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SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

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Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#61

Post by Chriky »

icelancer wrote: post #56
jmadsen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government" Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable.

>>Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. >>This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable. Work in private industry AND government and you might find the comparison a bit more apt, not that I'm a Republican.

I've worked in both, I find bureaucracy is roughly proportional to the seriousness of the work. Serious work - Law, Healthcare, Finance etc are very bureaucratic regardless of whether it's the private or public sector.

Public sector can sometimes seem worse because there's less money sloshing round and people demand it isn't wasted, which effects a lot of bean counting.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#62

Post by lambda »

icelancer wrote: post #58
lambda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to understand about the US is that it is actually a federation of states. Much of the day-to-day work happens at the state or local level, not at the federal level. Police, fire departments, emergency first responders mostly employed at that level, and when the federal government is involved, a lot of it is in doing some coordination between states, setting standards, funding for various programs, and so on…

>>Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government, and so playing games like this that increase its inefficiency help to sell their case and get government functions sold off to private enterprise, who just so happen, in so many cases, to be some of the largest donors to campaigns of this part…

Yes, this particular religious belief is widespread in both parties, but definitely considerably more prominent in one.

I believe there is a name for this belief, Mammonism comes to mind.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#63

Post by lambda »

bsimpson wrote: post #57
lambda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to understand about the US is that it is actually a federation of states. Much of the day-to-day work happens at the state or local level, not at the federal level. Police, fire departments, emergency first responders mostly employed at that level, and when the federal government is involved, a lot of it is in doing some coordination between states, setting standards, funding for various programs, and so on…

As I recall from the last shutdown, Congress usually passes an apology bill to pay back-wages for the furloughed workers. In theory, it's unpaid time off, but in practice, they get made whole and it becomes a free (but potentially angsty) vacation.

Ah, you're right. I didn't recall whether they had been paid for that.

Either way, it's fairly inefficient; either they were paid for doing no work, or they were not paid and may leave for better jobs or morale destroyed due to that.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#64

Post by WonkeyMonkey »

Numberwang wrote: post #6
imron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution: Video with sound doesn't autoplay when opening the page in Firefox in macOS.

You shouldn’t have to install and use a worse browser just for one webpage. A proper solution should come from the site developer.

"a worse browser" is an interesting way to put it. It seems you're trying to convey a sense of objectivity to your choice. A lot of people will point out privacy concerns from chrome to justify their choice of Firefox, and that seems to cause a bit of polorization between the two groups of users.

You did not elaborate on what makes chrome a better browser, but it's safe to say a large portion see performance/speed as what makes Chrome better. However, if my assumption on your reasoning is wrong please share.

So assuming that a possible increase in privacy does not have weight on what makes a better browser, what else than performance. 2 reasons why Firefox could be better, for certain users, are: safer add-ons, and less Network use.

1) Somewhat recently it was posted to hacker news that chrome add-ons had been taken over with malware: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14888010

To me, the idea that malware (adware) could be in an "app" store so obviously for such an amount of time is wholly unacceptable. The Chrome addon still contained malicious code long after that post. Forgive me, I am on mobile, so I have not researched when/if it was fixed

2) ad blockers on Firefox are simply more effective. They block the download of ads to the browser, where ad blocking on chrome uses JavaScript. This means, which is especially important on mobile, a decrease in data usage

Disclaimer: Firefox has switched a lot of things in the newest update, this may very well have changed I know they are becoming more and more like Chrome. However, that would not change the meaning of my post. I am not trying to say Firefox is a better browser, that is entirely opposite my opinion. My point is different users have different use cases, and to categorize one as objectively better is difficult to do (for such a hotly debated topic for two products of such similar quality)

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#65

Post by greglindahl »

mikejb wrote: post #50

This is easily blamed on the shutdown, but it isn't that simple: Falcon Heavy static fire has been postponed numerous times. On Tuesday (Jan 16th), it was cancelled once again, but with no new target test date. That indicates that SpaceX is still working on the rocket/pad. I didn't find information on when they'd be ready again, but blaming a delay on Falcon Heavy's static fire test on the Government Shutdown is only…

SpaceX had activities planned for Sunday and Monday which have been canceled. New rockets and new launch pads (2/3 of the booster fueling equipment is new) are always like this; the first shuttle flight sat on the pad from December through April. It's very tedious for the range people because both fueling the rocket (wet dress rehearsal) and fueling and static firing it are dangerous events that require exclusion zones.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#66

Post by greglindahl »

dayaz36 wrote: post #52
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #32

I find this article very frustrating. What do they even mean by "key members of the civilian workforce"? I wish they'd include examples of what kind of people aren't working. Since I have absolutely no connection to this industry, I have no way of understanding the impact of a government shutdown on the space industry. Why is it considered reasonable or unreasonable that they halt certain space-related activities due…

Seriously...the entire article had as much substance as the title. Didn't even mention when the launch was supposed to be.

That's actually not known. It's expected to be 2 weeks after a successful static fire, and no one knows how many more tries a static fire will need.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#67

Post by StudentStuff »

bsimpson wrote: post #60
bambax wrote: post #28

As a foreigner the whole government shutdown is a thing of wonder: how does it work exactly? For instance, is there no police anymore? How does Congress stay in session during a shutdown? Where does electricity in federal buildings come from if the Federal govt can't pay for it?

This is the thing that blew my mind last time: The shoreline of San Francisco is a national park (donated when the military base here closed). There's a restaurant on the shore called Cliff House, whose landlord is the US government. During the shutdown, the government forced the restaurant, a private establishment, to close. The owners and the kitchen staff were not allowed to make a living. And because they aren't…

The upside here is that you can visit national parks for free while the shutdown is ongoing, without the threat of a ranger fining or detaining you! While I don't roll with the A team, I do appreciate some of the philosophy.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#68

Post by notatoad »

thecatspaw wrote: post #35
rebuilder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution should come from the browser IMO. Autoplaying videos should not be possible.

What about youtube though? On websites where the video is the main content it should be autoplaying imho

just like you can grant a site permission to use your microphone, get your location, run flash plugins, or any of various other things, the ability to auto-play video should be a permission that sites have to ask for, not something they can do implicitly.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#69

Post by greglindahl »

TrickyRick wrote: post #33
imron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution: Video with sound doesn't autoplay when opening the page in Firefox in macOS.

Different solution: Just use the browser that came with the OS. Works perfectly in Safari.

I can't use Safari until I reboot to install a critical security update. Yeah, no, I have a lot of ssh sessions open. And how is it possible that a browser on Unix requires a reboot to update?

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#70

Post by greglindahl »

Numberwang wrote: post #12
imron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just for one webpage It's not just one webpage - it's for an increasingly large number of websites. And 'worse' depends a lot on use cases. I typically have many tabs open (maybe 40+) and for my use case Firefox has always been a better browser for that. I also get non-autoplaying videos - another thing that in my opinion makes the browser better than some alternatives, not to mention containerized browsing for bet…

Maybe true. 40+ tabs sounds like a workflow issue though. Beyond having a few tabs open there are often better Ways of managing links.

Tree Style Tab on Firefox is a great way of managing links.
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