razark

That one gets stuck in my head from time to time.

First level IT support. If the question isn't in their FAQ or instructions, just fill out a ticket and wait for someone that can help gets to it. It's mostly a gatekeeper role or, if you're lucky, a triage system. Mt front-line tech support experience was in a call center for a server hosting company, that also did a small bit of website hosting. You never knew if picking up the phone was going to be "I can't see the picture of the kitty I put on my site" or "A warehouse full of programmers is sitting idle because I put in a decommission order on the wrong server, and accidentally rm -rf *ed my /root".

The first car I drove was made a year after I was born. The only problem it had was when I decided I didn't want to be on the road and drove it straight into a ditch. And it didn't like to start in the cold. And it would stall if you didn't keep the gas going at at traffic light. Unless it was cold.

So, would that be these folks, or flat-earthers?

I found out the farkin' bartch hired a lawyer, filed papers, and is dragging things out even longer, even though things should have been done in June.

Honestly, I'm going through one of life's greatest crapholes right now. No matter how bad things seem, I still know that there's going to be a bright side on the other side, even if things look dark as hell right now. My school years would be a breeze compared to this. I wish that I knew then what I know now... (Of course, there are darker times ahead for me, when this will look like a milk run in comparison.1) 1Pessimism: The belief that no matter how bad things are now, it will always get worse. And you'll rarely be surprised. Bleh. Too much bourbon tonight.

Why not send artists? It's not like there's going to be any science or engineering happening on that flight anyway.

That's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

Well, have to check the board at work and see who won that bet.

Ah, thanks. (And, after seeing the name, I still say "Who?" Never heard of this person. Taking artists, though. Interesting.)

Who?

Thank you @westamastaflash for taking this over and continuing a great mod.

That pretty much sums up the situation.

When I play Civ, which is once in a while, I play III. Other than that, I play Flight Simulator and sometimes Tetris. I haven't played much of anything lately, though. Kind of busy with reality, but I'm looking at starting up some more KSP when things settle down a bit.

Ah, it's been a while since I read the report. My understanding of the modeling used was based on personal conversation well before the report came out, though.

Þis is a great idea. Can we bring back oðer characters, too?

Point being that the year is an entirely arbitrary thing, and there is no actual correct answer to what year it is, just that we all have some way to talk about it. The reason the Gregorian one is the de facto standard is probably European colonization.

That just means there's nowhere to go but down from now on...

Chinese Calendar: 4714 Buddhist Calendar: 2560 Byzantine Calendar: 7526 Ethiopian Calendar: 2010 Hebrew Calendar: 5778 Holocene Calendar: 12018 Islamic Calendar: 1439 Japanese Calendar: Heisei 30 Thai Solar Calendar: 2561 My calendar: 242

The foam impact was known and communicated to the crew, as well as the belief that it would not have caused much damage. Several imagery requests were made by various people at different times. Some were turned down due to going through the wrong channels. Some were turned down due to lack of knowledge of capabilities1. Some were turned down due to confusion with other previous requests. There was no desire not to know. Concerns were raised about the possibility of severe damage. However, computer modeling was done and showed that a foam strike would not have caused a large enough amount of damage to the tiles for major concern. This model was later found out to be faulty, but was largely accepted at the time, even by those who initially raised the questions. Even if the damage had been known, repairing it in flight was highly unlikely. Even if a method, materials, and tools could be worked out using what was onboard, getting astronauts to the damaged area would have been a challenge, there was the risk of making the problem worse, and Columbia was not equipped for extensive EVA operations. We'll never know if a repair attempt would have been approved, but I personally doubt it. A rescue launch was also out of the question. You already have one severely damaged ship in orbit, without a full understanding of what happened, how to prevent it, or the likelihood of it happening again2. Readying a shuttle would have involved rushing through the preparations, cutting corners, and putting a second ship and crew in danger. NASA engineers did internally downplay the foam-shedding problem, and came to accept it as normal and an acceptable risk. I know many of them later regretted not taking it more seriously and investigating further. 1There had been previous attempts at using satellite imagery to view the shuttle which did not work very well. People within NASA capable of making those calls lacked the knowledge of what capabilities had changed in the decade plus, due to it being classified. Part of the result was NASA managers and engineers being cleared and briefed on the capabilities of certain satellites. 2STS-114, the flight after 107, also had foam-shedding problems, resulting in an 11 month long grounding of the fleet.

It looks like this: Then this: And, after a while, this:

Maybe it's not to cheer you up, but to inform you that the world is a hard, cold, uncaring place, and that you will never be happy anyway, so complaining about it is just screaming into the void?

Late night in the college dorm. Playing Doom for multiple hours, both on and off-line. Step out of the room and walk down the hallway, where the only light is a couple of florescent lights, one at each end of the hallway. And one of them is flickering. And then a door opens just after you walk past...

Yeah, the stock system for contracts is a bit odd. I usually use mods to turn to other fund-generating methods and ignore contracts.

Indeed. Take it away and bring out the horseradish mustard!