Faine Greenwood: Apparently someone at the Boston Fire Department had a wonderful, vindicating day yesterday, during the 911 outage:

Apparently someone at the Boston Fire Department had a wonderful, vindicating day yesterday, during the 911 outage:

stuff like this makes me grin because you get that mental image of a crazy old heavy white bearded dude that everyone rolled their eyes at for so long but knows what the pivotal piece of infrastructure is and insisted people train on it even though they thought he was nuts.

It warms the cockles of my heart to know that there's a wizard receiving a paycheck from the city

it's Boston; I expect the city's payroll has at least five wizards and approximately seventeen thousand "my wife's dipshit cousin"s

If you're looking at the budget, the acronym for "my wife's dipshit cousins" is BPD

hey now, not all of them some of them make it to the Staties

I recently learned this kind of thing happened when the Nazis invaded Norway. The Norwegians had a battery of 40-year-old torpedos, and though they still did some training on them, the guy they brought in to operate them had been retired for more than a decade. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...

Battle of Drøbak Sound - Wikipediaen.m.wikipedia.org

And he was only there because the proper battery commander had taken ill, so the pensioner who actually knew how to aim the things was there by pure coincidence

The torpedoes used to sink the General Belgrano during The Falklands War were from WWII. The commander of HMS Conquerer didn’t trust the newer ones.

well the tigerfish were notoriously dogshit, leading to it being replaced. so the commander decided it was better to run with the dumb fire WW2 era torpedoes over the supposed cutting edge guided designs

Well, he obviously knew what he was doing.

sinking of the blucher!!!

*NEEEIIIIGGHHHH!!!*

The Norwegian movie The King’s Choice (2016) put this engagement on the big screen, and it’s pretty accurate to what happened! Ancient obsolete guns and torpedoes sank a brand new heavy cruiser. youtu.be/YZ79i11JSnU?...

The sinking of Blücher - The King's Choice (2016)youtu.be A clip from the Norwegian movie "The King's Choice" where the Norwegian crew of the 'Oscarsborg' fortress sinks the German heavy cruiser 'Blücher' during the opening hours of the invasion of Norway in april 1940. English subtitles can be turned on for this clip. I claim no copyright whatsoever, all of the content belongs to Nordisk Film and the rest of the people involved in the making of the movie.

There is a similar moment in the cinematic classic “Battleship”

Wait, this didn't come to my feed by way of @garius.bsky.social ? He needs to know asap

Was at the launch site of those torpedoes on Saturday. 😁

I had a similar thing. But more “oh, this is where garius was. He mentioned Blücher. I will read that.”

And the guns on the opposite side stopped firing after two rounds because they had one trained crew split between two guns, and like forty recruits who could barely salute, and no-one was going to reload under fire. Both rounds hit because they'd been training on that sound for decades.

This feels like something Pratchett wrote

Right? Could be right out of Going Postal. I think Pratchett understood this kind of craggy old public servant.

I'm imagining him as Edward James Olmos/Adama talking about how he'll never have a networked computer on the Galactica.

Lots of fun stories of new management taking over some manufacturing plant and laying off the one guy who knows Fortran or some other ancient language the machines still use, then having to pay the guy absurd fees to come back as a consultant when something breaks!

Digitization is good, digitization with backups is better

There’s like a guitar pedal company or something who’s motto is “analog heart, digital mind” and it’s a good motto

We still have these in NYC too. They’re not only useful, but extremely cool looking.

youtu.be/3kTaAS1Z2F0?...

Many of Boston's fire boxes are over a century old and are still operating smoothlyyoutu.be Many of Boston's fire boxes are over a century old and are still operating smoothly Subscribe to WCVB on YouTube now for more: http://bit.ly/1e8lAMZ Get more Boston news: http://www.wcvb.com Like us: https://www.facebook.com/wcvb5 Follow us: https://twitter.com/WCVB Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wcvb5/

MARIO COLUCCI

You know if that guy retires/dies there’s nobody to take his place. Also the state of that fucking workshop, holy crap.

Oh my god, the city should absolutely endow an apprenticeship program YESTERDAY.

“Ok, buddy, imma need you to learn morse code first thing. Also, you ever take one of those old wind-up alarm clocks apart?”

I firmly believe that it's exactly the city that could make this a top-tier job opportunity, and they should really get on it. Actually, it should be a movie. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon should make it a small-stakes local version of National Treasure.

“They laughed at me, called me a throwback, a Luddite. Well today, we are ready. Boston won’t burn down as long as I’ve got a hole in my arse. Ok, ladies and gentlemen of this fine public service, this is our time. Let’s fight some fires!”

same vibe

A few years ago the power went out at the Market Basket in Somerville, and while the employees ran around covering refrigerator cases and most customers milled around uncertainly, the Azorean, Portuguese, and Dominican grandmas turned on their phone flashlights and kept on shopping.

That Sunday dinner ain't gonna cook itself. I keep imagining that they didn't even want the phones at first, too fussy, but their kids bought them for Christmas with promises of being able to FaceTime the grandkids.

Big day for me lmao

that guy got to experience his best day and brag about it good for him

This is the same fire box system that was in place during the Cocoanut Grove Fire in 1942. From Boston Fire Historical Society: "In a strange coincidence, at 10:15PM, the BFD received and transmitted Box 1514, located at Stuart and Carver Streets...about three blocks from the Cocoanut Grove." 1/2

"Upon arrival, firefighters found an [car] fire on Stuart St. After quickly extinguishing the fire, a firefighter noticed what appeared to be smoke coming from the Cocoanut Grove. As they began to investigate, bystanders ran toward them to report the fire." 2/2 bostonfirehistory.org/the-story-of...

The Story of the Cocoanut Grove Firebostonfirehistory.org The Cocoanut Grove Fire November 28, 1942 2220 Hours, Box 1521, 5 Alarms Special Cocoanut Grove Section containing documents & historical information. The Cocoanut Grove was a restaurant/supper…

Wow!

I want to believe he made little “vroom vroom” noises while moving the trucks. 🥰

... we need a dramatic presentation of this, and it MUST include the fire chief laughing as he moves little magnetic fire trucks around.

Now I'm picturing the Pentagon with a giant customized Risk board in a backup meeting room.

Oh, the Big Board in the War Room?

inadvertent nuclear war about to break out and George C. Scott's General Turgidson is outraged that the President has invited the Russian ambassador to the War Room "Are you aware of what a breach of security that is? He'll see everything... he'll see the big board!"

Exactly what came to my mind