331–340 of 358 posts
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Also B-58
A college friend of mine who was at the Air Force Academy in the 1980s told me she was trained in celestial navigation in case they needed it in a pinch. Both of us were pretty interested in the math.
Anyone know if modern military aircraft have something similar? I imagine it would be even cheaper and easier to do these days given the processors and cameras we now have. Seems like a good backup to have.
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Put a lens cap on! Then shoot.
That is for taking "dark frames". "Flat frames" need light going through the optics so that things like dust and vengetting can be detected. This link explains them in more detail: https://www.highpointscientific.com/astronomy-hub/post/astro...
Instead, you want one of these!
https://support.phaseone.com/knowledgebase/article/KA-01239/...
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The near entire majority of software development in the modern world is digital plumbing. Very very few organizations practice software engineering
What's ur definition of "engineering" then
Software development usually seems far more controlled than that was.
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For reasons I still can't fathom, a contractor for the Israeli military purchased many copies, apparently so their tanks and troops could remain oriented after all other electronic systems failed. Possibly in case of EMP attack?
EMPs are a fantasy. Absolutely and unreservedly a complete fantasy. ZERO have ever been tested, and there’s literally a better use for a nuclear warhead. Not only is it a a completely hypothetical attack, it would look identical to a normal nuclear ICBM attack, and absolutely would result in a traditional retaliatory attack. Why would anyone trade an EMP for all their cities? Literally doesn’t make sense. No one in t…
Off tangent here but I thought I'd mention that yesterday a replica of a traditional Polynesian ocean-going canoe, the Hokulea, sailed into San Francisco, navigated with non-instrument methods including star observations. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/hokulea-polynesi... The Hokulea's maiden voyage was in 1975 and since then it has made global voyages to demonstrate and preserve ancient Polynesian wayfi…
That's incredible. I was just speaking with colleagues about the best conditions for surfing waves. The best waves here in California originate in storms on the opposite side of the Pacific. The waves travel thousands of miles over the course of days without appreciably dissipating.
The waves do dissipate, but the dissipation and attenuation is what makes the best waves. In the storm the waves are huge and messy with all kinds of frequencies interfering with each other. Attenuation means the high frequency / small amplitude waves dissipate the quickest and the lowest frequency / high amplitude waves dissipate the slowest.
By the time they've moved a long way, all that's left are the lowest frequencies which makes for a clean smooth wave. The amplitude will have reduced compared to the original storm, but that original long period is still there creating nice long gaps between the waves. This is why surfers care about the period of an incoming swell - it's a proxy for how the swell has cleaned up on it's travels.
The best waves come from the biggest storms the furthest away.
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Do you think the "software engineering" people are giving engineering a bad name? "Christian scientists" are Christians who attach themselves to the word science because science has such a powerful reputation. In their case I'm not worried about their trickery because everyone recognizes this. Everyone knows that Christian scientists are not scientists. With software engineering it's not as clear. It's possible to cr…
Software is engineering.
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It doesn't have to be a small team. See "They Write The Right Stuff".
And even they make mistakes, software contains much more moving parts than hardware. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/37110/what-was-the...
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The near entire majority of software development in the modern world is digital plumbing. Very very few organizations practice software engineering
What's ur definition of "engineering" then
Semi-related tangent: During the early 1990's I developed a star chart and ephemeris for the (momentarily) fashionable Windows Mobile platform called "Pocket Stars" that calculated one's geographical position from three or more sextant observations, mainly as backup for offshore sailors should their GPS system fail. For reasons I still can't fathom, a contractor for the Israeli military purchased many copies, apparen…
I wasn’t around for the 90s edition of windows phone (at least not enough to understand any of the tech) — i guess for lack of a camera and compass +gyro, would the observations be done out of band and just put into a form?