Hungaroring, and more
UK seems to be bringing the garment industry home.
*****
The UAE launched a Mars orbiter earlier today. To their credit, they hired American consultants to supervise building it, and stipulated that it had to do useful science, and not just be a prestige project. It's going to collect long-term weather data in an equatorial orbit.
*****
Our new Mars rover will be following in a few weeks. It's got a wide-field colour camera, and a helicopter sub-probe! AND... It has a laser that can vapourize rocks! We can finally invade Mars in proper style, with the raygun disintegrating stuff as we roll slowly along. I feel deeply satisfied.
Oddly, they're using a piece of a Martian meteorite as an optical calibration target. I think that's more for coolness than for any actual advantage.
*****
Hong Kong seems to be a writeoff. That's sad. It seemed such a good bet that Chinese desire for an expanding economy would lead them to preserve Hong Kong's freedoms, and that those would spread throughout China. That's obviously failed. What's left, I suppose, is to evacuate as many people as possible, and continue isolating China economically, although that's as much retribution for coronavirus as anything.
*****
Excellent F1 race from the Hungaroring this morning. Hamilton just drove away, and lapped most of the field. Ferrari shot themselves in the foot, repeatedly, with a series of bad guesses as to the weather and tires. It was like the 1980s. Verstappen put in the standout performance of the day, though. Wrecked his car on the outlap, and his team rebuilt the front end in 25 minutes before the race. He passed a slew of people on the first lap, pitted early for hard tires, and just rode along to finish second. Whatever else may be said of him, he's undoubtedly brave to push that hard on a car that'd just had an emergency rebuild of the suspension.
Hamilton did the end of race pit stop for soft tires, and made it work. He got the extra point for fast lap. Original posted at https://rain-gryphon.dreamwidth.org/160005.html
*****
The UAE launched a Mars orbiter earlier today. To their credit, they hired American consultants to supervise building it, and stipulated that it had to do useful science, and not just be a prestige project. It's going to collect long-term weather data in an equatorial orbit.
*****
Our new Mars rover will be following in a few weeks. It's got a wide-field colour camera, and a helicopter sub-probe! AND... It has a laser that can vapourize rocks! We can finally invade Mars in proper style, with the raygun disintegrating stuff as we roll slowly along. I feel deeply satisfied.
Oddly, they're using a piece of a Martian meteorite as an optical calibration target. I think that's more for coolness than for any actual advantage.
*****
Hong Kong seems to be a writeoff. That's sad. It seemed such a good bet that Chinese desire for an expanding economy would lead them to preserve Hong Kong's freedoms, and that those would spread throughout China. That's obviously failed. What's left, I suppose, is to evacuate as many people as possible, and continue isolating China economically, although that's as much retribution for coronavirus as anything.
*****
Excellent F1 race from the Hungaroring this morning. Hamilton just drove away, and lapped most of the field. Ferrari shot themselves in the foot, repeatedly, with a series of bad guesses as to the weather and tires. It was like the 1980s. Verstappen put in the standout performance of the day, though. Wrecked his car on the outlap, and his team rebuilt the front end in 25 minutes before the race. He passed a slew of people on the first lap, pitted early for hard tires, and just rode along to finish second. Whatever else may be said of him, he's undoubtedly brave to push that hard on a car that'd just had an emergency rebuild of the suspension.
Hamilton did the end of race pit stop for soft tires, and made it work. He got the extra point for fast lap. Original posted at https://rain-gryphon.dreamwidth.org/160005.html