Yep, exactly -- great example.
I've spent a lot of time in and around retail systems. An apparel manufacturer I worked for for a few years would routinely issue 15,000 new SKUs *every season*. It was actually only about a hundred or so different garments, but between all the different different sizes and colors the SKU count just zooms up.
A separate SKU (stock-keeping unit, a fancy term for "part number") will exist for each sellable configuration of a product. Saying that there will be "five or six" SKUs could easily mean only two separate models, say a 7" and 10" with three memory configurations each.
Grumman hasn't been in NYC since 1920, Chance-Vought was never in NYC, nor was Fairchild or Sikorsky. Lots of cities in the US "bristled" with aviation pioneers. Houston (a city I've only visited; I don't live there) contributed so much more to the concept, development, and operation of the US shuttle program than NYC it's just ridiculous.
The only argument you make that's relevant is that NYC will get a lot more visitors than Houston. That's not a reason that makes me happy that NYC got selected over Houston, but at least I understand it.
How the fuck do you decide that NYC gets a shuttle instead of Houston? That's so screwed up I don't even know where to start. What the hell has NYC contributed to the shuttle program (or anything to do with space)?
I was wondering when somebody would finally bring this up. What the OP's boss is proposing -- if he's asking them to work 10 hour days without additional compensation -- isn't just a bad idea: it's illegal.
The "right" question is "how much is it worth to take the first few steps to insure the long-term survival of the human species?"
We've got to go physically into space to do that, and there is no substitute the for the experience we've gained with the entire space program from the first baby steps to the current ISS mission.
This is the first imagery collected from the bird; it's no surprise at all that there is a little bit of band-to-band misregistration at first. This will be corrected over the next several weeks as calibration activities progress.
If you've ever had the chance to spend time with early imagery from a bird, you'd know that this image looks fantastic for an early collection.
Exactly right. And anything more than about 15 degrees off-nadir gets a bit dicey if you're using the imagery as a source for mapping.
It's not very common for the satellite to collect imagery at nadir (that is, looking exactly, perfectly straight down). Why? Because the target of interest is only very, very rarely going to be exactly on the ground track. Fortunately, all modern imaging birds can "point" off the side and backwards/forwards.
Do you have any idea of how expensive it is to collect aerial photography over large areas? Sure, 6-inch imagery is great. Who's going to pay for it? --and how do you collect it over, say, China? The Earth has just under 150,000,000 sq. km. of land surface area -- do you realize how long it would take to collect the Earth even ONCE from an aerial platform?
Bottom line: there are good practical reasons why you won't see 6-inch imagery of the whole planet any time soon.
This *is* a satellite photo. It is at 50cm resolution (the highest resolution the US Government allows imaging companies to publish or sell). GeoEye-1 is actually capable of a slightly better resolution -- but until the law changes, this is the best you'll see. Pretty darned nice, eh?
GeoEye pics that are on Google Maps/Earth right now come from their Ikonos satellite; it has noticeably lower resolution than QuickBird-2, WorldView-1 or GeoEye-1. There won't be any GeoEye-1 pics up GE yet.
Also, there are clouds and a quit a bit of haze in the image shown in your link -- this lowers the apparent image quality quite a bit.
There are two separate sensors on the focal plane. One is panchromatic (i.e., "black and white") with a resolution of about 41cm. The other sensor has the same native resolution, but shares it between one of four multi-spectral bands (Red, Green, Blue, Near-IR). This is why the MS (multi-spectral) resolution for each band is exactly 4x lower than Pan band -- 1.64m vs 41cm.
The 16x factor in the article is correct if you consider a square area (4 x 4) instead of a single row of pixels.
Sun-synchronous orbits are extremely common for optical imaging satellites. A sun-synchronous orbit simply means that the satellite crosses the equator at a specific time of day on every orbit. The sun-synch time can be chosen at will; you can make it any time that you want. If you choose noon, you get very short shadows; if you choose a time early or late in the day, you'll get long shadows. The length of the shadows at any give spot the Earth (away from the equator) changes with the season (because the sun's relative angle changes as the Earth orbits the sun).
Shadows are actually a useful artifact when you're doing imagery analysis, and that's part of the reason that away-from-noon descending nodes are chosen. 10:30 is a popular time because it gives shadows that are "just right" -- not too long and not too short. Note that a 1:30PM orbit would theoretically be an equivalent (and symmetrical) choice -- but for practical purposes a morning orbit is a better choice: there are statistically fewer clouds in the morning over most of the planet compared to the afternoon. Also note that a "10:30" orbit means "10:30 at the equator". It's a bit earlier than this in the northern hemisphere, and a bit later for the southern -- but it's always at the *same* time of day.
It's Autumn in the northern hemisphere. Last I checked, the satellite is orbiting the entire planet. The southern hemisphere's seasons are...uh...what's the word? Oh yeah: completely opposite.
First images from a new imaging satellite are almost never great. Several things, most particularly focus, have to be guessed at on the ground before launch and then adjusted once the bird is on orbit. As others have indicated, the choice of a first target is sometimes pretty arbitrary. The calibration team wants contrast and edges, but otherwise the content for the very first images doesn't matter much -- the point is just to establish that the entire command/control/imaging/download chain is working correctly. Later images will be of specific locations that contain specific calibration targets -- and these are often courtesy of universities.
Then why have it? It is built for surveillance or why would you have it.
Optical and radar imaging satellites ARE built for surveillance -- but surveillance of what?
Here's a hint: think of things that appear bigger than a pixel or two in an image.
IMINT is great for watching big things: ships, submarines, tanks, airplanes, big crowds of people. It's not so good for monitoring individual people, unless you're really, really good at interpreting the identity of a person from a pixel or two.
This isn't an issue of 'security by obscurity' -- it's the double issue of protecting capabilities that might not yet be evident to an opponent, and of protecting the means of technical achievement of a capability even once the capability itself becomes known.
> when I claim that Cthuluh is controlling the internet.
That was not supposed to be revealed. A nasty tentacle is on its way to claim your mortal husk.
Re:You need to clarify your question
on
Ethics In IT
·
· Score: 1
The purpose of a company isn't to provide a steady living for people, but to maximize profits.
This declaration is far too simplistic.
There are MANY non-public companies (both privately-held and not-for-profit) whose purposes are decidedly NOT to "maximize profits."
If you'd said "the purpose of publicly-traded companies is to maximize shareholder wealth" you'd be closer to the truth, but this still doesn't account for the fact that the definition of "wealth" is (very) slowly changing to incorporate more than just money.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the best advice I think I've ever read on Slashdot. It's on point, it shows both intellectual and emotional understanding -- it's great.
In short, please ban this guy. He's really screwing up this site for the rest of us.
Yep, exactly -- great example. I've spent a lot of time in and around retail systems. An apparel manufacturer I worked for for a few years would routinely issue 15,000 new SKUs *every season*. It was actually only about a hundred or so different garments, but between all the different different sizes and colors the SKU count just zooms up.
A separate SKU (stock-keeping unit, a fancy term for "part number") will exist for each sellable configuration of a product. Saying that there will be "five or six" SKUs could easily mean only two separate models, say a 7" and 10" with three memory configurations each.
Exactly right. Best comment of the whole bunch. Wish I had mod points.
Grumman hasn't been in NYC since 1920, Chance-Vought was never in NYC, nor was Fairchild or Sikorsky. Lots of cities in the US "bristled" with aviation pioneers. Houston (a city I've only visited; I don't live there) contributed so much more to the concept, development, and operation of the US shuttle program than NYC it's just ridiculous.
The only argument you make that's relevant is that NYC will get a lot more visitors than Houston. That's not a reason that makes me happy that NYC got selected over Houston, but at least I understand it.
How the fuck do you decide that NYC gets a shuttle instead of Houston? That's so screwed up I don't even know where to start. What the hell has NYC contributed to the shuttle program (or anything to do with space)?
I was wondering when somebody would finally bring this up. What the OP's boss is proposing -- if he's asking them to work 10 hour days without additional compensation -- isn't just a bad idea: it's illegal.
Applause. Nicely said.
The "right" question is "how much is it worth to take the first few steps to insure the long-term survival of the human species?"
We've got to go physically into space to do that, and there is no substitute the for the experience we've gained with the entire space program from the first baby steps to the current ISS mission.
Both movies: entertaining and fun (especially Star Trek).
This discussion? A complete waste of human life.
This fellow has been a busy beaver -- besides the 'click' regulation, he's offered up a bunch of other "important" legislation. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/?&Db=d111&querybd=@FIELD(FLD003+@4((@1(Rep+King++Peter+T.))+00635))
This is the first imagery collected from the bird; it's no surprise at all that there is a little bit of band-to-band misregistration at first. This will be corrected over the next several weeks as calibration activities progress.
If you've ever had the chance to spend time with early imagery from a bird, you'd know that this image looks fantastic for an early collection.
Exactly right. And anything more than about 15 degrees off-nadir gets a bit dicey if you're using the imagery as a source for mapping.
It's not very common for the satellite to collect imagery at nadir (that is, looking exactly, perfectly straight down). Why? Because the target of interest is only very, very rarely going to be exactly on the ground track. Fortunately, all modern imaging birds can "point" off the side and backwards/forwards.
Do you have any idea of how expensive it is to collect aerial photography over large areas? Sure, 6-inch imagery is great. Who's going to pay for it? --and how do you collect it over, say, China? The Earth has just under 150,000,000 sq. km. of land surface area -- do you realize how long it would take to collect the Earth even ONCE from an aerial platform?
Bottom line: there are good practical reasons why you won't see 6-inch imagery of the whole planet any time soon.
This *is* a satellite photo. It is at 50cm resolution (the highest resolution the US Government allows imaging companies to publish or sell). GeoEye-1 is actually capable of a slightly better resolution -- but until the law changes, this is the best you'll see. Pretty darned nice, eh?
GeoEye pics that are on Google Maps/Earth right now come from their Ikonos satellite; it has noticeably lower resolution than QuickBird-2, WorldView-1 or GeoEye-1. There won't be any GeoEye-1 pics up GE yet.
Also, there are clouds and a quit a bit of haze in the image shown in your link -- this lowers the apparent image quality quite a bit.
There are two separate sensors on the focal plane. One is panchromatic (i.e., "black and white") with a resolution of about 41cm. The other sensor has the same native resolution, but shares it between one of four multi-spectral bands (Red, Green, Blue, Near-IR). This is why the MS (multi-spectral) resolution for each band is exactly 4x lower than Pan band -- 1.64m vs 41cm.
The 16x factor in the article is correct if you consider a square area (4 x 4) instead of a single row of pixels.
Sun-synchronous orbits are extremely common for optical imaging satellites. A sun-synchronous orbit simply means that the satellite crosses the equator at a specific time of day on every orbit. The sun-synch time can be chosen at will; you can make it any time that you want. If you choose noon, you get very short shadows; if you choose a time early or late in the day, you'll get long shadows. The length of the shadows at any give spot the Earth (away from the equator) changes with the season (because the sun's relative angle changes as the Earth orbits the sun).
Shadows are actually a useful artifact when you're doing imagery analysis, and that's part of the reason that away-from-noon descending nodes are chosen. 10:30 is a popular time because it gives shadows that are "just right" -- not too long and not too short. Note that a 1:30PM orbit would theoretically be an equivalent (and symmetrical) choice -- but for practical purposes a morning orbit is a better choice: there are statistically fewer clouds in the morning over most of the planet compared to the afternoon. Also note that a "10:30" orbit means "10:30 at the equator". It's a bit earlier than this in the northern hemisphere, and a bit later for the southern -- but it's always at the *same* time of day.
It's Autumn in the northern hemisphere. Last I checked, the satellite is orbiting the entire planet. The southern hemisphere's seasons are...uh...what's the word? Oh yeah: completely opposite.
First images from a new imaging satellite are almost never great. Several things, most particularly focus, have to be guessed at on the ground before launch and then adjusted once the bird is on orbit. As others have indicated, the choice of a first target is sometimes pretty arbitrary. The calibration team wants contrast and edges, but otherwise the content for the very first images doesn't matter much -- the point is just to establish that the entire command/control/imaging/download chain is working correctly. Later images will be of specific locations that contain specific calibration targets -- and these are often courtesy of universities.
Then why have it? It is built for surveillance or why would you have it.
Optical and radar imaging satellites ARE built for surveillance -- but surveillance of what?
Here's a hint: think of things that appear bigger than a pixel or two in an image.
IMINT is great for watching big things: ships, submarines, tanks, airplanes, big crowds of people. It's not so good for monitoring individual people, unless you're really, really good at interpreting the identity of a person from a pixel or two.
One *thousand*? That's not pulled out of the air, that's pulled out of a orifice.
This isn't an issue of 'security by obscurity' -- it's the double issue of protecting capabilities that might not yet be evident to an opponent, and of protecting the means of technical achievement of a capability even once the capability itself becomes known.
> when I claim that Cthuluh is controlling the internet.
That was not supposed to be revealed. A nasty tentacle is on its way to claim your mortal husk.
The purpose of a company isn't to provide a steady living for people, but to maximize profits.
This declaration is far too simplistic. There are MANY non-public companies (both privately-held and not-for-profit) whose purposes are decidedly NOT to "maximize profits."
If you'd said "the purpose of publicly-traded companies is to maximize shareholder wealth" you'd be closer to the truth, but this still doesn't account for the fact that the definition of "wealth" is (very) slowly changing to incorporate more than just money.
And yes, I never lock my house or my car, and I have yet to have one thing stolen from me in all these years.
Really? What's your address?