You can fire a THAAD at one Starlink satellite, but probably not at 8000 of them.

For comparison we’re currently producing THAAD interceptors at a rate of 96 a year (though Lockheed is aiming to increase it to 400).

From the article:

> internal company documents […] showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her […]

Uber actually had a whole project that produced systems that determine the risk of incidents happening. Could they make rides safer but chose not to? That’s at the core of these lawsuits.

I think ‘a leading member’ is underselling it a little. He is the “Fraktionsvorsitzender”, which is comparable to the majority leader in the US Senate.

They are often referred to as Blister Packs.

They weight 1.2 tons total. If they are made of polystyrene and steel, it stands to reason that a significant part of the 1.2 tons is contributed by the steel.

But at this point none of the remaining shuttles are in an operational state.

Maybe you are thinking of the X-37 which is operated by the space force?

Random fact: Those starters are a plot point in the 1965 film The Flight of the Phoenix, where the protagonists are trying to start a plane that’s stranded in the Sahara, but only have a small supply of starter cartridges left.

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

Basic couldn't utilize it, but in assembly it was a great area of extra memory, and you could use it without even switching the ROMs off.

Wikipedia explains it as "an activity done by individuals to protect themselves from possible subsequent criticism, legal penalties, or other repercussions, usually in a work-related or bureaucratic context."[1]

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

AirTags contain lithium primary batteries, which are a totally different thing (other than both containing the element lithium).

Lithium primary batteries present no more a risk than alkaline AAs. Probably less.

I don’t recall if anybody noticed before they went public, but as this thread shows, today it would be noticed for sure.

I've heard ATC use that term when Air Force One was in the area. They won't say who specifically is there, or even that it is AF 1, but instead just say that air space is closed "due to VIP Movement".

I don't think it means they care more about safety when a VIP is around, rather that a VIP movement might shut certain other operations down, which increases the overall workload for ATC.

For example they sometimes (or always?) stop all ground traffic from even moving while AF 1 is taxiing, landing or taking off.

Personally, I'm not quite there yet, but the older I get, the more I see their point...

The dairy industry is actually pretty annoyed with that and tries to get the rules changed so those beverages can not be called milk.

But if you ask it for a court case, and it makes up a whole false case file with fake names and fake facts and everything, then calling that ‘false’ seems to be an understatement. Hallucination seems a good label for that kind of thing, imo.

With cost plus contracts that’s unfortunately a feature and not a bug.

I think Boeing has just been unable to pivot to behaving differently for fixed price contracts, which is not surprising given corporate inertia.

But after thinking about it, it feels natural, because usually we talk about "Things" and the "Connections" between them.

Could be a companies org chart, a family tree, a network diagram, abstract things like processes. It's all "Things" and "Connections".

Maybe that's why graph theory has so many applications. Because at the end, it's all just graphs with vertices and edges.

Anti nuclear sentiment had been building in Germany since at least the 70s. Then Chernobyl happened in 1986 and it got even stronger. It was part of what propelled the Greens into the administration 1998.

That administration reached an agreement for the nuclear exit in 2000 and the first plant went offline in 2003.

Merkels cabinet tried to extend the planned runtimes for the remaining plants, and it was that extension that was rolled backed after Fukushima.

Now, you can think that it was a big mistake, but it certainly was not a knee jerk reaction. It was a decision that was 50 years in the making.

You can use a number as a unique identifier for each person that everybody stores. You can also use a number as a secret code to authenticate yourself.

But you can’t use the same number for both purposes.