(delivered by Mad Scientist in British cod-German movie accent):
"Vell, ve haf zis spare particle accelerator from ze Wendelstein-8X aneutronic fusion reactor program, zo ve are looking for ze commerzial applications …"
(delivered by Mad Scientist in British cod-German movie accent):
"Vell, ve haf zis spare particle accelerator from ze Wendelstein-8X aneutronic fusion reactor program, zo ve are looking for ze commerzial applications …"
@cstross
Spoken like a real CSU apparatchik! Now can I please have my flying taxi, Transrapid and H2-powered everything?
@quixoticgeek
@quixoticgeek@social.v.st I'd be more worried by them specifying natural potatoes. Unnatural potato crisps sound like something from, well, a @cstross@wandering.shop novel.
@mavnn @quixoticgeek Actually, unnatural crisps were invented by Gene Wolfe. True story! https://www.foodandwine.com/gene-wolfe-pringles-11729598
@cstross @mavnn @quixoticgeek Wasn't Margaret Thatcher responsible for cans of spray cream?
And, IIRC, E. E. "Doc" Smith worked on getting icing sugar to stick to doughnuts.
@quixoticgeek @cstross @mavnn reminded of the story that Thomas Pynchon had been a technical writer for Boeing before publishing novels, with the implication that somewhere there is a 3,000 page avionics manual written like one of his novels. A Difficult Middle period.
@quixoticgeek @cstross @mavnn @dubiousblur that explains so much. Boeing technical folks starting in on the manual and then giving up four or five chapters in but telling everyone they've read it.
@quixoticgeek @cstross @mavnn @dubiousblur There are several. Look up the documentary episode about an Airbus that crashed due to the autopilot being in go-around mode before landing. They read the actual instruction manual on the sequence for disengaging an accidentally-set go-around mode. The instructions are clear as neutronium.
@tknarr @quixoticgeek @mavnn @dubiousblur Back when I was taking a uni course on software engineering, a factoid that stuck in my head was that about 5% of peacetime fatalities in the US military were caused by documentation errors.
@tknarr @quixoticgeek @mavnn @cstross that’s a yikes from me
@dubiousblur @quixoticgeek @cstross @mavnn having tried and failed to read _Gravity's Rainbow_ years ago I'm not sure reading a Boeing manual would be significantly worse.
