Comment on Startups Weekly: Diamond-encrusted disruption

Enlarge / Is that sooty rocket lifting off with the CRS-3 mission in 2014 a reused booster? No, it is not. (credit: SpaceX) Ten years ago today, when a Falcon 9 rocket took off from Florida, something strange happened. Dramatically, as the rocket lifted off, a fountain of dirty water splashed upward alongside the vehicle, coating the rocket in grime. Following the ultimately successful liftoff of this third cargo Dragon mission to the International Space Station, SpaceX founder Elon Musk was asked about the incident during a news conference.

The president needs young voters to win reelection, but with many angry at his stance on Gaza and cynical about politics in general, his climate wins may not be enough to get their support. It seems like a simple political calculus.

Enlarge / Technicians inside United Launch Alliance's Vertical Integration Facility connect Boeing's Starliner spacecraft to the top of its Atlas V rocket Tuesday. (credit: United Launch Alliance) Ground teams on Florida's Space Coast hoisted Boeing's Starliner spacecraft atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket this week, putting all the pieces in place for liftoff next month with two veteran NASA astronauts on a test flight to the International Space Station. This will be the first time astronauts fly on Boeing's Starliner crew capsule, following two test flights without crew members in 2019 and 2022.

Enlarge / Here it is: two virtual Mac displays in Vision Pro. (credit: Samuel Axon) Apple's Vision Pro headset holds the promise to be a powerful extension of your Mac workflow, but the Mac integration it shipped with is just neat, not a big step forward. Now, an app by established independent developers Jordi Bruin, Mathijs Kadijk, and Tom Lokhorst aims to fix that. Called Splitscreen, it enables you to utilize two virtual displays at once while working with your Mac and wearing Vision Pro.

The ThredUp CEO wants to see stronger government action to reduce the fashion industry’s environmental impacts. Last week, Max debuted an original documentary uncovering the global ramifications of mass-produced fast fashion called Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion. Directed by an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, the documentary captures the consequences of disposable clothing and exploitation within the fashion industry.

Enlarge / An AI-generated image from DALL-E 2 created with the prompt "A painting by Grant Wood of an astronaut couple, american gothic style." (credit: AI Pictures That Go Hard / X) When OpenAI's DALL-E 2 debuted on April 6, 2022, the idea that a computer could create relatively photorealistic images on demand based on just text descriptions caught a lot of people off guard.