I'm sad

I wanted to do an utility to display the ISS position from the CLI on an ascii art map

but someone already did it

and it actually looks great

I'm not much of a person for SciShow, but this video about the Apollo guidance computers (in light of the code being released on GitHub) was rather interesting.

@SF. We should just agree now to call it Delta 5 instead of Delta V.

@called2voyage thanks called. feeling better right now.

@Phiteros wow, that was indeed pretty cool

@Antzi these are the times we live in...

^ AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum on Monday the 25th, all day. Schedule here

^ Viking 40th Anniversary lecture hosted at Langley, schedule here

^ NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium on Aug 23, schedule here

Juno, Rosetta, ACE, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Dawn, Stereo A, Curiosity, New Horizons, Voyager 2, and Mars Odyssey/MAVEN

So the guy with the Tesla Model X just drove it down to the beach, opened the falcon wing doors. I was about to go take a picture of it. Then he got out and started taking pictures of it. :)

Go up and ask him for a picture

Or just steal the car.

He let me sit in it. Not yet driven an X. Drove a S-60, and P85D no Ludicrous.

He has a X-85D (or is it 90? Whatever).

If you can get a test drive, go do it. They do not pressure you at all, and do not care if you are up front of doing it for fun.

That is the coolest car, to hit the gas at a green light and take off like a bullet.

Nice. Is it red? Everyone knows that having a red car makes it go faster.

The acceleration is literally INSANE. (I tried one with Insane mode, no Ludicrous). People who have driven a Tesla with Ludicrous, agrees with the name. It is just too fast to be for real.

I await the car they deliver with Maximum Plaid, which Musk has kind of promised will the Roadster 2.0.

wait, really? They name the acceleration like that?

Isn't Ludicrous Speed supposed to be plaid anyways?

@Phiteros Yes.

If you go too fast in Ludicrous you go to Maximum Plaid.

BUt right now, Insane mode, Ludicrous mode, are serious choices in the Tesla's cars UI.

For realsies.

I love that they actually named them that.

So right now, Ludicrous is supposed to be the max you can acheive with 4 tires on the ground. Any more and wheels begin spinning. So next rev of Roadster is the theoretical one that can exceed 2.8s 0-60 MPH. Which is beyond madness.

Hmm that reminds me that I was supposed to get my driver license 10 years ago

That's a pretty long time to have forgotten.

i wonder wether it'll be faster to take it or wait for the autonomous cars :p

Depends on the DMV

I went to the school, registered and never went much further

If you have a passport or some other form of identification, unless you drive regularly, there's no real reason to get a driver's license.

It would be nice for holidays

So I regret not having one about once a year

Does that regret outweigh the time and money you would spend on getting a license? Also, you do need to renew it every few years.

I drive way too much these days. Mostly 1000 mile round trips every month. I have driven over 12,000 miles this past year.

No it doesn't. I don't need to renew the license over there but it cost 4000$...

Think about all the taxi and train I could use for that price ...

I ride up to 1000miles a month

@Antzi Eh, if you forgot about it for the last ten years, just forget about it another ten years and go autonomous.

But I need holidays to do so.... Since bicycle is quite slower than cars

Yeah I really hope the legislators will let it happen

That's my biggest worry about autonomous cars

wait, why does it cost $4000?

@Antzi I used to bike a lot more. 8000 K/year.

Anyway time to sleep :)

I suspect eventually the argument will reverse: why have human drivers?

Goodnight!

On the subject of autonomous cars, my friend was complaining that if they are programmed with rudimentary ethics which makes them prioritize saving the maximum number of lives over the life of the driver, you could assassinate people by getting a large enough group, and stepping out in front of such a car as it was going down the freeway.

That's the driving school and examination fees from the last driving school I checked

Which, in my opinion, is a pretty ludicrous assassination attempt.

Ah, I see. Would you have to go to a driving school? Or could you just take a driving test at the DMV?

@Phiteros Lol, yeah, I think the ethical issues are manageable. Our laws are already not ethically perfect, if there is such a thing.

Might be able to to find slightly cheaper but not so much

Hmm there's a possibility to take fewer lessons but ... I need friends to teach me then. None of them own a car and I don't think I can rent one for this purpose

Especially since I want a manual license but only automatic cars are available for rent

Yeah, I'd say it's not worth it.

Definitely :( should've done it while I was still in France. Would have been much cheaper

Anyway good night :)

Night

Oh, hey, we're up to 7 questions/day now!

i'm gonna post the link to our stats on Stacker again codemanteau.com/stacker/?siteId=255

we're definitely on an upward trend, but for perspective it's pretty interesting to look at Stack Exchange's premiere site for comparison, Stack Overflow

questions per day: 7600 visits per day: 7.5 million

@kimholder I'm not sure I would ever expect to be there.

:D oh, no. i just meant, in the ecosystem of stack exchange, the science sites, and all the current beta sites, are a different beast.

Ah, good point

i hadn't realized before the vast scale of the difference. being so small in a business so large has its dangers, inherently. it just made me think about that more.

@kimholder Flip side - it is not clear the model works at the SO scale really. Hard to find the questions to answer, since there is a fire hose of questions. The moderatiuon queue is thousands deep I recall.

the whole thing i'd call still experimental. i think it takes more than a few years to figure out how to manage something like this.

despite the chaos, when i ask something on SO i get a good answer in half an hour. my questions are simple though.

I've only asked a few questions on SO, but I use existing answers a lot.

i can never find something that matches. that issue i think is important.

@kimholder you mean matches your problem exactly?

yes, close enough to use the answer. and since my questions are simple html and css stuff, a few times i thought i could do that, but i couldn't.

I feel you there

Several times I've had to adapt two or three answers to get a solution

And I mean answers to different questions

yeah, i often read several before giving up and asking, which turns out to usually be faster : /

My answer did get accepted over Jon Skeet's once though :)

The OP asked the wrong question, and I answered what was actually needed

ah, that takes a keen eye :))

Jon Skeet's suggestion worked too though, and got more upvoted

Helps to have the reputation

yes, it's one of the awkward things

people who have been around know to have a grain of salt though

And older languages get poor support

Hard to fix that though

the comments are in need of a lot of cleanup, i'm not sure how many to delete...

think i'll also post a notice on it of citation needed

ok, i deleted a bunch of comments. just saying so since a lot of people won't see the difference.