You'd Be Perfectly Correct In Assuming
I didn't mean any of the Public Service Vehicles that are supposed to run to a schedule as arranged by the Bee Network. Because that would be far too sensible and straightforward, both words which we hate with a passion. After all, hitting the Word Count means lots of tangents and meanderings.
So - Art!
No, these are not a collection of dada Christmas trees. They are the Peacekeeper Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles (South Canadian jargon for 'missile warheads'), being dismounted for a bit of tender - verrrrry tender - care and affection by USAF technicians. Note the protective cover on the missile's nose, so that nobody gets their eye poked out by that wickedly sharp point. What are they being dismounted from? O I thought you'd never ask! That's the 'Bus' which carries and deploys them.
Of course - obviously! - we're not going to be banging on about missile buses and how they have to compensate in terms of adjusted mass after each MIRV is launched onto an int
ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe is referring, as is obvious, to that phrase 'Bus Factor'. This, for any of you with the attention span of a lobotomised goldfish with dementia, or Donold Judas Trump, is how many people a business can have be knocked down by a bus and still continue to function effectively. The higher the number, the better. The lower, the worse. Art!
This is a schematic that was not expedited by the business in the tale I am about to tell. It was narrated on a Quora page where the plaintive question asked was 'I was let go on Friday and now they want me to come back on Monday. What should I do?'
In this case, the narrator Special In Demand Executive, hereafter SIDE, was in the middle of what he coyly called a 'time-sensitive' project, without specifying what the business was, nor what his project was. This is quite wise, you don't want internet sleuths tracking down who your idiot employer and manager was, there might be defamation charges pending. Art!
Er - 'time-sensitive project' after AI Art Generator
Suddenly! he was fired, in August. Note the date. No reason seems to have been given, and SIDE implies that it was his manager taking out a personal revenge, also known as 'Little Tin Hitler Syndrome'. LTHS Manager, hereafter LTHSM, knew the project had to be completed by January 1st, with ABSOLUTELY NO WIGGLE ROOM. He and his fellow managers believed that they could get the project completed by other people in time for deadline.
Ah. Yes. Well -
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| 'Failed deadline' |
Strike Two. In November they got back to SIDE, saying they were willing to take him on as a consultant, whereupon SIDE asked for 4x their old salary, which the business whined about as being unreasonable. SIDE rejected this offer. Remember, this project has a deadline of 1st January. Art!
Strike Three: in mid-November they called again, agreeing to the 4x salary, but only if SIDE could deliver by 1st January. After they'd inflicted 3 months of delay on the project? he replied, stating that the timeframe was impossible. Again, they complained about reasonableness. SIDE rejected this offer.
Strike Four: in early December they contacted SIDE again - their Bus Factor must have been well into negative figures by this point - and agreed to the salary terms, and in fact would pay 8x, if he could deliver by 1st January. Conrad detects the sweaty paw-prints of LTHSM here, trying to hit that deadline. SIDE rejected this offer, too.
Strike Five: just before Christmas (so much for a January 1st deadline!) they caved in, grovellingly asking when SIDE could deliver, and agreed to his date of April 1st. He actually delivered a day early and didn't hear from them ever again, probably out of sheer embarrassment on their part. SIDE did part with the line that the fool who sacked him was in real trouble by the time negotiations ended, which is understandable. Art!
The C-suite executives would not look favourably upon a manager who delayed a critical project for 3 months, and then cost them the equivalent of a whole year's salary in a single quarter, out of petty personal spite. They prefer that their bottom line is not negatively impacted by bottomholes.
The Statistics Of Sauron's Soldiery
Not, I hasten to add, The Dark Lord himself. Though there is a graduate-level thesis in there if anyone like 'in Deep Geek' wants to do an analysis of the logistics of the armies of Mordor.
For Lo! we are talking about the armies of Mordorvia, Modern-day Mordor, and another grim chart courtesy of 'Jake Broe', from his excellent Youtube vlog of the same name. Seriously, you should check it out, it is one of the best analyses of Ukraine out there, and he does deal with the South Canadian 'political' scene, with much exasperated shaking of head. I put that in quotes because it's more like a five-ring circus than actual Politics with a capital 'P' and yo
ANYWAY Art!
Allegedly the only thing that worries Putinpot The Midget Bunker Grandad are the demographics of his realm, because they are awful. Birth rates have plummeted to their lowest in 200 years, cueing an effort to get Ruffian women to breed like rabbits.
One cautionary thing about the chart above is how the greatest losses are not amongst the traditional ages of 18 - 24, but men in their thirties, who would be settling down and establishing a family, were it not for the fact that they were, not to put too fine a point upon it, dead. This is the kind of demographic damage that will take a generation to unfold, and many more to remedy. If it can be remedied.
"The War Illustrated Edition 209 9th June 1945"
I'm guessing at the date here because I don't have TWI to hand, sue me if you want. Just be aware that it was published after VE Day and the guns had been silent for a month at this point. Art!
Posted here as a reminder that VE-Day might have come and gone, but VJ_Day was months off, and the 'Forgotten' Fourteenth Army was still fighting in Burma, as evidenced here. Here you see Priest self-propelled guns firing on a Japanese strongpoint, villagers turning out to say hello to the new arrivals, and sweating poor bloody infantry of the East Yorkshire regiment, slogging along with full packs. Imagine doing that at the height of a Burmese summer with tons of humidity, without baring any skin for fear of malarial mosquitoes. Art!
This page shows the British arriving in now-liberated Denmark, to a rapturous reception from the natives, whom must have been relieved that their small nation had not been the focus of fighting or 'liberation' by the Red Army. Crowds in lower photograph are gathering to greet the British cruisers 'Birmingham' and 'Dido' in the harbour at Copenhagen.
This Was Not On My Entertainment Bingo Card
Your Humble Scribe is aware of a sci-fi novel series called 'Murderbot', which I think concerns a security cyborg - the details are hazy, it's been a while - and miscellaneous death and destruction in the mid-future. Art!
'Goofy' and 'Comedy' are not words I would associate with a television series that has 'Murderbot' in the title. Conrad wonders what streaming service it's being broadcast upon <checks> ah, Apple+, not one I have access to and I'm not going to blow £££ on it to find out, either. I may check the usual suspects on Youtube whom review these shows and check in with them. Or not. Who can tell?
Just To Rub It In
You ought to remember that we were gloating and mocking 'Snow White' during April, as it was not doing well at the box office. Art!
Well, rather to my surprise, Disney is still showing it in cinemas to the number of 1,300 in South Canada. It's unclear why, as in the past 9 days it's barely made any money at all. Perhaps they are trying to stave off it being relegated to streaming on Disney + as long as possible, because that way they can pretend it's a success. Yeah right.
Finally -
That's enough wibbling for one day. Laterz.
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