This phrase appears in an article by Gregg Easterbrook from the unfathomably distant 1980, describing the financial disasters of the Space Shuttle program even before the first shuttle had taken off.
As it turns out, NASA’s concept of “success-oriented planning” needed a little tweaking to be useful in the real world:
But NASA had made its $5 billion to $6 billion projection based on “success-oriented planning.” That means it assumed everything would work the first time. Budgets were drawn as if redesigns would never be needed, as if no contingencies would arise, as if 520-second engine tests could be conducted with 300-second tanks.
Of course, NASA planners knew everything would not work the first time.
When a phrase sounds like gobbledygook, it probably is gobbledygook.
August 14th, 2007
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Posted by Donnie
Filed under History, Science/Technology
When you were a kid did you ever…
- Try to figure out how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?
- Get a “kick me” sign stuck on your back? And actually get kicked?
- Get confused because you associated “grimace” with happiness because of the McDonald’s character, just to find out something different from a vocab list?
- Try to build an igloo in winter?
- Get a guilt-trip from your parents about not eating awful food because of starving kids in Ethiopia?
- Have an irrational fear of Mr. Glitch from Mathman?
- Have other kids try to convince you there’s a ring around the Earth because the equator’s a yellow line on the globe? (I didn’t fall for it.)
- Think Duck Tales was a good show?
- Think America’s Funniest Home Videos was a good show?
- Discover that…oh, I don’t have the guts to say this one.
- Get a fingernail ripped off by performing a foolishly risky biking maneuver?
- Have teenagers pretend to offer you cocaine when it’s really just a handful of snow?
- Think you would ever get to be as old as you are now?
July 28th, 2007
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Posted by Donnie
Filed under History
You think that clip art of a radio tower is crappy? Check out some of the radio ads we Miamians have to endure:
Headquarter Toyota: “You’ll feel like you bought from the factory!” That’s one way of warning their customers how dirty their showroom is. At least they’re not ashamed of it.
Some Other Random Car Dealership: “We accept all credit applications.” Well, that’s just swell. If they said they’d finance everyone regardless of credit, that might be something. All these guys really guarantee is that they’ll take 20 seconds to skim over Random Guy’s credit app (and only afterwards laugh in his face).
Since when did we live in the year 12X6?: Hearing a fishing store advertising compound bows was slightly jarring, and I wondered why 13th century bows would appeal to the fishing crowd. (I had confused them with composite bows, which were so effectively used by the armies of Genghis Khan. Compound bows were invented in the sixties and are used for hunting.)
Corona Beer: “Official Sponsor of the Timeout.” They spout consistently lame-o stories about how sports employees decided to drink Corona instead of doing their jobs. I feel sorry for Corona having to shell out money for a radio campaign guaranteed to drive people away from their product. Unless, of course, they created the ads in-house, in which case the perpetrators deserve the Howard C. Forman treatment.
Beverly’s Jewelers: Miami is the third poorest major city in the US. We don’t need to hear about jewelry that’s on sale for “only $3,495″.
July 26th, 2007
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Posted by Donnie
Filed under Bad Ads, History
Have you ever wondered how insects tell themselves apart? We can barely see a difference between one praying mantis to the next, yet we know that somehow, they manage to determine who’s who.
It’s just like old white guys in government. Look at the picture at the top, and tell me how the heck we can tell those Senators apart. If it weren’t for the different color ties, those guys be indistinguishable.
There is one thing I must congratulate Congress on. The webpage the picture’s from is proof positive that Congress does have some self-control on the budget, as they clearly have not hired anyone to update the page design since the mid-90’s. A few things my co-workers and I noticed:
- There’s still a link to Netscape Navigator
- Site is “optimized” for IE 4 and Navigator 4
- The senator pic uses imagemaps
- A 400KB 2500px wide pic is loaded to display a 421px wide pic
July 19th, 2007
2 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under History, Science/Technology
Physics Misconceptions: Don’t worry, it’s not rocket science. Mostly.
Bigelow launches its second inflatable space module: This is definitely rocket science.
Did you know Chef Boyardee was a real guy?
According to Grand Ayatollah Sistani, playing chess and “black gammon” (backgammon) are forbidden for a Muslim. For what I can gather, this is because they were used for gambling. However, horse racing is OK.
June 30th, 2007
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Posted by Donnie
Filed under Chess, History, Religion, Science/Technology
Right around 1812, after Napoléon I’s disastrous Russian campaign, everything started going downhill for the Bonapartes.
Napoléon I: Ultimately defeated in 1815 and died in exile.
Napoléon II: Emperor of France for about two weeks. Cause of death: tuberculosis at age 21. Died in exile.
Napoléon III: Wasn’t proud of the Battle of Puebla and the Franco-Prussian War. Died in exile.*
Napoléon IV: Killed in a battle with the Zulu. Posed for the picture on the left.
For some reason, the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, has been stuck in my head this morning. Which is why this post is up.
For extra nerd points: A version of La Marseillaise was the theme music for Napoléon I in the game Civilization IV. This is despite the fact Napoléon expressly outlawed the song during his rule.
June 18th, 2007
2 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under History, Weaksauce Losers
