No, I Am Not Raving
Not yet, anyway, and neither are you. Conrad has, obviously - of course! - spoofed dialogue from an obscure Sixties sci-fi television program, "The Starry Trek" which is nothing to do with wandering Boers and everything to do with Dye Lithium crystals, those bright green alien gems -
Or maybe not. It could be the gin talking. Art!
PARTY PLANT!
So-called because it's an unmanned industrial plant on Delta Vega, where they process Lithium by - get this - cracking it. So if you were there you'd have - O you see what I did.
ANYWAY with that introduction out of the way in this Intro, I would like to revert back to 'Bus Factor', that business phrase which we have mentioned before. Allow me to illustrate with photographs from the BBC's premier dramamentary, "Doctor Who". Art!
This is Gia Kelly, one of the leading characters in "The Seeds Of Death", which is not to be confused with "The Seeds Of Doom" or "The Robots Of Death" and the people who write these titles get 0% for originality and Conrad would have gifted them a thesaur
ANYWAY Controller Kelly is in charge of day-to-day operations at T-Mat Earth Control in London. This is the nexus of T-Mat operations across the whole planet, T-Mat being a matter-transmission system that has totally replaced conventional transport. Art!
That's T-Mat, looking like a telephone box at lower port. Telephone boxes rather a staple at the BBC.
Okay, so T-Mat ensures there are no longer accidents involving cars or planes or ships - but it's not fool-proof and needs human supervision, except nobody realises how critical Miss Kelly is. Because she doesn't have an assistant, or deputy or understudy or relief. Yet -
KELLY: I think I should go as crew on the rocket.
RADNOR: Don't be ridiculous. You're too valuable here.
RADNOR: No! You're the only one who really understands T-Mat. I can't have you risking your life.
RADNOR: Miss Kelly! She's a fool. If we lose her, nothing can save us.
This, gentle reader, is an example of Bus Factor One: when your business is critically impacted by an accident or mishap occurring to a single person.
All this, of course - obviously! - is but a preamble to another recounting of a Quora story I copied and pasted months ago, and which I am now going to erase from my clipboard. Art!
The narrator of this tale, Bus Factor Babe, hereafter BFB, was employed as an office worker at a business where her Idle Workshy Supervisor, hereafter IWS, was the owner's sister. Not a good power dynamic to begin with.
When IWS realised BFB was clever, reliable, adaptable and diligent, the opportunism began. Gradually IWS's duties were shunted onto BFB and over time the latter ended up doing the former's job, without, OBVIOUSLY, being paid for it, because this is South Canada. IWS's excuses for not turning up in the office began weak and got weaker with identical repetition: networking; sick; working from home; cold calling; networking; sick; working from home; cold calling; netw - you get the idea. Art!
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| AI Art Generator won't accept a prompt with 'lady' in it. |
BFB went to the owner to complain, which was a fool's errand, as he merely responded 'Prioritise'. He certainly did! because he began to dump his workload on BFB as well, spending all his time on the golf course. Once again with 0% remuneration for BFB.
Over time this kind of attitude and behaviour will breed resentment in any worker, as it did in BFB, so she quit without notice. Bus Factor One is now Bus Factor Zero, which is where the business's resilience and emergency planning come into play, except this business didn't have any. BFB listed the jobs she had been doing as well as her office role: answering phones; banking; coffee-making; collections; customer orders; customer service; filing; installation support; inventory; invoicing; painting walls; reception; sales; shipping and receiving; typing; vacuuming.
Which took up 45 hours of her week.
Neither of the two had a clue what to do and within months of BFB leaving the business went bankrupt. Bus Factor Minus Ten! Art!
"Miss Kelly listened to the sorry tale scornfully"
"Inside Russia"'s Insides
As you should surely know by now, Conrad follows "Inside Russia" (one of the few places where Mordorvia gets it's proper appellation) on Youtube. Despite the name, Konstantin, dubbed 'Bik K' because he is, indeed, a hefty chap, lives in Uzbekistan. He fled there with his family two years ago, fearful for his future in Sinister Union 2.0, and is now able to be openly critical of Putin's regime and nation. Art!
So there I was last night, annotating one of his vlogs. These don't always get put up on BOOJUM! but do cement the facts of the case in my elderly and gin-addled brain. The whole thing was 11:15 minutes long and as he got closer and closer to the end Conrad couldn't see him wrapping up prop
Yes, it ended abruptly. Big K put up a note that the internet had gone out, he'd be completing the vlog on his mobile and uploading it later.
Cue a chorus of concern from viewers, warning him to run a virus scan, watch out for rootkits (whatever they may be) and keyloggers (ditto), and be wary of physical threats. The FSB would probably like him gone, but his vlogs are in English and they have higher priorities.
ANYWAY I check back later on and a full 15 minute vlog is up, except it seems to be different in content from the one I annotated.
Hmmmm do I do the diligent thing or just go with the original 11 minutes and additional 4 minutes? O the dilemmas of a blog content creator. Art!
One of Big K's initiatives
"The War Illustrated Edition 207 29 May 1945"
Do not worry, gentle reader. Yes, we are close to the end of the Second Unpleasantness in temporal terms yet TWI has a whole Volume Ten yet to come, and I am then going to circle round to Volume One and September 1939 because I HAVE ALL TEN VOLUMES.
Art!
The blurb informs that these are troops of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, as you can guess from the chap lying in the gutter wearing a tam-o-shanter. They are allegedly engaging snipers; if so, sitting up in the open is very rash, as is the photographer, with his back to the snipers and also out of cover. TWI points out the massive Teuton air-raid shelter in the background, an essential architectural feature as this is the port of Bremen, which the RAF long paid malicious attention to.
How A Legend Is Made
Not in a good way, either. You will recall, lest ye be a lobotomised goldfish, that we here on the blog have been holding forth about 'Mythbusters' and their loose cannonball, back in 2007. I have more about this. Art!
That's Dan the showrunner, and because you can't hear his accent, I'll inform you that he's British, and monitored the show from Manchester, England. The editing was carried out in Sydney, Australia. No, I don't know why but $$$ is probably the bottom line.
ANYWAY after the cannonball careered about, Dan was sent to South Canada post haste, to meet face-to-face with Jamie and Adam before they met the press. Here Dan relates how the media began to puff up the story.
"Showrunner Dan Tapster flew in first class -"
NOPE! The Discovery Channel paid for the cheapest tickets possible. Art!
Cattleclass seating
"Arrived in a Rolls Royce"
NOPE AGAIN! The Mythbusters production team used the same set of aged well-worn cars for the whole 12 years of the series, including one nicknamed the 'Curry Car', which once had curry spilled in it's interior and which forever smelled of curry. Conrad suspects the Englishman was expected to arrive in a Rolls Royce, probably wearing a bowler hat, sipping on a cup of tea and eating digestive biscuits. Art!
The very wonderful Digestive biscuit
Dan related how the cannonball increased in size with each telling from the media. First it was as big as a baseball, which was quite realistic, then it got to be canteloupe-sized, then it grew as big as a basketball.
Literally a myth in the making.
I think that's enough wibble for one day!
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