Dude... that's a classic hoax - it's not a computer.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp

 

Yeah; as long as it's good for a laugh, I don't particularly care if the picture is faked.

 

Yeah, not real. Well, the majority of it *is* real:


- but I knew this because that is almost exactly what the reactor control room looks like on SSN-688 Class fast attack subs.

-- The Electrical Operator sits over on the far right, controlling the connection of the two steam-powered electrical turbines to the boat's power grid through a series of breakers operated from that panel. There's an art to massaging the current before closing one of those breakers, because trying to close one out-of-phase will either fail with a 'pop' (the best scenario) or fail with a muffled explosion as "the magic smoke is let out of the breaker box," as some of the EM's liked to say. When the EO fucks up like that, air conditioning and all the fans are two of the first things to get shut down in an attempt to conserve battery power, and he is instantly hated by everyone on-board.

-- The Reactor Operator sits in the middle, in control of the actual reactor and the parameters of it. The gages shown there constituted the *entirety* of the digital equipment on the sub on which I served. (Well, I imagine there was some digital encryption and missile-targeting equipment around, but as far as 99% of the sub, everything was analog.) The gages give everything from pressurizer level and temp., to which coolant pumps are running and at what speed, to differential temp. across the core and (arguably most importantly) Startup Rate inside the reactor. The L-shaped handle you see towards the bottom of that center console is the shim switch for adjusting how far the Hafnium control rods are withdrawn or inserted into the core, which in turn controls Startup Rate and delta-T across the reactor.

In the event of a serious problem, the RO throws the SCRAM switch, which isn't shown in that picture. That switch disengages all of the motors for shimming the control rods, and heavy springs drive all of them to the bottom of their sleeves in about a tenth of a second, effectively shutting down the reactor. Of course, there's still a fucking *load* of heat in there, and even though the number of fissions is declining (subcritical), they are still happening. The term SCRAM comes from the good ol' days when rods were hoisted by ropes and pulleys, and the lone safety measure was a person stationed at those ropes with an axe, ready to chop the ropes and shut the reactor down in the event of an emergency. SCRAM stands for "Super-Critical Reactor Axe Man."

-- The Throttleman stands at the big silver wheels, and he's the one most directly connected to the Conn, where the captain and/or duty officer is in charge of navigation (up where the periscopes are and shit like that). There's a display there (and fuck if I can remember which one it is) that changes and goes 'ding' when the Conn dials up a new speed. The TM has to acknowledge by turning the knob on his display to the same thing, and then he opens or closes the throttles to make it happen. The larger wheel controls steam flow to the Ahead side of the two main engine turbines, and the smaller one opens and closes steam flow to the Back (reverse) side of those turbines. This dude isn't allowed to sit down, I assumed because of the ever-so-likely "Fuck! We're about to run into an undersea mountain! Emergency Stop!!"

Those three spots are always manned by enlisted guys, but all three (and in fact, everyone in the back half of the sub) went through the Navy's Nuke School and Prototype Training for two-plus years before stepping foot on a sub or carrier or frigate. There's always a nuclear-trained officer sitting behind them, and he is supposedly in charge, though I never met one dumb enough to go against a senior RO. After all, the guy in charge of pulling rods out of the reactor is generally more seasoned than last month's Annapolis grad.

Wow. TL;DR there. I stood a lot of six-hour watches in all three of those spots, though most of my time was spent trying to coax, finesse, seduce or just bully a temperamental evaporator into making the 10K gallons per day of fresh water it was rated for by the most optimistic, pie-in-the-sky designers who ever lived.

I'm glad I got all that experience and I wouldn't change any of it, but I wouldn't go back for any amount of money.

 

That's the best collection of, uh, that style of humor images I've seen in a while.

What the hell do they call that meme, anyway? The whole bit with Troll Face, Forever Alone face, Disappoint dad, etc. I usually think of it as the "interchangeable faces" or "MS Paint faces" meme.

 

Don't remember if this one has been posted yet:

 

Just read the pizza one, then Portus' made a whole lot more sense.

EDIT: Now listening to said song. /wrists.

 

mmmm, Penelope Cruz. Yes, I can tell that from a 1" picture >_>

 

Still don't get it. >_>

 

That's Miranda Kerr:facepalm

 

How about now?

You were what, eight when the single came out? I was around sixteen, so obviously fell in love with it. It really spoke to me.

 

Wow. That song is terrible. Still, the wordplay is sort of amusing now that I know the reference.