January 16, 2025

IT’S ON: Starship’s Seventh Flight Test.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Great launch, hot-staging succeeded. Heading for booster catch.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Booster caught. Elon, you da man.

Posted at 5:06 pm by Stephen Green

CROWDFUNDING: Mr. Wonderful’s Plan to Buy TikTok. “This Reg A+ Test the Waters offering is made available through StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc. This potential investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. This potential investment, if any, may be made through StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc.”

That’s a hard pass from me.

Posted at 4:53 pm by Stephen Green

STATEMENT FROM SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE:

I just read an extremely disturbing IG report. Last December, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized and failed to follow the law by notifying the White House or Congress. Similarly, his deputy, Secretary Kathleen Hicks, also refused to follow protocol and report the transfer of authority.

Now, the Inspector General’s report just released reveals that this doesn’t just happen once. Secretary Austin did the same thing again five months later, last June, and he hid it from everyone. Now look, I get it.

People get sick. It happens to all of us, and I sincerely hope Secretary Austin is healthy. But it is dangerous and deeply concerning that our Secretary of Defense left the United States vulnerable when he was completely out of commission.

Not once, but twice, and he didn’t feel the need to tell his boss either time. So, thanks to Joe Biden, we have wars all over the world. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am deeply, deeply disturbed to learn that we have had two significant lapses in the chain of command that have left our country wide open for attack.

Just as you’d expect, there will be zero accountability from the Biden administration. So, thankfully, change is on the way. In five days, President Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as our 47th president, and the Senate will swiftly confirm Pete Hegseth as our next Secretary of Defense.

We will have accountability, accountability and strength in the Pentagon once again, and it can’t come soon enough. God bless.

I’d recommend calling Austin back to active duty, followed by a court-martial for dereliction, but he doesn’t seem fit to stand trial.

But he’s fine to serve as SecDef, according to Joe Biden.

Posted at 4:36 pm by Stephen Green

WHOSE TRACTOR IS IT, ANYWAY? John Deere faces U.S. lawsuit over farmers’ ability to repair tractors.

The lawsuit — filed on Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission along with Illinois and Minnesota — escalates a long-running battle over farmers’ right to repair their own agricultural equipment and parts.

As tractors and combines have gotten more computerized, farmers have complained that Deere has restricted access to its software and made it difficult, or nearly impossible, for owners to diagnose and fix problems themselves or with the help of independent mechanics. Instead, farmers have to use authorized dealers, who tend to charge more and may take longer.

The lawsuit accuses Deere of withholding access to its technology and best repair tools and of maintaining monopoly power over many repairs. Deere also reaps additional profits from selling parts, the complaint alleges, as authorized dealers tend to sell pricey Deere-branded parts for their repairs rather than generic alternatives.

“Unfair repair restrictions can mean farmers face unnecessary delays during tight planting and harvest windows,” FTC Chair Lina Khan wrote in a statement. “In rural communities, the restrictions can sometimes mean that farmers need to drive hours just to get their equipment fixed. For those who have long fixed their own equipment, these artificial restrictions can seem especially inefficient, with tractors needlessly sitting idle as farmers and independent mechanics are held back from using their skill and talent.”

“Virtually any and everything as a service” is one of the 21st Century’s most annoying innovations.

Posted at 3:51 pm by Stephen Green

THEY PROTECT THEIR OWN:

What are the chances the Chinese knew, too, and had a great blackmail target?

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green

MAKE THEM PAY:

More: “The complaint, obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon, advances a novel legal theory that could have major implications for universities as they brace for the incoming Trump administration.”

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:49 pm by Stephen Green

FULL REUSABILITY IS THE HOLY GRAIL OF ROCKETRY SO WHY NOT SKIP RIGHT TO IT? Firm developing a fully reusable rocket raises a quarter of a billion dollars.

“The market is tough, but I think what we’re doing is poised to go straight to the end state of the industry, and I think investors recognize that,” said Andy Lapsa, Stoke Space’s co-founder and chief executive officer, in an interview with Ars after the announcement.

By “end state of the industry,” Lapsa means that Stoke is developing a fully reusable medium-lift rocket named Nova. The vehicle’s first stage will land vertically, similarly to a Falcon 9 rocket, and the second stage, which has a novel metallic heat shield and engine design, will also land back on Earth.

Lapsa said there is incredible demand for launch services and that ultimately, only companies that can offer ultra-low-cost prices and on-demand service will be successful. That’s why the company has made difficult technical decisions such as developing a highly efficient full-flow staged combustion engine and a reusable upper stage. SpaceX’s much larger Starship rocket is the only other fully reusable rocket in development at this time.

Starship Flight Test 7 is still set for this afternoon.

Posted at 1:47 pm by Stephen Green

BAD GOVERNMENT, BAD RESULTS.

Posted at 1:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

“THE LEFT LIVES IN A DIFFERENT REALITY”: We’ve Been Through A North Korean Brainwashing Experiment. “Weinstein notes that creative people in the trades (electricians, truckers, etc.) were never sucked into the woke mindset, because their jobs require them to be based in unforgiving reality. It was only among academics, PhDs and corporate workplaces that the woke virus spread.”

Posted at 12:45 pm by Stephen Green

SHE CAN’T WRITE A BOOK, SHE CAN’T EVEN DICTATE ONE. AND WHO WANTS TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THE MOST BORING PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN MY LIFETIME? Kamala Harris’ potential next move: A book. I mean, Bob Dole wasn’t Mr. Excitement, but he was a war hero. Kamala Harris’s service was less than heroic.

It’ll just be another political-payoff book, with a fat advance it’ll never earn back. And this article, originally from NBC News, reads like a press release from her agent.

Posted at 12:35 pm by Glenn Reynolds