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I really don’t think budget cuts prevented the camera operator from panning up at the right time…

There are plenty of ways that money could have solved this though.

More thorough prep/training for camera operators, so they can pan the camera according to a plan, instead of by reaction.

Maybe this camera operator wasn't supposed to pan because it was trying to capture diagnostic imagery that wasn't really intended for viewers, but because of budget cuts, they opted to use diagnostic views as presentation views.

Maybe there was supposed to be a cut to a different camera. But the production room was not sufficiently staffed to coordinate the switch.

Maybe there was no broadcast plan at all and it wasn't clearly coordinated who should be taking what shots.

Maybe they were underpaying the operators and they were not qualified.

Maybe they were underpaying the operators and a single operator was stuck operating multiple cameras and was framing a different camera at the time.

Automated tracking systems.

Sure, it's very likely that this might have happened anyway, but there are a lot of ways that reducing budget reduces planning and coordination. Especially if there is enough budget squeeze to move funds from public support campaigns (this entire stream was a public support campaign) to critical things (like building a rocket).


Less budget = less tooling + less competant people

So actually, yes, it could have affected it. Did it really? We will never know.

Also NASA has less experience in this than SpaceX, hopefully it will be better next time!


> panning up at the right time…

I've watched hours of athlete parents try to track their athlete kid and it's marginally useful at best. Lots of shaky cam even at Pop Warner football speeds. So panning at the right time, with the muscle control to keep the object centered, is harder than you think.

If they have a professional videographer on staff working that camera it almost certainly would have never happened. Elon, who was in charge of DOGE, didn't take communications and marketing seriously so I'm almost certain they were one of the first to be let go.


You've made it very clear that you hate Elon and DOGE, but what you have not made very clear is what are your sources to say that:

- No professional videographer was part of the staff?

- They were fired/cut by DOGE on behalf of Elon Musk?

Absent any other evidence, wouldn't it make more sense to simply assume that there was at least one professional videographer on staff, and an entire professional video team, but they just weren't very good/effective for a variety of reasons unrelated to Elon Musk?


SpaceX coverage is much better! lol This is such nonsense. How much does a professional videographer cost? It's a rounding error given what they spend. It's just bad planning and decision-making. This is a damn mission to the moon, not little league baseball, why would you ever compare the two?

I really don’t think budget cuts prevented the camera operator from panning up at the right time

Tilting is up and down.

Panning is left to right.

You can't pan up, unless you've fallen over.


Presumably they had more than one camera and the fault was with people in the booth.

A runway light does not physically prevent a vehicle from entering a restricted area in the same way that an interlock would. Not saying it’s practical but an interlock would have indeed prevented an accident of this type.

Yes, I get that. But an airport is not a rail network. The question is how you would actually implement physical interlocks on an airport in a way that works and is safe while controlling movement of everything from a pickup truck to an A380? It's an incredibly hard problem to solve. And keeping in mind too that the Runway Status/Entrance Lights first started development over 30 years ago and are still only deployed at 20 airports, despite being a vastly simpler system than one controlling physical barriers.

I'm curious how much of a buffer there is between the time the sensors detect the airplane and it being safe to enter the runway.

Is it definitely safe to cross the runway in a vehicle moving a normal speed up to the moment before the lights turn red? Is it safe for a little bit afterward? Or is it unsafe even a little before the lights turn red?


What are you buying ungodly numbers of books for? To read them?


I am not gp, but I like to have a nice collection of unread books to browse and pick from, not (to almost quote someone, from my vague memory) "shelves full of books to impress others with what I have already read".

Kind of like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilibrary


Yes, to read them, eventually. Why do you think people buy books?


Sorry but if that’s the case you definitely don’t have large hands. If you did you’d be able to use the Pro Max one handed and reach everything except the top left corner by swiveling your thumb (Reachability enables you to reach top left corner)


This depends entirely on how you hold your phone in your hand. For some positions, someone would need a 5” thumb to reach the corner. You can’t make such sweeping statements for something with such variation.


> Reachability enables you to reach top left corner

I thought it goes without saying that poorly made accessibility features don't mean the device is very usable. The existence of that feature by itself is already evidence against that.


eSIM transfer also typically doesn’t require any intervention, usually it just goes across to the new device


The key word here is “typically”.

Transferring eSIM from one iPhone to another can be restricted by the carrier. Here in India, the second largest carrier (Airtel), does not support the native iOS eSIM transfer process. It’s a separate set of steps (the ones published on Airtel’s website won’t work, despite customer care claiming that it does). What works is almost like applying for a new or replacement eSIM.


Same here, KPN, NL. You have to install the KPN app on the new phone and log in. Then you request an eSIM on the new phone. You get an SMS auth code on the old phone. You fill the auth code on the new phone. Then you have to remove the eSIM from the old phone (with the new one not provisioned yet). Then confirm on the new phone and cross your fingers that provisioning works. Presumably (according to the docs) when it fails, you can reprovision the old phone again.

The process made me so anxious the last few times, that I went to the carrier shop and asked for a nano SIM. Now life is bliss again.

It seems that eSIM is primarily an advantage when you need to get a new SIM, but other than that I don't really see much of an advantage for me as a customer.


I had to _call_ my German provider to get a new eSIM.

Meanwhile, my carrier in Japan not only migrates eSIMs between phones with no issues; it even offered to migrate my wife's physical SIM to an eSIM when setting up a new phone; and it worked flawlessly.

The way my original eSIM here was provisioned was also surprising to me, in a "I didn't even know this is possible" way.

When signing up for a contract, I just put in my eSIM EID, and then a couple of hours later an eSIM was _pushed to my phone by the carrier_; without me having to do anything (other than confirming that I do want to install it). Lots of customer-facing telecom infra here is pretty bad; but the eSIM experience was as good as it gets.


I don’t think it’s fair to conflate the people of India with their government


As a population they're responsible for picking their government.


We know democratic systems are barely working in little countries of 350 million people like the USA. Are we really surprised they are imperfect when scaled up to 1.5 billion people?


In the same way an adult is responsable for "picking" the religion they believe in, the one that it was imposed upon them by their parents during their childhood.


Many ICs have no talent or depth of knowledge, I don’t think thats a criticism unique to managers.


This already happened when they got rid of the 5-star rating in favor of the like button. "Rate 5 stars and subscribe" became "Like and subscribe". People will adapt.


Still funny in old videos or when they point to the right-hand side when the video info was there.



Sorry, what? Waymo does not use human drivers for passenger trips, unless you’re referring to training drives (with no passenger).

Edit: I think I get what you mean now, you mean when humans have to remotely intervene for whatever reason and pilot the car


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