Into the Light Snippet #10

It was an 82-inch LCD with PIPPBP functionality . . . and as obsolete as a wax tablet, as soon as they got around to replacing it. It was, however, quite good enough for her current purposes, and Jackson bent over her shoulder to look at the pair of schematics on it. One was about a quarter the size of the other, and he frowned.

The screen is seven feet across. He is two feet taller than she is. Unless he has improper thoughts in mind, he does not need to bend over her shoulder. Rather, they need to stand far enough back from the screen, and next to each other, so that the screen is in their field of view.

Provocatio

Brazilian at a guess named? Or Provocation Clever either way.

Uses for artificial gravity? Eliminate the complicated spin sections. Grav Plates to counter acceleration for better aircraft. Perhaps they should hire some science fiction authors as consultants.

gcomeau wrote:

Joat42 wrote:This snippet reminds me of a book I read a long time ago where aliens try to invade Earth and to their shock they discover that the Earthlings are smarter.

Sounds like Pandora's Planet...

That's the one, been a long time since I read anything from Christopher Anvil.

Then, of course, there were the review committees of committee chairs, who didn't understand how some parts of it worked, so they added safety features that were already present, Readers may recall the description of the Three Mile island control room when disaster struck in which hundreds and hundreds of alert lights, flashers, bells, and horms went off at approximately the same time.

phillies wrote:

Provocatio

Brazilian at a guess named? Or Provocation Clever either way.

Uses for artificial gravity? Eliminate the complicated spin sections. Grav Plates to counter acceleration for better aircraft. Perhaps they should hire some science fiction authors as consultants.

squashing things flat

phillies wrote:Then, of course, there were the review committees of committee chairs, who didn't understand how some parts of it worked, so they added safety features that were already present, Readers may recall the description of the Three Mile island control room when disaster struck in which hundreds and hundreds of alert lights, flashers, bells, and horms went off at approximately the same time.

In a walkthrough of another plant's backup control room, I was told that controllers at 3 mile island couldn't even see all the indicators from main position in the control room. They would have had to had to walk BEHIND a row of 8 foot control consoles to see some of the lights/readouts. They showed us the old locations of those controls on their consoles which had since been relocated.

My favorite part of the incident was that the entire 3 mile Island plant had exactly 1 phone line - which was being used throughout the incident by the plant manager for his reaming by corporate management. The Plant engineers couldn't get into contact with the NRC and vice versa.

phillies wrote:

It was an 82-inch LCD with PIPPBP functionality . . . and as obsolete as a wax tablet, as soon as they got around to replacing it. It was, however, quite good enough for her current purposes, and Jackson bent over her shoulder to look at the pair of schematics on it. One was about a quarter the size of the other, and he frowned.

The screen is seven feet across. He is two feet taller than she is. Unless he has improper thoughts in mind, he does not need to bend over her shoulder. Rather, they need to stand far enough back from the screen, and next to each other, so that the screen is in their field of view.

While not 100% proven by explicit statement, the fact that he had to get up from his own desk in the previous snippet makes the odds that she is NOT sitting at her desk here are nearly electron-microscropic. So how many times do you put your monitor three feet above your head when sitting? Ever? If not, a person standing such that the monitor is closer to his belly button than his nose has EVERY reason to bend over to see something that's well below a comfortable eye height.

The fact that it's less than 6 feet across (and only ~3.3 feet tall) is just icing on the cake.

As for 'improper', that's assuming a lot of facts not in evidence. If they are married to other people then obviously yes. Short of that very likely not. Not at least in this fictional society here. This is not the military (and the US military as of the start of book 1 doesn't really exist anymore anyway), nor is it current real-world US corporate culture (which also doesn't exist anymore), they are both adults, and both clearly mentally competent. There might be a rule against them being interested in one another. There might well not. And even if there is such a rule, with population levels roughly as devastated as after the Black Death there won't be one for much longer. Babies are only slightly less precious than shongari tech at this point. And in another 2 or 3 years, they won't even be 'less' at all.