Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to " I felt it put me (a digression)

re: a digression
TB — (archived)

Look, I understand where you're coming from.

This is where I come from.

I come from a rocket engineering background, where in a meeting simply pointing out that a figure was incorrect pretty much settled it. That the corrected engineer might resent is was not normally part of the issue. Most engineers were grateful that the mistake showed up on paper instead of on the test stand.

I nearly killed people--friends--a long time ago by not knowing enough about how a particular piece of equipment worked. I got lucky, and a violent detonation killed only a company. Later analysis showed other problems as well--it was not all my fault--but that piece of equipment was still on my mind. I knew how it worked now, and knew how it almost certainly would have failed, and in a manner that would create the worst possible failure.

The piece of equipment did not care that I was convinced it would work. It didn't cut me slack, or spare my feelings. It didn't care that our company would go out of business.

It tore thousands of pounds of aluminum into shrapnel. I can look over right now and see a chunk about four feet on a side. It is thick 6061 aluminum, scorched and bent like part of a beer can. You can still see the faded markings where it had been signed by hopeful and enthusiastic builders when the test unit was ready to be shipped to the test site.

http://www.photopile.com/photos/tbrosz/pictures/300527.jpg


To have facts or logical arguments ignored simply because somebody doesn't particularly like them tends to rub me the wrong way.

Call it a personality flaw.

My normal M.O. is to simply point out facts and further evidence in a responding post. It's possible that such a post has once gotten a consensus response similar to "who knew? Thanks!" If so, I don't remember it.

I will try to keep it toned down as best I can.

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