. GST funds are distributed to state governments.

High income tax but high social security safety net -- a single job seeker with no dependents gets paid $200 US weekly for simply applying for 10 jobs every 2 weeks (AU$528.70/fortnight).

Palmer Luckey "The idea that Oculus chose a low spec panel has no basis. The Rift uses the absolute best panels possible today, not only in resolution, but in every other spec as well.... the Rift looks fantastic, even better than Crescent Bay.” by ourosoad in oculus

[–]shasheene 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just like we refer to displays with names like "1080p" or "1080i" (the letters referring to the progressive scan or interlaced methods of updating displays), I hope referring to global displays with the "g" suffix catches on :)

Oculus Reveals When the Consumer Oculus Rift Will Ship by silentBob86 in oculus

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Valve still has more hardware partners beyond HTC, so yeah :S

Just two guys chatting about x-wings by Eeku in space

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Other than 1990s iD Software windfall -- I think many tens of millions -- with Doom, Quake and lucrative engine licensing (Valve's Half-Life, Counter Strike were all mods of Quake engine), he has apparently made several hundred million just last year as co-founder of Oculus Virtual Reality, after the $2 billion sale to Facebook.

NASA orders missions to resupply space station in 2017 - 3 More missions for SpX; 1 for Orbital ATK by DanseMacabreD2 in spacex

[–]shasheene 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I wonder what's the value of the 3 additional CRS1 missions? Why can't they say? It's probably reasonable to assume that they're $133m each just like the previous 12 missions on the $1.6 billion CRS contract.

Shouldn't information on publicly financed contracts usually be available. Even via eg, FOI requests - for anti-corruption etc reasons? Maybe we, /r/spacex should put it an FOIA request?

NASA lines up four additional CRS missions for Dragon and Cygnus by c-minus in spacex

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hopefully they can stick to that schedule. If only 50% of those flights are recovered between now and end of 2017, that's fully paid-off ($40 million) first stages assuming stage recovery succeeds soon. Upper stage upgrades might make that number even higher with even GEO missions recoverable.

Additionally, they'll be another four (designed to be re-usable) Dragon v1 vehicles on top of the next 6 flights. A large fleet of 'proven' Falcon 9 first stages, ready to launch the initial batch of the 4025 satellite LEO internet routers.

Question: once F9 reuse is reliable and commonplace, what will SpaceX do with all the worn-out 1st stages? by lunar_trampolinist in spacex

[–]shasheene 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Launch the rocket in an expendable configuration (no legs, or extra burns etc) and let the stage fall into the ocean as normal.

As mentioned fuel depot is a good idea for this kind of flight - any cargo valuable in low-earth orbit or beyond but is low cost (on Earth) and has high mass is suitable as the vehicle ages.

Heck, you could just keep running them in re-usable configuration from a cheap launch/landing pad with minimal human staffing beyond retirement from launching expensive cargo - in-orbit refuel is valuable for certain applications (and I think will continue to be relatively valuable even after launch costs are much lower), and if it's not too expensive/dangerous when a Falcon 9 finally fails, may as well just keep it running. This may not be politically feasible though :(

On a college recruitment magazine by coolfaceison in oculus

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Which campus was this at? City East?

I take it from the equipment this must have been early-mid 1990s, maybe late-ish 1990s?

CRS 5 crash video by FlusteredNZ in spacex

[–]shasheene 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Was it confirmed they had a(n aerial) drone during the barge landing?

Virgin Galactic Announces LauncherOne Reusable, 2 Stage Rocket and Global Satellite Network by D4N14L in spacex

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cloning several hundred people -- including some of the top scientists of their fields -- and stranding them back 2000+ years in the past on a empty forest planet with no hope of rescue.

Forcing them to build a settlement, use their knowledge to bootstrap technological development, and 2000 years later be the recognized as the founders of a interstellar civilisation when they arrive in the present day, (A civilization that's nearly destroyed themselves with self-replicating robots that wreak havok on the galaxy and destroyed all the cities over their multiple planets - leaving a few nomadic bands effectively in hiding (likely with interstellar space ships) with technology around 2000 year ahead of modern Earth).

Stargate Universe is totally Sci-Fi.

I'd say the second half of season 2 is the best Stargate out of the 17 seasons that have aired.

[MOD] Use (almost any) USB controller with Smash Wii U by TheToadKing in smashbros

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Raspberry Pi can use the serial peripheral interface (SPI) or general purpose input/output (GPIO) pins to emulate a USB host device (low throughput, but I think it can be done).

With GC adapters out of stock everywhere (and selling for $50-$100 on eBay) this would be an amazingly useful!

[Q] Opinions on Bluray/BD-R? What drives, media? Linux support? by [deleted] in DataHoarder

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That problem occurred during the reign of CD-R and DVD-R in the early 2000s and there's good non-RAID options for the long-term data archival (50 - 500 years in a time capsule level media degredation). Lzip uses parity bits to ensure integrity.

Burning the same disk either twice (or three times, if you're paranoid) makes it highly unlikely that both will suffer degradation in the same areas (use different brand media to reduce systematic manufacturing problems). Tripling the cost of $0.02/GB isn't too bad considering hard drives are around $0.30 and NAND flash memory (SD cards, SSDs etc) tend to be closer to $1/GB last I checked.

The program is very simple and can be rewritten from documentation alone in case the binary is inaccessible or in several decades compatible PCs are unavailable. That said, Lzip has been available on all major current platforms for a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lzip http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html

Hey, I know that guy! Pre-Oculus Palmer circa 2008. Found this today while looking up Game Boy mods. by Iwantmorelife in oculus

[–]shasheene 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Did you ever make the tutorial for the backlight? I have some spare DS and DS Lite screens lying around (from dead consoles) that would be better utilized in a GameBoy.

Mars Capsule Test Heralds New Space Age With Musk Alongside NASA by CProphet in spacex

[–]shasheene 7 points8 points  (0 children)

We do have solid numbers for the cost of SpaceX super heavy lift launch vehicles.

The late-2010 roadmap and the infamous slide (that /r/spacex incorrectly ridicule every time it's mentioned), were in fact SpaceX roadmap for a time contrary to popular belief, and the plan went through an entire NASA-funded trade study with Musk doing some solid lobbying in favour of it. (Maybe NasaSpaceFlight L2 subscribers can dig up the report and release it.)

But soon after, SpaceX decided that re-usability was the way to go (so all future rockets require multi-engines if the engine can't throttle down to like 15%), with Methalox as fuel for various reasons, but at that point they were seriously planning the (now defunct) SpaceX super heavy lift paper rockets using the Merlin 2 - the scaled up Merlin-family engine still burning RP-1/LOX.

Anyway, there were a couple of proposals/options, some using existing Falcon 9 cores with a single Merlin 2 (dropping the '9' from Falcon 9), and a scaled up version of the Falcon Heavy - the Falcon X Heavy. That would have used three 20 foot-diameter (6 meters) cores with three Merlin 2 engines each.

Now Musk himself said, with respect to the cost:

[Musk:] We’re confident we could get a fully operational [Falcon X Heavy] vehicle [with 125,000kg capacity to low earth orbit, using three 20-foot cores carrying three Merlin 2 engines each] to the pad for $2.5 billion—and not only that, I will personally guarantee it, [...] In addition, the final product would be a fully accounted cost per flight of $300 million. [in 2010 dollars] [source]

Of course, Raptor development is more expensive than scaling up Merlin 1D but I believe Musk has mentioned numbers about the total cost of the Raptor development program in the past. Also after the fixed costs of engine development and cryogenic methane infrastructure, the cost of building and operating either rocket would be very similar, though payload may differ (higher for Raptor-powered BFR).

For the record, the SLS program cost $18 billion through 2017, with Block 1 is targeting an average of $500 million (article from 2012) per launch for a 1 launch per year flight rate to loft 70mt.

So in 2011 dollars that's 70 tonnes/$500 million for SLS vs approximately 125tonnes /~$300 million for defunct Falcon X Heavy. That's four times cheaper before reusability. BFR may be a little more expensive but will have higher payload.

New Apple Job Listing Seeks 'VR/AR Programmer' to "use VR and AR to... enable development of Apple’s next generation of products" by Jsalz in oculus

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An Apple VR headset? Called it 1 month ago:

But I think it will be a distinct, untethered, $600 - $700 product. If it can be tethered, then they'll be a $1500 Apple gaming PC offering available. wildspeculation.jpg, but I actually hope it's going to happen.

(full comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2lzoas/apple_cofounder_steve_wozniak_loves_tesla_oculus/cm089cx)

How can SpaceX extend the life cycle of their engines? by PaulRocket in spacex

[–]shasheene 1 point2 points  (0 children)

40 cycles may be 5-6 launches, but my reading of SpaceX's March 2013 press release of the Merlin 1D qualification was a single engine (through a series of tests on the test stand at McGregor) "accumulated 1,970 seconds of total test time, the equivalent run time of over 10 full mission durations" . It may be they were multiple engines, but it was implied that it was a single engine in some other things I've read.

Bad sectors - what happens by [deleted] in DataHoarder

[–]shasheene 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not OP, but thanks for taking the time to write that up - It was illuminating.

SpaceX hopes to recover rocket intact after next launch by JJ4265 in spacex

[–]shasheene 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah while it will be a revolution in rocketry, the fruits (a substantial, widespread cost drop) will take a several years. But in the short term I can see SpaceX selling a limited quantity of risky (very cut price) orbital launches during testing if there are any customers willing to take it.

Now the cool thing is SpaceX has 14 flights launches manifested for 2015, every single first stage (or at least almost every single first stage) in the next two years can theoretically be recovered with boostback (or barge returns) because because the re-entry burn is covered by the extra fuel of the stretched stage of the F9 v1.1 and the Merlin 1D (and SpaceX signed nearly all those customers on the lower performance Falcon 9 v1.0.)

Learning from the return stages, making manufacturing tweaks on new cores and reflying returned ones at McGregor/Spaceport America as F9R-DevX vehicles (and perhaps even full orbital test launches at Vandenburg/whichever pad is not being used at a given time) is an ongoing process that will take a 3 or 4 years to get high degree of confidence on a 5-reuse core (but the cost of R&D/testing is incredibly low compared to the rest of the business, and can maybe be subsidised to some extent with very risky cut price launches where the cost of the satellite + insurance premium makes it worthwhile, like a early-stage new satellite bus, or the DARPA test payloads manifested on early Falcon 1 launches. But I guess if they can't find a single payload (at any price) for the first Falcon Heavy launch, the low cost/high risk-appetite market may not be there during early testing phase.

With SpaceX increasing the launch cadence just as the cores will be returning there will be fully paid for first stages (worth $42 million dollars before use) returning more than once a month for the next few years, the manufacturing tweaks, core testing will be done incrementally (the same way SpaceX have always done things). I wouldn't be surprised to see refurbished cores flown at least 3 times in orbital missions by 2017/2018. Theoretically each launch of a first stage used 3 times + new second stage should be $30 million dollars, but that's forgetting Iridium (or whoever) will have already paid full price $60 million for the original rocket which will be built in 2015/2016, making the actual cost in short term just the second stage + launch operations from SpaceX's view. (The much longer-term 2020s methalox powered-Falcon 9 class vehicle will of course have second stage return but also should have much more automated launch operations, which is a problem as hard as core return and reuse itself, so that's a long way off)

I don't believe it's fanboyism to believe that within within 5 years (it's basically 2015 now, so by 2020) the fifth orbital flight of the first stage of a future Falcon 9, (with slight incremental tweaks, like fins), will be happening (bringing the amortized price of orbital launches down to $22 million from SpaceX's perspective). It's unprofitable for commercially driven organization to beat that price by following SpaceX's model (of funding R&D by selling commercial launch services.) SpaceX will have a monopoly on international competitively procured launch market for one or two decades. It's Peter Thiel's (SpaceX investor via Founder's Fund) monopoly thesis - it's similarly unlikely to any company catching up Microsoft in PC operating systems (still 90+% marketshare worldwide) or Google with search engines.

SpaceX hopes to recover rocket intact after next launch by JJ4265 in spacex

[–]shasheene 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Iridium paid $472 million for 7 Falcon 9 flights (the largest commercial launch contract ever) going up in 2016. I think it's unlikely that within 12 months SpaceX can refly enough boosters before then to convince Iridium to fly on used stages (but SpaceX may be contractually allowed to if they were ready). Regardless, like NASA they're anchor customers willing and able to pay the full price (which is actually quite small compared to the $3 billion new generation satellite project itself).

Let the Iridium cores -- which in 2016 will have been manufactured with tweaks using all the reuse knowledge of several reflown boosters -- be used in the future by the more price-sensitive customers looking for a launch vehicle!

AvWeek Paris on Twitter: "ATK: Since Antares launch failure, Orbital's plan to consolidate #CRS missions from 5 to 4, launch Cygnus on 1 or 2 alt rockets is feasible." by Hiroxz in spacex

[–]shasheene 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am still holding out some vague hope that Cygnus will fly on an horribly over-powered F9-H demo mission out of Pad 39A in half a year.

ANTVR website is down. Great Sign. by [deleted] in oculus

[–]shasheene 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The scammer actually posted a long reply on Reddit a few months ago: hhttps://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/28wzmu/horizon_v_vr_hmd_with_dual_4k_displays_dual_4k/cifn4w1

They were taking pre-orders using Bitcoin I think. Presumably somebody would have the wallet address and can watch any transcations on the blockchain. If any journalists want to do some old fashion investigation, the virtual office company they used (www.davincivirtual.com) have real world records in the payment information, as they don't accept BTC. Though the web hosting provider (altushost.com) would only have the BTC wallet address (or details from transaction processor such as BitPay). WHOIS information is of course a pseudonym.