Not too much to add from what others have mentioned but this looks like a good (low cost wide fov) photon bucket with low complexity (important for reducing stray/scattered light).
In calibrating satellites getting folks like you to go out with sensors on the ground to send back well vetted data is an expensive and limiting factor. Much cheaper (and often preferred) to do as much as possible from space and do smart ground processing/data analysis to build confidence.
Independent thinking like that could never be encouraged or rewarded in a place designed to produce just smart enough replacement labor. Hell, equivalent stunts in places like university or the workplace wouldn't necessarily end up in your favor (similar arbitration resulting in the organizations desired outcome likely being the case).
That's cool to see, I remember in high school the ROTC came to track practice to get people to come out for orienteering meets. Turned out to be a fun/useful experience.
I'm guessing you're in in automotive or aerospace based off the engine piece. I agree, but I would presume a day long meeting leading up to a wind-tunnel test for example would have a full agenda of presentations based off simulations performed, set-up/teardown overview, scheme of testing to be performed, facility status, emergencies, data acquisition, etc. For this all the relevant teams would expect to have significant engagement and contributions. I think this is different from what people complain about. I work in satellite ops and we suffer from those types of issues (unnecessary stand-ups, status reports that could be an email etc.) despite the need to sober up and have runs where it's a lot closer to the former than the latter.
Yep, a lot of places allow for 80hrs/2wks of "training". Crazy how popular those Agile/SAFE/AWS/Azure/etc. conferences are in a destination location, meanwhile engineers asking to have time prorated for some graduate coursework is unfathomable.
Several people from my high school went to Deep Springs. They were all incredibly bright, high potential students but definitely wanted "different". The ones I knew went on to UChicago, MIT, and (I think?) Harvard after their terms. I went to a Service Academy and couldn't help but think that their experience sounded much more challenging than what I went through.
Weightlifting is interesting, "most" elites have really good technique (tempo, maintaining angles throughout the pull, bottom position, lockout, etc.) indicating some level of mastery from years of practice. But I think a good amount beginners and intermediates (i'd consider myself somewhere in there) let their strength hold them back, which after obtaining the requisite positioning/flexibility can be "spammed" ( i.e. run a squat program while getting touches on the classical lifts and seeing your total increase the first time you test it). I guess the strength aspect is a dependency that must be optimized as some lifters have an excess strength reserve and can't snatch/ clean n jerk what their squat numbers would indicate.
Yeah, raw strength is a limiting factor for amateurs (like me). You need to put the work and that requires dedication.
If I wanted to get to the next level relatively quickly I would need to start doing more specific strength training. I'm much more focused on technique at the moment, I find weightlifting training relaxing.
Since it's a hobby for me, I just slowly go increasing my PRs by every once in a while (once or twice a year) slightly bumping the reference weight for training.
Kind of like an aspirational PR. Once it feels and looks right across the whole range of training, I try a new PR, if successful, slightly move the target for the next time.
