A Pox On Trucks...

No sooner do I have my shiny car, but I scratch my shiny car on some dimwits beaten up massive truck in our pretty tight parking garage.  The arsewad parked on the lower level next to the entry ramp, so this morning with 3 of us trying to get out, I end up having to pull over to let an equally improbably sized SUV up and into the garage and in the process scratch the side of the car on his bumper, which was sticking out a good 45cm from the parking bay in comparison to the normal cars.

I will be complaining to the building managers - its bad enough with cars trying to pass. 

Now I have to see if it's worth claiming on the insurance in the US or whether or not I should just suck it up and pay for the bodywork repair...  its not all that deep and sounded worse than it is, but if left untreated it could lead to rust in the future so I want to get it fixed.  Besides, I want my car to be shiny again.

We live in F&*&$King downtown Seattle guys - get a life!

Well, we're getting there...

SpaceX lifts off after chills and thrills - Space News - MSNBC.com

But like British Rail, just not very fast.  Plus points which make me happy include the fact this was _relatively_ cheap, it got into space, real space, not just 100km, and it is a private venture which does mean something.

However, my cynical little space doubting mind chirps up at the point that it didn't actually achieve orbit, that some things did go wrong.  There were also some questions raised about if there was a potential engine burn through on the first stage.

So, rockets are still hard.  They're actually launching a real payload next which after 2 flights, neither of which were a success, does worry me.  Sure, that's not much different to the way the big boys so this but at least it is cheaper.

As the Razor has frequently said, its just too damn hard.  Nothing about this looks like a new vision to me, its the same old stuff done for relatively fewer bucks but with the same inherent problems and difficulties associated with it.