I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
-- Terry Pratchett

READY TO UNLOCK YOUR DEVICE'S BOOTLOADER?
Let's make sure you know what you're getting into first.
In case you didn't know, Bootloader is a little bit of code that tells your device's operating system how to boot up. Basically, it's what makes your device start up and run the way you're used to.

Motorola has done the work to make sure your device has a fully optimized, certified and tested version of Android.

Unlocking the bootloader will allow you to customize your device, but keep the following in mind: //

Review all the warnings and make sure you completely understand the implications
Once you get the unlock code, your device is no longer covered by the Motorola warranty; in other words, please don't blame us if things go wrong, even if they appear unrelated to unlocking the bootloader.

LineageOS, an open-source Android distribution

Motorola moto g7 play
channel

LineageOS Android Distribution
A free and open-source operating system for various devices, based on the Android mobile platform.

LineageOS, an open-source Android distribution, is available for several devices, with more being continuously added thanks to the biggest, yet ever growing, Android open-source community.
Join us and breathe new life in your device, be it old or new.

BadSuperblock Ars Praefectus
15y
3,125

rbtr4bp said:
I think there is an argument that SpaceX, as a new and agile company with something to prove, is going to do things better. People who are willing to accept more risk are attracted to the new "startup" and willing to work harder for the same or less money because of the adventure and excitement.
...

No, it doesn’t necessarily follow that this incompetence was a consequence of "maturing." It is not a foregone conclusion. For one thing, what is your definition of "mature"? We think of technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Intel to be "mature" because they are now going on 40 years old. Well, since Boeing was founded in 1916, by the time they were 50 years old in 1966, Boeing was taking some of the biggest, most rewarding, and most admired engineering risks and innovations of their entire history: Projects like components for the Apollo moon program, and the absolutely revolutionary and widely loved 747 airliner. This company, half a century old, was creating these exciting, "startup" quality projects. At that time, they were more "mature" than the companies we now call mature, but they had not lost their innovative spirit, engineering discipline, and quality control.

It is generally agreed that the root cause of the Boeing malaise was not the age of the company, but the decision of one CEO and board to allow McDonnell Douglas management to take over Boeing, instituting the changes that poisoned the company. In other words, it was not a rot from within, but a culture change imposed by outsiders.

"Risk remains that we may record additional losses in future periods." //

Boeing announced another financial charge Wednesday for its troubled Starliner commercial crew program, bringing the company's total losses on Starliner to $1.6 billion. //

These losses have generally been caused by schedule delays and additional work to solve problems on Starliner. When NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract to complete development of the Starliner spacecraft a decade ago, the aerospace contractor projected the capsule would be ready to fly astronauts by the end of 2017.

It turns out the Crew Flight Test didn't launch until June 5, 2024. //

When NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX to develop the Starliner and Crew Dragon spacecraft for astronaut missions, the agency signed fixed-price agreements with each contractor. These fixed-price contracts mean the contractors, not the government, are responsible for paying for cost overruns. //

It's instructive to compare these costs with those of SpaceX's Crew Dragon program, which started flying astronauts in 2020. All of NASA's contracts with SpaceX for a similar scope of work on the Crew Dragon program totaled more than $3.1 billion, but any expenses paid by SpaceX are unknown because it is a privately held company.

SpaceX has completed all six of its original crew flights for NASA, while Boeing is at least a year away from starting operational service with Starliner. In light of Boeing's delays, NASA extended SpaceX's commercial crew contract to cover eight additional round-trip flights to the space station through the end of the 2020s. //

cyberfunk Ars Scholae Palatinae
12y
824
Blaming fixed price contracts is rich. They're basically admitting incompetence by blaming the cost structure they agreed to.. either because they agreed to it, or because they can't properly estimate cost and deliver quality product on budget. Either way they look like idiots. I'm glad they're holding the bag this time and not the taxpayer. //

BigFire Ars Scholae Palatinae
3y
985
SpaceX will not bid on Cost Plus contracts because the company isn't setup with the kind of extra layers of auditing to justifying everything that will trigger the cost overrun payments. Frankly Boeing Space isn't setup to do anything other than Cost Plus (witness ISS and SLS center core). Nevermind the same ballpark, they're not even playing the same sports, quoting Jules Winnfield from Pulp fiction. //

Dachshund Smack-Fu Master, in training
4y
99
You could see this shift happening within Boeing a little over two decades ago. I had the privilege of learning from some of the last grey beards whose work had given Boeing their stellar reputation before they retired. Those grey beards were worn thin and got zero respect from the hot shot, tassel loafer MBAs hustling them to do things “better, faster, cheaper”.

Internally we knew it was all going to hell, we just weren’t sure when the public would see it for themselves. I thank the space exploration Gods for SpaceX - if it weren’t for them Boeing and every other crook company could keep playing the “space is hard” card and the cost plus buffet open. //

Transmission Integrity Seniorius Lurkius
5y
8
Subscriptor

RickVS said:
The bean counters deserve this. If instead of shareholder value they had focused on top-notch engineering, they probably would have already flown crew to the ISS at least a couple of times.

And as a result it would probably have been cheaper/profitable. //

A sharp decline in sunspot activity in the 17th century has long puzzled astronomers. //

We realized that this [Kepler's] sunspot drawing should be able to tell us the location of the sunspot and indicate the solar cycle phase in 1607 as long as we managed to narrow down the observation point and time and reconstruct the tilt of the heliographic coordinates—meaning the positions of features on the Sun's surface—at that point in time.” //

German astronomer Gustav Spörer noted the steep decline in 1887 and 1889 papers, and his British colleagues, Edward and Annie Maunder, expanded on that work to study how the latitudes of sunspots changed over time. That period became known as the "Maunder Minimum." Spörer also came up with "Spörer's law," which holds that spots at the start of a cycle appear at higher latitudes in the Sun's northern hemisphere, moving to successively lower latitudes in the southern hemisphere as the cycle runs its course until a new cycle of sunspots begins in the higher latitudes.

But precisely how the solar cycle transitioned to the Maunder Minimum has been far from clear. //

"It is fascinating to see historical figures’ legacy records convey crucial scientific implications to modern scientists even centuries later," said co-author Sabrina Bechet of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. "I doubt if they could have imagined their records would benefit the scientific community much later, well after their deaths. We still have a lot to learn from these historical figures, apart from the history of science itself. In the case of Kepler, we are standing on the shoulders of a scientific giant."

DDopson Ars Tribunus Militum
22y
2,038
Subscriptor

ROOT1803 said:
Serious question: With this much material floating around in orbit, would re-purposing it be something that is feasible? Or is it just irredeemably junk for the most part?
It's infeasible to recover and utilize.

This came up in a previous thread, where I said:
...
On orbit recycling aspirationally saves some launch mass, the cheaper half of the equation, but it forces you to engineer a vast array of complicated system elements for the recovery process and then use in-space manufacturing and assembly processes that will certainly never be cheaper than their terrestrial equivalents where we can walk over to the machine in our shirt-sleeves and clear out a broken milling bit, call the parts warehouse down the road, and have a replacement bit installed same afternoon. The economic network effects are very very difficult to overcome, far harder than any one of the individual engineering problems. //

HuntingManatees Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
11m
100

andygates said:
The problem is that the stuff isn't particularly special, it's just big empty beer cans. The cost is in getting it up there. And it'd be more straightforward (and less expensive) to bring it down than to tugboat the stuff to a space junkyard.

Actual orbital mechanics are left as an exercise for the Kerbals.

I actually spent an unhealthy amount of time in KSP trying to retrieve space junk using a series of giant folding claw mechanisms that would -- in theory -- latch onto dead satellites and then burn for reentry.

This resulted in two or three successful de-orbiting missions, but I gave up after I caught myself tasking my Kerbals with sending up fresh claw ships to retrieve previously-launched claw ships that had run out of fuel.

Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official.

The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.

Mr. Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials said, once it was confirmed that he was inside his room at the guesthouse. The blast also killed a bodyguard. //

Such a breach, three Iranian officials said, was a catastrophic failure of intelligence and security for Iran and a tremendous embarrassment for the Guards, which uses the compound for retreats, secret meetings and housing prominent guests like Mr. Haniyeh. //

Seth Mandel @SethAMandel
·
You know, I often make fun of the "MOSSAD UNDER THE BED!" ppl on here, but sometimes yeah the Mossad is under your bed what can I tell you
nytimes.com
Bomb Smuggled Into Tehran Guesthouse Months Ago Killed Hamas Leader
9:39 AM · Aug 1, 2024

It’s supposed to make the title transfer a breeze and help Californians avoid those tedious trips to the DMV.

Users will soon be able to claim their digital titles via the DMV’s application, track and manage them without getting to the office, according to an Avalanche blog post. The time to transfer vehicle titles drops to a few minutes using blockchain rails in the backend from two weeks via the traditional process, a DMV spokesperson said in an email. //

However, given the recent spate of Microsoft outages and other hacking reports, I am a bit nervous about digitizing without serious hard copy backups. Given how expensive cars have become and how critical having one is to people’s lives and livelihoods, extreme caution should be used before proceeding.

The unintended consequences of this move could be devastating if there are significant issues with the system.

It is also disturbing to note this move is also part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s plans to even have more control over our lives….under the banner of protections. ///

What about people who don't have smartphones, or computers, or Internet ? What happens when there is actual fraud, how do you unwind that? Do people still get paper backup copies of titles?

Is nothing sacred anymore? Who brags about their own political record at someone else's funeral? And who cheers for that person as they are doing so? It's just such a foreign concept to me (and likely most of you).

The Democrat thirst for power knows no limits, though. They will use any opportunity to boost their prospects, no matter how inappropriate. In other words, they play for keeps, and in an environment where there are no consequences for anything they do, can you blame them?

On Thursday, we learned that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who has been living in luxury in Qatar, was taken out by an explosive device placed in a guest house room in Tehran months ago and remotely detonated. Haniyeh was in Iran for the swearing-in of Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, which was scheduled for Tuesday. Haniyeh's pronouns have now been permanently changed to "was" and "were." //

Three Iranian officials separately told The New York Times that the security breach that allowed the explosive device to find its way into the compound where Haniyeh was residing – which is used by the Guards for secret meetings and housing prominent guests – is a massive embarrassment to the military agency. //

No matter who planted this device, it's an effective little piece of retribution for Oct 7th. And you know what the thing is about revenge? It's patient.

The Russians are getting a GRU assassin, Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany for gunning down Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian-born Chechen dissident, in broad daylight in a Berlin park. Also possibly involved: "Four Russians detained in the US on charges including cyber crime, smuggling and money laundering were thought to possibly be part of the exchange - although their names have not yet been made public."

Another part of the puzzle seems to be two deep-cover Russian agents arrested in Slovenia in December 2022 who were suddenly sentenced to 19 months in prison Wednesday and then immediately released on time served and expelled from the country.

Somehow, the NYT and their bevy of so-called experts think they can divine the cause of these fires. In each case, the NYT has blamed climate change as either a driver or contributor to these three fires without so much as a shred of proof. In fact, the NYT contradicts their own claims in the table of the top ten fires in California by acreage burned provided in their article. //

While there was indeed a heat wave prior to the Park Fire, that had no bearing on the fire at all. The area where the fire ignited, Butte County, California, and the most-burned area in Tehama County are not in drought conditions according to the U.S. Drought Monitor for July 23 – the day before the Park Fire was ignited by a criminal arsonist.

So, “climate change caused drought” creating abnormally dry conditions didn’t figure into the Park Fire at all. The fire wouldn’t exist without the criminal act of arson.

The arson ignition point in Chico’s Bidwell Park is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Just to the north of that point, huge acreages of grassland and scrubbrush exist. Combine that ignition with the sustained southerly winds that day of 20-25 mph, and it is no surprise that the fire rapidly spread north. Rick Carhart, the Public Information Officer for CalFire in Butte County and a Chico resident for decades, confirmed in a telephone interview that the area “had not naturally burned in several decades, and had no control burns to reduce fuel loads.” He added that these “high fuel loads, combined with the wind that day made a very aggressive fire.”

Climate change contributed nothing to the actual circumstances or rapid spread of the fire – local weather and a criminal act are at fault. The drying of grasses (which happens every spring) and the heat wave (which happens every summer) are both weather patterns that operate on short-term time scales as opposed to long-term climate change.

My colleague, Heartland Institute Research Fellow Linnea Lueken, published a scathing factual rebuttal last year of a case with The Sacramento Bee making similar, baseless claims like the NYT when they attempted to connect climate change to wildfires and their natural drivers, such as lightning. She writes:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds no climate signal, nor increasing trend, behind thunderstorms, or lightning occurrences. Also, NASA satellites have documented a global long-term decline in wildfires. NASA reports satellites have measured a 25-percent decrease in global lands burned since 2003.

Examining wildfires in California in particular, research shows massive wildfires have regularly swept through the state. Indeed, a 2007 paper in the journal Forest Ecology and Management reported that prior to European colonization in the 1800s, more than 4.4 million acres of California forest and shrub-land burned annually. As compared to the 4.4 million California acres that burned each year prior to European colonization, only 90,000 acres to 1.6 million California acres burn in a typical year now.

Clearly, there is no climate change component to California wildfires at all. If there were, fires in the present would be consuming much more than 4.4 million acres annually – but this isn’t happening. The simple fact is: Arsonists are responsible for more wildfires than climate change. The intensity and coverage of wildfire varies greatly from year to year, as evidenced by the 2022 NYT story: Why California’s 2022 Wildfire Season Was Unexpectedly Quiet. A map of fires from year to year in the article demonstrates this well.

Ashley McGuire, senior fellow with The Catholic Association had this to say about Buttigieg's comment:

Buttigieg is just admitting what we have always known about abortion: that it empowers men to exploit women. Buttigieg’s male ‘freedom’ comes at the cost of women’s freedom. It creates a world where men are ‘free’ to use women and women are coerced into abortions they don’t want to have. That’s not authentic freedom. It’s just domination by another name.

President of the National Right to Life Committee, Carol Tobias, said:

Pete Buttigieg is recklessly suggesting that legal abortion makes men ‘more free’ as they can push a woman into having an abortion in order to shun responsibility. If men are part of creating a new life, they should accept the responsibility that goes along with caring for their child and the child's mother. //

As the media remains focused on Vance pointing out that Democrats should promote pro-family and pro-child values, Buttigieg said the quiet part out loud: Men will have more "freedom" if women are able to freely abort children. It is a disgusting statement made by Buttigieg and whether he will try to walk it back or not, it won't matter because people will not forget his way of thinking about abortion.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee held a joint hearing Tuesday to examine the totality of the goat-rope that was security for former President Donald Trump at Butler, PA, on July 13, which led to him being wounded by a rifle bullet (see Sen. Kennedy Hilariously Destroys FBI Over Whether Trump Was Shot: 'It Wasn't a Murder Hornet?') and coming within millimeters of death.

The hearing did not shed a lot of light on the events of July 13. Everyone agreed that the Secret Service accepted responsibility but not so much as to do anything about it; //

All in all, the picture painted was one of a Secret Service management structure that deprived the Trump campaign of requested resources for security because they could. The security coordination for the rally was slipshod and lackadaisical, with no apparent attempt to establish a unified command and operations structure for the different law enforcement agencies involved. //

Not everyone saw a petty, vindictive, blundering command structure in the Secret Service as the proximate cause of the killing of one rally participant and the wounding of two others and a presidential candidate.

Lindsey Graham used his opening statement to insist that someone needed to be fired:
[Video]

Fair enough. But Graham devoted his first question to giving the acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe carte blanche to ask for more money. //

The Secret Service currently has a budget in excess of $3 billion. Delaware's budget is $4.5 billion. //

Let's review the bidding. The Secret Service has stonewalled the Senate and House in providing details on the assassination attempt. The Secret Service communications apparatus blatantly lied to Congress and the nation. Secret Service agents were diverted from Trump's outdoor rally to beef up the protection for Dr. Jill, who was engaged in what can only be called counter-programming in a secure hotel in Pittsburgh. The site security plan ignored a big f-ing building a mere 140 yards from the speaker's dais. Counter-sniper teams were only made available the day before the rally and did not have time to produce a site plan. No one has been fired. The overwhelming odds are no one will be fired because most of these foul-ups were brought on by decisions made at Secret Service headquarters.

The answer is not more money. As we've seen from history, more money begets more arrogance and more incompetence. The answer is a massive haircut that cleans out the headquarters and eliminates any task that is not a core function of the agency specified by federal statute. If the Secret Service doesn't have adequate resources to protect presidential candidates, maybe their role should be reduced to providing a small command-and-control cell with the actual security provided by something like the successor to Blackwater Worldwide.

As Ronald Reagan said, "If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it."

Ten days. It's been ten days since Kamala Harris was anointed as the Democratic Party's Chosen One to replace the failing Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election. She has not won one primary vote, but the Democrats waved their hands over her and she's the candidate.

And since this happened, she has not given one unscripted press conference. //

Review senior writer Noah Rothman asked his social media followers on Wednesday, "When is Kamala Harris going to hold a press conference?"

Here's a hint, Mr. Rothman: She won't, for as long as she can get away with it. An open, unscripted press conference in which she would (presumably) be required to answer questions off the cuff would be to Kamala Harris as a crucifix is to Dracula. //

RedinOR
7 hours ago
At the root of it all, in addition to being stupid she is also lazy. We all know someone who is just "a natural" when it comes to speaking/communicating; Mike Rowe and Guy Fieri come to mind. It seems so effortless and comfortable for them. Others of us need to prepare and prepare and prepare. Que-Mala is too lazy for that, and we see the results.

Just Jim
2 hours ago
I'm tired of hearing "black community." I'm tired of hearing, "What are you going to do for the black community?"
This is a separate-but-equal mentality and until it ends, we will always have to pretend we have racial issues. And that's what it is; a pretense. It's a facade erected by people that want power.
There are very few issues facing black people that aren't faced by people of every other race. The few issues that are supposedly different are either some very specific health issues or issues that have been imposed by decades of failed Democrat policies.
Trump is correct. Solve issues for all Americans and you solve issues for the "black community."

Instead of asking Trump to give reasons why Black voters should vote for him, Scott turned into the "LANGUAGE POLICE," and couched the narrative that it is what Trump says, and not what he does, that is why "Black people" do not like him. Trump rightly called her out on the rude and disingenuous line of questioning.

TRUMP: First of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner, a first question. You don't even say, "Hello," "How are you?" Are you with ABC? Because I think they are a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it's disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country, I've done so much for the Black population of this country. Including employment, including opportunity zones with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, which is one of the greatest programs ever for Black workers and Black entrepreneurs.
...
I think it's a very rude introduction. I don't know exactly why you would do something like that. And let me go a step further, I was invited here, and I was told my opponent—whether it was Biden or Kamala—I was told my opponent was going to be here. It turned out my opponent isn't here. You invited me under false pretense. //

R SCOTT: Mr. President I would love for you to answer the question...

TRUMP: I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln. That's my answer.

R SCOTT: Better than President Johnson who signed the Voting Rights Act?

} TRUMP: That's my answer. //

And leave it to a Democrat apparatchik to invoke Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the most racist presidents in history, second only to Woodrow Wilson. While Johnson claims the Voting Rights Act, it was overwhelming Republican support that allowed it to be passed into law. So, Scott is either not much of a journalist or not very bright, to bypass these factors. //

TRUMP: The inflation is absolutely destroying our middle class, our working class, virtually every class. Inflation is a disaster in our country. Inflation is a country buster, it breaks every country. And we had, in my opinion, the worst inflation we've ever had—they say it's 58 years but I think it's much more than that—it's been devastating. ...

HARRIS F: What's your plan?

TRUMP: You know what we have to do, we have to bring down cost of energy, and that's going to bring down the cost of inflation. This was all started by a bad energy policy by Joe Biden. //

Faulkner asked the question that got an answer that is a reflection of what Trump deems important not only in a VP candidate, but what elicits respect and admiration from him as a person. Faulkner interjected, "Why did you choose him?" Trump gave a full-throated, 10-toes down response.

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
·
PRESIDENT TRUMP on @JDVance: I chose him because he is a very strong believer in WORK and the working man and woman who have been treated very unfairly.

3:46 PM · Jul 31, 2024

Joe Biden's Defense Department approved a plea deal Wednesday for three of the conspirators behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi will enter pleas before the military commission at Guantanamo Bay next week. //

The Pentagon announcement Wednesday didn’t include details, but a person familiar with the deal said that it involved a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty, but the torture of the defendants while in Central Intelligence Agency custody had clouded proceedings for years. //

President Biden learned of the plea bargain Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesman said.

“The president and the White House played no role in this process. The president has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter,” the spokesman said. //

The only reason we are going through this is because of a direct usurpation of congressional power by a crazed Anthony Kennedy and four fellow travelers. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 specifically placed review of the act outside the purview of the Supreme Court as allowed by Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution: "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The actions of the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush should have resulted in Bush telling Kennedy to take a long walk on a short pier, and impeachment proceedings should have been brought against every federal judge who agreed to touch the case. But, alas, that would have required courage.

So, the final curtain is coming down on 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. Thanks to the Defense Department's total lack of transparency, it looks like that curtain will go down with as much controversy as when it came up.