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Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

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Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#211

Post by omega1 »

epolanski wrote: post #175
StefanBatory wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Polish; I didn't grew up during period of Communist occupation, but I've certainly heard of stories of people risking their wellbeing via trying to listen to VoA. It was very much a big crime.

Radio Wolna Europa was the one that my parents and grandparents listened to more often in communist Poland.

In my town (in Czechoslovakia), of the people of my generation, only those who listened to the BBC or VoA knew who the Vaclav Havel was, who became the first president after the fall of communism. I can't imagine the chaos that would happen if no one had any true information at the time of the fall of communism.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#212

Post by mrguyorama »

sokols wrote: post #135
scrappyjoe wrote: post #104

So many strong opinions here from commenters who aren’t actually from Botswana. Let me tell you how we actually feel about it here. We think it’s awesome! The establishment of a university of science and technology in Botswana has been a long hard road, and many mistakes have been made along the way. But the fact that Botswana now has the local skill to deploy a satellite and make use of the data it provides to infor…

Congratulations on the successful launch! > .. I’d listen to the Voice of America.. I grew up listening to VoA as a kid as well, I was born in a then not so developed part of the Balkans. Sometimes I have the feeling that the ordinary Americans don't have a clue about the impact VoA had in the countries like ours.

Trump has defunded VoA. >https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge4l109r3o

Good luck to anyone in a shitty regime that thought they could at least rely on American propaganda to get some useful info from an alternative. Despite VoA being cheap and enormously effective, and being something no Americans care about, he still kills it.

Gee, I wonder who benefits most from VoA dying?

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#213

Post by mrguyorama »

esskay wrote: post #129
leokennis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> outside the US consumer banking must be horrible or non-existent if its that bad the USA When I read about US consumer banking ("cashing" cheques like its 1975, all kinds of ATM fees, credit scores and having to use weird "you are not really sending money real time but because the app you are sending the payment instruction through is legit you can sort of be assured the money will be paid eventually") and then loo…

It is a bit baffling how the US is so far behind on basically everything when it comes to money, banking and payments. I'm not sure many American's even realise how god awful their setup is.

>I'm not sure many American's even realise how god awful their setup is.

The vast majority of average americans don't leave the town/city/area they grew up in. They have NO CLUE what the world is like, other than what they glean from hollywood, and "American exceptionalism" is an absurdly effective propaganda campaign.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#214

Post by Dylan16807 »

chirau wrote: post #179
chirau wrote: post #102

Zimbabwe did the same thing a few years back. The satellite eventually got lost in space.

Sometimes I struggle understanding HN. I did not share an opinion. Simply stated two events that were a matter of fact. Yet someone I am being downvoted for this. 1. Zimbabwe did the same thing a few years back. Source: https://itweb.africa/content/dgp45qaBBQevX9l8 2. The satellite eventually got lost in space. Source: https://www.nanosats.eu/sat/zimsat-1

> I did not share an opinion. Simply stated two events that were a matter of fact. Yet someone I am being downvoted for this.

If you're completely avoiding any opinions or implications, then a fact about another country lacks relevance to the article. And comments lacking relevance generally get a downvote.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#215

Post by lupusreal »

wat10000 wrote: post #14
mainecoder wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, even Europe cannot launch cheaply anymore. Arianespace is crawling to space; they are left for dead. The only serious players are the US and China. It's reached a point where it has become like trying to manufacture a state-of-the-art 5nm chip in a developing nation: possible, but at an absurd cost. You might achieve an initial parametric yield of only 10%, meaning only a tiny fraction of the chips coming…

SpaceX didn't spend an absurd amount of money getting Falcon 9 to where it is. It was a lot, but pretty typical, even somewhat cheap, for developing a brand new rocket. Repeating their feat should be even cheaper, since you won't be taking detours trying out parachutes and such before settling on the final architecture. It's a relatively straightforward application of known technology, not bleeding edge stuff like 5n…

The old slow way of doing things is deeply embedded in the organizational DNA of Arianespace (and ULA.). It would actually be easier for a brand new company to do it than one of these legacy behemoths (particularly Arianespace, which is dragged down by the international way in which they build.)

Arianespace is so thoroughly broken that they genuinely believed that reusability, if they could even accomplish it, would be bad for their business because it would reduce the number of rockets they build. Bonkers.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#216

Post by mrguyorama »

pc86 wrote: post #46
lolinder wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit (rather than reply and make the comment chain long): Sorry to go meta here, but this is just rude, both to OP and to other readers. For OP, you're effectively pre-empting what they say with your own counterargument, and even more so you're removing the ability for them to counter your counter. You're essentially using the edit feature to end the conversation and ensure you have the final word. For other reader…

> Sorry to go meta here, but this is just rude, both to OP and to other readers. ... You're essentially using the edit feature to end the conversation and ensure you have the final word. I've noticed this more and more, especially on more controversial topics (which this is certainly not). Adam makes a statement, Betty responds. Adam responds, and Betty edits her initial response and conversation ends, likely because…

Blame HN for having systems, rules, and filters to prevent long comment threads between two people. It's probably for the best as HN doesn't have the best interface for "two people chat back and forth for three days" but even if it isn't the optimum system, we as commenters are utterly powerless to change it.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#217

Post by mrtksn »

dingnuts wrote: post #206
mosburger wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until very recently I worked for an international remittances company. It's remarkable how far behind the U.S. is, and I always tell people the first countries to go (mostly) cashless with mobile wallets are in East Africa... e.g. Kenya had a ton of people using MPesa long before many European/North American/Asian countries had anything analogous.

I don't understand why cashless is a goal. You want DOGE to be able to control who you're allowed to pay, directly? And Trump Admin tracks every transaction? I understand that w bills with serial numbers, cash is also trackable, but there's something deeply authoritarian about monetary systems predicated on a fiat currency with no physical representation. Going to have to start buying little bags of silver coins with…

I think the Europeans want to live in a society, have a good life and want all this to be coordinated by a common entity - the government. It’s also socially acceptable to take down the government you really don’t like. Be it by force or political means, government in Europe come and go all the time.

Another thing is, Europe tends to have parliamentary democracies, so if your party loses an election it doesn’t mean it’s all over, it means you your say is smaller but still relevant.

So in Europe governments are politically inefficient but the state is usually alright, it keeps working regardless of the political situation. There are instances where there’s is no president or government for years.

Anyway, if you hate your government that much or don’t trust it that much why don’t you fix it instead of making your life hard?

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#218

Post by Dylan16807 »

loudmax wrote: post #149
throwaway2037 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small? Not at all. Google tells me: Botswana, with an area of 581,730 square kilometers, is roughly the size of France or Texas, and slightly larger than the combined area of the UK and Ireland.

But with a population of 2.7 million. That is the more relevant factor here, and by this metric they're on the side of tiny. And that makes their ability to develop a functioning satellite that integrates into a launch vehicle all the more impressive! Kudos to Botswana's engineers.

> And that makes their ability to develop a functioning satellite that integrates into a launch vehicle all the more impressive! Kudos to Botswana's engineers.

I'd like to say that but I don't think it's accurate. Endurosat handled at least the baseline functionality and launch vehicle integration.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#219

Post by jjtheblunt »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #186
sokols wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on the successful launch! > .. I’d listen to the Voice of America.. I grew up listening to VoA as a kid as well, I was born in a then not so developed part of the Balkans. Sometimes I have the feeling that the ordinary Americans don't have a clue about the impact VoA had in the countries like ours.

As an American, I literally have no idea what Voice of America is.

As an American, I wonder how you don't know.

And therefore I am guessing it was more obvious pre Gorbachev/Reagan era.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#220

Post by mrguyorama »

pc86 wrote: post #156
yieldcrv wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because hackernews rate limits users just because someone else downvoted you So you actually can’t finish the conversation when it has the utility to finish it

Users get rate limited because their account is new, or as you alluded to, they're not productively adding to the conversation (as evidenced by vote ratio at least). It seems like the system working as designed, to be honest.

Hi, I've been here almost a decade and have over 10k Karma. I am not allowed to post more than 4ish comments per several hour period.

It is not an automated system. I was punished years after creating my account, and after accumulating strong positive karma. It only took like one flagged comment for the punishment to be put in place, imo it was not a significantly out there comment or set of comments either, and it is now years old and it's pretty obvious these punishments have no automatic expiry or re-evaluating date.

This is despite plenty of other members of the community posting about 10x the amount I was at the time with zero repercussions, and despite the fact that I've gotten only a couple gentle warnings in particularly heated topics, which I demonstrably took to heart.

There is no justice or fairness inherent in HNs systems, and assuming so by default is less than great. The team is tiny, the rules are most likely set in stone from the early 2000s, the tooling is basically just whatever they can cobble together, the rules are purposely opaque, and Dang is a mere mortal full of his own biases and experiences that are impossible to fully prevent from affecting his decisions. I think he puts genuine effort into his work, and despite the occasional complaint I'd give him probably a B+ or better, but there are probably hundreds of HN commentators who were given a punishment, hopefully for good reason but don't take that for granted, literally reformed or just changed over time, and nobody even informed them they were punished or COULD have that punishment removed.

I have not emailed dang to get the punishment lifted because sometimes the limit is helpful to limit how distracted I am at work. Other times it completely prevents me from doing the exact kind of useful and productive conversation that HN insists it wants.

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