<Z-Gryphon> today's random photo: war room? Death Star weapons control center? No! it's the operations center at Potomac TRACON!
<Z-Gryphon> http://tinyurl.com/7r5r8b3
<Philip-M> yah, I can believe it.
<Z-Gryphon> it's kind of sad how many critically important facilities in the world today are visually indistinguishable from the NOC at GTE Internetworking circa 1998. At least Potomac TRACON has that cool supervillain-HQ ceiling going on.
<Z-Gryphon> I saw a documentary about a European science satellite launch one time, and the ESA's equivalent of Mission Control also looks just like the network ops center at a mid-level backbone ISP.
<Z-Gryphon> oddly, the people who work there even look like mid-level backbone ISP NOC monkeys. :)
<Z-Gryphon> they even wear the same kind of customized logo polo shirts.
<Z-Gryphon> no organization engaged in the serious exploration of outer space should allow polo shirts.
<Z-Gryphon> They send a message, and that message is, I may only be a Movie Gallery branch manager now, but in six years I'm going to be district supervisor for the entire tri-state area.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

And of course, the facilities that you want to be boring, nondescript places where dull work of consequence is done with humility are instead explicitly modeled like the fuckin' bridge of the Enterprise.

That's the Information Dominance Center (I didn't make that name up), courtesy of the architects who designed the place. It's part of the Army's Intelligence and Security Command. Not pictured: that 'captain's chair' faces a twenty-foot video screen and has a pop-out command console attached to it.

-Merc
Keep Rat

>that
>'captain's chair' faces a twenty-foot video screen and has a pop-out
>command console attached to it.

Of course it does.

Meanwhile, in some other, smaller, dingier room where members of Congress aren't allowed, other personnel of lesser rank and lower pay grade are doing the actual work.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>that
>>'captain's chair' faces a twenty-foot video screen and has a pop-out
>>command console attached to it.
>
>Of course it does.
>
>Meanwhile, in some other, smaller, dingier room where members of
>Congress aren't allowed, other personnel of lesser rank and lower pay
>grade are doing the actual work.
>

Speaking as someone who contracted to do actual work in a reasonably small and dingy room, there was a specific set of actions when a congresscritter showed up for a tour--namely, clean the place up, and turn on the overhead projectors with some of the flashier displays that look like something's actually happening.

Oh, and close the door to the room where the noisy equipment lives; they don't need to see the things that make those displays possible.

>Information Dominance Center

... you know, with all the data warehouses and such I interact with in my work, I would totally love to have one with a name like that.

Especially if it's one of those that hosts data which can be used to identify the actual persons that are the source of the observations, meaning you have to get clearance and visit the facility in person to do your work (so that the identifying data isn't at risk of getting out into the wild).

---

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

---

>And of course, the facilities that you want to be boring, nondescript
>places where dull work of consequence is done with humility are
>instead explicitly modeled like the fuckin'
>bridge of the Enterprise.
>
>That's the Information Dominance Center (I didn't make that name up),
>courtesy of the architects who designed the place. It's part of the
>Army's Intelligence and Security Command. Not pictured: that
>'captain's chair' faces a twenty-foot video screen and has a pop-out
>command console attached to it.

Not sure if it was intentional in this case, but there was one confirmed case in the past where it was. During the filming of the The Original Series, Gene Roddenberry and Matt Jefferies got a call from the Navy expressing their interest in the Enterprise's bridge design. They had a commander and lieutenant fly out to the studio, where they got to tour the set and see the blueprints for it. About a year after the meeting, the Navy called them back to thank them for the tour, and inform them that the design had influenced the layout of the master communications center at NAS San Diego, but due to its classified nature they couldn't be allowed to visit.

Jefferies never had the heart to tell them that he had an ultra top secret clearance from doing some government work in Washington.

>That's the Information Dominance Center (I didn't make that name up),
>courtesy of the architects who designed the place.

Because information really doesn't want to be free. It's actually a stereotypical sub. The safeword is "banana split." :)

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."