2022-07-16

Worthy

First Image of Micrometeoroid Damage to the James Webb Space Telescope

Ahead of the mission, engineers had expected the spacecraft to be hit about once a month by micrometeoroids of negligible mass. Of those that have struck “five had negligible effects, contributing a combined total of < 1 nm to the overall wavefront error,” says the report. A further 19 impacts have not had any detectable effect on the wavefront error. But one impact was much larger.
On Bill Watterson’s Refusal to License Calvin and Hobbes (2016) | Hacker News
It's a Wonderful Life in the Universe
Is the $10B James Webb Space Telescope worth the price tag?

The Solar System is filled with tiny, floating bits of rocky debris broken up from larger particles formed billions of years ago. These micrometeoroids can strike the telescope and damage its components. Six of these pesky flecks have hit the JWST so far, one particularly energetic event in May 2022 caused "significant uncorrectable change" in the overall structure of one of the primary mirror's segments.
(July 7) A Crack Opened In Earth’s Magnetic Field On Thursday And Stayed Open For 14 Hours | IFLScience
U.S. Transition to 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Begins Saturday

"Critical" projects and volunteer maintainers
- HN comments
Texas’ Precarious Power Grid Exposes a Nasty Feedback Loop
Homeland Security warns: Expect Log4j risks for 'a decade or longer'
On the market for programmers

Programmers in the US are well-paid and companies report difficulty hiring programmers. At the same time, while it’s less reported, there are a lot of people who are good at programming but can’t get programming jobs. There’s a simple explanation, and it’s one that I’ve validated in several ways since realizing it: companies only want to hire already-employed programmers.