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We have a saying in Australia: "Up shit creek without a paddle."

Assuming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_crane_(landing_system) can I ask which part of the system did you find most impressive? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1WX0CATyn8

Mainly because it's a complex multi-step plan with so many potential failure points, which would already be impressive if executed on Earth but even moreso being executed on a distant planet where the conditions are different enough that it can't be fully tested in advance, and yet despite that the whole scheme worked flawlessly.

But if I had to name a specific part, I'd pick the control system. The skycrane is dangling a heavy rover from a pendulum controlled by rockets. It's unstable in every axis and has tight performance requirements to let the rover down softly and not kick up dust. Just very impressive.


My understanding was the 20m tether length was designed to avoid dust. More interesting to me were the choice of nylon vs. other polymers, the equal-release multi-line spool design and the choice of cutting the lines on the rover (permanent mission-long mass penalty) vs. skycrane (which is discarded).

It worked out. Philae lander with harpoons was comparably complex but mostly failed unfortunately.

The audacity.

Record new issues is one of the classic signs of a bubble [...] The new big three IPOs will dwarf the entire amount raised during the [1999-2000] tech bubble even when accounting for inflation.

I'd be keen to try this but can't see a URL.

Heterochronic shifts in a timing‑keeping microRNA are associated with multiple instances of neoteny in plants, Aaron R. Leichty and R. Scott Poethig, PNAS. https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2510697122

Key quote: "permanent juvenility has evolved multiple times", nominally making neotony a more highly evolved and expressly desirable characteristic as voted by life itself.

Now we can say certainly, at least in ancient Australia (if you're a plant): growing up is for losers!


> In the future, those who succeed will be the owners of capital.

No. In the future, those who succeed will be the children of the owners of capital.

See The Economist, February 2025: https://archive.is/PCoWl


wasserbomben + https://www.hortidaily.com/article/6022801/how-tasty-tom-suc...

I'll settle for no soft apples.


If you don't enjoy learning you may be in a minority here.

It sounds almost as if you're saying learning is only possible by reading, which, I would argue, most of the history of humanity proves false.

Stupid take, one can learn from fiction too.

And not everything's about learning. You are allowed to do things strictly because you enjoy doing them, with no ulterior motive.

Agreed, but the poster made it about that, thus my response. I thoroughly enjoy fiction and non-fiction - and rarely learn anything from them :D


I know some people who have kept their kids from having phones into high school.

In Australia this is normal. The distribution of phones increases slowly during high school, not before. Kids don't really use phones anyway, they use some combination of online games and messaging apps so they can do it from a computer or tablet without a phone.


> Kids don't really use phones anyway

My kids used the home phone for many years before they got their own cell phones. They would call their friends and grandparents. (The grandparents loved it)


That's great but nobody has a 'home phone' anymore.

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