SpaceX vs BO re: Rocket Landing

I already left a bad doodoo in Verge’s post initially reporting the BO landing because they were really gung ho about that comparison. They have since posted a follow-up. And it’s still “wrong” in spirit. Let’s just get the facts here.

SpaceX Falcon 9 re-useable test Stage 1 booster is the only thing they have tried to land, and is the “rocket” in question when the press talks about SpaceX’s landing experiment. It has 23-26 metric ton empty weight as guestimated. Maximum velocity the stage 1 booster achieves is estimated at Mach 10 and height of 97Km. I don’t know if there is official data but this sounds like what Falcon 9 v1.0 does rather than 1.1, which features a slower first stage (Mach 6) because the new Marlin engine can make up the difference. Dunno.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard is a single ship. The whole rocket goes up and then comes back down. It reaches Mach ~3 on the ascent (every rocket that goes to space gets this fast basically), up to 100.5Km during her historic flight. No data on weight, but presumably much less than the Falcon 9 simply because it holds just a fraction of the fuel capacity.

Mach 10 versus 0 mph is where the focus is. Falcon 9’s booster is at Mach 10 at its highest point of ascent; the New Shepard at ~0 mph at its highest point of ascent. It doesn’t really matter if the stage 1 of Falcon 9 went only 5Km or 150Km or 200Km in altitude, the challenge is stopping, not dealing with the fall. And that’s kind of the point of space travel that the mass public don’t get. We understand both instinctively and in the mind what it means to fall down from a high place. On the other hand, we have no worldly or innate understanding of what it means to be going at Mach 10. Or Mach 30, which is what it takes to get to the Lower Earth Orbit. Or that it’s not that you go into space you stay there; it’s because you are orbiting earth at Mach 30 that you can stay up there. Going to space is what lets us to go as fast as Mach 30, as you’ll turn into hot ash if you tried going at that speed at 1Km altitude (Not to mention you have to go even faster if your orbit is closer to Earth too).

Yeah, the SpaceX Grasshopper already achieved the same thing New Shepard did albeit only at 0.25Km, so maybe it’s okay to knock it, but to rocket scientists there’s not that much of a difference between 0.25Km and 25Km or 100Km, versus a few hundred miles an hour and Mach 6 or Mach 10, which is a challenge in an entirely different class. Because it’s not the altitude that matters–free falling from 100Km only gets you to go so fast, thanks to the atmosphere capping your freefall velocity. Let’s just say you don’t even hit Mach 1 for this reason.

It’s the speed that you have to go from, to stop, that matters. In both tests the goal is to slow the rocket to relative speed of ground to as low as possible. Did y’all watch the Martian? Remember the final climatic scene? It’s about relative velocity, relative velocity, relative velocity.

And I’m not even going to get into what the Falcon 9 has to deal with–orientation, construction, weight, accuracy. It has to face a lot more challenges to do the “same thing.” Because, well, they are really different things, with different challenges, to accomplish different missions.

Take home: just read the Wired. Or remember middle school science class.

Apple App Store and my distaste for it

As a consumer I am sort of ambivalent about the iOS app store and iTunes online services, at least, when accessed from OSX or an iOS device.

But as a developer I’m really irate whenever at each WWDC keynote some Apple top dude parades out how much they paid developers. It tells me that to Cupertino, this money is somehow a result of Apple’s work in making it possible. But that is far from the truth–maybe in conjunction with Apple, developers create software that transform iPads and iPhones into wonderful devices and personal appliances. But that sounds like bullshit. Is Time Cook really saying that app developers won’t make money writing software without them? Like, it provides an ecosystem, but to make money writing an app in iOS is no different than writing it for Android, Windows or Linux/OSX. If anything Apple makes it harder because app store policies are entirely Apple-serving and blind to basically any non-mass-consumer use cases.

To use an analogy, the fish doesn’t worship the water it swims in. Maybe the fish dies without the water and is grateful for it, but it also dies when the water is too hot, too cold, or has too much or too little oxygen. It dies if it cannot find food or is eaten by a predator. If the fish is successful, it is in no real way owed to the water it swims in. This is just nature. This is what devs have to contend for. Maybe when back in 2008 or 2010 as a new market space, the App store ecosystem bred a lot of new success stories and added value to developers in total. But today there’s absolutely nothing special about it, besides all these draconian restrictions, limitations, and pervasively depressed prices. The hard work today’s App developers put into their work is what makes them money, just like as if they put the same work into Android, Windows, OSX, or any other large ecosystem that is suited for their software. In more and more cases, they make a living in spite of what the App store does to their sales and business models.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/19/9757516/ipad-pro-apps-pricing-ios-developers-opt-out

And I think the underlying motive is clear. In order for Apple to make the iPhone and iPad successful during the early days, it has to court a lot of successful apps that cater to consumers. That started its low-price origin in the App Store. Store policy leaned towards things that floated iOS devices as multi-tools of wonder instead of sustainable software marketplace that cherished diversity. The 30% tax is just insult on top of humiliation. By completely mediating the customer connection with developer Apple was able to curate one experience, but at the same time the edge of this one single experience becomes ultimately iOS’s own fish bowl. Which is fine for water, less so for the fish in the tank.

It just rubs off on me wrong that somehow Apple is doing developers a favor when they are pretty much the most self-serving ecosystem out there. Maybe it works for them, but at some point the prisoner’s dilemma is going to kick in. Last night I was channel surfing and heard Jalen Rose proverbially mention that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. I’m not sure Apple really wants to go together; so it’ll be interesting to see if they’ll be forced to do so.

Pebble Time Steel First Month Look

It’s actually only 3 weeks, oops.

I got the Pebble Time Steel gold version. My friends got the steel grey and black ones. They were definitely not as cool looking as the gold one. From a looks perspective the red leather band is a home run, paired with the gold. Black bezel also even looked OK like this.

And here we get to the heart of the problem with the Pebble Time Steel, and Pebble Time in general–that display just does not look good. Colors are dimmed and contrast is like 3/4 of what it was on the original Pebble. Why? Because the new display is a TFT LCD where the crystal layer has to be semi transparent in order to work passively and work with a backlight. When light is filtered partly by the LCD layer, this is how you generate different colors. The original Pebble is B&W, so it either completely blocked light or none at all, giving you better contrast than the Pebble Time screen. Both old and the Pebble Time has so-so viewing angle but the Time really loses out in the dark versus the original Pebble.

The Pebble Time Steel has the added problem of, I think, really demure styling. This watch would work well for women, if it’s a tad on the big side. But that also means it’s quite small as far as smartwatches go and great for people who doesn’t have manly wrists. It looked definitely more stylish than the original pebble, which is something people who dig the Pebble Steel might not prefer–that one is bigger and manly.

I think it does not lose to the Apple Watch on looks, side by side. It definitely does not look as manly, though, without that large crown and less angular styling. I think if you are the stereotypical urban hipster tho, it will look good.

Pebble recently unveiled the Pebble Time Round which looks wicked, but if it follows the same design language, it will be for people looking for a wristwatch for women or people who want something that’s design-wise smart but not aggressive. We don’t know what display it will have, but looks like it’ll be the same as the other Pebble Times.

Pebble Time’s display is slightly worse than Pebble Time Steel’s display because the steel forces the way the glass bond to the display to be closer. It improves the viewing angle and slight ups the contrast. I think this makes Pebble Time Steel a no-brainer choice over the Pebble Time pretty much all around. The styling isn’t even that different between the grey or black ones. They are really two watch lines that aren’t different enough design-wise to be saying you prefer one over the other, especially given the extra $150 you can get more battery life and more durability, and slightly improved display.

To be honest, functionality is already pretty OK for the Pebble. What has to be improved is the looks. I don’t think the Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel has achieved enough to call it that. Maybe the PT Round? It is definitely differently looking.

As for the software, it’s faster and less buggy. It uses a different companion app than the Pebble/Pebble Steel. I run it on android, and it’s solid. What I don’t like is the timeline interface, because it’s kind of useless and I don’t want to be pressing a lot of buttons on the watch. Maybe once devs can hook better Pebble apps into it?

The new reply and voice dictate is definitely nice and I appreciate it, even if I don’t see myself using it just because it takes a little getting used to and I’ll have to force myself into doing it. Not a killer app but definitely cool once someone figures out how to integrate it into Google Now.

Battery-life-wise it’s great. Seven days minimum with a wonky PlexFit on it even.

I can get a Pebble Time Round for $200. I might bite. I don’t know. I dig that white one. Maybe for Christmas to give to somebody?

Moto X Pure Edition (Style) 2015 First Week Look

Received it last Friday, so I’ve had about 9 days with the phone as of this writing.

My last phone was the 2014 Moto X, so this is an incremental change. My biases are well-stated on this blog, but to sum it up: I don’t like phablets, I hate TouchWiz, and I am used to the vanilla variety of Android.

I haven’t really paid attention to CPU specs on phones. I still remember having a discussion with a friend about how he and his coworker dissed on people who wanted phones with good hand-feel, and would rather compare specs. I guess I’m biased against that kind of thought, because 99% of the use cases don’t even require that much processing power. My mom’s Moto G first generation still runs like a champ even browsing the web. Instead, increasingly it’s about the UX, starting from the build quality, hand feel, and the user interface and the stuff you put in there to satisfy use cases.

Let me just quote this:

Smartphones have become boring to me these days. They all can do the same thing; resolutions are high enough that they don’t really matter anymore; processors can handle everything you throw at them; batteries last nearly all day; and some of the latest cameras on Android handsets have essentially caught up with the iPhone

The funny thing is I jumped on the Moto X 2015 version because of CPU specs and better display. Enter IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls Starlight Stage (DereSute for short, or SS). The spiritual successor of IDOLM@STER Shiny Festa married with Love Live School Idol Festival, this game does real-time rendering of 3D models dancing, and will take a chunk of not just your battery life but CPU. Plus since DereSute is a rhythm game, the interface is extremely unforgiving to any performance hiccups. Comparing the performance of this game on the 2014 Moto X and 2015 Moto X, the improvements are well worth it:

Moto X 2014 can run at full visuals (there are 4 levels you can choose from) for maybe 10 songs before running out of power, the 2015 version can do so about twice as long (I haven’t tried).
Moto X 2014 lags a good deal at highest level, Moto X 2015 not really at the second highest, and barely so at the highest.

Both Moto X features Qualcomm’s fast charging technology, so stick that 3.0A charger in there for 50% @ 15 minutes. It comes really handy for DereSute. But to put things into perspective; if I played Project Diva on the Vita and it uses up all the power after 20 songs, I’d think something is wrong with my Vita. So something is odd about this phone? For normal every day use I get through a day no problem, but I think I played DereSute everyday so it’s not a good measure.

Back to you regular programming. The new TFT screen takes getting used to; the contrast difference is the first thing that strikes me. I think it takes getting used to because I have to invert a lot of the app’s skins so it’s black-on-white rather than white-on-black as you’d with an OLED display. OTOH if people tell you 1080 is enough on a flagship phone display they are drunk or have never seen a good QHD screen on a handheld device. Maybe if your screen is 1/2 of the size of this one? The pixel density is highly appreciated. I think when those 4K screens comes out in a few months (Sony, LG, the Huawei Nexus) we’ll have some actual opinions to press against.

The size and heft of the 2015 Moto X is squarely in phablet territory. I have hands that are not very big–big for an Asian but not big for average White guy, so this thing is a challenge to use one-handed. The 2014 Moto X was already not quite an one-handed phone with the bumper, and the 2015 Moto X is just something I’ll have to get used to.

I opted for the leather back. it’s nice, and even more so if you take some time and put some oil on it… My dad put some special seed oil on it that he reserves for his hair and it actually changed the color tone of the thing, which makes it much closer to pigskin brown than the lighter brown you associate with autumn fashion…

I think the leather back makes the phone more slippery than if you opted for some grippy plastic, and with a big phone that’s recipe for drops. This year’s Moto X Pure Edition package comes with a bumper which is something you should put on immediately for this reason. BTW that bumper is not the greatest, but right now you don’t have a choice (I plan to swap it out soon I guess).

The camera is indeed much better than the 2014 X, but that doesn’t say a lot. I think we finally can call this camera “flagship” quality, but it doesn’t compare to what the latest iPhones can do. I’m going to ignore the “Siri” type functions, but Moto X has always been pretty good about this, including the latest iteration.

Dual speakers make playing DereSute nice and handy. If the phone is not plugged in my hand can get in the way of the ambient sensor and change the backlight, something to think about in general for all these phones. But this is where LCD screens kind of suck versus OLED screens, at lower brightness…

So, to sum it up:

Pro: It’s fast. Clean Android UX, Moto maker. With key accessories included it’s even more affordable than you think.
Con: Phablet and weighty, still can be faster and have more battery life for DereSute.

Smart Watch Battery Life

I’ve been thinking about this somewhat. The past six months I left my Pebble charger cable twice. Once I left it away from home so I had to deal with not charging my Pebble for about 10 days while the new one comes. Once I forgot to bring it with me on a trip so I had to borrow one to recharge the Pebble. By the way my Pebble Time Steel hasn’t shipped…probably because they have some problems not only with the watch band, but also the particular type of watch I ordered (gold).

At first, I never was a fan of smartwatches that hand battery life measured in hours. Days days days. That led me to buy a Pebble, since the transflective LCD technology allowed it to run for 5-7 days at a time. Living with the Pebble these past 2 years, I learned that, in reality, as most Apple Watch defenders would point out, it doesn’t matter on a daily driver sense. You go home, you can charge it overnight and get on with your life. Yes it’s one extra cable, so yes, if you travel or what not, or just live life in general, yeah, it’s one extra cable that you can forget/lose/break. None of that is a deal breaker in the sense that you can always pack a backup or have a spare cable somewhere. But it’s still not substitute to having the battery life.

Here’s the main problem. In the first world, smartphones are ubiquitous. Smartphone charging is not an issue. All the international airports I’ve visited had easy ways to let you charge your phone. Some even had cables right there so you didn’t need to go to the newsstand or Best Buy vending machine to pick up a cable if you needed one. Maybe Apple Watch cables will also be like that, but so far I don’t think that has been the case. And I don’t need to mention all the other Android Wear and Pebble watch cables.

And it’s okay to carry around a dead watch. It’s way less disruptive than carrying a dead phone. So it’s not a huge risk rationally. It’s just an irritation. Much more so than smartphones, however, watches breed physical habits and muscle memories. Wearing one for a few years then go a normal day without it and you’ll know what I mean. So to me it’s much more about the irritation of wearing a dead watch. Having a dead phone seemed just like a straight-up crisis. It’s not even in the same league.

The takeaway is if I had a watch that had a battery life of 2-3 days, the two instances I left a cable home or lost it or whatever, I would had to go without a smartwatch for days. Because my Pebble have like a 7 day battery life, I was able to use it during the stretch of days when I wasn’t able to charge it nightly. (I turned the watch off when I sleep instead.) Forgetting it on my IM@S 10th trip was funny because I knew one other guy who was going also had a Pebble, so I borrowed it from him for one night and it was all I needed to last 11+ days in Japan.

Maybe a sensible way to qualify “a couple days” of battery life to “a week” of battery life is in a construction sense. Having smooth metallic finishes or “clicky” crowns or fine leather or solid buttons are good, I think, and these workmanship qualities are desirable. In that sense I think a battery life long enough to not having to worry about not charging your watch is in the same category. A holy grail would be like, once a month or something. Or maybe some out-of-box thinking is required here.

The long answer to the battery life question applies not just to smart devices we carry but in general. At some level the CPUs and GPUs we carry in our smartphones will cap out, and technology today work hard at driving the power consumption of these moore’s law candidates. We might stick to the same # of transistors between generations of phones, but the power consumption drops. We are also making way on battery technology so we can carry more juice at the same size and weight limits. This just means battery life too has a cap somewhere, and that cap might not even be too far from where we are today. The real takeaway is that we need to learn how to rationally “calibrate” these numbers. What does 1 day or 12 hours mean in this context? It’s not even a linear relationship between x number of hours of battery life to desirability, or if a device’s battery life exceeds your power requirements by x hours, what value does it add, etc. It’s about measuring edge cases, analysis of risk, and figuring out what is a good value.