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Having launched 31 orbital Falcon 9 missions and four suborbital Starship tests, 2021 was the most active year for SpaceX to date. These launches included a number of new reuse records, including flying a booster for the eleventh time, flying the same booster twice in under a month, flying a fairing half for the fifth time, and setting a turnaround record for Dragon.

Falcon 9 Boosters

2021 brought only two new Falcon 9s into the fleet: B1067 and B1069, which first flew on the CRS-22 and CRS-24 missions, respectively. All of the other 29 Falcon 9 missions were flown on flight-proven boosters. These flights included the first eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh flight of a first stage, meeting and surpassing CEO Elon Musk’s stated goal to fly a Falcon 9 first stage 10 times without major refurbishment.

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We see that text data is ubiquitous in nature. There is a lot of text present in different forms such as posts, books, articles, and blogs. What is more interesting is the fact that there is a subset of Artificial Intelligence called Natural Language Processing (NLP) that would convert text into a form that could be used for machine learning. I know that sounds a lot but getting to know the details and the proper implementation of machine learning algorithms could ensure that one learns the important tools in the process.

Since the r e are newer and better libraries being created to be used for machine learning purposes, it would make sense to learn some of the state-of-the-art tools that could be used for predictions. I’ve recently come across a challenge on Kaggle about predicting the difficulty of the text.

The output variable, the difficulty of the text, is converted into a form that is continuous in nature. This makes the target variable continuous. Therefore, various regression techniques must be used for predicting the difficulty of the text. Since the text is ubiquitous in nature, applying the right processing mechanisms and predictions would be really valuable, especially for companies that receive feedback and reviews in the form of text.

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An almost perfect way to stealthily store malware.

Korean researchers have detected a vulnerability in SSDs that allows malware to plant itself directly in an SSD’s empty over-provisioning partition. As reported by BleepingComputer, this allows the malware to be nearly invincible to security countermeasures.

Over-provisioning is a feature included in all modern SSDs that improves the lifespan and performance of the SSD’s built-in NAND storage. Over-provisioning in essentially just empty storage space. But, it gives the SSD a chance to ensure that data is evenly distributed between all the NAND cells by shuffling data to the over-provisioning pool when needed.

While this space is supposed to be inaccessible by the operating system — and thus anti-virus tools — this new malware can infiltrate it and use it as a base of operations.

Continue reading “New Malware Uses SSD Over-Provisioning to Bypass Security Measures” | >

Unfortunately, some of the data is lost forever. 🧐

#engineering

A routine backup procedure meant to safeguard data of researchers at Kyoto University in Japan went awry and deleted 77 terabytes of data, Gizmodo reported. The incident occurred between December 14 and 16, first came to light on the 16th, and affected as many as 14 research groups at the university.

Supercomputers are the ultimate computing devices available to researchers as they try to answer complex questions on a range of topics from molecular modeling to oil exploration, climate change models to quantum mechanics, to name a few. Capable of making hundred quadrillion operations a second, these computers are not only expensive to build but also to operate, costing hundreds of dollars for every hour of operation.

Continue reading “Kyoto University Loses 77 Terabytes of Research Data After Supercomputer Backup Error” | >

The Navy’s costliest warship finally has all the elevators needed to lift bombs from below its deck so it can deploy on its first operational patrol — more than four and a half years after delivery.

The service has announced that the 11th and final Advanced Weapons Elevator is in place on the $13.3 billion USS Gerald R. Ford and the aircraft carrier is ready for training and operations.

“This is a significant milestone for the Navy, ship and her crew,” Rear Admiral James Downey, the Navy’s program executive officer for aircraft carriers, said in a statement. “We now have the entire system to operate and train with.” He said the service and the prime contractor, Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., used “hundreds of craftsmen, technicians and engineers, working around the clock —through multiple underway and holiday periods — to get these advanced systems on line and operational.”

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Defense company Raytheon has clinched a US Navy contract to provide engineering and technical services for the Evolved Seasparrow Missile and NATO Seasparrow Missile programs, the Pentagon has said.

A press release by the Department of Defense on December 30 stated, “Raytheon Company [of] Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $55,121,826 modification to a previously awarded contract for engineering and technical services in support of the Evolved Seasparrow Missile and NATO Seasparrow Missile Systems programs.”

The contract combines purchases for the US government (99%); and those of Japan and the United Arab Emirates (1%) under the Foreign Military Sales program.

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In 2011, Scotland set a target of reaching 100% clean electricity consumption in 2020. And last year, the country almost reached its target – 98.6% of gross electricity consumption came from renewable sources, according to the Scottish government’s December energy statement.

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Scotland, which is working to achieve net zero by 2045 – a legally binding target – has one of the most ambitious climate targets in the world.

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