SpaceX launched a rocket containing a capsule holding three NASA astronauts, Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, heading for the International Space Station this afternoon - the second time SpaceX has flown humans into space. It is the first operational mission to the ISS in NASA's Commercial Crew Program. From now on NASA will pay SpaceX and Boeing to take people into space. This mission will arrive at the ISS tomorrow and hang out there for 180 days. The Dragon 2 capsule, named Resilience, will splash back down to earth and be used again. I like the mission patch - nice little nod to all the other NASA crewed missions (Space Shuttle, Apollo, Gemini, Mercury) at the bottom.
A politician in Austria sued Facebook over some bullshit people posted about her and the court said that not only does Facebook have to hide the comments so Austrians can't see it, but delete them worldwide. That's a bit of a problem as the comments would not be defamatory/illegal/infringing/whatever in many other countries, so should an Austrian court have the right to dictate what foreign users see? Facebook appealed it and lost, so in Austria at least, they've got nowhere else to go. Sure, most of the world has had to suck on the USA's big one whenever they pass a bullshit law, but at least these companies are American so there's some justification there. On the other hand, you operate in that country, you gotta abide by their laws. Once again, Facebook finds itself in that gap between a rock and a hard place.
The Centerlink Robodebt saga has come to a sad and sorry end, with the government settling a class action lawsuit a day before it was set to go to trial (obviously to avoid their incompetence going on full display in court). The government previously agreed to pay $721m back to people and agreed to drop claims made using the flawed system. All up 400,000 welfare recipients will get $112m in compensation - a measly $280 each for the incredible stress they endured. I bring this robodebt stuff up here as it's a perfect example of what goes wrong when technology is used as a hammer to solve a problem when more nuance and a human touch was required. It should be in textbooks so people learn not to use an algorithm the way the Commonwealth did.
📻 Mozzies - Dogbuoy
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