Before the days of Power Point and Prezi, employees at NASA would have to go about conveying their knowledge in a much more laborious way: chalk, board, and likely tears. It wasn’t all in vain, though; 1961 was the year that the first man–a Russian cosmonaut–entered space, and the United States was scrambling to catch up. NASA scientists with their board of calculations, 1961. As for this photograph, probably the photojournalist asked them to fill the board with complicated-looking equations for the shot. These are general equations of motion, so nothing that you would not have in a printed sheet of paper. There are no “calculations” in that board, just reference equations. To be fair it was the middle of the Space Race, they would not publish anything other than generic equations in LIFE magazine. There are no “calculations” in that board, just reference equations. Before the development of electronic computers, the term “computer” referred to people, not machines. It was a job title, designating someone who performed mathematical equations and calculations by hand. Teams of people were frequently used to undertake long and often tedious calculations; the work was divided so that this could be done in parallel. In many cases quite sophisticated electromechanical devices were developed to help. For a complex equation that deals with time-steps and feeds back on itself, the prominent scientists of NASA would have “math parties”. Everyone would master one part of the equation. Then the first guy would do his part and hand it off to the next guy and so on. Eventually the final guy would go back to the first person and give him the new inputs for 1ms further in time. After a few hours you could have a nice neat graph of everything over a 1-2 second period. That is how the first nuclear reactors, nuclear bombs and a lot of aerospace calculations were done. (Photos by J. R. Eyerman/LIFE magazine, via Rare Historical Photos)
Designed by London-based photographer Cameron Baxter A Comprehensive Guide To Navigating Parallel Dimensions is a lovely bought of retro-themed fakery...
What is a "daily stand-up" really for and how do you get the best out of this key Scrum event? How do you avoid stand-up fatigue? Here are some tips to make the Daily Scrum effective again.
This essay is about Generative AI, the vastness of possibility spaces, and the search for an answer to the following riddle: Where better to find the solution, but within an infinite library? After…
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Notation and representation through dance and architecture, random footnotes from the “Danser sa vie” * exhibition in Paris.
My art journal page tumblr. This is art that inspires me. My favorite view is archive view, like one big inspiration board.
From the beginning of the human space journey to the other essentials which are being an integral part, the use of… by toushik
Mankind is at a turning point in its history. The mass of data acquired is astounding. We need new instruments to simplify it, to condense it, or intelligence will never be able to overcome the difficulties imposed upon it or achieve the progress that it foresees and to which it aspires. Paul...
“When we allow our soul to guide us, we are always shown the way.” ~ Sue Krebs The Sanskrit word Akasha means ‘sky’, ‘space’, ‘luminous’ or ‘ether’; an etymology that encompasses the all-knowing aspect of the Akashic records, a term coined by H.P Blavatsky referring to them as ‘indestructible tablets of astral light’. For those
The main idea of this method is to collect long-term qualitative data from the users. Participants report their activities over a period of time.
Luke and Matt fight to the death (not really, they are still alive... just) for our first Great Debate, "We should design for usability, then add delight." Sarah recaps the debate, blow by blow. Who will emerge victorious?
Tapping Into Declarative and Procedural Knowledge in the Art Room Curriculum Design % %
According to Fitts’s Law — which was originally describing movement in the physical world —, the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and the size of the target.
A delightful exhibit of what French visionaries thought the 20th century would bring currently hosted by the French National Library
UX Knowledge Base Sketch #18
If you’re like me, you’ve once or twice seen the near future in the form of Spielberg’s action-packed take on Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report. Not precogs, precrime, or pre-arrests, so much, nor the ubiquitous floating ads, but the scenes in which Tom Cruise’s character controls his tech by speaking to it and waving … Continue reading "The Control Panel Archive: The Tactile Beauty of Buttons, Meters, Knobs and Dials"
From a story garden in Cornwall to hexagonal towers in Los Angeles, we look at inventive spaces designed to get children excited about books
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Por Andréa de Paiva Poster for the BridgeSynapses, 2016, at ANFA (Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture) in San Diego. Click here to see the poster presented at the same conference in 2018. Would you like to know more about the subject? Read the article Workplaces and Brain Health: NeuroArchitecture Insights and follow the website or the fanpage on Facebook.
