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Comment by iamtedd | Hacker News Reader

What an awful picture of the NRO Director. Surely they have plenty of experience in photography in less than ideal conditions. So why have this photo as the first thing I can see on their website?

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It’s so bad it seems unlikely it isn’t a joke. I mean look at their mission patches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches

The gorilla holding the US flag is my favourite. And it might just be me, but the Nemesis badge has to be a sphincter, right? It reminds me of the Greendale flag in community.

Mine is definitely L-66 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NROL-66_Patch.png

Not a huge fan of the vector art badges though, I want some embroidery!

I like how they quit looking like patches and just turned into stickers. Even with a black budget, they still had to cut corners and reduce spending on incidentals too?

The juxtaposition of the Ursa Major and Onyx/Vega patches almost gave me whiplash. Judging by the list of patches it seems like NRO is a fun place to work. Thanks for sharing!

Fun is maybe not quite the word I'd use. The juxtaposition of all the wording about "defense" and menacing-looking characters that would definitely be the villain and not the hero in any comic book or movie is... unsettling. Even if it's a self-aware joke about their public image (like the squid giving the whole Earth the hug of death), it's maybe gone a bit too far?

Plot twist - that was taken from geosynchronous orbit.

It's 2021, give them a break. Corporate photos have been non-professional, taken by the wife in the bathroom style for 18months now.

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