The strange Cold War bar codes across America

The "bar code" at Walker Field, Maryland

Adjacent to the runway of a Navy airfield in Maryland is a paved rectangle.  And within that area are a series of quadrilaterals painted bright white, in pairs and ascending in size.

By itself its existence would be a mystery, or at least a curiosity.  Except that it is one of dozens to be known throughout the United States, with most of those found near military bases and other restricted facilities.  Some remote locations have entire arrays of the "bar codes" stretching for miles toward the horizon.

So what are these test pattern-ish arrangements?  Based on available evidence, they seem to have been put in place by the government during the first few decades of the Cold War.  With tensions high between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the advent of high-altitude aircraft reconnaissance - and then "spy" satellites - became an important asset of military intelligence.  And as with any other system of optics those high-flying cameras needed a means of determining that they were properly focused.

The rectanglular codes, therefore, are apparently intended to calibrate the zoom and resolution of aircraft and satellite photography.  F'rinstance: letting an SR-71 use one to adjust its precision camera before sending it to fly across the Iron Curtain.

From the original article at Mail Online...

Consisting of a concrete pad measuring 78ft by 53ft and coated in a heavy black and white paint, they are decorated with patterns consisting of parallel and perpendicular bars in 15 or so different sizes.

This pattern, sometimes referred to as a 5:1 aspect Tri-bar Array, is similar to those used to determine the zoom resolution of microscopes, telescopes, cameras, and scanners.
The targets function like an optician's eye chart, with the smallest group of bars discernable marking the limit of the resolution for the camera being tested, according to the CLUI.

'For aerial photography, it provides a platform to test, calibrate, and focus aerial cameras traveling at different speeds and altitudes,' the CLUI adds.

'The targets can also be used in the same way by satellites.'

Ironic, aye?  That military secrets from fifty years ago are now wide-out in the open because of that same technology and Google Earth.  Anyone with a desktop or tablet can now view what likely had been classified top secret by the CIA.

I wonder what else might be on the ground across the fruited plain, waiting to be discovered...

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THE WALKING DEAD: "I Ain't a Judas" brings an appreciable respite

Did anyone else come away from this week's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead thinking that regardless of how little time we saw of him, that the highlight of "I Ain't a Judas" was Carl (Chandler Riggs) talking to his father Rick?  Because that's what keeps sticking out most in this blogger's mind ever since watching it last night.

I have said it before and I will say it again: if Chandler Riggs doesn't get an Emmy nomination this year, then I will be more than extremely disappointed.  Carl is a character who has solidly destroyed the mold of child characters on television and Riggs deserves some mighty high accolades for the strength, courage, restraint under stress and sheer wisdom that he has portrayed for such an exceptionally young actor.  Carl is becoming a true leader right before our eyes.  The scene before the opening title where he comes to Rick, telling his dad that he should let go because he's taking on much too heavy a burden: that was pure dramatic gold.

And then there was Hershel's no-holds-barred rant at Rick: he wanted this Rick-tatorship... and it's time that he began owning up to it.  In Scott Wilson's hands Hershel has become the group's sage voice of sanity.  Maybe Wilson will get an Emmy nod too (as well as Norman Reedus).

"I Ain't a Judas" was obviously heavy on Andrea (Laurie Holden) and her moral quandary: whether to return to the friends she has been with since before leaving Atlanta, or to remain at Woodbury with the Governor.  In that regard this was considerably a less action-packed chapter of The Walking Dead than we have gotten used to... but after the past several episodes I think that a quiet respite was needed.  Indeed, perhaps even desired more than we initially realized.  The focus of the episode was squarely on Andrea.  More so even than Merle (Michael Rooker) now becoming officially part of Rick's gang at the prison.

(Something else I noticed: duct tape was used at least twice in this episode.  Must remember to stock up on plenty of it when the zombie apocalypse hits.)

"I Ain't a Judas" lacked the gory violence that usually comes from this show every week.  But it was certainly no "filler" episode either and I think that sooner than later we'll be thankful that we got this.  It's very apparent that Rick and his people will soon be facing war with Woodbury and it's nice to have some time to breathe easy before the conflict erupts in earnest.  An altogether well-orchestrated episode, and it looks like next week's will be even better.

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"Hitler did nothing wrong"

Worst. Wi-fi network name. Ever.

That is a screen capture I made of my iPad this past Friday when I was at Mysticon at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood in Roanoke.  The hotel itself deserves bigtime props for opening up its own wi-fi network to all of the convention goers.  That's what I was doing when I was inside my iPad's network settings and saw... that.  We were waiting for the Peter Davison panel to begin in one of the hotel's ballrooms.  I haven't even made the image a JPG as usual: that's the original PNG file.  All I did was change the file name.

I know wi-fi SSID names need to be unique but c'mon: that is beyond the tasteless.

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Tammy Tuesday: Nose for trouble

Despite a regular and healthy regimen of doggie treats, pieces of ham (leftover from my breakfast every morning) and the occasional flake of popcorn that falls to the floor, Tammy is bound and determined to sniff out more yummy bites!

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We met Peter Davison!

Mysticon 2013 transpired across space and time at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood in Roanoke, Virginia this past weekend!  Among the special guests were bestselling science-fiction author Orson Scott Card (I finally have a signed copy of Speaker for the Dead, the book that dang nearly destroyed my Spanish grade in my sophomore year of high school and I mean that in a good way) and none other than Peter Davison.  Yup, the Fifth Doctor himself!

And speaking of Doctor Who, I have never seen the Doctor and his mythology so represented by fans at a sci-fi convention.  I mean, there were people in TARDIS costumes, fercryinoutloud!  Those were mostly ladies in blue dresses bedecked with windows and the "Police Box" plaque on the door.  There were literally dozens of guys in Eleventh Doctor costumes (including not a few red fezzes), along with a healthy dose of Fourth Doctors, a number of Tenth Doctors and at least two Ninth Doctors.  For the first time in my life I saw a First Doctor costume, a Third Doctor getup and a Seventh Doctor (he even had the umbrella).  I have to say: it was quite refreshing to be at a convention where the quantity of Doctors vastly outnumbered that of Starfleet officers, Jedi Knights and vampires.

But anyhoo, yesterday morning Kristen and I got to attend "Breakfast with the Doctor" in the hotel restaurant.  This was something with very limited attendance but Kristen pounced upon tickets for it as soon as they went on sale.

Here she is with Davison...

And here I am with Davison on Saturday afternoon.  He even signed my DVD of "Earthshock" (which he told us in a panel discussion on Friday was his most memorable Doctor Who story)...

And did I tell you that there were Doctor Who costumes at Mysticon or what?  Here's me with one of Kristen's friends.  She made a crazy awesome Weeping Angel costume that would be hard to keep your eyes off even if the Angels weren't quantum-locked homicidal maniacs!

The very last photo ever taken of The Knight Shift blogger
Chris Knight, who forgot that one must NEVER take his eyes
off of a Weeping Angel.

And a good time was had by all :-)

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Was the real ending to John Carpenter's THE THING in plain sight all along?

John Carpenter's 1982 science-fiction horror film The Thing is one of those movies that no matter how many times you watch it over the decades, you can always spot something new that you've haven't caught before. Case in point: I had never noticed that Doc Copper has a nose-ring until almost two years ago. It's the smallish details like that which keep the debate and discussion going about The Thing... and I'll admit that nearly thirty years after I first saw this movie, I still haven't figured out who was where and for how long at Outpost 31.

But I had thought that there was nothing major left to be discovered. Nothing at all. How could there be, in a movie that I've bought no less than three times for my personal library (the latest being the gorgeous Blu-ray that I watch every time I get snowed-in during winter). Heck, it's a movie so near and dear to my heart that I had already put the Blu-ray version on my iPad long before good friend Lee Shelton alerted me to this story about The Thing and its classic ending. Specifically, how John Carpenter possibly answered the last big question about the story and it has been right in front of us the whole time.

If you haven't seen The Thing (shame on you!) and you don't care about spoilers, it's like this: in the final scene, the only survivors of the camp are helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) and mechanic Childs (Keith David). With the entire outpost destroyed and the hard biting cold of the Antarctic night bearing down on them, it is only a matter of time before they freeze to death. The film ends with both men starting at each other, wondering if the other is fully human.

Here's the comment that started it all, from one KicksButtson on Reddit.com...

A friend of mine, back when he was an assistant, spent a great deal of time with John Carpenter doing interviews and the like for video games and comic projects. I was discussing my conversation with Larry Turman with this friend and he said

"You know, I asked John Carpenter about The Thing."

"Oh yeah? What did he say?" I asked.

"He said he never understood where all the confusion came from. The last frame of The Thing is Kurt Russell and Keith David staring each other down, harshly backlit. It's completely, glaringly obvious that Kurt Russell is breathing and Keith David is not."

I looked at my friend for a minute, soaking it in. Straight from the horse's mouth.

"That's a pretty subtle cue to expect the audience to absorb having seen severed heads grow spider legs and run around," I said.

"That's the genius of The Thing," my friend said, and we moved on to other subjects.

As soon as I read that I whipped out the iPad and went to The Thing's last scene.

And son of a gun... it's true.

MacReady's breath is so visible, so unavoidably obvious, it can't be anything but an in-your-face indicator of something significant.

But there is no breath at all coming out of Childs. He comes out of the darkness, he talks to MacReady, and he's not breathing.

Well played, Mr. Carpenter. Well-played indeed. Looks like I'll have to be watching your movie at least another dozen or so more times, just so I can study where Childs goes and when.

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Hey all of you DOWNTON ABBEY fanatics...

Most of you have seen this already, I'd bet. The only thing I know about Downton Abbey is that it has the inimitable Maggie Smith among the cast and for that alone I'm gonna make time to eventually watch this show.

This series must be a big deal. For one thing my Facebook front page was loaded with all kinds of numbstruck horror over the weekend because of the Downton Abbey season finale. And then there's the fact that Sesame Street has now spoofed it! Even without knowing the particulars of the source material, I thought this was pretty funny.

So here is "Uptown Downton Abbey"...

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