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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: August 22nd, 2023

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  • Starlink satellites are in low Earth orbit. They could still cause Kessler syndrome, but aren’t as much of a concern as higher orbits.

    Here are some quotes regarding this from and Aerospace America article

    Regarding satellite proliferation, while there are many more satellites, the company responsible for most of them, SpaceX, places its Starlink satellites in a low orbit so they can naturally deorbit relatively soon — within five or six years, per SpaceX — if they fail.

    At around 400 kilometers and into the 500-km realm — home to ISS and the SpaceX Starlink satellites among others — atmospheric drag plays a major role. Dead satellites and debris usually slow and burn up in the atmosphere in just a few years. This natural cleansing process accelerates when the sun becomes more active and solar coronal mass ejections strike Earth and cause the atmosphere to swell. “In those altitudes, we can probably do a lot and we will be forgiven,” Linares says.




  • This was not an issue for this plane. They replaced the entire throttle control module in 2019 and in 2023. Quoted text below is from page 6 of the preliminary report. I have bolded the relevant sentences.

    The FAA issued Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) No. NM-18-33 on December 17, 2018, regarding the potential disengagement of the fuel control switch locking feature. This SAIB was issued based on reports from operators of Model 737 airplanes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. The airworthiness concern was not considered an unsafe condition that would warrant airworthiness directive (AD) by the FAA. The fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models including part number 4TL837-3D which is fitted in B787-8 aircraft VT-ANB. As per the information from Air India, the suggested inspections were not carried out as the SAIB was advisory and not mandatory. The scrutiny of maintenance records revealed that the throttle control module was replaced on VT-ANB in 2019 and 2023. However, the reason for the replacement was not linked to the fuel control switch. There has been no defect reported pertaining to the fuel control switch since 2023 on VT-ANB.


  • This has always been my concern with living in the West Coast region of the United States. I worry I’ll move there and in ~10-20 years my neighbor will shoot me over a glass of water and/or my house will burn down in a forest fire. Is this unrealistic and something I shouldn’t be concerned about? Probably lol.

    Also as the saying goes: ‘those that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.’ I currently live in the deep red state of TN, so although I am not worried about forest fires or running out of water, I am deeply concerned about the political climate I’m in. Also, tornadoes (some say tornado valley is moving east)and 110°F (45°C) Heat indexes that will probably kill me instead.


  • Here’s some quotes from this CNN article:

    The breakdown was caused by failures in the copper wiring that transmits information from Long Island to Philadelphia, a source told CNN.

    “What we use today is copper wires. We are one of the last institutions, last businesses, that actually use copper wires,” Duffy told reporters Thursday.

    “We should be using fiber, but it’s copper. We use radar from the 1970s, some of them are from the 80s… So this technology is 50 years old that our controller has used to scan the skies and keep airplanes separated from one another.”

    Some controllers still use floppy disks to upload data onto computers that date to the early 1990s, according to experts.


  • I can’t imagine using the only black man in Japan at the time would lend itself to being stealthy (any race but Asian, specifically of Japanese decent, would have stood out back then), but I also haven’t played the game so I don’t know if stealth is even a mechanic in this franchise anymore.

    So, my buddy has played through a good chunk of the game and according to him you play as 2 characters: The first is a woman of Japanese descent who you get the classic ‘stealthy’ assassins creed experience. The second is Yasuke, which he has described as playing a ‘bull in a china shop’ where it’s all about beating the shit out of enemies and causing a ruckus.

    Apparently playing as Yasuke is the most fun he has had in an assassins creed game in years.




  • I know we are all on here because we dislike the kind of algorithms that tik tok, Instagram, and Facebook have, but that is exactly the thing my wife was looking for. When I had her download pixelfed and loops she was like ’ I have to search out content and manually follow people like I did with Facebook back in the day?’ and she uninstalled.

    Algorithms can be addictive and evil, but for some people that’s what they’re looking for.



  • Mods, I appreciate this bot!

    Deciphering media bias is tough, and finding 1 site that will ‘perfectly’ identify biases is an impossible task, but at the minimum having this bot show up on posts ‘gets people thinking’ about the credibility of their news sources.

    MBFC doesn’t have to be the ultimate arbitrator either. If it is missing something about a specific article people can call it out in the comments. At the end of the day, the worst thing it does is add more data about a news source and I’m not gonna complain about that.


  • Mods, I appreciate this bot!

    Deciphering media bias is tough, and finding 1 site that will ‘perfectly’ identify biases is an impossible task, but at the minimum having this bot show up on posts ‘gets people thinking’ about the credibility of their news sources.

    MBFC doesn’t have to be the ultimate arbitrator either. If it is missing something about a specific article people can call it out in the comments. At the end of the day, the worst thing it does is add more data about a news source and I’m not gonna complain about that.








  • I’d say this is less on the ability of Russian assassin’s and more on this guy for reaching out to his girlfriend back in Russia.

    In Spain, Mr. Kuzminov lived “an indiscreet life,” the senior Guardia Civil official said. He went to bars popular with Russian and Ukrainian clientele, burning through the money he had received from the Ukrainian state. He drove around Villajoyosa in a black Mercedes S-Class.

    Exactly how the killers found him has not been established, though two senior Ukrainian officials said he had reached out to a former girlfriend, still in Russia, and invited her to come see him in Spain.

    “This was a grave mistake,” one of the officials said.


  • So, the Alaska Airlines door plug incident is more than likely Boeing’s fault(we don’t have the footage or a record of who did the repair because Boeing deleted/lost it…which makes me even more suspicious tbh), but this was a 25yr old 737-800 Boeing hasn’t seen in decades. This looks like a united maintenance issue as do all the other united 737 issues.

    Now, don’t get me wrong, Boeing definitely has a plethora of issues going on, but I think the FAA might want to also look into United’s maintenance department as well cause they’re also having a plethora of issues.