Posts by richardcox13

NASA boss balks at billion-dollar estimate for recycled Moon rover

Re: you might think some generic assemblies

Wheels and drive mechanisms should be common (maybe different seals, tyres) but an electric motor is still common to both as are springs / shocks

If these were mass produced, and the mechanical requirements sufficiently understood this could be true. But neither are. Eg. one of the rovers was found to have tyre problems: one of the surfaces had lead to damage.

There are very few such vehicles built, each one is going somewhere new. Each will encounter conditions not previously experienced.

The simple approach of "make more robust" fails when mass is extremely constrained. Every gram put into a better spring, is one gram less for the science.

Patchpocalypse Now: Microsoft tops last month's record with 622 Patch Tuesday CVEs

> You can, but it's called Certifiable Software

While that raises the bar significantly, it certainly comes nowhere close to guarantees (it isn't mathematically proven for a start).

And, yes, even that is too expensive for people, even those complaining about bugs.

Lucky 13: SpaceX aims for July 16 Starship flight test

Re: Did anyone...

That is what I though, but as I realised it is calculable, why not lean in? :-).

Re: Did anyone...

Look up the depth of the Indian Ocean (an average for the abyssal plane would be close enough). Then given a pile of small things (small compared to the size of the pile) has a known angle, you can work this out.

It is going to be a very big number.

Ex-NASA boss points out small flaw in Moon landing plan: No lander

Re: Did no one watch 2001?

Perol[sic] (gasoline) and diesel are liquid at standard Earth temperatures and pressures, no special tanks have to be prepared for them. This is not the case for rocket fuels, and especially when you aren't actually under Earth-type conditions.

RP-1, as used by Falcon 9, is jet fuel (with tighter tolerances). So one of the most used (if not most) rocket fuels is very close to diesel.

But, overall, you are right: cryogenic propellants have never been used beyond launch and immediate orbital adjustments for very good reasons. However some are claiming that can be used longer term, but no useful details as to how have been made public.

NASA tests AI medic for astronauts too far from Earth to call a doctor

Re: Natura Medica

"Twenty Borg are about to break through that door. We need time to get out of here. Create a diversion!"

UK government wants 'trusted' news sources promoted above the social media noise

Re: For trusted medai ...

And another report noting low wind and thus a notice to electricity suppliers.

Re: For trusted medai ...

But the Bbc absolutely won't be mentioning this-

https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind

They did. As part of reporting the warning set out about electricity that National Grid sent out earlier this week, because of the lack of wind.

(Too hot to waste time finding the specific update, ISTR it was in the live reporting.)

'Please do not vibe f--- up this software': Broken backups spark AI coding row in rsync project

Remember this release was driven my the current surge in security issue reporting.

When under extra pressure mistakes become more likely, being a solo dev only makes this worse.

If he had done all the "grunt work" himself, the same bug would exist.

This 1000%.

And,. I'm sure the complainants received full value for what they paid.

Blue Origin's New Glenn makes a crater-sized dent in Artemis plans

Re: I wonder...

Given that rocketry has plenty of prior art (I know, it's still a very dangerous and temperamental science) I'd have expected number of failures to trend downward

There is also a strong desire to push for higher specific impulse, better payload capacity etc. It seems the knowledge gained (even assuming it is recalled & shared) is mostly used to be bigger...

Re: Minor Misstep

> Thankfully the tank farm survived.

Sadly photos that circulated yesterday (so the morning after) show damage to the tank farm.

It has been suggested[1] this was the biggest launchpad RUD since the Soviet N1.

And that this was a detonation rather than a deflagration.

[1] Usual sources of space news online.

That an app 'Fits on a Floppy' is still a useful measure in 2026

Re: Obviously too old

> I still remember 8" floppies!

Flew (Frisbee style) so much better that smaller iterations.

Google is cannibalizing the web to feed AI

And in news that surprises no-one outside the AI circle jerk:

DuckDuckGo Usage Surges Since Google I/O 26.

Linus Torvalds to ‘start being more hardnosed’ about ‘pointless pull requests’ – some of which come from AIs

Re: Linus Torvalds Being More Hard Nosed?

We could see some sort of Hard Nosed singularity emerge and swallow up Sam Altman.

One can always dream.

Google explains how it will infuse ads into AI answers

Re: Irreproducable Goofle Results

minor downside: you have to clean up and close more than one tab once you've finished or risk a tabocalypse that eats your RAM.

Use a browser that will auto-hibernate older (not touched for a while) tabs.

Also your definition of "tabocalypse" seems likely to be rather lower than mine... anything under 150 tabs across 3–5 windows is completely normal.

SpaceX pitches itself as integrated interplanetary proto-monopolist in IPO filing

It seems there is a lot hidden in footnotes: https://bsky.app/profile/maxkennerly.bsky.social/post/3mmdbptkn6c2v

Execs admit AI makes them value human workers less

Re: Performative use, no duh

That would be quite correct, except that is not Vogon poetry.

(Rather it is "by" Grunthos the Flatulent, a Poet Master of the Azgoths of Kria.)

Firefox maker torches Google for building Prompt API into browser

From one of Vivaldi's developers: quoting this article

At @Vivaldi, we agree with Mozilla's Jank Architect. The Prompt API isn't a Web API, and we drown it in a bucket at compile time.

IMHO this seems to be quiet the correct approach.

ICANN opens applications for new generic top-level domains for the first time since 2012

You thought wrong.

There is no requirement for sponsored TLDs to be "open".

You can finally control serial devices from Firefox

Re: NO!

Ah, CSS, that *wonderful* styling language that 15+ years on still has no clear and simple way to put this Thing beside that Thing, oh, no, you need thirteen variously nested div's to carry the placement and sizing rules because you can't put certain properties on certain other tags for Reasons.

Not true for quite a while now. In fact almost trivially easy these days thanks to display: flex. You do need a common parent element, but that's likely already there.

The company's biggest security hole lived in the breakroom

Re: I dont doubt the story...

That doesn't require an Internet connection .

Or, have all requests from outside the local subnet return a short and stout 418.

Cloudflare previews 'EmDash' – an AI-driven rebuild of WordPress in TypeScript

Not really Wordpress

This is not really WordPress, anymore tha it is "any other CMS" b3cquse the plugins and themes are everything.

Throwing away your branding and functionality, other than making HTML available, doesn't seem a very helpful conversion.

A bit like saying we're switching from SAP to Oracle; someone is going to need a budget.

Turns out your coffee addiction may be doing your brain a favor

Re: Specificity

Few recipes I use mention weight except for fish and meat. Mostly cups and spoons.

How to say you're a left-pondian without says you're a a left-pondian :-).

In the rest of the world it is weight for everything that isn't 1. units of itself (eg. onions), or 2. table/tea-spoons (which are 15ml & 5ml respectively, otherwise hard to measure).

I do measure a lot more, in my post health crisis state and has really helped drop the carbs (was already down to am mug of coffee and a post lunch double espresso).

While you're here, could you go out of your way to do an impossible job?

Re: That brought up a memory....

It is said

Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind.'

So what does three interrobangs indicate? :-)

RSS dulls the pain of the modern web

Re: BBC repetition

One advantage of creating your own tools (cloud based, so no need to sync what has been read[1]) is being able to add the logic to separate new from updated (and track updated timestamp separately from created).

^[1] must get around to the UX refresh to work on mobile sized screens...

Setting an Example Poorly

> The Reg itself naturally offers its own list of feeds.

However the sibling publications from Situation Publishing don't currently (eg. DevClass did until its recent makeover).

An unsubtle hint upwards would be a good idea...

Accenture down to buy Downdetector as part of $1.2 billion deal

Enshitification incoming :-(.

AWS says drones hit two of its datacenters in UAE, urges users to move resources to different regions

Re: Isnt this a little weird`

Any one DC can fail for any number of reasons[1]. A Failure of a power grid connection should not be one, but there are lots of others.[2]

If your DC provider is claiming resiliency for anything other than minor failures, the marketing/sales BS has taken over.

[1] Eg. the chemical plant next door has a failure that leads to a general evacuation...

[2] Even having two geographically (~100km) separated DCs may not be enough, because they're aligned north-south in tornado ally: it would just take one larger storm system...

Firefox 149 beta develops a split personality

No, its the one with inbuilt ad & tracker blockers.

(Also lots more split view options, a proper amount of configurability, and a commitment to no AI.)

Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder

Re: Its why

Vivaldi defaults to no auto-play on videos: check the site settings to override when you want auto-play..

X marks the raid: French cops swoop on Musk's Paris ops

Re: Sigh..

Beat me to it.

European development, no mega-corp (USAian or otherwise) and you can run your own server!

Latest Vivaldi release surfs a wave of anti-AI sentiment

Re: I'm enjoying Vivaldi

Ublock Origin doesn't work with Vivaldi. Period.

It works here. Vivalidi 7.8.3925.56, uBlock Origin 1.69.0 (both updated yesterday).

I've had it installed for years, maybe that makes a difference? (If I go to the Chrome web store page it still has the limited support warning.)

Recline of the machines: Terminator felled by dodgy battery

This is confusing

The Phoenix BIOS message on boot will be familiar to many, and the battery error suggests that whatever is keeping the BIOS settings alive is not long for this world.

But we know (as we see The T800's own view) that The Terminator runs on a 6502, and such BIOS's are not used by 6502 bases systems.

Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching

Re: IMAP4 Was Originally Published in Dec 1994.

I've not had a problem forwarding emails to Gmail.

But then I don't think you mean that: you mean re-sending (SMTP level) to your Gmail account which is not the same thing as forward in an email client (or even Gmail itself).

That (SMTP) forwarding very much depends on the tolerance of the mailbox, and of the user: I do this for my domain emails, but not to Gmail (and I expect it would fail for other mass email hosts like outlook.com) simply because of their very low tolerance to "abuse"). Pick a different host to forward to, that is better suited to more niche requirements.

Re: IMAP4 Was Originally Published in Dec 1994.

Go read the latest IMAP4 RFC! Both downloading a message from the mailbox and then deleting from the mailbox are both supported,

As is listing all the messages. So iterate through, download and delete.

I'm not aware of any email client's that do this directly: because having a local copy (remove dependency on server copy) is usually regarded as sufficient (you have a copy even if removed from the server by something else).

Re: IMAP4 Was Originally Published in Dec 1994.

> Did you even RTFA?

Yes, and the linked article.

And noting how obsolete POP3 applies to both using POP3 to deliver to a mailbox, and to connect a client to that mailbox. Just that the former was never an intended use case

Re: Sorry, unless you ruin your own email server (somewhere)

While ruining your own server seems a poor choice, I'll assume that was a typo :-).

Running your own server could easily be replaced by "paying someone to run a server for you" (which in most cases, eg. if you have other things to do, will be a better option).

Taking a hard dependency on a "free" service comes with risks, and for businesses (in particular) that is a risk.

IMAP4 Was Originally Published in Dec 1994.

RFC 1730 (which has been replaced b RFC 2060 two years later, itself then superseded by RFC 3501 after another 6 years, and then 18 years later by RFC 9051).

POP3 has been obsolete for over two decades, IMAP4 has worked well for at least that long.

POP3 was never a good choice for email delivery to a user's mail box, no-one has a good justification for complaining other than "I had a hack that worked: nothing is as permanent as a temporary fix": El Reg scraping the barrel here finding someone complaining about this.

NIST contemplated pulling the pin on NTP servers after blackout caused atomic clock drift

Re: Boulder, Colorado, Strata 0?

> Strata 0

Means you have your own reference time source, not that it is GPS (albeit GPS is a common option).

Or more explicitly correct: your time source is not another NTP server.

Cloudflare suffers second outage in as many months during routine maintenance

Re: Lupus

Not in this case. Cloudflare have RCA blog post up: https://blog.cloudflare.com/5-december-2025-outage

Re: Cloudy with a chance of errors

Exactly.

If you want high resilience in the cloud you can have it. Use at least two regions in at least two different vendor's clouds. And make the choices of regions checking for not too much locality^[1]. Also remember if you need two services, each with 99.9% SLA, to both be working the overall SLA is rather less.

You have to handle load balancing/replication problems that will arise. This will not be cheap.

^[1] Because weather, earthquakes, ... can be significantly non-local. Eg. two DCs ~100km apart north-south in tornado alley could easily be hit successively by one storm system.

Re: A more sanguine opinion

While there alternatives that are broadly equivalent (even if some porting needed), Cloudflare's alternatives are rather less functional.

Dev's last-day-of-contract code helped to crash app used by 350,000 people

Re: Reading between the lines ...

A contractor who did that should be told they're not working for the major company again.

For a junior employee, a formal disciplinary would be appropriate, for anyone at all senior there is no excuse.

This might seem harsh, but remember this would, amongst everything else, be a GDPR violation.

Developer made one wrong click and sent his AWS bill into the stratosphere

Re: $1-2K per month?

I don't see temporarily spun up installs [...] requiring a lot of backing up and updates.

Updates to tools happen a lot. Typically weekly. These need to be incorporated into the images you use to build temporary VMs.

Backups will depend on how much you end up on the pet vs. farm animal scale.

Your reference VM (apply updates, build new image, repeat for ever) you would likely want to keep around, and thus backup.

Re: $1-2K per month?

How much does it cost to:

- Somewhere to put them (rent etc.)

- Host (electricity, cooling, ...)

- Backup

- Admin (lots of updates in even quite a simple tech stack these days).

For those "one or two computers".

(This is open source using AWS, so reasonable to assume they don't have an office.)

A single DNS race condition brought Amazon's cloud empire to its knees

Re: Someone else's computer, someone else's rules - YOUR data, YOUR business

or you're over-reliant on that system.

or you've built processes that are so lean that they are just fragile.

Re: Looks like they still didn't catch the cause

Distributed systems at sufficient scale need to handle Byzantine Generals.

Which is not easy. And while the design may be good, ensuring implementation over years (and decades) of maintenance still achieves its robustness is even less easy.

SpaceX is behind schedule, so NASA will open Artemis III contract to competition

Re: Blue Origin?

Make that 18 days.

EscaPADE launch on New Glenn is currently scheduled for Sun 2025-11-09.