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So I'm listening to the radio earlier today, and at one point there was a report on the Curiosity Mars rover mission, which is apparently about 10 days from arriving at Ye Olde Red Hunk of Rock & attempting to land the rover. It seems there is some trepidation among the crew overseeing the mission's progress, as the spacecraft carrying the rover was designed with a "new & innovative" setup to deposit the rover on the surface of Mars which employs a combination of parachutes, braking rockets, and eventually dangles the rover from a cable intended to sort of plop it down whilst the lander hovers over the spot chosen for the rover to touch down. To me, this sounds quite like a disaster waiting to happen - but then, they supposedly landed the last pair of rovers dispatched to the Red Planet in what amounted to super-strong bubble wrap cocoons which bounced along the surface at the last stage of landing until coming to rest & disgorging their six-wheeled charges to chug merrily about, so who knows.

The other thing that struck me about this report, however, was the fact that they are apparently going to have "grief counselors" on hand at Curiosity mission control just in case it goes tits up & the thing spatters itself all to hell, and... ...well, I guess all the geeks in the room commence to bawling their eyes out over a machine being wrecked...

This prompted me to think to myself - Geez, you didn't see friggin' Gene Kranz and his boys gathering up any goddam 'grief shittlers' when they hadda bring Apollo 13 back from the Abyss by having the crew patch it up with some hunks of cardboard and duct tape... ...or when some rocket blew up on the pad and the next week they hadda put a crew into the same model and fire it up 'cos the schedule was the schedule & all... ...what the hell is NASA coming to..?!

I guess I'm just unrealistic.


Then later in the day I hear that some Wall Street son of a bitch who led the charge to get the Glass-Steagall Act repealed back during the Bubba Clinton regime is now apparently of the opinion that it wasn't such a good idea after all. Glass-Steagall was the legislation enacted to separate the activities of investment banks from the "plain old ordinary kind" that folks put their savings into after the Great Depression, so that the brain deads - I MEAN - trusts of the world of finance couldn't gamble away everybody's money, or get "too big to fail", &tc.
A rare instance of gob'mint getting something right, if I may say so.

Well... ...apparently, "Mister Dumb-Ass" (I forget the nauseating piece of human garbage's name) has come to the realization that "mistakes were made" since he achieved his life's ambition of removing this "roadblock to the rich becoming even richer" - and, incidentally, the net worth of both commercial and investment banks withering away since the act was repealed - and now feels that maybe the safety measures should be put back in place.

Sweet Holy Jesus God Almighty and His Legion of Slaughtered Saints !!!
I ain't heard nothin' that made me want to put a bullet in the back of somebody's head and toss their corpse in a lime pit since Allan Greenspan admitted that he was all wrong about de-regulating the financial industry because the market could not "police itself", after all.
How the hell do these people make it to the top of the heap in this goddam world ?

Must be 'cos shit floats.

Grief counselors for a machine?! Shit! I may come out of retirement! You can probably get a certification for that in a couple of days from some on-line university for just a couple of bucks. Sounds lucrative!

I never really understood that job. But, I come from a time when it was explained that deaths, even tragic ones, were just a part of life and did happen from time to time. We were never taught to be casual about it, but just to know what it was. I think we were better for it.

Loki, you don't really believe the folks who caused more damage to America than all the terrorist attacks combined would do some things just to benefit their own well-heeled groups now do you!? Bunch of cocksuckers!

I hate these bulletins from you. Every time you put one up I gotta go buy more idiot relief medicine, AKA bullets!

went missing for a week after challenger blew up. He had been working on a project it was carrying for over 2 years and now totaly wiped away.

Not unlike losing an athletic event. No harm is actualy done but the letdown is huge. Many dont handle it very well.

Being to smart is bad for you. Many realy bright eople are major flakes.It is an old cliche and soe really do relate better to hardwhere than other people. I was in LA when the last rovers landed, and got to go to pasadena and see what was going on. I was in the big room with the eggheads at the table that was televised. I got to talk to a few of the less than top eggheads. Some where cool to talk to, but none of the where anywhere near normal, and ths from my social outcast ass.

I think some of them probably need therapy just to go to the supermarket.

owen

But I discount the Challenger because there were human losses. I do agree about some folks relating better to things than people.

Yes they are goofy, but the whole thing is still weird. Not all the genius techies operate that way either. Just like all the rich aren't stuck up, elitist pricks.