Numlock News: February 16, 2024 • Classified Satellites, Carry-On, Space Fire
By Walt HickeyHave a great weekend! We’re off Monday in observation of Presidents’ Day, we’ll see you Tuesday. SatellitesThe U.S. Space Force has cut $2 billion from a Northrop Grumman contract to develop classified military communications satellites amid increased costs. The satellite(s) was and/or were related to Northrop’s “restricted Space Business,” which means the classified stuff. This hardly means that Northrop Grumman is out of the game, as before the cut it still had a $40.4 billion backlog in its space business. The funding for the program was in an $841 million procurement request, which was cut in 2024 due to a $497 million classified overrun. This is bad news for the ■■■■■ ■■■■■ program, a longtime staple of the ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■■ division that ■■■■■■■■■ several different ■■■■■■■■■ in ■■■■■■■, ■■■■■■■■, ■■■■■■ and ■■■■■■, and likely means that ■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■■ ever since ■■■■■ ■■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■ Four Loko ■■■ ■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■ ■ ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■ MoviePass ■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■■■■. SIKUA decade ago, a group of Inuit elders and hunters from Nunavut came up with SIKU, which is a small social networking platform that serves the community when it comes to monitoring sea ice changes in the southeastern Hudson Bay. In 2019, it was upgraded from a portal where data could be logged to a social network, where users could upload photos of conditions and dangers they observe on hunts and trips on the ice. Since early 2024, over 25,000 people from 120 communities in the north have made over 75,000 posts on SIKU, in multiple languages such as Inuktitut, Cree, Innu and Greenlandic. Saffire-VIUsually, you want to avoid having any fires at all whatsoever inside of a spacecraft, for reasons that are probably obvious. NASA has been conducting a number of Spacecraft Fire Safety Experiments, or Saffire, over the past eight years, designed to better understand how fire behaves in space. The latest battery of experiments, Saffire-VI, consisted of 19 different runs, where the impact of fire on different materials and under different air conditions was measured in what is essentially a wind tunnel in space in the orbital laboratory of the uninhabited Cygnus spacecraft. TelescopesYesterday a commercial spacecraft took off carrying two telescopes bound for the moon. The far side of the moon is protected from Earth’s radio noise and can pick up signals that terrestrial telescopes can’t, all without needing the sunshields and coolants that orbital telescopes need, given that the moon is the best sunshield of all. Only two telescopes have made it to the moon — one on Apollo 16 in 1972, the other in 2013 on China’s Chang’e-3 mission — and the IM-1 mission is on contract with NASA to see about putting another one on the moon next week in a crater 300 kilometers from the lunar south poll. One instrument, ILO-X, has a 3-centimeter aperture that’s angling to image the Milky Way, while the ROLSES telescope will consist of four 2.5-meter antennas that can study magnetic fields. WarehousesRetailers are cutting back on storage space, meaning that lots of them are subleasing that space and the warehousing market is flush with available supply. The market exploded in 2022, with rents up 24 percent year over year, vastly higher than in 2019 when rents rose just 6.3 percent. In 2023, rent hikes slowed down, up 12.5 percent year over year. In the final quarter of 2023, the amount of warehouse space available for sublease was at 156.2 million square feet, up from 75.6 million square feet a year earlier. Liz Young, The Wall Street Journal Carry On, Carry OnWe’re rapidly approaching the end of the road when it comes to the current social contract around carry-on baggage. Airlines overbook, because it’s way easier to stow the overflow than deny a carry-on up front. Sure, a Boeing 737-800 has 28 large overhead bins, which can each hold six bags, enough for 168 bags, but passengers abuse the system, as a whole lot of carry-ons are conspicuously less well-constructed or larger than the standard 22-inch-by-14-inch-by-9-inch limits. The hard-shell style of bags are also less easy to cram than the soft-shell bags that used to be popular. The quest to build a bigger overhead bin is an arms race between Boeing and Airbus, and carriers love it: 80 percent of the American Airlines mainline fleet has the new, larger, optional Boeing Space Bin luggage bins. Dating AppsA new study published in Mobile Media & Communications found that people who use dating apps tend to be less satisfied overall with their relationship status than those who don’t. The study surveyed 1,054 people in the U.S. and U.K. who were under the age of 35, asking about their mobile dating app usage and whether people are satisfied with their relationship status. Most (93 percent) of those using a mobile dating app were single, and most (81 percent) were heterosexual. On a scale of 0, which means “not at all,” to 3, meaning “to a great extent,” participants were asked to rate how happy they were with their current relationship status. They found a statistically significant difference, with the average dating app user coming in at 2.07, while the average non-user coming in at 2.34. It’s been a great couple editions of the Sunday edition, and there’s never been a better time to subscribe. A week ago, I talked to Matty Merritt, who wrote “High School Musical changed everything: An oral history of the Disney Channel Original Movie” for Morning Brew. That was a fascinating conversation about a particularly interesting era of television, and one that has significant reverberations to today. Check that interview out. Then, on Sunday, I talked to the brilliant Zeyi Yang, who wrote “Why the world’s biggest EV maker is getting into shipping” for MIT Technology Review. You may have seen the company BYD appearing more and more in the newsletter; I think it’s a really interesting company that reveals a lot about how both the global economy as well as the future of the car business actually works. It’s a great read. Yang can be found at MIT Technology Review and on Twitter. Check out the interview! Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today. Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement. Previous Sunday subscriber editions: Comics Data · Extremely Online · Kevin Perjurer · Kia Theft Spree · Right to Repair · Chicken Sandwich Wars · Industry of AI · Four-day Work Week · AI Ed Tech · Audio · Garbage Intelligence · Meteorites · Overwatch League · Jam Bands · Fanatics · Eleven-ThirtyEight · Boardwalk Games · Summer Movies · Boys Weekend · Psychedelics ·Country Radio · Zelda · Coyotes · Beer · Nuclear · NASCAR · Seaweed · Working · Cable · Ringmaster · Hard SeltzerSunday Edition Archives: 2022 · 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018You're currently a free subscriber to Numlock News. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
Older messages
Numlock News: February 13, 2024 • Super Speeders, Overtime, Out-Of-State Plates
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
By Walt Hickey Announced some fun news yesterday: I've left my position at Business Insider and will be taking a job as executive editor at a soon-to-launch newsroom called Sherwood Media. This won
Numlock News: February 12, 2024 • Cassettes, Darwin, Radio
Monday, February 12, 2024
By Walt Hickey Welcome back! Darwin For the past 18 years, a project has attempted to identify thousands of items in British naturalist Charles Darwin's expansive library, and has identified 440
Numlock News: February 9, 2024 • Hawkeyes, Monarchs, Raiders
Friday, February 9, 2024
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend. Voices In a unanimous ruling, the FCC has outlawed robocalls that use voices generated by artificial intelligence, a move that follows a call in New Hampshire
Numlock News: February 8, 2024 • Lemon, Vegas, Arctic
Thursday, February 8, 2024
By Walt Hickey When Life Gives You Lemons A lemon that is hundreds of years old sold at auction for £1416 at Brettell's Auctioneers. The lemon bears an inscription that reads “Given by Mr P Lu
Numlock News: February 7, 2024 • Milk, Sports, Wolves
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
By Walt Hickey Milk Milk has become a bit of a battlefront, as the entities behind what has traditionally been sold as “milk” — the dairies that extract, market and sell cow's milk — contend with
You Might Also Like
Opus Dei’s Mission to Convert D.C.
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Columns and commentary on news, politics, business, and technology from the Intelligencer team. Intelligencer politics How Opus Dei Conquered Washington, DC Gareth Gore's new book 'Opus'
The secret to lag-free Wi-Fi
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Our (all-new!) favorite routers View in browser The Recommendation We've tested more than 110 Wi-Fi routers. Here are the best ones. Our three picks for best Wi-Fi- Routers on an orange background.
🎰 Bet on yourself
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Fun stuff for you to click on curated with joy by CreativeMornings HQ September 19, 2024 Open in new tab Speech bubble logo with the words, CreativeMornings “You are so much more than one thing. Don
Friday Briefing: Israel bombards Hezbollah
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Plus, French drag is here to stay. View in browser|nytimes.com Ad Morning Briefing: Asia Pacific Edition September 20, 2024 Author Headshot By Gaya Gupta Good morning. We're covering Israeli
How Amazon’s new office mandate will impact Seattle traffic | Smartsheet COO resigns
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Port of Seattle won't pay bitcoin ransom | Videos show remains of OceanGate Titan sub ADVERTISEMENT GeekWire SPONSOR MESSAGE: Get your ticket for AWS re:Invent, happening Dec. 2–6 in Las Vegas.:
☕ Hot to go
Thursday, September 19, 2024
How Smokey Bear comes to life online. September 19, 2024 Marketing Brew PRESENTED BY Roku It's Thursday. Pizza Hut is letting people put their résumés on pizza boxes to send to potential employers.
☕ Weed the people
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Cannabis retail and the presidential election. September 19, 2024 Retail Brew Hey there, it's Thursday and a sad day after iconic container brand Tupperware filed for bankruptcy amid mounting
The Fed slashes interest rates.
Thursday, September 19, 2024
What to make of the Fed's larger-than-expected 0.5% interest rate cut. The Fed slashes interest rates. What to make of the Fed's larger-than-expected 0.5% interest rate cut. By Isaac Saul • 19
Paging The Hague: Israel’s Exploding Electronics Might Be War Crimes
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Experts on international law pointed to the indiscriminate nature of the blasts in Lebanon and the prohibition on booby traps. Most Read The National Guard Knows Its Armories Have Dangerous Lead
Beam us up some support, Scotty!
Thursday, September 19, 2024
The Conversation tells you about everything space-related, astronomical and more