Daily Tech News 9 November 2023

• The second Starship test build is stacked up, ready for launch as early as next week. (Ars Technica)
  
  This version should fix the issues that caused ground control to hit the self-destruct button four minutes into the first test flight. Starship can lift more than a hundred tons into Low Earth Orbit and then land back on the ground - once they get the explosions ironed out - and has been contracted by NASA for future manned Moon missions, so I'm really keen to see this work.
  
  So are the commenters at Ars Technica. As much as they're hardwired to hate Elon Musk, they are rocketry fanboys and want to see this fly. The people getting banished from this particular thread are the ones hoping for fireworks.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile the Space Force has tapped SpaceX to launch its space plane. (Ars Technica)
  
  The X-37B is a robotic mini-Shuttle that has flown seven times so far - actually a pair of shuttles, just called 1 and 2 - often spending multiple years in orbit doing secret space stuff. It usually launches on the Atlas V, but this time will go aboard the more powerful Falcon Heavy, which could be sending it into a much higher orbit.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile the ESA is run by petty bureaucratic assholes. (Ars Technica)
  
  All the worst qualities of all the European member states rolled together with no accountability. What did you expect?

• Apple says that 8GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is equal to 16GB on other systems. (WCCFTech)
  
  This is not entirely invalid. Apple is pretty aggressive in tackling memory bloat. Microsoft just doesn't care.
  
  But if you're running a complicated application, whether that's Adobe Anything, or a JetBrains IDE on a large project, or Chrome, it doesn't matter how much work went into reducing memory usage by the operating system. If Photoshop wants 20GB of RAM and you don't have that, you're going to have a really miserable time.
  
  
  
• All good things must come to an end: Hollywood actors may have reached a deal to end their strike. (The Verge)
  
  Well.
  
  
  
• ASRock's Z790 Nova WiFi has six M.2 slots. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which is the most I've seen on any regular consumer motherboard. At $299 it's not exactly cheap though.
  
  
  
• Maine just passed a right-to-repair ballot measure for cars. (404 Media)
  
  Despite some very expensive lobbying and advertising by carmakers, the measure passed 84.3 to 15.7.
  
  That might serve as a signal that there are votes out there for restoring the right to fix the stuff you own.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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