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Astronomers Revel In Former NSA Site
westfirst writes "Welded carpets, strange light fixtures, odd graffiti, and a happy face painted on a radio antenna. All of these details and more X-Files grade mysteries are reported by the Baltimore Sun They're all buried deep in the North Carolina woods where a bunch of radio astronomers have inherited an old surveillance site abandoned by the NSA. Now, how can I get that carpet in my house?"
By far the best explination... I was somewhat referring to strong signals, but the analogy is well spoken.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
The triangles are made from some material that i'm unaware of...probably canvas, but anyways they move when you push one because the room is pressurized to keep the radome more stable the door is smaller than normal to keep from having huge pressure changes.
Wanna know how to solve the poverty problem? Feed the homeless to the hungry.
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It's not quite that easy. The sorts of signals we deal with in astronomy are really quite faint. To get good signal-to-noise, you generally have to point at one spot on the sky for a good while - minutes to hours, usually. Hence the desire for the dishes to track exactly at the rotation rate of the Earth, but in the opposite direction, thereby enabling them to stare in one spot while the Earth turns under them. Yes, with faster slew you could glance at a large area of the sky quite rapidly, but you wouldn't get any usable data that way.
Is anyone else more than a little disturbed by the "four foot door" on the "golf ball building" described in the article?
Not really, no.
You've got this large, relatively futuristic building with gyrating triangles, and a door not big enough to fit most humans.
I think "most humans" would have no trouble ducking down a little to enter this building.
Perfect Dark grey theory, anyone?
HAHAHA no.
A plausible theory is that this ball serves the exact same purpose as the most of the special decorations on the entire site, which is to reduce interference, in this case to the Big Dish inside. Like the article says, the triangles of varying size can help to reduce interference caused by repeated patterns.
But I see your line of thinking! Maybe the door isn't four feet high because they didn't want to disrupt the damping triangles too much. Maybe it's four feet high because the NSA holds parties for extraterrestrials on top of a giant satellite dish. And they have these parties at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade too, because there are big golf balls there too, according to the article. Or maybe they're too stupid to operate this perfectly normal satellite dish by themselves, and they have to get aliens to do it for them! Yeah, that sounds about right.
Wait, this is Slashdot. Carry on.
~ Give me 101 plastic soldiers, and I will conquer the world.
Yup, they're on Terraserver. Information on the PARI site mentions they are NW of Brevard, NC. The map on the Tours page has a barely-legible "To NC 215". NC 215 is west of Brevard, and has an S-curve 2-3rds of the way to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Look for "Glassmine Mountain", south of "Cook Mountain". South of the S-curve, looking above the streams (the article says PARI is in a natural bowl, thus probably some streams nearby) on the USGS topological map one sees several circles marked "TOWERS". One does not put TV broadcast in a depression. Zoom in and the road pattern matches that of the map on the PARI site. Zoom in to the area where the buildings are near the road to the gate, and to the left is a large white circle. That white circle is one of the dishes, and the picture shows the shadow is way off to the side of the circle -- showing that the circle is suspended up in the air. I don't know if this link is a temporary search result or if it's a permanent coordinate link. "212 KM NE of Atlanta GA" the label says.
More information about what used to go on in there... some history...
Rosman Research Station Rosman, NC
The Rosman Research Station is located in the Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina's Smoky Mountains, near Balsam Grove, NC, off Route 215 approximately 11 kilometers north of Route 64. The station, which closed in 1994, was operated by approximately 250 NSA, Bendix Field Engineering and TRW employees.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began operations at the Rosman Spaceflight Tracking Station in 1963, and ceased activities there in January 1981. During NASA's tenure the station supported a number of space projects, including the Apollo and Apollo-Soyuz missions. The station at Rosman was turned over to the General Services Administration by NASA on 1 February 1981. The facility was converted by the Department of Defense for use as a Communications Research Station, a process which was completed in early July 1981. Initially there were approximately 35 contract personnel living in the area, but when the project became operational in July, this number increased to approximately 75 employees. The NSA role at Rosman apparently began almost immediately thereafter. By 1985 this number was reported to have grown to 250 employees, with annual payroll at $5 million, an average of $20,000 a year [The Asheville Citizen 20 June 1985]. For FY85 NSA requested $500,000 for construction of an electric substation to provide additional electric transformer capacity that is required to support station operations. It is difficult to ascertain the total number of satellite receiving antenna at the facility. These at least include two very large dishes, approximately 27.5 feet in diameter (the size of the biggest dish left by NASA), and a smaller 6.2 meter radome.
The Rosman Station was used to intercept telephone and other communications traffic carried by commercial and other communications satellites in geostationary orbit over the Western hemisphere. Potential targets of interest could include Latin American military, diplomatic and commercial traffic as well as domestic US traffic and drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
That golf ball is definetely odd:
Details on the Mickey Mouse golf ball
An overview picture of the compound. I wonder if there is a reason for the trees planted neatly in a row?
Most AFBs I've been on have them. A few were set up agains a hill (Offutt comes to mind) that greatly reduces the areas where it can point. Basically, its to protect the dish from the weather.
-- toolie
The Sunny Point MOTSU just outside Southport, NC is supposedly the largest military ammunition / munitions depot on the East Coast. I'm sure that's a high priority enemy target.. and if it gets hit, the enemy gets bonus damange because the CP&L Brunswick Nuclear Plant sit's right beside it. Munition depot goes *BOOM*, Nuclear Power Plant go "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" big-time.
Man, am I ever glad I moved out of Brunswick County.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
-p4
(c) All Rights Released.
Having been in the Air Force I can tell you quite certainly that it's a requirement of the START treaties. We had to get rid of a B-1 bomber (an old test model). The treaty required us to chop it up into pieces the size of small cars and leave it lying on the ramp so that Soviet satellites could snap a picture of it.
I want to know if a cat makes sparks when it touches the carpet after sliding down the curtains.
Now if only I could inherit something useful that the government doesn't need.... Like that Harrier jet that I couldn't buy with Pepsi points (those welchers!)
Is it possible that they've given this place to radio astronomers because they can do the least damage with it? Imagine a satellite set-up this intense in the hands of dedicated SETI guys.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
Full story here
Many hardware dev labs and manufacturing sites have ESD flooring - the trick is, you need to wear ESD compatible footwear (such as the ones I have on now)... This keeps the floor at AC ground, and via the shoes, you keep even with the floor. Since all of the machines are tied to the same ground as the floor as well as the worksurfaces (tables, benches, whatever), everyone and everything should be at almost the same potential.
ESD shoes make your feet sweat more than most regualar shoes so you conduct better to them, and have conductive insides and soles. Works well, and you end up with a lot less part mysteriously failing...
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I bet they are all Tesla Coils disguised as Transformers ;)
-- toolie
search google "helemano army" I have no pictures.. the 1/4 mile to smoke a cigarette is at kunia tunnels. Looks like $330,000 was spent through 1996 cleaning up helemano.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
SETI nothing. How 'bout Gamma Ray bursts? (they can get data from the Gamma Ray observatories, and zero in quickly to examine the radio signature)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
>I wonder if there is a reason for the trees planted neatly in a row?
:-)
Yeah, looks exactly like a 9-hole par-3 course to me (albeit without greens or sandtraps). Now wondering if it was just camo to try fooling the russians into thinking it was just a golf course, or did the NSA guys just like to keep their game up?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Nah. It'd be burned to the ground during one of their ``controlled'' burns.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
It shows what you can do with no budget limitations. This is just sound engineering for a SIGINT facility. Things like fully steerable 2 axis antennae are because the NSA was in the SIGINT business, scarfing communications signals from wherever so they had to be able to pick out any satellite moving in any direction and track it.
Wow! Great post!
For those who are wondering what PCBs are, here's an EPA site about 'em. They're also an important part of Neal Stephenson's novel Zodiac.
This behavior doesn't appear to be unusual; recently in San Francisco, where the Navy has an old shipyard that's filled with random toxic waste, an underground fire burned for a month without public notice. See the SF Cronicle article here.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Sounds like TEMPEST caliber stuff...
I'm pretty sure static can be kept to a minimum with far less drastic measures.
However, it doesn't really surprise me considering who the former tenants were.
--K
A Faraday cage is only useful for keeping interference out. Shielding actually has to block the emission of fields, and is completely different. If it were possible to use a Faraday cage to do shielding, they would just to that to their conference rooms and computers, rather than using all the white noise to foil TEMPEST devices et al.
However, having the carpet grounded would in fact reduce, all though not eliminate the possibility of static electicity jumping. That's why I'm not sure the purpose really is to help static electricity. Consider the following two scenarios:
1. You walk around on a carpet, stealing electrons from it and giving it a charge of say, +x, and building up a negative charge on yourself of -x. You then touch the carpet, causing all those electrons to leap off you and arc back to the carpet. You could also touch a neutral piece of electronics (charge 0), which would accept half of your electrons (give or take) and fry itself.
2. You walk around on a grounded carpet, stealing electrons from it and building a charge on yourself. However, since it's grounded there is an unlimited number to steal. Furthermore, since the carpet isn't building up a huge negative charge, it has no problem giving up more electrons (say -2x). Thus, you could conceivably build up a *bigger* charge than before. This would result in more of a shock when transferring the charge back to a neutral piece of equipment.
Am I missing something here? Unless you're also wearing a conducting strap connected to your body and the bottoms of your feet, there's no benefit. In that case, you stay neutral because any electrons you steal are immediately returned to ground. Are the electronics that sensitive that the worker's can't just ground themselves when they're working on them?
Walt
A huge communications complex. complete with Kitchen, Basketball court, Tons of Ancient ceramic and bakelite 66 blocks (telephone punch down blocks), A huge generator room and 8 Transformers the size of 55 gallon drums.
Rotted Open
Sitting in a lake of PCB's
Needless to say we did not explore the tunnel that had been bricked over that was 15 feet wide and 20 foot tall. Later we discovered plans to Bldg 2. That tunnel went all the way to Schofield Barracks.
Big enough to drive a Semi through.
We called the EPA. They took plastic barrels that bolt together down the hole and presumably put alll the pcb's in them. The barrels never came out. Once assembled and filled they were left in place for the next impromptu archeologist. The man hole was welded shut.
There is now an entire community built over the site. Training area 4 is now entirely military housing. No Superfund. No Press.
Just a manhole welded shut in the middle of a schoolyard
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Yes, as a temporary member (eventually, I will free all my electrons too and cease to be a member) of the Electron Freedom League, I have to concur. This anti-static bias is clearly a plot to deny electrons the freedom they deserve. Static electricity is a very common way for electrons to free themselves from their terrible bondage to protons. Reducing it can only have the effect of extending the bondage and slavery (electrons are the workhorses of all chemical reactions) of most atoms.
Electrons of the world, unite!
Brought to you by The Electron Freedom LeagueNeed a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Why would they need to track satellites with radio dishes that huge? Then I understood. Those dishes could pick up the faint signals from the satellite's computer bus. From those signals you could get all sorts of interesting information about the satellites.
This is just like reading your computer monitor at a distance from the electromagnetic signals given off.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
They might also be perfect for viewing Gamma-Ray bursters. The thing is, you need to turn to face bursters as soon as possible as they die away quickly. IANA Astronomer, but these dishes may be very useful.
You'd just need to get the message from the initial detection to the dishes quickly. I guess all that fibre'd help as well.
Secondly, every island is a little more wierd than the next. Kahoolawe used to be a Navy Air Bombing site. Today you can take tours of the special beauty of the island. Not limited to the *live* bombs laying on the ground, as well as *marked* landmine fields.
Green Harvest (local government agency dedicated to eradicating marijuana) dropped what initially looks like little orange balls all over the Big island (You guys call it the isle of Hawaii, we call it Big island). Turns out that when the balls impact something solid, they release a gas that will supposedly kill *only* Marijuana, turns out that it's actually an Agent Orange Derivative, that was being *tested*. Hundreds got sick and sued, Green Harvest's funding is in jeapordy as a result.
On Kauai we have the PMRF (Pacific Missile Range Facility). The PMRF is the *entire* US west coast defense system, I'll give you three guesses to figure out what kind of missile(s) protects the entire west coast of America.
Hawaii is a very fuc*ed up place. Hearing that about Oahu does not suprise me at all.
Surfing is religion
you are silly
Surfing is religion
you are silly
I Hack You! - Ninja Fish
I actually believe the article was referring to the Forest Service bulldozing the site, but I may be mistaken.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
The main purpose of radomes is to make it more difficult for us to know where they're pointing their dishes. I can't offhand think of any non-spook projects that use them, and I guess that's the reason.
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Xenu loves you!
The squiggly gray line running north-south through the center of the image is NC Highway 215. The splotch at center-left, with features that look like terraces at this scale, is your destination: the former Rosman Research Station. Mapquest identifies the east-west road running toward the station as Macedonia Church Road, and the last turn into the station as Neil Armstrong Road.
So here are complete directions:
From Asheville, take I-26 east; or, fly to the Asheville Airport.
From either I-26 or the airport, turn right onto NC Highway 280, toward Brevard. If you came from I-26, NC 280 will pass the airport.
NC 280 ends just inside the Brevard city limits, near a shopping center with a Wal-Mart and a Pizza Hut. Go straight through the light. You are now westbound on US Highway 64.
Follow US 64 through Brevard. An alternate route is to turn right onto Caldwell Street near the Brevard Motor Lodge; it rejoins US 64 at its other end.
Past Brevard, US 64 passes a Conoco station and then goes over a mountain. Stay on US 64 for about a half mile past the mountain, until you reach a right turn onto NC Highway 215.
Now here's where my recall is rather fuzzy; Mapquest to the rescue. After about five miles on NC 215 (drive carefully!) turn left onto Macedonia Church Road, and then onto Neil Armstrong Road.
You're there.
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Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delenda est Windoze
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
If they are in need of funding, they should think about giving tours. It sure sounds like something I'd take a side trip to visit. Anyone else?
Viv
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I Use Napster. I use DeCSS. I buy over $1000 a year in CD/DVDs.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Every inch of floor in more than four buildings was covered with two-by-two-foot squares of bleak brown carpet. When the astronomers tried to replace it, they discovered it was welded with tiny metal fibers to the floor. The result, they eventually realized, is that the rugs prevent the buildings from conducting static electricity.
Somewhere, a government-contract carpet layer is reading this and having some nasty flashbacks to that job.
We weren't taken by suprise by Pearl Harbor.
We sacrificed Pearl Harbor to prevent the Japanese from finding out we had cracked their codes.
DUH!
Haven't you watched the History channel?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
With the proper computer equipment, they might be able scan large chunks of sky quickly, due to the speed of the dishes. Plus, they'd be a perfect reference check for the SETI folk, due to the speed at which they can test a signal and localize it. They could check areas around signals to make sure it's not a mistake and such. I'm sure these can be used for great science... Makes you wonder what other modern equipment the NSA has.
But I have to say the riveted carpeting... wow. In our current data center, we have carpeting on a raised floor, but I'm not sure it's static free. I wonder if that will ever make it into the civilian market...
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The Bunker is an ex-RAF Radar Tracking Station, designed to withstand a direct nuclear strike. It has been decomissioned and bought by a private company to serve as a "Britain's ultimate safe house" for hosting and colocation of servers. I wonder if the Exodus data centers have airtight blast doors?
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
The part that scares me is this: the NSA has jurisdiction inside the USA, unlike the CIA which does not. I do not think most /.'s would be comfortable with the NSA in thier backyard.
The result, they eventually realized, is that the rugs prevent the buildings from conducting static electricity.
Perhaps this is to stop any EMP attacks such as that mentioned on Slashdot last week?
While we can all see that this is quite overkill for astronomers this is cool. Finally our government doing something smart. But for all the sonspiracy guys out there,not sure how many but one guy said something like give it to the group with the least danger, there was no danger. The NSA stripped it of everything classified I am sure and it was the ever so secretive Forestry service that gave it to them. Last time I checked the Forest service could care less about all that security. As for the astronomers they got to save a lot of money on building sat dishes and buildings. They also got one hell of a wired compound. Now to just figure out how to tour it cause that wouldbe cool.
I am 31337 or something.
Four foot -wide- door, perhaps? Would make a lot more sense...
What Powers and several others in the group find remarkable, though, is not just the expansive network of buildings and security, but the extraordinary cost of all they items they have found - items the agency discarded.
I'm Sure they had better stuff All ready for them at the new site so they through their old junk away to make room for the new.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
your reply is completly asine...i didn't say take all the monies going to the NSA (or national security) and use it for education (or public schools.)
i did say that if they recouped their investment of materials at the site (say auctioned them off) and then donated that revenue stream to education (like grants for college freshmen,) we'd be better off.
whaddya think - WPI gets no federal funding?
please - troll elsewhere.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
Just in case any of the astronomers are reading...
Need money? How about using some of that fiber and building space for outsourced data centers? How about renting time on the golf ball satellite to private companies? Surely someone could find some use for it. And turn the paper shredding building into a community paper recycling center! I'm sure there are dozens of other ways you could branch out for funding...
Considering the expense they put into it and the obsessive secrecy, I'm surprised the NSA didn't demolish the whole site and give it back to the forest service as a tract of newly-bulldozed land.
I don't doubt that there's nothing meaningful to be learned by spooks from the empty buildings and general layout, but given the NSA's relentless obesssion with secrecy, letting someone know how they do *anything*, from park their cars to carpet their floors, seems like something they wouldn't allow. Leaving it all there like an NSA ghost town-cum-museum seems a little unusual.
On an unrelated note, why is the Air Force demolishing decomissioned missle silos in North Dakota? Is it a START/SALT requirement, or is the Air Force more relentlessly secretive than the NSA?
>I wonder if there is a reason for the trees planted neatly in a row?
:-)
Oddly enough, I was wondering the same thing myself. I started thinking "This is the NSA, so there has to be a pattern!" So I pulled up the TerraServer image of the site, and took a long look at them to figure out the pattern and ascertain their purpose.
My conclusion? They're to anchor the hillside and keep it from sliding down onto the telescopes
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
http://www.blitzbasic.com/
http://www.blitzbasic.com/
Graphics3D 640, 480
It's like Blair Witch for geeks.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
Is it just me, or does the article have this backwards? Sure, I'm just nit-picking, but it seems that one would install such metal fibers to promote conduction and thus prevent the build-up of static charge. Consider conductive anti-stat floor mats, wrist straps, et cetera, which make this seem not-so unusual (except that it's built into the carpet).
:)
Oh well, anyway, it's still all pretty cool, and I envy the folks who get to work there (mainly for the nice cabling setup).
I would be on my way there right now... Just to ask for a tour. Someone from /. please go and visit this place for us if it is reasonable accessable for you.
...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
Good conclusion, though I have to wonder about the wisdom of this - it's a pretty easy pattern to locate, and would make a fairly simple target for pattern-recognition based systems, such as those deployed in 70's-era spy satellites...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Some sense of thriftiness would be appropriate. Selling the fiber optic cable in and of itself could have help offset the national debt. Not by much, but every dollar counts.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
For god's sakes, what is our government afraid of?
It's amazing what Peral Harbor can do to the American psyche. We vowed never again to be taken by surprise - that's what these installations are for.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
in Brevard for 3+ years. It was something no one talked about much. I knew it was up there somewhere but never found anyone who would talk much about it. Way cool if you ask me.
Yeah, the "spaceship earth" ride is inside it. And to think I've wound around through the inside of the thing. Who knows what those "animatronics" are actually up to...
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Linux Official 2.4 Kernel fast mirror.... CLICK HERE
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SCIF- Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
In fact the NSA has a ton of technology on display at the Museum of Cryptology. I went there last summer and saw a Cray, a big black Thinking Machines doohickey, some finger print scanners and several Enigma machines. All technology you can read about in more than 4 locations so it's no longer secret.
I'm glad the astronimers got to reap the benefit. It doesn't sound like anything the NSA left behind needed to be kept secret and someone now makes good use of it.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
What is inside that giant geodesic dome that looks like a golf ball?
Ask Mickey Mouse... he's had that technology for years.
In addition to having a old NSA base, the Carolinas are know to have old Sherman Tanks just out there in the wilderness. They were used as practice targets for the U.S. Army Air Corp and the U.S. Navy airplanes for WWII. The goal was to strike tanks with airplanes (a.k.a. close air support) but their was a serious problem. Tanks hidden in camo were extremely difficult to be hit because they were hidden so well. In fact, they people in charge of hiding them lost the exact locations of these tanks and thus some of them were never recovered. Imagine what other stuff is out there!!
Additionally, for those who would believe that the Carolinas is just a rural backwash state, consider this: The United States Armed Forces have a rather large concetration of firepower located in the Carolinas and surrounding area. Seymour Air Force base located in NC, houses the First Strike Eagles (F-15E). Pope Air Force base is also located in NC. The Army's Fort Bragg and the Marine's Camp Lejeune are located in NC. And finally, the Navy's Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity is located in Norfolk, VA (which is near NC). Thus the Carolinas is a fairly important region.
here's the place that got the site.
click tour for site layout and pics!
i guess their mission statement puts me more at ease.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
Surely they didn't move to cardboard boxes, or some ol' generic office park.
If they threw this away.... the scary aspect is _what_did_they_move_into_?
Guess we'll know in 20 years....
was that it was a base for X-Com's UFO defense. It's a shame that the alien containment, the plasma defenses, and the PSI labs were removed, but at least they left the laboratories, the barracks, and the hangars.
So, where is the undersea X-Com facility? Note to self: never board a ship named "Hyperion".
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
They were doing satellite eavesdropping, so they want to eliminate as much interference to their dishes as possible. Location gave them isolation from external sources, they just have to make sure that their own computers and whatnot don't kill the RF quiet that they worked so hard to create.
hey, does that mean the rest of us (the vast majority of the world) *should* worry about the CIA ? ;-)
Mind you my backyard is a small carpark so I'd probably notice if an 85 foot radio satellite dish appeared there one morning...
Come, explore scenic North Carolina,
where we were first in flight, home of RedHat, and large mysterious government complexes deep in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Surely there's a connection in there....
Victor in Raleigh
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Perfect Dark grey theory, anyone?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
ok ok...after checking out the site of the people who bought it i am a little more at ease...at least their mission statement looks honest, forward thinking, and relevant in it's scope.
it seemed wasteful, but i guess it would be all worth it is we got one more kid interested in astronomy or one or college student who was able to do their master's thesus while working there.
less caffine for me...
link for you to site - good pics of smiley dish!
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
The mission of the NSA is quite simple:
To protect the communications of the U.S. Government.
So with that in mind it is not at all surprising that their juristiction includes the US. Why should we be uncomfortable with that? Are you uncomfortable that the #1 spy agency (the FBI) has juristiction inside the US? I do worry about the ATF guys, but when they can capture people like McVeigh and the World Trade Center bombers I know they are out there to protect me.
I think a lot of negative press has been given to our intelligence agencies. The CIA looks like dumb assess on our very biased news coverage, the DIA and NSA look like geeks with incredible powers and the FBI is seen as a mad house. However, not everything you read or hear repeated is true. I found out recenty that JEH was NOT a crossdresser. That is a myth that was used to discredit him. He was a bully, but why bother to lie like that? The truth always comes out.
--Peter
the first sign that something is out of the ordinary is a line of giant transformers.
;)
But are they Autobots or Decepticons?
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If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
I work at a mid-sized IT facility. My project manager walked by, and looked at the front page of the Slashdot article. He saw the welded carpet line, and said "Oh yea. They all have that. It reduces EMF transmission. They also have double walls that emit white noise, and shielded wiring... Its all standard stuff." essentially quoted me 3/4 of the article without reading it.
Apparently this is more common than we all realize.
Did everyone that worked there wear ESD Wrist straps too.?
They'd have to, if there were any electronics there they wanted to keep (and the story was correct in it's physics..)
First, if they wanted to prevent the building from conducting static electricity, they would use an insulator, not a conductor (metal is a conductor)..
Second, if you did prevent a building from conducting static, then the static electricity would build up in the people (or anything else moving around) and spark whenever you got near something grounded (like an electronic device)..
If the writer didn't screw things up, I think they got the purpose right, but the physics wrong - if static was an issue, the carpet was there to increase the building's conductivity of static electricity, which would minimize it. (The static would dissipate all the time, instead of building up and zapping something.)
It would be great if more of these could be available where there are more ``youngsters''. So many of the telescopes that the general public might have a chance of looking through are found in larger cities where the light pollution has rendered them all but unusable for any serious viewing. Even then, I suppose those might be worth something; you may still find them useful to look at the moon. Which could still be enough to inspire the next generation of astronomers.
But, hey! What about us ``oldsters''?
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