For most of Project Apollo, MOCR 2 had a fixed layout. Each station handled a specific, related group of functions; some watched over the spacecraft’s hardware, or its software, or its position in space, or over the crew itself. Here’s how things were laid out for most of Project Apollo:
via Apollo Flight Controller 101: Every console explained | Ars Technica.
Rauzier takes an hour or two photographing his subject from every angle “like a scanner.” Then the real work begins: days and nights with Photoshop, stretching, bending and multiplying hundreds, even thousands, of images and blending them seamlessly. Since the light changes as he shoots, matching colors presents another challenge. He takes additional liberties with the images, duplicating sections in symmetrical ways to create elegantly surrealist landscapes.
via Hyper-photos: Jean-François Rauzier attempts to create the most detailed images in the world..
The lengthy, bipartisan report is a scathing evaluation of what the Department of Homeland Security has held up as a crown jewel of its security efforts. The report underscores a reality of post-9/11 Washington: National security programs tend to grow, never shrink, even when their money and manpower far surpass the actual subject of terrorism. Much of this money went for ordinary local crime-fighting.
via Intelligence effort named citizens, not terrorists.
Despite that, Congress is unlikely to pull the plug. That’s because, whether or not it stops terrorists, the program means politically important money for state and local governments.
Battlestar Galactica has other issues. One thing I have never understood is why the humans didn’t lose halfway through the first episode. If information moves at the speed of light, and one side has a tactically useful FTL [faster-than-light] drive to make very small jumps, then there is no reason why the Cylons couldn’t jump close enough and go, “Oh, there the Colonials are three light minutes away, I can see where they are, but they won’t see me for three minutes?” C.J. Cherryh’s novels address this a bit with the idea of “longscan,” where you predict where they are going to be, but you might not know for some period of time what they actually did.
via Aircraft Carriers in Space – By Michael Peck | Foreign Policy.
