Month: May 2020

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / NASA)

Next week is finally looking like the time when American astronauts return to the International Space Station on American rockets.

For nearly a decade, NASA and the US space industry have been relying on Russia and its Soyuz rocket for rides to and from the ISS. But ever since NASA awarded Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, SpaceX, and Blue Origin development agreements in spring 2011, the hope has always been that one of these private US companies might become the country's next space-taxi service (the first private company to do so). SpaceX has reached the launch pad before its competitors, and now many space enthusiasts will be eagerly watching what happens on May 27 when the company's Falcon 9 rocket is set to take off from Kennedy Space Center at 4:32pm ET (20:32 UTC).

Recently retired NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg knows the anxiety and excitement of launch day quite well. She served a total of 180 days in space in 2008 and 2013, flying into orbit both on the space shuttle and Soyuz vehicle. To prepare for her six-month stint to the ISS, Nyberg spent months learning the Russian language and traveling to Russia and Kazakhstan, even as it kept her away from her young son. And next week, she'll be keeping a particularly close eye on SpaceX and NASA's big launch—her husband, fellow astronaut Doug Hurley, is the commander of SpaceX's first Crew Dragon mission.

Netflix must be feeling pretty good about Space Force, its forthcoming sci-fi comedy series starring Steve Carell (The Office), because it just released an entertaining second trailer, with over three minutes of mostly new footage.

The show marks Carell’s first major return to TV comedy since The Office wrapped seven years ago. Created by Carell and Greg Daniels (who also created Parks and Recreation and the new comedy series Upload), Space Force was inspired in part by the Trump administration's announcement that it would establish a national Space Force. 

Netflix was purportedly so keen on the series—ratings for The Office on its streaming service remain consistently high—that it snapped it up immediately. The cast also includes John Malkovich (The New Pope), Ben Schwartz (Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation), Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley, Crazy Rich Asians), Noah Emmerich (The Americans), Lisa Kudrow (Friends), and Jane Lynch (Glee, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), among others.

Netflix must be feeling pretty good about Space Force, its forthcoming sci-fi comedy series starring Steve Carell (The Office), because it just released an entertaining second trailer, with over three minutes of mostly new footage.

The show marks Carell’s first major return to TV comedy since The Office wrapped seven years ago. Created by Carell and Greg Daniels (who also created Parks and Recreation and the new comedy series Upload), Space Force was inspired in part by the Trump administration's announcement that it would establish a national Space Force. 

Netflix was purportedly so keen on the series—ratings for The Office on its streaming service remain consistently high—that it snapped it up immediately. The cast also includes John Malkovich (The New Pope), Ben Schwartz (Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation), Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley, Crazy Rich Asians), Noah Emmerich (The Americans), Lisa Kudrow (Friends), and Jane Lynch (Glee, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), among others.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today's Dealmaster is headlined by a nice price on AMD's Ryzen 9 3900X desktop CPU, which is currently down to $410 at various retailers. This processor originally retailed for $499, but its price has steadily fallen since its release last year and has averaged around the $435 range in recent months. AMD currently sells the CPU direct for $449. Regardless, while there's been a few lower in-store only deals at Micro Center, this is the lowest price we've seen for the Ryzen 9 3900X online since launch.

If the price didn't give it away, the Ryzen 9 3900X is a decidedly high-end CPU. The Zen 2-based processor has 12 cores split into 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.8GHz and a boost clock up to 4.6GHz. Compatibility with AMD's AM4 socket means it should have no problem fitting into most Ryzen motherboards on the market (albeit with a BIOS upgrade flashing in many cases). Since it supports the new high-bandwidth PCIe 4.0 standard, it also has a reassuring level of future-proofing for upcoming graphics cards and SSDs. The CPU comes bundled with AMD's solid Wraith Prism cooler, too, which furthers the value.

That's a lot of terms, but the short version is that the Ryzen 9 3900X is a very powerful processor, especially for consumers who plan to take on video editing, 3D rendering, and other multi-threaded workloads. It is a slight step behind comparable Intel CPUs when it comes to gaming and single-core performance, though, and if you're building an AMD-based PC and are mainly focused on higher-end gaming, AMD's Ryzen 7 3700X would be the better value for now. That CPU also consumes much less power, with a TDP of 65W versus the Ryzen 9 3900X's 105W.

Enlarge / President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday, May 14, 2020. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

President Trump yesterday threatened to permanently end US funding of the World Health Organization and withdraw the US from the WHO entirely.

In a letter to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Trump alleged that "the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world" and that the WHO must "demonstrate independence from China."

"[I]f the World Health Organization does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization," Trump wrote. "I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America's interests."