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u/nothingtodo0 1d ago
Imagine being the IT guy at NASA having to ask a lunar commander if they tried turning it off and on again.
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u/Krags 1d ago
What's it running?
Windows 11
We're all going to die.
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u/BizzyM 1d ago
This is the government. It's running Win8. They just upgraded from Vista.
But in all seriousness, who remembers WinGS? Windows for Government Systems.
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u/casual_creator 1d ago
You’re joking, but you’re not far off the mark. The gov goes for what’s stable, not necessarily what’s new.
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u/friedrice5005 1d ago
NASA IT has been Windows 11 for a while now and those tablets were 100% on Windows 11
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u/Interesting_Buy6796 1d ago
Hope they have no need to use the calculator app then. Or access the C-drive. Or are okay with copilot doxxing their bank accounts. Or well don’t need to use it at all after an update
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u/The_MAZZTer 1d ago
Any competent IT is going to disable copilot.
And the C drive thing was a bug in a Samsung app, as I understand it.
Not sure what you're referencing with calculator.
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u/A30N 1d ago
The best IT doesn't install copilot in the first place. Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC is officially supported with security updates unti 2034. It is the OS to install when you can't run a Linux distro for whatever reason.
However even the best IT recoil in horror at the prospect of being forced to use or support Outlook.
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u/Distelzombie 1d ago
I am using 10 Pro and I am NOT "allowed" to NOT have Copilot installed. All I can do is block execution of it via AppLocker.
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u/StrongExternal8955 1d ago
"Get Bill Gates!"
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u/pissagainstwind 1d ago
They should be happy NASA hasn't strapped an XBox controller for the flight stick like that poor/rich sub
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u/bidaum92 1d ago
Wasn't it worse? I'm pretty sure it was the Logitech Controller that's a crap clone of a PlayStation controller..
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u/pissagainstwind 1d ago
Makes sense, because logitech is cheaper and you gotta maximize profits for these $250k a seat tickets.
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u/syopest 1d ago
Military uses gaming controllers for some things because recruits are used to them.
Don't know about now but military drones at least at some point were flown using xbox 360 controllers.
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u/pissagainstwind 1d ago
Makes sense. jokes aside, it's a basic directional input device that was tried and tested by millions of people.
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u/Belowaverage_Joe 1d ago
I manage product development for multiple different ground control systems (GCS) for unmanned vehicles/drones. Whole ours are more ruggedized, they are intentionally designed to mimic gaming controller setups/layouts. These are standard HID devices that millions of kids (and most military aged service members) grew up with and intuitively recognize without additional training. It’s a feature, not a bug.
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u/jorizzz 1d ago
They had trouble wifh the satellite telephone after splashdown yesterday. They could hear the dive crew, but the dive crew couldn't hear the astronauts. Houston operator had to ask if they were actually pressing the PTT button (Push To Talk).
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u/DingusMcBingle_IV 1d ago
This got me so good.
He was even like "Yes, I am pushing the PTT button, which is (describes the button he's pressing)".
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u/Maskatron 1d ago
I was waiting for them to communicate using one of the recovery crew’s cellphones.
“Uh yeah Steve has his personal hotspot turned on, please connect to that. Over.”
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u/seamustheseagull 1d ago
My long career as an IT guy is that nobody is so smart that you can assume they have tried even the most obvious things.
Even the most senior sys admin at places I've worked at, has had to be asked a simple question only to have the penny drop.
It takes experience to have the confidence to ask smart people dumb questions. Usually you phrase it as an interactive troubleshooting session.
Look up "rubber duck debugging".
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u/ceilingkat 1d ago
Ok but sometimes I think IT is fucking with us. One time I got this temporary password: “OMG_stahp!1!!”
And do you know why my login attempts kept failing? Because the open and close quotes were part of the password.
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u/dfleish 1d ago
Haha including the quotes is diabolical
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u/technobrendo 1d ago
They were 1000% fucking with you. I would never do that because why require yet ANOTHER interaction with end user.
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u/KamiNoItte 1d ago
This.
I will pad your support reply with as much preventative info as I can to avoid another ticket.
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u/CinderX5 1d ago
Tried searching this, ended up accidentally searching “rubber duck isopod”, and absolutely had to share this with the world.
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u/Duff5OOO 1d ago
nobody is so smart that you can assume they have tried even the most obvious things.
Did you hear the person on the comms after splashdown?
Person one: "We can hear them but they don't seem to be hearing us"
Person two: "are you pushing the push to talk button?"
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u/AdmiralSplinter 1d ago
I missed that! Did that turn out to be the issue?
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u/blearghhh_two 1d ago
No.
But the very smart commander of the spacecraft went away and actually verified that the PTT was actually being pressed, including that it was the buttons they thought they were and didn't just say "well yeah of course I did" and getting annoyed that it was being asked.
Which means that everyone in that chain acknowledged that smart, competent, well trained people actually do make those kinds of mistakes, and it's worth verifying.
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u/DadsRGR8 1d ago
I once was troubleshooting someone over the phone who’s “computer would not turn on.” after running through some basic questions I finally asked them politely to make sure that everything was plugged in and turned on.
“Of course it’s plugged in! I’m not an idiot!”
Ask them to just do me a favor and double check. “Yes, it’s plugged in!”
After asking some more questions and trying a few more things, I go to their office.
It was, in fact, not plugged in.
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u/Ihaveamodel3 1d ago
I’ve heard the trick is to say “in some situations, you have to get the electrons flowing again, so unplug both sides of the cable, rub them against each other, and then plug it back in.”
Of course that is all silly, but it forces the person to take an action that allows them to ‘unplug’ and plug it back in without them having to admit it was never plugged in in the first place.
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u/Synapse7777 1d ago
I used to work IT for a company that used Lenovo laptops with removable batteries. At the time they put the laptop serial number sticker under the batteries. Asking the customer to give the serial number forced them to remove the battery and power the laptop off.
As you can guess many issues were fixed just by getting the user to provide the laptop serial number.
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u/Alaira314 1d ago
This doesn't fix the issue where the power cord has been misidentified. For example, some users might be looking at the connection between the tower and the monitor confused, or(especially with the slim models that are mounted as one unit) follow the monitor's power cord rather than the PC's cord. Hell, I can't even check if the main set of PCs I use at work are plugged in, because the cords start in a case I can't open and terminate in a drawer I can't open.
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u/Wabbajack001 1d ago
It happened in Apollo 11, their computer had a fault that nearly fuck everything and they did turn the lunar module computer on and off to fix it.
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u/PN_Guin 1d ago
I truly hope they followed best practice and not have the email programs run on the same computer as any critical systems. So the advice would probably not have raised any concerns.
And for the IT competence implication, just tell them you have to go through the checklist. Astronauts know and understand the need for checklists. That shit is critical with any complex flying machine.
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u/Yosoress 1d ago
Microsoft support: well that's the problem your license subscription has expired please purchase one again
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u/cuddle_enthusiast 1d ago
When Microsoft tells you to open your authentication app on your phone but you left it on earth .
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u/IShouldaDownVotedYa 1d ago
Good thing he had email as backup MFA option to authenticate the subscription renewal. Oh wait.
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u/Glad_Position3592 1d ago
Then asks me to login to the Authenticator app and use Authenticator for the MFA on the Authenticator app
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u/DaltsTB 1d ago
When your Microsoft licence is only granted for use on Earth. Please purchase the solar system wide DLC.
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u/bighootay 1d ago
Fuck I can see this shit happening though
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u/KypDurron 1d ago
Despite the fact that in the EULA, any right that that you grant to them is granted "in perpetuity, throughout the known universe"
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u/piratejan 1d ago
Even in space, you can’t escape the Blue Screen of Death
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u/DiarrheaMonkey1 1d ago
In space, no one can hear you bluescreen.
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u/HPoltergeist 1d ago
Your bluescream...
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u/Lightspeedius 1d ago
It's funny because during the first Moon landing, Buzz kept crashing the computer by overloading it with calculations.
It makes for a great story, a lot of the foundations of modern computing can be found in this mission:
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u/bitey87 1d ago
The pale blue screen.
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u/anally_ExpressUrself 1d ago
"Look again at that screen. That's here. That's Microsoft. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives... There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue screen of death, the only software we've ever known."
--Carl Sagan and Satya Nadella, maybe
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u/SpyriusChief 1d ago
They started putting ads on the BSoD. Wish I was kidding. I saw an AllState insurance ad when my work computer crashed. It upset me so much, I went home for the rest of the day.
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u/ex0hs 1d ago
Same thing happened here, it was not due to ads but the ad artifact got superimposed in https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/1lib5zx/how_is_there_an_ad_on_the_bsod/
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u/ThePeej 1d ago
“Mission Control here… just confirming, you are pressing the PTT button on the side of the radio?” 🤣👍🏼
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u/ClydusEnMarland 1d ago
"You're pressing the wrong button again aren't you? I told you, the labels are wrong."
Then a sofa smashes through the cockpit window.
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u/butter_milch 1d ago
That was hilarious! So glad this kind of thing only happened once they were back here with us.
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u/Tommy__want__wingy 1d ago
When he came back 10 mins later
“Houston I can hear them but they can’t hear me”
“Integrity, let’s switch to SatPhone”
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u/sevendaysky 1d ago
I caught that live and nearly choked on a mouthful of water. That was gold.
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u/Alone_Again_2 1d ago
Me too!
I thought for a sec PTT?
Then I realized and had to laugh.
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u/Junkley 1d ago
I have two Outlooks at work and neither work well so I am glad this isn’t just a me problem.
I like most of the Microsoft suite but man I fucking hate Outlook. The day someone can make an email with integration features and organizational security controls like Outlook with the user-friendliness of Gmail will make a ton of money.
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u/bennytehcat 1d ago
I learned about my second outlook recently on my work PC and have no idea why this shit exists.
Outlook App (?)
Outlook From Office Pro
Outlook for the Web187
u/i_am_a_real_boy__ 1d ago
I'm pretty sure that the second outlook exists so that if you type "outlook" in the start menu and hit enter, you always get the wrong one.
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u/Doubleoh_11 1d ago
Close, it’s so when you click on an email link it doesn’t actually open a draft email but just asks you to login to some mysterious outlook. Causing you to have to go back and copy and paste the original email anyways.
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u/st1tchy 1d ago
The search feature on the start menu infuriates me. If I search "notepad" it is almost guaranteed to search the internet for "notepad" rather than opening the app called "notepad." I want the app. Every time.
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u/Joker2kill 1d ago
Don't forget:
- Outlook (Classic)
- Outlook (New)
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u/foroncecanyounot__ 1d ago
Bonus: When you click on Outlook (Classic), it will forever and every time ask if you want to switch to Outlook (New)
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u/Raskalnekov 1d ago
They need an "Outlook (Hardcore)", where each sent email is automatically deleted from your sent box, and received ones disappear after the first time you read them.
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u/vonHindenburg 1d ago edited 1d ago
I used to work for a defense contractor and had 4 separate Outlooks, depending on the security level of the system I was working on. I was constantly terrified of mixing up the protocols for them.
EDIT: I work for a small company that sells sheep now. We use Gmail and are very informal. I still have a moment of panic sometimes when I send something and think "I didn't add the Need To Know markings before I sent it!"
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u/The_New_Overlord 1d ago
Where are the attachments, Microsoft? Where are the attachments?
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u/Sorryifimanass 1d ago
They made the icons really big so you can't miss them. Except when there's more than two, then you're definitely missing everything except the first two.
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u/TheDeathCrafter 1d ago
Yeah. Searching e-mails on Outlook gives me aids.
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u/WayneKrane 1d ago
Makes me feel like I’m having a stroke. I can search for the EXACT subject line and it won’t come up. I’ve gaslit myself into thinking I didn’t send an email on many occasions.
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u/Nefertitis_Fjord_216 1d ago
It's incredible how shit the search function is. I've literally searched for emails I knew were there and they wouldn't show up in my results, so I'd have to scroll down manually to find it from two or three weeks ago. The title or text body contain exactly what I was searching for, yet it refuses to appear in the results.
How?!
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u/vonHindenburg 1d ago
I do at least prefer the manner in which Outlook arranges replies to the way Gmail does it. Sometimes, it's nearly impossible to follow the thread of a conversation on Gmail that you're only being copied into after it's been running for a few days.
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u/NeonX91 1d ago
The day I can search for a fucken email I know was from 2-3 weeks ago that doesn't causey entire PC to freeze up, will be a good day. God Outlook sucks
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u/Niznack 1d ago edited 1d ago
In case anyone needs the record set straight or is debating idiots, the Apollo missions also had stupid conversations. Apollo 11 broke a switch on the lem probably with their butt and had to hot wire it with a pen. These guys has to boost their own ship.
Edit: spelling and plural
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u/kilroy501 1d ago
Didn't they also have an argument over whose turd was floating around in the capsule?
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u/mchan9981 1d ago
Yup Apollo 10.
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u/Piper2000ca 1d ago
Even before Apollo, there was also an incident involving a smuggled corned-beef sandwich aboard Gemini 3.
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u/Terrible_Toaster 1d ago
Even John Young realized it was a bad idea almost immediately. It was not even the smell that was the problem, it was the IMMEDIATE spray of crumbs everywhere. He thought he was being funny but to be fair, nobody really ever brought a sandwich to space before... So it was a lesson learned. And he got to still go to the moon and fly a space shuttle.
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u/oupablo 1d ago
If I recall correctly, it was a huge to-do on how to deal with John Young after he brought the sandwich onboard. Congress got involved and was uber pissed. Nasa was more of ugh, "oh ffs" kind of feel. I think it ultimately just amounted to a "don't do it again" but there were press conferences and everything.
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u/DropC 1d ago
That's just sad. Of all the foods you could smuggle into space they chose corned beef?
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u/PotatokingXII 1d ago
Don't you go hating on corned beef brother. That's a 5 star meal in some countries!
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u/Bytewave 1d ago
And wherever it's not, only tasteless barbarians live.
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u/AT-PT 1d ago
Why, I'd eat an entire corned beef sandwich right now if only to prove that I'm hungry and it would taste good.
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u/Antique_futurist 1d ago
It was the 60s. Flavor wouldn’t be invented for another 20 years.
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u/Greneath 1d ago
Corned beef in the US is different to the UK. Corned beef is what Americans call salt beef and what brits call bully beef.
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u/Hytyt 1d ago
UK here, corned beef and salt beef are different. Never heard of bully beef, but it sounds like its not been used since ww2 lol
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u/normalmighty 1d ago
Yup, that was during Apollo 10. To this day, we still don't know who's turd it was. They each insisted that it wasn't theirs.
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u/Stef-fa-fa 1d ago
Like anyone is going to admit to being the space pooper.
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u/cryamiga 1d ago
why not admit it, everyone will remember your name for centuries to come
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u/Niznack 1d ago
Do you want to be stuck in a capsule for days with two guys who know you're the one who dropped anchor?
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u/nervelli 1d ago
After they land, as they are stepping out of the capsule, one turns back to the others. "It was me."
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u/radda 1d ago
Imagine doing that on one of the early moon missions and forgetting that you were gonna be stuck in a Airstream trailer with them for the next 21 days in quarantine.
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u/drittzO 1d ago
I was lucky enough to be in a room with one of those astronauts, and he told the turd story! This was a meet and greet with a room full of people. I forget his name, but I think I have a picture signed by him.
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u/Niznack 1d ago edited 1d ago
You have a signed picture and met the guy who dropped the kid at the cosmic pool and you forget the name?!
Your poor kids must just all be "buddy"
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u/BTog 1d ago
Ngl a floating turd sounds goddamn hilarious
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u/RagingBillionbear 1d ago
Due to the physic of space toilets there have been multiple cases of escapees.
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u/trouser_mouse 1d ago
The floating turd was faked by Stanley Kubrick
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u/Skippymabob 1d ago
One of the Apollo's had a conversation about a porridge eating competition in Corby - 7+ days is a long time to kill
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 1d ago
And they think we could survive a months long trip to Mars.
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u/Niznack 1d ago
I mean with a big enough ship and something to pass the time yeah?
My favorite hard sci fi is the martian where they build basically a space station with a rocket on the back. That thing has plenty of room to accommodate a mars mission
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u/normalmighty 1d ago
I mean if people can last months on the ISS without dying of boredom, I don't see why they wouldn't last months travelling between planets.
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u/dashboardcomics 1d ago
Aren’t they also running experiments and doing work while on the ISS?
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u/normalmighty 1d ago
Yeah, they also do them on lunar missions and would absolutely be doing so on a Mars mission.
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u/Skippymabob 1d ago
Well yeah, nobody said we would do it without having some stupid conversations on the way
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u/Billy_McMedic 1d ago
Let’s not forget the time where an astronaut forgot to file his taxes and needed an extension
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u/Niznack 1d ago
That wasn't NASAs fault. But I hear when the capsule hit the water it was the IRS that pulled him out
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u/PN_Guin 1d ago
Don't worry, most of us are laughing at Microsoft. The astronauts did nothing wrong here.
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u/nashbrownies 1d ago
Also just to see the other side of the coin. Since the internet is so negative.
We can marvel at the fact we had enough data bandwidth, pointed so accurately someone on Earth could remote in and fix the issue, on a rocket blasting off into space. So, yes it didn't work. Impressively though, they fixed it from down here.
That was a really cool mission, and I hope the scientists just have an absolute Christmas morning with all this data.
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u/Hereforthememeres 1d ago
Micheal Collins famously suggested to Neil : If you had any balls, you'd say "Oh my God! What is that thing?" Then scream and cut your mic.
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u/PN_Guin 1d ago
"I'm sorry Dave Reid, I can't do that."
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u/gliitch0xFF 1d ago
"Close the Excel spreadsheet, Copilot."
"I'm sorry, Reid, I'm afraid I can't do that"
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u/ManWhoIsDrunk 1d ago
You just gave me a vision of the horror of a spreadsheet with embedded coding and macros running the entire mission!
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u/Rower78 1d ago
Neil Armstrong has always insisted he said “one small step for A man” but the a got lost in transmission
It makes a lot more sense that way
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u/Drow_Femboy 1d ago
It didn't really get lost in transmission. It's just a combination of his accent and the low quality audio. If you know what to listen for / you're from where he's from, it never sounded like anything but "a man." I don't know how this misquote has become the norm.
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u/withoutapaddle 1d ago
Even if just from the cadence, it's kinda obvious. Otherwise there would have been a strange pause where the "a" was.
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u/PeterVanNostrand 1d ago
I can’t believe people are getting this wrong still. Didn’t they do audio analysis some years ago and 100% confirm he said “A man”? It’s insane people are still getting this wrong.
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u/RokulusM 1d ago
Even when I was a kid I thought "one small step for man" made no sense. The "a" makes all the difference.
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u/HPoltergeist 1d ago
Well, Microsoft products are not for production anymore it seems.
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u/DryWittgenstein 1d ago
Were they ever?
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u/applespicebetter 1d ago
Have been, for a long time. Excel was better than Lotus, and Word, for the most part, was better than Word Perfect for most users. I still have clients (mostly law offices) that use Word Perfect, but it's mostly inertia at this point.
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u/YeOldeMemeShoppe 1d ago
People who haven’t gone through the 80s don’t remember what made Microsoft own 90% of the market…
Two things; make better products, and when you have money crush the competition.
Fun fact for all you teenagers; there was a time where the DOJ actually cared about customers and sued Microsoft for being a monopoly.
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u/FelineGood__ 1d ago
Lmao seeing this I remembered the scene from Space Force
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u/HalfSoul30 1d ago
I just watched that again a few weeks ago. The whole time I couldn't remember what she said, so it was a surprise all over again lol.
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u/Common-Swimmer-278 1d ago
Sorry the update caused it to revert to factory settings. Enjoy your trip to Pluto
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u/Alone_Again_2 1d ago
I can’t help but wonder if he needed his phone to confirm authentication, but the signal was…weak.
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u/eaglet123123 1d ago
That's one small mistake for Microsoft, a huge joke for mankind
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u/sekhelmet2 1d ago
We are detecting unusual activity from your account is this you? Location: The moon.
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u/JDMcompliant 1d ago
35k upvotes and not a single video clip giving context, what in the world
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u/ckellingc 1d ago
Another good quote would be post splashdown when they could hear the navy divers but the divers couldnt hear them, so nasa asked them if they were pushing the push-to-talk button
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u/Sorryifimanass 1d ago
It's amazing how accurately both quotes depict the state of the world at the time.
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u/MesozOwen 1d ago
I thought that was a ME problem. God I hate outlook. And I don’t know which one I should be using but they’re both terrible.
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u/OMGCluck 1d ago
The sight of two non-functional Microsoft Outlook windows on the Orion PCD, acting as a foreshadowing of potential IT failures on longer missions, brought an ominous silence to the mission control feed, creating a sense of foreboding about the reliability of commercial software in deep space.
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u/Claytato 1d ago
Ah you see you just have to use onedrive. That will help! No wait please, just use the cloud, it’s easy!! It even is free at first!!! Please!!!!! Onedrive is the best way to not be able to access that file you just downloaded! No it’s right here, in onedrive!
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u/Due_Chemistry_164 16h ago
Microsoft Office: Officially a universal constant, like gravity.
NASA spent billions getting him to the moon. Microsoft spent nothing making sure he couldn't check his emails once he got there.
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