Smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid
Emma Elsworthy in the Crikey Worm this morning:
The nerds at NASA are going to smash a spacecraft into an asteroid hurtling through space this morning. It’s going to happen about 11 million kilometres from where you’re sitting now — and you can watch a livestream from 8am. The recipient of our pummelling will be a 163-metre-wide asteroid called Dimorphos that is orbiting a larger, 780-metre-wide asteroid.
It won’t be one guy and a joystick controlling the trajectory (how cool would that be?) — NASA says software will determine the point of impact. There will be a nail-biting moment in the last 50 minutes, however, when the software will need to differentiate between the larger asteroid and Dimorphos, as BBC writes.
Assuming all goes well, the livestream will cut off when the spacecraft hits, but luckily a mini satellite released from the spacecraft a few days ago will record the whole shebang from 50km away. Success will be measured by whether Dimorphos’ orbit (about 12 hours at the moment) is shortened by 10 minutes. But the chances are slim that we’ll actually need to do this in future — scientists reckon we’ve identified 95% of all monster asteroids that could cause a global calamity. The other 5%, however…
Update
They did the thing.
Why so dramatic, Rockhampton sunrise?
iOS 17 prediction: an Apple Shortcuts Store. After writing my first semi-complex-but-bit-that-complex shortcut for Apple Shortcuts today I can’t believe there’s not an App Store for Shortcuts. But I reckon it’s coming, Apple loves a good % cut.
“The media coverage of vaccines and side effects is awful. They lack a philosophical framework and are unmoored. This article nicely shows how that is the case. Whether they choose to improve is beyond me. They have too much allegiance to the Biden administration, and have failed American boys as a result.”
Qantas T80 seat selection reminder shortcut for Apple Shortcuts
Reading a recent Point Hacks email about the ol’ ‘T-80’ Qantas rule reminded me of an Apple Shortcuts shortcut I’d been meaning to make for a while. I’m no programmer, or Shortcut-writer, but I whipped the shortcut up today and I think it works really well.
Stealing this next image from Point Hacks, extra seats open up 80 hours out from the flight:
If you’d like a reminder about that opportunity, download the shortcut on your Apple device now. It works on Mac, iOS, and iPadOS, basically anywhere Shortcuts works.
This Shortcut looks for a calendar entry in the next year that has the letters QF in it, assumes that’s a calendar entry about a Qantas flight, and can create a reminder 80 hours before that flight to remind you that most seats that are blocked due to status are now unlocked and you’re able to select that seat if it’s not already taken.
It’s set up to look in all calendars and create a reminder in my Travel Reminders list, but you can edit it to your liking. My Qantas flights appear as part of a Tripit calendar subscription and this works fine.
Here’s how the Shortcut works:
It looks through my calendar and shows me all the calendar entries coming up that contain the letters QF, luckily for us the English language doesn’t afford us many words that use the letters q and f together, so it’s an easy selection.
The Shortcut displays the flights, you choose one, and a reminder is created along with a link to the Qantas manage your booking page.
If you use a different calendar system or a to-do/reminders system, it should retrofit if your system talks to Shortcuts like most do these days.
If I was going to make a travel vlog this week my episode would be about how you should just stay at home again, airports are terrible, it’s quicker to walk. All hail HRH Lord Joyce, the decider of all airborne transport matters.
Formally: Todays flight issues involved a B717 being ill, and then Rockhampton’s Air Traffic Control being unstaffed until 9:30am so we have to wait in Brisbane until there’s air traffic control.
It’s 2022 and there’s no real solution for blisters yet
Started this morning in a cheap Brisbane hotel with a 4am alarm and a 6:05am flight at gate 16, which became a 6:05am flight at gate 26, which transformed into a 7am flight back at gate 16, and it’s just changed it’s haircut so it’s now a 7:15am flight at gate 16. I’m excited to see the journey this Qantas flight takes.
Hwoever, this most definitely is the wrong week to be breaking in new Blundstones.
It’s 2022 and there’s no real solution for blisters yet. How is this?
I’m impressed by how many other people made the stupid decision to catch a 6am flight
If only all of us queued for hours at airports had let them know we were coming. They need some kind of air travel ticketing system so they’re not surprised like this.
Be here
Patrick O’Shaughnessy on the power of audio:
“Audio feels to me like a secret hiding in plain sight. Everyone loves to learn, everyone loves content and loves consuming it, and it seems as though no matter how much great content is created, there’s not enough of it. I find myself all the time without a great piece of content to consume. And the demand-supply thing just hasn’t reached an equilibrium yet, maybe it never will. And audio is unique in the sense that it is at least 10 times easier to create an unbelievable hour of audio for me, and my format’s interview, interviewing someone great like David. That episode between him and I took an hour and a half to record. It will probably be listened to, my guess is, millions of times by the time it’s all said and done. An hour and a half for millions of listens. And people will listen all the way through, and they’ll consume it all. If you translated that conversation into text, it would be about the length of a short book. If we wanted to create a book of similar quality, it would take a year, probably. I mean I’ve written a book, it took me a year, and my book was not nearly as good as that conversation with David was.”
Here comes the Sunday sun
If you’d like to buy bottles of Goldie’s energy, please back her kickstarter
40 months wait and I’m pretty sure I’m never going to see this Playdate
It all started when I read this May 2019 Daring Fireball article and fell in love with a little gadget I’d only just heard of.
I subscribed for updates straight away.
Passing through Heathrow Airport the next month allowed this Aussie to buy a copy of Edge Magazine and read the beautiful review.
The rest of 2019 occurs, 2020 is dropped on us like an atomic bomb and I’m left waiting, ever so patiently.
Then, at the end of July 2021 I got a pre-order in, a few hours after the rest of the fans in USA timezones did, so I got to Group 3.
2022 arrives and we as a family decide to go on sabbatical, pack up shop in Australia, hit the road and travel around Mexico.
Two weeks before our flight, I get this update.
October 3 is remarkably close to October 10 and I have remarkably low faith in the postal system delivering at any time that would suit.
I’m guessing that my Playdate is going to spend some time in our PO Box at Tugun.
George Bernard Shaw:
“The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”
Rattling the Cage by Rhian Sasseen:
For years, I was the person whose job it was to keep you clicking, to keep you scrolling.
Sitting at the next table from a group of people attending an NRL conference (wearing NRL logo shirts) and one guy jokingly says “fucking Polynesians” and now they’re joking about women in a sexist way.
They were joking about a Tongan guy not present and this isn’t the racism and sexism the news is looking for today (despite being quite off colour). But, I reckon every single human inside our national sports codes needs to understand that they’re getting a pretty bad reputation for their racism and sexism and maybe a hotel foyer bar isn’t the place for it. Maybe the entire globe isn’t, but let’s start with whilst you’re at work?
Hey, big apologies if I die in the next 24 hours. My 18 month old just sneezed directly into my open mouth and laughed.
Good advice for people who have been Optus customers since 2017, I have been one, is to enact a credit freeze. IDCARE has a fact sheet on freezing your credit.
A credit freeze means no-one, including you, can apply for credit in your name.
Talking about caring about identification, an Australian institution like that not using a .au domain name is a little triggering IMHO.
No woman, no cry?
From 1938.
