Hacker News: icarus_drowning

New comment by icarus_drowning in "SpaceX set to launch ‘used rocket’"

icarus_drowning — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 04:52:23 +0000

As I understand it, the main difference is that the Falcon rockets are (or are eventually meant to be) much less dependent on refurbishment between launches. The Space Shuttle required extensive and expensive work between launches to the extent that many critics[1] claimed that it wasn't truly "reusable". (IMHO, while the shuttle program definitely didn't achieve its goals, it seems like calling it "reusable" is fair).

As for gliding back: the Falcon booster does not actually achieve orbit-- when the main engine cuts off, it is on a ballistic trajectory back to the ocean. While it may be possible to design some sort of gliding apparatus to "save" a booster on a sub-orbital trajectory, it is (again, as I understand it), much simpler to simply adjust that trajectory via a boostback burn that reverses or slows that trajectory, and to then perform a suicide burn[2] to recover the stage, either on a barge or (on lower orbit missions) back on a land-based pad.

I am not a rocket scientist, nor do I have experience in the space industry-- these thoughts are just based on what I've read following the SpaceX reusability program as closely as I can for the past few years.

I do play a lot of Kerbal Space Program, though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle...

[2] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10307/what-is-a-sui...

New comment by icarus_drowning in "George R. R. Martin Still Uses A DOS Word Processor"

icarus_drowning — Wed, 14 May 2014 15:21:00 +0000

I seriously hope he's got a backup strategy for that DOS box.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Drop Dropbox"

icarus_drowning — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 22:24:33 +0000

It means that a bunch of people who once thought they were somehow above or apart from politics find that they are not, and that the things that happen in the world constitute news of real interest to hackers. That's growth.

Unless the views that "unite" them are repulsive. If Rice's viewpoints were the polar opposite and we were all jumping on the bandwagon to boycott dropbox because they didn't support torture enough, would that be "growth"?

Of course not.

You don't like Rice's views on this issue, and want to convince people-- including the HN community-- that she was wrong on this issue, and that her views on other issues (warantless wiretaps, etc.) are dangerous for a business like dropbox. Moreover, you don't want to support dropbox now that Rice is a board member. Fine. But to claim that just because we all (or at least most of us) disagree with her views, that in and of itself means that we're "growing" as a community is genuinely dangerous-- because at some point, most of us are going to be wrong about something, and arguing on ideological merit is going to be the only thing that can "save" us. Simply saying that "we all agree, and that's growth" will just ensure that we're all wrong forever.

How a transgender “foreign hope” is challenging the pro StarCraft world

icarus_drowning — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 05:05:39 +0000

Article URL: http://www.avclub.com/article/how-a-transgender-foreign-hope-is-challenging-the-107511

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7188826

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Time-Machine-style backup with rsync"

icarus_drowning — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 14:52:33 +0000

I found that just running an Automator script for the "new disk image from selection" command on the root of the drive worked perfectly-- set an iCal event to run that script once a day, and you're done.

Be sure to test this to make sure it restores, but in my case it works flawlessly.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Time-Machine-style backup with rsync"

icarus_drowning — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 01:53:39 +0000

The integration with OS reinstall works very well, and is pretty seamless from the user's perspective. I used to do two backups-- a local TM backup and a separate cloud backup, but I found it was actually easier to just use Automator to up mount my TM volume once a day, image it, and send that up to the cloud. When my TM volume failed last year, I just pulled the latest image and put it on a replacement drive, and I was back up and running.

TM has had a few problems, but by and large it is one of the quiet successes in OS X, and probably my favorite feature if the OS. Why Microsoft hasn't put something like it in Windows is baffling to me.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "A Sneak Peek at Eric Schlosser's New Book on Nuclear Weapons"

icarus_drowning — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 20:31:01 +0000

Also, if you're looking for a short, but surprisingly informative video on the matter, Scott Manley's "WTF is rocket fuel anyway" video is fantastic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI8TuufCp0M

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Those Mac Pros are going to be expensive"

icarus_drowning — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 19:38:12 +0000

Well at least you expect the downvotes. Which leads me to wonder why you thought this comment would be informative and helpful in the first place.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Logic Pro X"

icarus_drowning — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 15:21:39 +0000

The Normalize on export function in Logic is works weirdly well too, especially considering you have almost no control over it. I almost always leave it on and in 5 years of professional composition work, have only chosen to switch it off once or twice-- and only because it was pushing some audio artifacts to the forefront that I had previously corrected.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Logic Pro X"

icarus_drowning — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 14:48:34 +0000

No 32-bit plugins is an interesting choice. Logic 9 can be launched in 64-bit mode with a 32-bit bridge that opens/closes based on whether or not you have any 32-bit VST/AU plugins trying to run. I've got a couple of Sonnox plugins that aren't available in 64-bit which is going to keep me off Logic X until they [Sonnox] get their act together.

Edit: Clarifying a poor use of a pronoun.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Logic Pro X"

icarus_drowning — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 14:46:37 +0000

The drum stuff seems new, but at first glance looks quite gimmicky. As a professional composer, the last thing I want to see is a picture of a drumkit and various performers in the middle of my DAW interface.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Logic Pro X"

icarus_drowning — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 14:45:26 +0000

Yes, they almost always control something important. In VST/AU instruments they're often assigned to crossfade volume so that you get a natural tone colour change across the dynamic range.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Logic Pro X"

icarus_drowning — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 14:40:28 +0000

I used to use Reason (way back in version 3), and now am a full-time Logic user for all my music production. I'd say this is a pretty fair characterization, although I actually use Logic with VST/AU instruments to do essentially the same thing I used to do in Reason.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Logic Pro X"

icarus_drowning — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 14:35:02 +0000

I spend about 8 hours a day in Logic Pro 9, and while I haven't used Ableton a ton, I get the impression that Ableton Live is more geared toward synthetic/electronic and live performance applications, whereas Logic is a more generally focused DAW that competes more directly with things like Pro Tools.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "The Physics Behind Traffic Jams"

icarus_drowning — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 06:11:21 +0000

Late merging makes better use of available road bandwidth. That's not anecdotal, that's simple math.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Apple Updates The Mac Pro"

icarus_drowning — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:13:38 +0000

Seemed like they were really focusing on external expandability via Thunderbolt 2.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Hacker News is depressing"

icarus_drowning — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:44:33 +0000

The issue I take with Dave Winer is that he seems to feel as though his accomplishments or contributions somehow elevate his words beyond criticism.

This is exactly why Dave Winer wrote this post.

The thing is, he probably has a point in criticizing the community. But he has a longstanding inability to respond to criticism properly, to the point where he just insults and name-calls people who disagree with him.

This is why he wants a twitter like "block" from HN. Because he'd rather block HN and the people who take issue with his ideas than actually have an argument.

[UPDATED: fixed poor wording]

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Hummingbird – A fresh take on music notation"

icarus_drowning — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 03:31:29 +0000

Sure, but I'd argue that's because the key signature is wrong. The correct way to notate that is with either a modal key signature a la Bartok or notate it as D with a constant natural on the C, showing that the tonal center is D while clearly notating the departure from the traditional major scale.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Hummingbird – A fresh take on music notation"

icarus_drowning — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:16:27 +0000

How is "tell[ing] you what key the piece is in" different that defining tonic/dominant/leading tone relationships? Those relationships are the product of the whole/half step pattern that the key signature communicates. It isn't just important that G has 1 sharp, and it is F. That sharp actually defines the leading tone.

New comment by icarus_drowning in "Hummingbird – A fresh take on music notation"

icarus_drowning — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:37:51 +0000

If the leading tone is "si", what do you call sharped sol?