> how easy home brewing, wine-making, and distilling are

They're not technically complex, but you need space and time for them, and producing a beer you would actually want to drink and bottling it isn't trivial.

I know one guy who moonshines for family-and-friends consumption, not sale, and I'll pass. It's not that much cheaper than just buying it (note: my state alcohol taxes are not that high) and it's a lot more work. I might make a batch of wine -> brandy from fruits that grew on a tree in my back yard if I had plums, just to say I did, but I'm not interested in making a big batch of corn liquor.

Metal has the marvelous quality of showing up well on X-ray, and clothing has the marvelous quality of never getting cancer from X-rays.

Pieces of cotton do not show up on X-ray, and humans do get cancer from too much ionizing radiation.

Of course miscounts happen sometimes, and sometimes both the initial and final counts are one short of the true number, but the vast majority of undetected retained items are sponges made of cotton. Not tools, not even tiny needles. That’s why there is a radiopaque strip embedded in the sponges intended for use during surgery.

It is not perfect, and cannot be.

Not just excess - excess and toxic. Hydrazine derivatives and nitrogen tetroxide, IIRC. They are hypergolic, too, so the easiest way to vent them is just to run the engines until empty. However, to prevent moving the craft too much, you do short bursts.

On the press conference they mentioned the RCS was used to orient the craft with the most sturdy part facing down for the ocean impact.

Otherwise I would also just bet on RCS venting like in Apollo.

There should be an opposite thruster for each axis. I wonder if the short bursts were due to heating limits.

There are opposed thrusters, but I assume that in atmosphere and under parachute canopy it’s harder to make sure they are perfectly opposed.

Heating likely plays a role as well.

I am not a rocket engineer, but I have read How Apollo Flew to the Moon and Ignition!: an informal history of liquid rocket propellants, both of which cover these issues. Highly recommended.

The short bursts are just the period of the control cycles. Control cycle starts, loop sees error, commands thrust; next control cycle starts, loop sees error is nulled (or in deadband), commands no thrust.

If you had ever used Swype on Android (it was only briefly on iOS, and wasn't as good as the Android version yet), you would understand how good keyboards could be 10-12 years ago. Perfect precise cursor placement. Cut, copy, paste, and select shortcuts. It was not perfect, but it was rapidly getting there.

Microsoft bought and killed it without, apparently, learning from it. Maybe there was a good reason why, but I've never seen one.

Costco is not for everyone, though. I really can't use it for most of my shopping because it's just me and my wife and she won't commit to eating something specific for a week, but "meals for two, to be decided upon at 5 pm daily" doesn't fit well. We don't eat a lot of the staples they do have that are shelf-stable, and their freezer packages are big enough that to have any variety I'd have to not only like what's on offer but buy a chest freezer that I don't have a good location for.

The stuff they have is nice, but unless I'm going to go buy a bunch of steaks or something, it just barely pays for itself if that. I've let my membership expire and renewed when I had something significant to buy (in which case it's definitely worth it). For my life, it's cheaper to buy smaller packages of the things that will go bad like meat and produce, even at a higher per-unit cost, and it's much closer.

Now, Walmart Plus? THAT has been fantastic. It pays for itself quickly because they will deliver the items to me for the staples they have, and I only have to get one loaf of bread, one small jelly, etc. I don't have to drive out there, walk to the back of the store, pick out one size of paper towels, go pay for it, and drive home again. It's easy to put together a $50 order to get free delivery because it's all my staples in quantities I'll use, not only one or two in family-of-four quantities.

We (the two of us) do fine with 95% Costco shopping, and I have similar "she won't commit to eating something specific for a week" restrictions. The only real tricks are get better at storage[1], and get better at cooking[2]. FWIW, the 2% rebate on the executive membership always covers my membership renewal price plus $50-$100 off a shop.

[1] Yes, you need somewhere to stuff 24 rolls of paper towels etc. I ended up building more shelves in the voids at the top of closets and the like. Ladder-access only but it works out.

[2] Stop doing 32-ingredient cooks with baby bok choy and white tomatoes and whatever other exotic instagram reels crap. Buy beef, chicken, fish, then portion and freeze (a vacuum-sealer is not necessary but it helps). Buy a standard 4-5 vegetables and a couple fruits. Potatoes and rice for carbs. Then figure out a list of recipes you can make from those ingredients -- I promise they can be combined damn near indefinitely.

I will admit that my situation is rare, but trust me when I say that your solutions would not be effective.

Imagine how odd it was to discover Usenet and find that someone else was already using your (offline) nickname for an entire universe of stuff. Early 90s.

It's mine here! I'll cede it to someone with the better online claim but only if you can prove you're not a Fudd in disguise.

Maybe? Is your argument that there is no fair price, or that it wasn’t enough? The former makes NDAs unenforceable.

Proof that dogs are the smart wolves. Get domesticated, get a steady food supply for the small price of “don’t fuck with humans”.

I gave my parents a godawful scare as a five year old when I escaped from my grandmother’s house and went to my aunt’s house five blocks away.

I would not want to parent myself. Good kid, generally, so you let your guard down, but when I did go wild it was stuff like that.

Edit: 1970s, no cell phones. Still have a great sense of direction.

Did you ever think it was good? Aside from the tight integration with other Apple products enabling extra features, I never liked it better than Android. Switched for work, not really a choice. Still use “DROID!” from the OG Moto Droid as my text tone.

Yeah, it was pretty good, even without the "tight integration." The most important integration I can think of is answering texts on my computer. This is a huge win. And it does suck that Android still lacks a central syncing facility like iCloud.

I do think we benefit from competition. I also have a Moto Droid and it was OK, but there was some janky UI. And the noises... talk about infuriating. The phone was always making noises with no indication as to WTF was making them or what they meant.