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Things that make you laugh...

The next upgrade to the weapons system is to shift from a hard drive to solid state memory. Doesn't really change the operator's job. Load new software at the same station, almost identical options in the menus, save data, save test results, save targeting in the same way, though the electrons flow to a different place.

Something about this change seems to confuse the customer, though. They keep asking more and more detailed questions about how this will affect training. "My god," the boss mutters. "how many times have we changed memory formats in this system?"
"Don't look at me," says the coworker. Points in my direction. "Ask Methuselah."

"What? I have worked with Optical Disks, CD ROMs, hard drives, disk packs, platter stacks, reel-to-reel tape, reel-to-reel 1" tape, high density magnetic tape, regular old magnetic tape, punched paper tape....
BUT NOT PUNCH CARDS! I never targeted the missiles by PUNCH Cards! I'm not the Methuselah in this building."

Now, the guy who DID use punchcards on the old A3 system, he retires this year. THEN i will be the Methuselah... BUT NOT YET!
 
One of the mens rooms at this end of the building is cramped, the lighting sucks, the place hasn't been redecorated since this building was an assembly plant for the Bradley APC turrets, and the floor is uneven with odd puddles here and there. And the door to the space with the water boiler and half of a decon shower... Well, there hasn't been a door there the 20years I've been here. It feels like a sub-basement space, though it's on the ground floor. Several parts of the wall have been torn apart for some repairs and half-way restored.

Affectionately referred to as the Freddy Kruger bathroom. Not to be confused with the Freddy Kruger stairway, a dim gray sort of limbo between two retrofitted office spaces.

Anyway, today's newsletter suggests
Description:
In honor of Valentine’s Day on 2/14 and Random Acts of Kindness Day on 2/17, ForWARD is spreading positivity! To get involved, look for sticky notes with positive messages in the bathrooms. You can write your own, bring one back to your desk, or gift one to a co-worker! Be respectful, be kind and have fun!
Click to expand...

I'm not sure i want a yellow sticky from ANY men's room stall, really. But now i am imagining the messages one could leave in the FKB.
 
We need a rack of ribs for dinner tomorrow.
I made a note for 2 pounds, to remind me to buy it tonight.
wrote: Ribs 2#
Pinned it to my coat to remember.

Some whippersnapper noticed it. "Hey, grandpa, the hashtag symbol goes before the words. it doesn't work that way."

So, can't pick up ribs tonight, no. Got a goddamned body to stash somewhere tonight.
 
Keith&Co. said:
We need a rack of ribs for dinner tomorrow.
I made a note for 2 pounds, to remind me to buy it tonight.
wrote: Ribs 2#
Pinned it to my coat to remember.

Some whippersnapper noticed it. "Hey, grandpa, the hashtag symbol goes before the words. it doesn't work that way."

So, can't pick up ribs tonight, no. Got a goddamned body to stash somewhere tonight.
Click to expand...

You know you can kill 2 birds with one stone?
 
spikepipsqueak said:
Keith&Co. said:
We need a rack of ribs for dinner tomorrow.
I made a note for 2 pounds, to remind me to buy it tonight.
wrote: Ribs 2#
Pinned it to my coat to remember.

Some whippersnapper noticed it. "Hey, grandpa, the hashtag symbol goes before the words. it doesn't work that way."

So, can't pick up ribs tonight, no. Got a goddamned body to stash somewhere tonight.
Click to expand...

You know you can kill 2 birds with one stone?
Click to expand...

Now? Now is when you tell me this?

Two hours making anonymous calls to security about "i think someone died in the men's room" in 4 different restrooms. They eventually stop making threats about 'when we catch your prank ass' and just hang up mid-report, so i can finally hide the body in the head near my office and go home. Figure it might be days before they actually investigate... but maybe not. Certainly can't go back to the body now.
Ah, well. Would have been a bitch getting the corpse thru the turnstile, anyway.
 
I don't know what set him off, but Dad is grumbling about North Korea.

Says i should tell someone to put a Trident sub off the coast of Korea.

"Dad, our missiles have a range of 4000 nautical miles. When they're tied up to the pier in Pearl Harbor, they're off the coast of Korea."

"Oh. Do they know that?"

"I dunno. Does anyone in NK have google?"
 
Keith&Co. said:
I don't know what set him off, but Dad is grumbling about North Korea.

Says i should tell someone to put a Trident sub off the coast of Korea.

"Dad, our missiles have a range of 4000 nautical miles. When they're tied up to the pier in Pearl Harbor, they're off the coast of Korea."

"Oh. Do they know that?"

"I dunno. Does anyone in NK have google?"
Click to expand...

Well, he gives me an idea:

Yeah, park one off the coast. One where one of the warhead buses has been replaced with a fireworks dispenser. Big-ass U S A shells (they would be under parachutes, use different fuse lengths.) Next time they have one of their stupid military parades fire the missile on a depressed trajectory shot to drop it's payload over the parade.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Keith&Co. said:
I don't know what set him off, but Dad is grumbling about North Korea.

Says i should tell someone to put a Trident sub off the coast of Korea.

"Dad, our missiles have a range of 4000 nautical miles. When they're tied up to the pier in Pearl Harbor, they're off the coast of Korea."

"Oh. Do they know that?"

"I dunno. Does anyone in NK have google?"
Click to expand...

Well, he gives me an idea:

Yeah, park one off the coast. One where one of the warhead buses has been replaced with a fireworks dispenser. Big-ass U S A shells (they would be under parachutes, use different fuse lengths.) Next time they have one of their stupid military parades fire the missile on a depressed trajectory shot to drop it's payload over the parade.
Click to expand...
i like that...

I think you could tailor some Tomahawk payloads for that effect much easier. Much faster response. More precise to the parade location. And the other nuke-capable countries don't lose their collective shit when their satellites say we launch a Tomahawk.
 
Keith&Co. said:
Loren Pechtel said:
Keith&Co. said:
I don't know what set him off, but Dad is grumbling about North Korea.

Says i should tell someone to put a Trident sub off the coast of Korea.

"Dad, our missiles have a range of 4000 nautical miles. When they're tied up to the pier in Pearl Harbor, they're off the coast of Korea."

"Oh. Do they know that?"

"I dunno. Does anyone in NK have google?"
Click to expand...

Well, he gives me an idea:

Yeah, park one off the coast. One where one of the warhead buses has been replaced with a fireworks dispenser. Big-ass U S A shells (they would be under parachutes, use different fuse lengths.) Next time they have one of their stupid military parades fire the missile on a depressed trajectory shot to drop it's payload over the parade.
Click to expand...
i like that...

I think you could tailor some Tomahawk payloads for that effect much easier. Much faster response. More precise to the parade location. And the other nuke-capable countries don't lose their collective shit when their satellites say we launch a Tomahawk.
Click to expand...

We could warn Russia and China just before the bird flew and a Trident thundering overhead with it's booster still burning is far more dramatic than a Tomahawk. We would have to dispatch some ships along with it for defense because it would require being pretty close.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
We could warn Russia and China just before the bird flew and a Trident thundering overhead with it's booster still burning is far more dramatic than a Tomahawk. We would have to dispatch some ships along with it for defense because it would require being pretty close.
Click to expand...
um,....no.
No, the D-5 has a minimum range, too. To get a burning 1st stage rocket overhead, we'd have to launch right in the Yellow Sea, by Pyonyang, aimimg across the city, at a target in Russia... or maybe Alaska.

Warning Russia that it was a stunt would not make them any happier about the trajectory.

But, really, a Tomahawk scattering fireworks across the sky would definitely send the message to the right people.
"You are in range. Now, tonight, tomorrow, any time we want to. You didnblow up today because we choose not to."
 
Keith&Co. said:
Loren Pechtel said:
We could warn Russia and China just before the bird flew and a Trident thundering overhead with it's booster still burning is far more dramatic than a Tomahawk. We would have to dispatch some ships along with it for defense because it would require being pretty close.
Click to expand...
um,....no.
No, the D-5 has a minimum range, too. To get a burning 1st stage rocket overhead, we'd have to launch right in the Yellow Sea, by Pyonyang, aimimg across the city, at a target in Russia... or maybe Alaska.

Warning Russia that it was a stunt would not make them any happier about the trajectory.

But, really, a Tomahawk scattering fireworks across the sky would definitely send the message to the right people.
"You are in range. Now, tonight, tomorrow, any time we want to. You didnblow up today because we choose not to."
Click to expand...

Anyone who's been awake since the mid-60s really ought to know that already.
 
Today i met someone who knew a radioman at a former command.

One day during an inspection, they gave us a training task for our retargeting team. Retarget a missile and launch it. Kind of a James Bond scenario, we've discovered the Island Of Dr. No, how fast can you vaporize it.

We heard they got the message. We heard the radio division run to Radio to get cracking on decoding the message.

And we waited. And waited. And waited.

Our Chief finally went up to see the delay. They had broken the entire message, except for a header.
Sierra, India, Mike, Uniform, Lima....
"Hey!" our chief says, "it says SIMULATED. As in, not to be mistaken for actual permission to launch!"
"Yeah, we know it's simulated," the radioman said. "But we can't decode the header!"

Every so often there's a news story that mentions how close we got to World War III, narrowly averting at the last second.
Sometimes, late at night, i wonder if we actually HAD WWIII, but no one realized it. Maybe we just narrowly failed to WWIII, and it all blew over some time AFTER the last second.
 
bilby said:
Keith&Co. said:
Loren Pechtel said:
We could warn Russia and China just before the bird flew and a Trident thundering overhead with it's booster still burning is far more dramatic than a Tomahawk. We would have to dispatch some ships along with it for defense because it would require being pretty close.
Click to expand...
um,....no.
No, the D-5 has a minimum range, too. To get a burning 1st stage rocket overhead, we'd have to launch right in the Yellow Sea, by Pyonyang, aimimg across the city, at a target in Russia... or maybe Alaska.

Warning Russia that it was a stunt would not make them any happier about the trajectory.

But, really, a Tomahawk scattering fireworks across the sky would definitely send the message to the right people.
"You are in range. Now, tonight, tomorrow, any time we want to. You didnblow up today because we choose not to."
Click to expand...

Anyone who's been awake since the mid-60s really ought to know that already.
Click to expand...

'cept if you've been in NK the whole time. It would be interesting to see how Kim explained the fireworks to his worshipers.
 
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