Daily Thoughts

[Zzzptm]

^ Part of that was for continuity in programs aiding the native pops, as parliamentary changes would churn programs around. Hope it does better than the BIA here in the USA.

[Vyn]

A month ago at work, our CEO decides he needs a lavalier mic in order to give state of the company addresses. The guy who got the request knocked on my door. He indicated he didn't know anything about lav mics, etc. so I asked some questions and told him I'd get something.

Which I did.

Fast forward to yesterday and the CEO drops by. Said they'd tried out the lav mic and he was amazed at how well it worked and so on. Then he wanted to know how much it cost, because he was thinking about getting a bunch for some dept. in the company.

I explained that what we have is the low end of professional quality stuff. The mic itself is $400. The transmitter is $2500. The receiver is $3000, and it's just a two channel.

That dept. isn't going to be getting lav mics hahahaha.

[Zzzptm]

"Wow, this stuff sounds as good as pro grade equipment!"

"That's because it *is* pro grade equipment."

"Oh... um..."

"You were hoping it was real cheap so you could brag how you got an awesome bargain with high-end home user gear that was vastly underpriced relative to the big boys out there?"

"In so many words, yeah."

"What if I told you it was refurbished and we got a one-of-a-kind deal on the gear?"

"I would feel happier about the whole thing."

"OK, it was a refurb one-of-a-kind deal."

"Was it really?"

"Now is a great time to stop asking questions."

"Gotcha."

[Vyn]

Yeah, pretty much lol.

You should send that to Scott Adams, that has the makings of a great Dilbert cartoon!

[Charger]

Happy thoughts now as something arrived from EGARD Watch Company I have been waiting for a long time!

THE NEW PASSAGES V2 Webb watch which was done in collaboration with the one and only mr. WILLIAM SHATNER!

Nice Leather box


With a lunar surface design on the inside


The watch itself is an automatic and the dials are rotating discs, The Webb is the seconds hand, Earth is the minute hand and the Sun is the hour hand. The bottom dial has Chondrite Meteorite Dust in it to make it bit more special. And ofcourse has William Shatner's Autograph on the top.


The watch is like a piece of art really. Don't think I'll be wearing it a lot but that's not really what something as special as this is for anyways.

The only gripe I have about it really is that my pledge number was 23 and I was hoping the watch number would match that but it doesn't...my watch is #0166/5000...but that's a minor thing really...

Passages V1 and V2

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

That looks pretty cool Charger.

[Zzzptm]

Watches are beautiful things when created like that.

[Vyn]

Those are nice timepieces, which, as you point out, are really art that just happens to mark time.

[Charger]

Indeed.

I'll be wearing it on special occations just like I have with the first one. But it is more about having something special that not a lot of people have.

[Vyn]

I was reading some random news bits first thing this morning and somehow came across one about an accident on an oil rig. It happened in the North Atlantic in 1983, on a rig called the Byford Dolphin. Here's a Wikipedia page about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin

The story I read had a link to the official autopsy report. I won't link to it. I can tell you this: if you search for it, you will find it, and fair warning about what you will see. It goes into great detail about what actually happened. And the aftermath. With pictures. It's much more than simply an autopsy report.

I also pulled up some other stories about the incident. Almost all of them play fast and loose with some of the facts. I can't figure out why they'd do that when the actual information is readily available - maybe a lot of copy pasta and not a lot of actual research and writing.

Anyway, the story itself really paints the government of Norway in a bad light. The oil rig owners/operators are of course jackholes only interested in profits, but that is to be expected. The obvious analogy is the recent titanic submersible that imploded, due to what most say was greed over safety. A mentality, in that case, limited to one dude. In the oil rig case, it was systemic, from gov officials all the way down to rig foremen. And resulted in five deaths and one man who had his life indelibly altered. Without so much as a, "sorry, that sucks," to anyone. Not even a, "fuck you, glad it wasn't me." All of the responsible parties simply ghosted the survivor and the families of those who died.

[Zzzptm]

That reminded me of the USS Thresher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)

[Vyn]

That's the first I'd heard about the Thresher submarine. That is some spooky stuff. Interesting fact mentioned was that from 1915 to 1963 the US lost 16 submarines to noncombat issues, then after the SUBSAFE program was implemented in 1963, until today, they've only lost one. And it wasn't SUBSAFE certified. I'd say the Navy got their shit together in that regard. Too bad that wisdom had to be earned at such a high cost.

[Zzzptm]

That's usually the way it goes, though. I think it's one of those eternal principles, positive change emerging from hardship and suffering. Look at the origins of life, and how we think that it was likely viruses that provided the pressure and change needed on single-cell life to get it to specialize and develop into more complicated life forms.

[Vyn]

Was just having a thought today - what if Black Sabbath did a cover of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up"?

I searched, and The Internet delivered:

[Zzzptm]

^ So... that's an Ozzyroll?