jcurbo

Yeah, between this and the MITRE post the other day I wondered if it was suddely Systems Engineering Week at HN. This is not the kind of content you usually find here.

Etymotic Research

https://www.etymotic.com/

MITRE began as an offshoot of an Air Force project (SAGE) and I believe is still their single biggest customer.

Yes, this is intended as a reference/best practices document for systems engineers.

There is some overlap but RAND is simply a think tank. (I admit that’s a vast generalization, they do good work)

MITRE operates FFRDCs, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, with very specific roles and limitations. They also don’t do a ton of policy analysis - they mostly do technical and architectural work, and support program offices and system developers. So your comment about strategic vs technical is mostly accurate, but it’s a little more nuanced.

(I am a former MITRE employee who still thinks they do good work and fill an appropriate role)

Edit: I guess RAND also operates FFRDCs too, but on policy analysis.

Yes, it is.

This is a good book, I'd also recommend the story of the first man to sail around the world alone, Joshua Slocum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_Alone_Around_the_World

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6317

For more on Ingress, I thought Tim Bray's blog posts about Ingress were always good reads. https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/ (search for Ingress)

If you find this sort of thing interesting, I'd also recommend checking out Empires of Eve (https://www.empiresofeve.com/) about experiences in Eve Online. I played Eve for several years (including during the period covered in the book) and thought this was a well written 'history book' about what happened then.

Mirroring some other comments here, my best experiences were with overhead projectors and document cameras. My high school math teacher would sit on his desk at the front of the classroom and use an overhead projector with transparencies on a roll so he could just roll up as he wrote. In college a lot of professors used document cameras for basically the same approach. I think it was by far the most effective way to teach math because they could just write equations etc. out and also face the class, and they didn't have to deal with chalk or dry erase markers.

Caught by the camera at the University of Maryland Observatory: https://www.facebook.com/UMObservatory/posts/101592265399548...

- Years of training on multiple platforms (initial pilot training, follow up training on the platform itself, possibly others)

- Maintenance and logistics of those platforms

- Probably amortizing the cost of those planes across each pilot using it for training

Yes, this has been a thing forever. (Former 33S/17D here) I went through two separate instances of reductions in force (aka "force shaping") - 2006 and 2010 - but there were others as well. (I chose to separate in 2010) They believed they brought too many officers on board in the 2001-2004 timeframe and were looking to trim down, especially because of budget cuts. I remember hearing about your situation as well (letting ROTC accessions off the hook). Yet the USAF periodically seems to cycle through "we have too many"/"we are way short" phases and this has now come back to bite them for their most critical asset, pilots. (Cyber retention is an issue as well - how do you keep them from getting out and working as contractors? The incentives don't line up)

Amateur astronomer here as well that has also done a bit of lunar photography. (envious of your EdgeHD 14...)

I made a similar comment about the moonglow, but thinking a bit I think it's a combination of: - Higher dynamic range than the human eye (combination of stars, moonglow, and high contrast lunar surface both in shadow and in sunlight) - High resolution imaging, and the digital signal processing aspect (noise reduction, deconvolution, etc.)

They combine to make something that looks kinda like reality but is really a mix, and maybe triggers a little bit of the uncanny valley effect.

No, it's partially artistic, partially light scattering in the Earth's atmosphere from the moonlight and the exposure settings he used. The moon does have a very tenuous atmosphere but nothing thick enough to cause this effect.

They have to find another object first. They'll be looking using LORRI, but it was hard enough finding MU69 that the probability is pretty low. Regardless, they'll also be using NH like we still use the Voyagers, for instrument readings on the outer solar system as long as we can still receive signals (and the spacecraft is still operating).

This right here. Doesn’t completely solve the problem, but at least gets rid of the obnoxious sound.

Relevant HN link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175757

In this case, though, I don't mind because Phil Plait is a well known science communicator whose articles actually add useful context. I don't mind that his article is linked (although I did go straight to the video first, but I am not the target audience for the commentary).

I completely agree, as a long term WU user I am continually frustrated by their newer site design. The 10-day view is my favorite one but their site reliability and speed are atrocious. Like others in this thread I've been wondering what's going on over there and if they are just going to shut down some day. I used to even have my weather station send data to WU but I stopped doing that because I don't see any value in doing it anymore because their site sucks. Wundermap is slow as well and I've had issues with their iOS app lately too.

I would love to hear what people are using as alternatives. I already use Dark Sky on iOS as well, so that's one. I just want a good 10 day view :(

I'm gonna need a link to this Hand Burger paper, sounds very interesting.

(Jokes aside, this is a great post, thank you for sharing)

This is a great document, thanks for sharing. Since it's 20 years old, I wonder if there are any newer references that are as concise? Surely HCI/UI/UX prinicples have come a long way since 1998.

"Most people I know practice some variant of a digital leave-no-trace rule: don't post photos in publicly-trafficked areas of the internet, or if you do then don't say where they were taken. It's not so much gatekeeping as ensuring people who want to experience that beauty have to put in the work - read terribly-designed websites, meet actual people and gain their trust, or even take a backcountry travel class which hopefully instills a healthy respect for the environment you're enjoying."

This is sheer nonsense and IS ridiculous gatekeeping. Ensuring people who want to experience beauty need to put in work for it? Some people may never be able to visit these places, not everyone is so fortunate to be able to afford or have time off to travel. You might as well say they should never look at book of photos either, or they can never look at a painting without becoming an artist first. Maybe they would never gain a love of the outdoors if they had never seen some of these photos first and wanted to see more?

Now, I agree with the sentiment that there can be tourist overload on places, and that they should be managed well so they aren't destroyed. But 'digital leave no trace' is just nonsense. We should be sharing the beauty of the world, not restricting it.

Do you have a recommended AI mod for Civ V? It'd be interesting to get back into it with something like that. I've only ever really played vanilla Civ. (since 2...)

Former employee, but I was thinking the same thing when I saw the story.

Turn Left at Orion is a popular suggestion (see sibling comment) but the other question is what do you want to do, what part of astronomy interests you? Amateur astronomy is a vast field and depending on what you're interested in, you'll go in different directions. Do you want to look at the Moon? Planets? Galaxies? And so on. Of course, you probably need a starting point which a good book can provide. See if you have a local astronomy club you can go visit, they will usually have events where you can use telescopes and talk to experienced folks. You can also poke around on Cloudy Nights (www.cloudynights.com), by far the largest amateur astronomy forum online.

In this case it's the OpenMW reimplementation of the Morrowind engine, which is fantastic and rapidly maturing (and capable of playing the game right now, they just continue to add features). http://openmw.org

The Bethesda thing as far as I know was about Morrowind on non-PC devices and they talk about it here: https://openmw.org/faq/#bethesda_legal

See also: John Carmack's plan file updates. https://github.com/ESWAT/john-carmack-plan-archive

Thanks, this is interesting! I work at JHU/APL where there are people that do similar stuff, although I don't personally. The APL Astronomy Club is actually in the midst of trying to get some of our unused scopes & equipment in better shape and possibly put to use so I'm thinking about ways to automate things. Plus I'm not happy with the state of data processing for amateurs, it seems like everything is bespoke and old freeware or expensive software packages. That is what got me thinking about how the pros do things. Looking forward to your email!

This is fascinating (as an amateur astronomer), have you written anything else on the systems design of these types of instruments, or have any good pointers? I imagine for large instruments there is a massive amount of data involved and lots of stuff to control. I know it's bad enough with just my one telescope setup :)

Guessing Backblaze is getting a lot of hits right now, their site is slow for me.