Technology

SpaceX was attempting to launch its sixth batch of Starlink internet broadband satellites, but the launch was aborted when the countdown timer reached zero. On the live feed of the launch, SpaceX engineers were heard to cite a &launch abort on high engine power,& and the announcer presenting the webcast said that it was indeed an abort related to Merlin engine power, and SpaceX later provided added detail, including that the sequence was auto-aborted by its system.

The announcer noted that the &vehicle appears to be in good health,& which SpaceX later confirmed, which should bode well for resetting for another attempt. SpaceX has a backup opportunity on Monday, but the actual next launch attempt is still to be determined, likely as SpaceX investigates and learns more about what exactly was behind the engine power issue and when it makes sense to try again, given conditions on the launch range.

This would&ve been a record fifth flight for the Falcon 9 booster used in this launch, as well as a first re-use of the fairing that protects the cargo. SpaceX has advised that it&ll reveal when it&ll make its net launch attempt once it can confirm those details, and we&ll provide that info once available.

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We are handling the first real global crisis since the Cold War with staggering incompetence. People are already dying en masse. We all need to stay home and stay away from one another. If we wait until those who can&t do math see the awful consequences all too visible to those who can, things will get colossally worse. It is already later than you think.

A few nations&Taiwan, South Korea&are responding with admirable competence and alacrity. People everywhere else have a lot to be extremely angry at. Especially in America, the theoretically wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, which, it turns out, is completely incapable of handling a crisis that is neither military nor financial.

A pandemic is to a society as a month of heavy rain is to a roof. It will find all of your architectural flaws, papered-over cracks, and loose tiles; it will use them to spread and spread; and you only have so many buckets. The USA is like a palace whose owners chose to spend the last twenty years squandering their money on gaudy decorations and a home theater, rather than fixing its decrepit roof. Now a storm is hammering down.

None of this is news. We&ve all been witnessing Americaongoing diminishment in real time for some years now. Iteasy to imagine this crisis marking its official decline into former-hyperpower status, while China assumes the global title of &most important nation.&

In in the meantime, pay no attention to the reported, so-called confirmed, numbers of Covid-19 cases in America. The real numbers are clearly much larger. We&re in a dark room, surrounded by an unknown number of monsters, unable & and apparently unwilling & to turn on the lights.

But letbe optimistic. Suppose people come to their senses, and stop interacting with — and infecting — one another. Suppose the period during which hospitals are overwhelmed, and grandparents die in parking lots because there are no ICU beds left for them, is mercifully brief. Suppose we actually do manage to Flatten The Curve.

What then?

Previous, lesser crises have gone away by themselves. The 2008 financial crisis was, as Bruce Sterling observed at the time, something &we made up&: nothing about the world changed except our perception of it. The World Trade Center attacks were only a real crisis for those in Lower Manhattan that morning and their families. This, though, is likely to affect our collective way of life, and our economy, for a long time.

For most people, &the economy& is a giant treadmill of rent, bills, and paychecks, on which they must keep perpetaully running lest they be flung into an abyss. Social distancing right now is — and will remain, for an unknown period — critically important. But its implication is to say to everyone in travel, hospitality, retail, restaurants, nightlive, events, etc.: &You absolutely must stop running, right now, but of course we&re not turning that treadmill off for you. Don&t be ridiculous! We can&t even imagine what turning it off would look like.&

Things are better if you&re in tech … but not much better. Does your company count any travel, hospitality, retail, events, etc., companies or people as clients or customers? No? Well, do your clients and customers count any as their clients or customers? You won&t have to go very far before you realize: we&re all interconnected. Meaning: we&re all screwed. The whole treadmill starts breaking down if enough of us stop running.

So what would turning that treadmill off, or slowing it down, look like?

In the US, it obviously starts with universal healthcare. But thereno reason to stop there. Think bigger. Imagine a six-month rent jubilee, on the grounds that property owners are more able than suddenly self-isolating renters to deal with the financial repercussions, and also better positioned to negotiate with governments for a subsequent bailout. Imagine giving people cash, whether you want to call it &special unemployment insurance& or &universal basic income.&

Imagine maybe even rebuilding the whole treadmill from scratch, into an entirely different machine.

We built it ourselves, after all; it was not handed down from Mount Sinai. Maybe we can fix it so that it encourages scientists and artists and engineers to start up truly new and better things, rather than more adtech and parasitical financial instruments. Maybe it can reward subway workers and teachers and farmers, rather than the throngs wasting their days in dreary, pointless, but better-paid &bullshit jobs& in offices everywhere.

But thatall in the future. Right now we&re in a crisis. Stay home, cancel on your friends, wash your hands; flatten the curve. We can&t fix the treadmill after the fire is out, and the grim nature of fire is that if we wait to act until we feel ourselves burning, it will already be too late.

Although Apple hasn’t let loose any official word on the Powerbeats 4 wireless in-ears, rumours and leaks of their existence have been popping up over the last few weeks. Now, they’ve even been seen on shelves.

As reported by 9to5Mac, a reader found the new Powerbeats 4 available for $149 at his local Walmart in Rochester, New York. It’s unclear if

UPDATE: SpaceX aborted todayattempt, and will reset for a future attempt at a time and date to be determined.

SpaceX is launching its latest Starlink mission today, with a takeoff time of 9:22 AM EDT (6:22 AM PDT) currently scheduled to take place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch will carry 60 more Starlink broadband internet satellites to their low Earth orbit destination, using a Falcon 9 rocket with a booster that flew four times previously, including twice in 2018 and twice last year, most recently in November for another Starlink mission.

This launch will include a landing attempt for the Falcon 9 booster, meaning if all goes well SpaceX could recover it for a fifth time for an attempt at refurbishment and re-use. Five flights of a Falcon 9 booster would be a record for SpaceX & and the booster that itattempting this mission with is already a record-holder, since it achieved SpaceXexisting high-water mark for re-use with its last November launch.

The primary mission is to deliver the sixth batch of 60 of SpaceXStarlink satellites to space, which will grow the total constellation size to 360. SpaceX plans to begin commercial operation of the constellation later this year if all goes well, providing high-speed, reliable broadband internet to customers in North America, with lower latency and better speeds than are available using existing satellite internet service, which depend on larger, geosynchronous satellites placed much farther out from Earth.

SpaceX will also be aiming to recover the two fairing halves used to protect the satellite cargo on this launch, using two ships stationed at sea that have large nets strung across struts extending from their surface. SpaceX has been attempting these recoveries in order to further increase the reusability (and reduce the cost) of launch but so far it hasn&t had much consistency in its success, catching three fairings in total. The fairing being used today flew before, too & during the May 2019 Starlink satellite launch.

The broadcast of the launch will begin above around 15 minutes prior to the target takeoff time, so at around 8:57 AM EDT (5:57 AM PDT).

UPDATE: Though it was down earlier today, Xbox Live should now be back online according to the Xbox Support Twitter account.

Original article below:

If you were planning to spend your time in self-isolation with a bit of online gaming, think again: the official Xbox Support Twitter account has reported that users are having difficulty with sign ins