These ladies and gents are truly one of a kind. The Knights Of NASA. Congratulations on a successful investigation and for coming up with such a clever solution. Looking forward to the probe regaining its pre-November capabilities. It makes me so happy that Voyager 1 will chat with us for a little longer 🚀
It occurred to me recently that NASA is by far the most beloved federal agency. People actually buy and wear NASA SWAG. No one does that with the IRS or USDA. It’s pretty amazing that they’ve been able to do that while virtually the entire rest of government is demoralizing. I would really like to be proud of the IRS—it would be neat if they made tax preparation painless, for example (rather than merely serving the interests of Intuit and other tax prep companies).
NASA has spent a lot of time and money on outreach and education (part of its remit, of course).
Outside nerd circles I believe the national park service has a similar positive image (don’t quote me on that, I’m not in the US nor enjoy the outdoors).
People actually buy and wear NASA SWAG. No one does that with the IRS or USDA.
Are you speaking from personal experience with, e.g., farmers who work with and receive assistance from USDA? I wouldn’t be surprised if swag from some of USDA’s many agencies and programs can be seen being worn in the professional communities that they serve, nor if military swag (“U.S. Army” hats, “Proud Mom of a Marine” bumper stickers, etc.) is more common overall.
To be clear, I’m not arguing SWAG doesn’t exist for other federal agencies, but I think there’s a pretty big difference in volume between NASA SWAG and that of other agencies. Military SWAG seems different, firstly because the military isn’t itself a federal agency, and also because much of that swag (e.g., “Proud Mom of a Marine”) doesn’t indicate popularity (whether of the specific branch of the military or of the DoD itself) as much as it indicates support for service personnel–in contrast with NASA which really seems to have a following.
Next time I have trouble debugging some remote server, I’ll try to remember this story.
Voyager 1 is 24 billion kilometers away, in comparison any “remote” server looks like it’s right next to my desk :)
Well, Voyagers were designed with remote debugging in mind, while many locations on Earth may not even have any out-of-band connections for that kind of debugging in the first place. And they have the Deep Space Network at their disposal for communication with them, which is anything but cheap to operate.
It doesn’t diminish their achievement in the slightest, but it’s still a different situation from having to work with a remote server without having any remote debug and recovery tools for emergency cases.
Successful in the dark and working with the slowest progress bar imaginable… This feat (and the team work it must have required) eclipses (no pun intended) most of what I’ve read these past weeks.
These ladies and gents are truly one of a kind. The Knights Of NASA. Congratulations on a successful investigation and for coming up with such a clever solution. Looking forward to the probe regaining its pre-November capabilities. It makes me so happy that Voyager 1 will chat with us for a little longer 🚀
It occurred to me recently that NASA is by far the most beloved federal agency. People actually buy and wear NASA SWAG. No one does that with the IRS or USDA. It’s pretty amazing that they’ve been able to do that while virtually the entire rest of government is demoralizing. I would really like to be proud of the IRS—it would be neat if they made tax preparation painless, for example (rather than merely serving the interests of Intuit and other tax prep companies).
NASA has spent a lot of time and money on outreach and education (part of its remit, of course).
Outside nerd circles I believe the national park service has a similar positive image (don’t quote me on that, I’m not in the US nor enjoy the outdoors).
To be fair, though, it appears that the bureaucrats at the IRS would love to do so, but Congress has prevented it.
For example: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it
Oh yeah, I 100% believe that Congress bears a lot of the responsibility for the dysfunction in our federal agencies.
You might get into trouble depending on how obvious your IRS or USDA swag is - don’t want to impersonate a federal agent!
but actually, the government (?) sells USDA shirts! https://www.usdaesra.org/product-category/clothing/t-shirts/
Are you speaking from personal experience with, e.g., farmers who work with and receive assistance from USDA? I wouldn’t be surprised if swag from some of USDA’s many agencies and programs can be seen being worn in the professional communities that they serve, nor if military swag (“U.S. Army” hats, “Proud Mom of a Marine” bumper stickers, etc.) is more common overall.
To be clear, I’m not arguing SWAG doesn’t exist for other federal agencies, but I think there’s a pretty big difference in volume between NASA SWAG and that of other agencies. Military SWAG seems different, firstly because the military isn’t itself a federal agency, and also because much of that swag (e.g., “Proud Mom of a Marine”) doesn’t indicate popularity (whether of the specific branch of the military or of the DoD itself) as much as it indicates support for service personnel–in contrast with NASA which really seems to have a following.
I’m wearing NASA socks right now.
I’m wearing a NASA shirt right now. I have three different Mars Helicopter ones, which are among my favorites.
Seems like there are IRS t-shirts too:
https://rlv.zcache.com/anti_irs_shirt-r599abd5672e242009e9dbcedf4cb5358_k2g9c_307.jpg
I really doubt that’s an official one (especially going by the URL).
I kind of love that and wish it were official.
Next time I have trouble debugging some remote server, I’ll try to remember this story. Voyager 1 is 24 billion kilometers away, in comparison any “remote” server looks like it’s right next to my desk :)
Well, Voyagers were designed with remote debugging in mind, while many locations on Earth may not even have any out-of-band connections for that kind of debugging in the first place. And they have the Deep Space Network at their disposal for communication with them, which is anything but cheap to operate.
It doesn’t diminish their achievement in the slightest, but it’s still a different situation from having to work with a remote server without having any remote debug and recovery tools for emergency cases.
Successful in the dark and working with the slowest progress bar imaginable… This feat (and the team work it must have required) eclipses (no pun intended) most of what I’ve read these past weeks.