So when I saw the story that Axios dropped on Tuesday, I almost choked on my breakfast. "Harris Flip-Flops on Building the Border Wall." It says:

Kamala Harris pledges to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the wall along the southern border — a project she once opposed and called "un-American" during the Trump administration.[....]

In her speech to the Democratic National Convention last week, Harris said she would sign the recent bipartisan border security bill [....]

That bill, negotiated by senators such as James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), requires hundreds of millions of dollars of unspent funds to be used to continue building a wall on the border.

"It requires the Trump border wall," Lankford told Axios. "It is in the bill itself that it sets the standards that were set during the Trump administration: Here's where it will be built. Here's how it has to be built, the height, the type, everything during the Trump construction." //

She said things like this in the past in Jan. 2019 on a CNN Town Hall:

RNC Research @RNCResearch
·
"I'm not gonna vote for a [border] wall under any circumstances."

— Kamala Harris
9:43 AM · Aug 27, 2024

JD Vance @JDVance
·
Kamala Harris is a fake.

If she wants to build the border wall, she could start right now!
Axios @axios
Harris flip-flops on building the border wall https://trib.al/3QNqWm2
8:28 AM · Aug 27, 2024

These handy electrical formulas and electronics formulas (AC Ohm's law formulas on front, DC Ohm's law formulas on back) also give you very useful formulas for apparent power, 3-phase apparent power, power factor, reactance, motor sync. generator frequency, 3-phase WYE, 3-phase delta, sine wave values and more!

As you can see on the Ohm's law charts, there's a wide variety of colors encircling the diagram. These colors serve a purpose. You can easily identify resistor band colors by looking at the chart. For instance the color brown in the 1:00 position represents the value of one...and so forth, up to the silver in the 10 minutes to position which represents 10% tolerance - the gold in the 5 minutes to position represents 5% tolerance.

The current political climate features two sides: Those who want the government to do more for the people and those who want the government to get out of people's way. It's not necessarily a partisan issue, mind you, as there is an alarming number of folks on the right who believe that Republicans should implement more government but just wield it in a conservative way.

Whatever that means. //

We need only look at government-run programs as they exist now, because they are the best arguments against themselves.

The Settings app has taken over, but Control Panels aren't going anywhere yet. //

What's incredible about some of the Control Panels at this point is how far back some of their designs go. You're never more than a double-click away from some piece of UI that has been essentially exactly the same since 1996's Windows NT 4.0, when Microsoft's more-stable NT operating system was refreshed with the same user interface as Windows 95 (modern Windows versions descend from NT, and not 95 or 98). The Control Panel idea is even older, dating all the way back to Windows 1.0 in 1985.

According to the National Fire Prevention Agency, if an EV ever catches fire while you’re behind the wheel, immediately find a safe way to pull over and get the car away from the main road. Then, turn off the engine and make sure everyone leaves the vehicle immediately. Don’t delay things by grabbing personal belongings, just get out. Remain over 100 feet away from the burning car as you call 911 and request the fire department.

Also, you shouldn’t attempt to put out the flame yourself. This is a chemical fire, so a couple buckets of water won’t sufficiently smother the flames. EV battery fires can take first responders around 10 times more water to extinguish than a fire in a gas-powered vehicle. Sometimes the firefighters may decide to let the battery just burn itself out, rather than dousing it with water.

Once an EV battery catches fire, it’s possible for the chemical fire to reignite after the initial burn dies down. It’s even possible for the battery to go up in flames again days later. “Both firefighters and secondary responders, such as vehicle recovery or tow companies, also need to be aware of the potential for stranded energy that may remain in the undamaged portions of the battery,” says Thomas Barth, an investigator and biomechanics engineer for the NTSB, in an emailed statement. “This energy can pose risks for electric shock or cause the vehicle to reignite.”

It's unlikely Boeing can fly all six of its Starliner missions before retirement of the ISS in 2030. //

Ten years ago next month, NASA announced that Boeing, one of the agency's most experienced contractors, won the lion's share of government money available to end the agency's sole reliance on Russia to ferry its astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit.

At the time, Boeing won $4.2 billion from NASA to complete the development of the Starliner spacecraft and fly a minimum of two, and potentially up to six, operational crew flights to rotate crews between Earth and the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX won a $2.6 billion contract for essentially the same scope of work.

A decade later, the Starliner program finds itself at a crossroads after Boeing learned it will not complete the spacecraft's first Crew Flight Test with astronauts onboard. NASA formally decided Saturday that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched on the Starliner capsule on June 5, will instead return to Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. Put simply, NASA isn't confident enough in Boeing's spacecraft after it suffered multiple thruster failures and helium leaks on the way to the ISS. //

On Saturday, senior NASA leaders decided it wasn't worth the risk. The two astronauts, who originally planned for an eight-day stay at the station, will now spend eight months on the orbiting research lab until they come back to Earth with SpaceX. //

So why did NASA and Boeing engineers reach different conclusions? "I think we’re looking at the data, and we view the data and the uncertainty that’s there differently than Boeing does," said Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator and the agency's most senior civil servant. "It’s not a matter of trust. It’s our technical expertise and our experience that we have to balance. We balance risk across everything, not just Starliner."

The people at the top of NASA's decision-making tree have either flown in space before or had front-row seats to the calamitous decision NASA made in 2003 to not seek more data on the condition of Space Shuttle Columbia's left wing after the impact of a block of foam from the shuttle's fuel tank during launch. //

Now, it seems that culture may truly have changed. With SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft available to give Wilmore and Williams a ride home, the decision was relatively straightforward. Ken Bowersox, head of NASA's space operations mission directorate, said the managers polled for their opinion all supported bringing the Starliner spacecraft back to Earth without anyone onboard.

However, NASA and Boeing need to answer for how the Starliner program got to this point. //

SpaceX, which NASA has tapped to rescue the Starliner crew, has now launched eight operational long-duration crew missions to the International Space Station to date, plus an initial piloted test flight of the Dragon spacecraft in 2020 and several more fully private human spaceflight missions. SpaceX has finished all of its work in its initial commercial crew contract with NASA and is now working off of an extended contract to carry the program through 2030, the planned retirement date for the ISS. //

Right now, the prime route is through SpaceX. NASA continues to fly one astronaut on each Russian Soyuz spacecraft in exchange for a seat for a Russian cosmonaut on each SpaceX crew mission. //

Assuming the investigation doesn't uncover any additional problems and NASA and Boeing return Starliner to flight with astronauts in 2026, there will not be enough time left in the space station's remaining life—as it stands today—for Starliner to fly all six of its contracted missions at a rate of one per year. It's difficult to imagine a scenario where NASA elects to fly astronauts to the space station exclusively on Starliner, given SpaceX's track record of success and the fact that NASA is already paying SpaceX for crew missions through the end of this decade.

Notably, NASA has only given Boeing the "Authority To Proceed" for three of the six potential operational Starliner missions. This milestone, known as ATP, is a decision point in contracting lingo where the customer—in this case, NASA—places a firm order for a deliverable. NASA has previously said it awards these task orders about two to three years prior to a mission's launch.

The commercial crew contracts are structured as Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) agreements, where NASA can order individual missions from SpaceX and Boeing as needed. If SpaceX keeps performing well and the space station is actually decommissioned in 2030, it may turn out that NASA officials decide they just don't need more than three operational flights of Starliner. //

Lone Striker Smack-Fu Master, in training
7y
62

accdc said:
Thank you Stephen, and Eric, for your fantastic coverage of this issue.

Here’s what I (as a layman with little technical expertise) don’t get:

How does SpaceX make it look so easy, and Boeing make it look so, well, ridiculous?

SpaceX designs, manufactures and integrates most components themselves. In Boeing's case, the thruster manufacturer is Aerojet. In order to make changes or redesign the components, there is a huge bureaucratic barrier in place. They have to jump through extraordinary hoops, not only engineers but also procurement, legal, and any number of departments. In SpaceX's case, it's a walk down the corridor to talk to engineers to discuss the problem and design the fix.

Boeing is also in the dark ages in terms of software development (my field.) SpaceX has a more Silicon Valley/Agile software design methodology where you make many, faster, smaller changes and test them extensively with small unit tests all the way through to hardware-in-the-middle testing to ensure things work as intended. Every tiny change gets rigorously tested to ensure there are no defects or regressions. Boeing's ancient software development process was one of the primary factors in their first Orbital Flight Test failure where they nearly lost the vehicle twice due to software bugs with the mission clock and reentry procedures.

Boeing relies partially on paperwork to validate their spacecraft (whether it's contracts with sub-contractors or studies in place of actual testing) and they've lost the engineers and the engineering culture from the early spaceflight era. //

HiWayne! Smack-Fu Master, in training
1y
50
Ten years they’ve been tinkering with Starliner. That’s crazy. The first crewed Mercury flight and Apollo 15 spanned ten years.
Yeah I know, I know. NASA had an insane budget back then, but damn. Boeing had the benefit of half a century of spaceflight experience and they’re struggling this much to get to LEO. //

Dachshund Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
4y
110

accdc said:
Thank you Stephen, and Eric, for your fantastic coverage of this issue.

Here’s what I (as a layman with little technical expertise) don’t get:

How does SpaceX make it look so easy, and Boeing make it look so, well, ridiculous?

Having worked for or with these companies as an engineer, the most concise explanation I have is culture.

Boeings culture is not technically focused, nor mission focused. Boeings culture is Boeing focused with a particular emphasis on shareholders. The overwhelming majority of managers I’ve worked with at Boeing view engineers as a plug and play commodity and are woefully ignorant of the general subject matter they manage. Many I know at Boeing have an exceptionally difficult time taking responsibility for mistakes that Boeing makes. Whether it’s commercial planes or crew capsules, it’s somebody else’s fault and Boeing knew best. Hubris is rampant across Boeing. What’s fascinating there is that there isn’t a damn thing worth being proud of in recent years, but the cognitive dissonance remains strong.

SpaceX culture is mission focused. Their managers tend to understand what it is they are managing. Their workforce is rather young, however, they test things and are willing to publicly fail in a way that Boeing and others will not stomach. When SpaceX does fail, they tend to take full responsibility, learn from the issue and solve the problem.

SpaceX is more or less doing what NACA and subsequently NASA did in their infancy. It’s nothing new, but it’s a major difference as compared to what NASA and its ecosystem have evolved to since those early years. //

Malmesbury Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
3m
341

TLStetler said:
A big part of the problem is Boeing put too many thrusters in too small a space and operated them at a duty cycle which caused everything to overheat. Said overheating caused vapor lock in the propellant lines, and Teflon seals to soften and swell.

On the other hand, if you've seen images of Dragon with the aeroshell off the thrusters are distributed spatially, not crowded together. Plumbing and control lines are not near the throats of said thrusters.

This is not even rocket science, any decent Hot Rodder knows not to place propellant/fuel lines etc. in a "hot box."

The problems are inherent in the development methods and company structures.

SpaceX insources - mostly because of cost, but also control. There are, deliberately, few barriers between the engineers working on various parts of the system.

The Boeing/Aerojet relationship is a key counter example - because of a arguments over money they started treating each other as the enemy.

Boeing is attempting to design to perfection, then test. If anything goes wrong at the test stage, they are actually in interactive hardware development. Without the hardware, or low cost basis to do the large number of physical tests required. SpaceX assumed they are in iterative development from the start.

During the initial hours of the spaceflight, the crew will seek to fly in a highly elliptical orbit, reaching an altitude as high as 1,400 km (870 miles) above the planet's surface. This will be the highest Earth-orbit mission ever flown by humans and the farthest any person has flown from Earth since the Apollo Moon landings more than half a century ago. This will expose the crew to a not insignificant amount of radiation, and they will collect biological data to assess harms. //

Isaacman's interest in performing the first private spacewalk accelerated, by years, SpaceX's development of these spacesuits. This really is just the first generation of the suit, and SpaceX is likely to continue iterating toward a spacesuit that has its own portable life support system (PLSS). This is the "backpack" on a traditional spacesuit that allows NASA astronauts to perform spacewalks untethered to the International Space Station.

The general idea is that, as the Starship vehicle makes the surface of the Moon and eventually Mars more accessible to more people, future generations of these lower-cost spacesuits will enable exploration and settlement. That journey, in some sense, begins with this mission's brief spacewalks, with Isaacman and Gillis tethered to the Dragon vehicle for life support. //

This is the first of three "Polaris" missions that Isaacman is scheduled to fly with SpaceX. The plan for the second Polaris mission, also to fly on a Dragon spacecraft, has yet to be determined. But it may well employ a second-generation spacesuit based on learnings from this spaceflight. The third flight, unlikely to occur before at least 2030, will be an orbital launch aboard the company's Starship vehicle—making Isaacman and his crew the first to fly on that rocket.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the state removed over one million ineligible voters from the voter rolls since 2021.

The number includes over 500,000 dead people and 6,500 illegal aliens. //

Miranda Devine
@mirandadevine
·
Follow
Half a million dead people and 6500 illegal aliens. If this is Texas, what’s going on in Democrat-led swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and North Carolina?

The Calvin Coolidge Project @TheCalvinCooli1
🚨New: Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has announced the removal of one million ineligible voters from the state's voter rolls.
12:34 PM · Aug 26, 2024

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, the parent company that owns Facebook, sent a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on Monday acknowledging that Meta censored Americans at the behest of the Biden-Harris administration and throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election. //

House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 @JudiciaryGOP
·
Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things:

1. Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans.

2. Facebook censored Americans.

3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Big win for free speech.
6:44 PM · Aug 26, 2024

You know, Bobby I think, probably, that's why he had such tremendous influence on the childrens' lives — he never tried to impose his own worldview on them. He did it by example. //

What an interesting observation from the one person who likely knew him best. RFK never tried to impose his worldview on his children, but to show them by example — things that mattered to him, such as the wellbeing of children.

Certainly, none of us can speak for a man who's been gone over 56 years now. Not even his children — though one might note that RFK Jr. was 14 when his father died, while Kerry was only 9. Not even his wife can truly say what he would have thought of his son — his namesake — bucking the party so closely associated with their family in the name of championing free speech, ending war, and fighting for children's health.

But I do think there's an argument to be made that he'd prefer they find a way to love one another, in spite of their differences. One suspects their mother — who's still living at 96, by the way — might feel the same.

It may be months before we know the whole story behind the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. It may be years. We may never know. (Sadly, my money's on the latter.) There are times when the "public's right to know" just seems to slip through our fingers, and this may well be one of those times. We can hope not — but there are murmurings now of evidence tampering. That last is a big, serious assertion — but on Monday, a SWAT counter-sniper who was on the scene testified at a panel discussion held by five Republican members of Congress about an "odd pattern" of evidence handling. //

Washington Regional SWAT counter-sniper Ben Shaffer said it was “absolutely” concerning that the roof of the AGR International building had been quickly scrubbed and gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks’ body disposed of before an official autopsy report could be released. //

And another thing: Is it normally the role of the FBI to clean up crime scenes? Several companies in Pennsylvania specialize in hazardous materials removal and crime scene cleanup — are those kinds of contractors, not the usual people to clean up the aftermath of a scene like this?

There's more; the examination of Crooks' personal effects also raises some interesting questions. //

The encrypted communications seem like the biggest question. You can probably find directions on improvised explosives on the internet, if you know where to look, although I admit detonators would be a bit trickier. But encrypted communications platforms? Based in Belgium, Germany, and New Zealand? What platforms? What kind of platforms? What was sent and received by Crooks? Was he seeking information? Was he awaiting direction? If so, from whom? //

Mr. Fox
3 hours ago
I never considered myself a conspiracy theorist pre 2016...but after the fbi (and intel agencies en masse) lied to courts to spy on trump, leaked false stories to spin their spying as wrongdoing by trump, "investigated" russian collusion as a way to hide their wrongdoing and besmirch trump, trained and staged kidnapping plots on two democrat governors weeks before an election, planted fake bombs on jan 6, had plants in the crowd encouraging violence and lawlessness, raided trumps home leading to comical criminal indictments that the current president was actual guilty of....would any one be suprised if the fbi, cia, or ss trained this guy and let him get a shot off? Its a sad time in America.

You can compress the Windows 10 installation size to use less space, and in this guide, we show you how.

If you are looking how to remove invalid files from your system, you will need to run the del /s command:

 del /s "\\?\<File path>"

This command deletes specified files from the disk. Keep in mind that deleting files from the Windows command line does not send files to the Recycle Bin, that means that the file will be lost. However as it's invalid you shouldn't be worried about it. For example, to delete a file that can't be deleted manually with the name helloworld. and located in the path E:\Our Code World\Workspace, you could use the following command to remove it:

 REM Delete the helloworld. file !
 del /s "\\?\E:\Our Code World\Workspace\helloworld."

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty, who previously penned a Fourth of July masterpiece of a decision in the Murthy v. Missouri (f/k/a Missouri v. Biden) First Amendment case, issued a ruling declaring that Kennedy and his charity had standing to pursue a claim against the government for violating their First Amendment rights.

August 1, 2019 2:18 am

During Wednesday night’s Democratic primary debate, CNN’s Jake Tapper knew exactly what he was doing when he queued up a question for Tulsi Gabbard about her past criticisms of Kamala Harris’s approach to racial issues and her attack on Joe Biden.

Gabbard went off.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/910901/tulsi-gabbard-just-humiliated-kamala-harris-in-front-of-10-million-people/

Clearly, Gabbard had done her homework, and she absolutely dragged Harris for her abysmal record as California attorney general. During her time in office, Harris took draconian stances on issues of criminal justice, enforcing such merciless policies and displaying such ruthless ambition that “Kamala the cop” has become a common criticism of the candidate.

Gabbard attacked Harris for having locked up thousands of people for mere marijuana possession and laughing about it when asked whether she had smoked pot herself.The congresswoman piled onto Harris, adding on a reference to her office’s shameful move to keep people locked up to preserve “cheap labor for the state of California.”

This is all true, and here are the receipts. But Gabbard didn’t stop there.

The Hawaii congresswoman also called out Harris for the fact that while attorney general, she fought to keep people incarcerated despite exonerating evidence and fought to preserve the unfair system of cash bail.

https://twitter.com/SirajAHashmi/status/1156748927665922048

Gregory had an eye-opening experience in Kamala Harris’ office that none of us expected. For his sake, the month could not pass quickly enough.

Yet there is no question that California voters were deceived. Ten years later, the state is looking to roll back Proposition 47. //

Harris’s most consequential act in California leadership was her contribution to passing of Proposition 47 in 2014. The law is widely credited with the social collapse of once lovely cities like San Francisco.

Passed with nearly 60% voter support, the initiative reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors, such as, most notoriously, theft of under $950, including repeat offenses. This shift created the now familiar spectacle of thieves leisurely walking into stores and picking up $949 of merchandise — and then doing it again and again, in the plain view of bored security guards.

Proposition 47 decriminalized drug possession, taking away the instrument that allowed law enforcement to pressure addicts to enter rehabs. //

The measure required resentencing of prisoners previously convicted of felonies if under Prop 47 those felonies were reclassified as misdemeanors. What followed was the early release of many so-called justice-involved individuals.

That trend was picked up in 2016 by Proposition 57 that emptied out California prisons further via early parole. The two propositions created the notorious prison to homelessness pipeline of the former inmates, poorly prepared for challenges of everyday life, pouring into the homeless encampments. //

Although it goes without saying that not all of the unhoused are former inmates, California’s homeless population is growing. As reported in 2023, half of the nation’s homeless now live here.

Will America become a majority-childless society? A new Pew Research Center survey suggest that sadly may be the case. Such a direction would have alarming consequences for not just individuals but also for our nation.

When Pew asked Americans younger than 50 if they ever plan to have children, 47 percent—one-half of those polled—said “no.” That’s up 10 percent from just five years before. In fact, of those younger than 50, 57 percent said they never wanted to have children, even if they ended up doing so.

The reasons why? Pew writes: “Not having kids has made it easier for them to afford the things they want, have time for hobbies and interests, and save for the future.” But what kind of future are they saving for? It will quite likely be a lonely one. //

The Social Security Administration saw this coming in 2010, noting trouble ahead in its financial report because “birth rates dropped from three to two children per woman.” Previously, there had been a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio between workers paying into the system and retirees taking money out. That ratio has already dropped to almost two-to-one. With even fewer children in the future, the ratio will decrease further.

If exposing money behind Arabella-aligned organizations is the price for outing conservative donors, that’s a trade Democrat operatives would gladly make. //

All of this raises a question: If “dark money” is so beneficial to Democrats, why do the party’s leaders consistently push for new and expansive donor disclosure laws?

The answer may be simple: Even when the left outspends the right, the value of silencing conservatives far exceeds the value of spending by left-leaning nonprofits. //

By establishing nonprofit donor databases, the DISCLOSE Act would open the door for Democrats to potentially create target lists of conservative donors and businesses to harass and bully into silence. As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer infamously put it years ago, the “deterrent effect” of disclosure “should not be underestimated.” //

Even if some left-leaning donors are exposed, leftist ideas would still receive enormous platforms in the media, entertainment industry, academia, and government bodies. Conservatives, despite being outspent by the left in recent election cycles, are uniquely dependent on their donors and nonprofits to support their intellectuals and promote their ideas; disclosure mandates would be akin to declaring open season on these conservative institutions.