Who has the biggest....

[Asher]

I'm just suprised you don't think Americans are stupid.

I mean, how hard is it to check for broken seals?

Much harder than doing a proper integer cast in code.

[Krill]

I suppose it's harder to build a sand castle than draw one in paint as well.

[Kitschum]

Yeah, I don't know about you, but mine is definitely harder after reading this article

[Winston]

I mean, how hard is it to check for broken seals?

Well, Canadians are the real experts on broken seals. Especially little ones.

[OzzyKP]

I mean, how hard is it to check for broken seals?

Well, Canadians are the real experts on broken seals. Especially little ones.

[Asher]

We smash the skulls of both seals and Danes.

[Japher]

Poor Canadians. Asher is proof they suffer from "little country" syndrome

[Asher]

Canada is bigger than your country. Fact.

[Japher]

Ice floats don't count

[monolith94]

This thread is worthless without pics.

[BlackCat]

Astronauts in big trouble - couldn't use the proper tools due to being live-streamed

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2009/05/hubble_space_telescope_repair.html

The Astronaut's Dilemma

If you're an astronaut, you may occasionally face a dilemma that does not affect other Americans. It comes into play in situations such as the one that unfolded today, when Drew Feustel and John Grunsfeld attempted to remove the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 from the Hubble Space Telescope. As I detail in a story for The Post, the camera was held in place by a single bolt -- and it wouldn't budge. The astronauts used their best tools on it, changed bits, ran down a list of contingencies, fetched a new tool from the airlock, and kept fussing and badgering and wrenching and twisting and shaking that bolt for the better part of half an hour.

Back in Houston, the scientists who had spent a decade of their lives building the replacement camera -- and keep in mind these things are huge, inevitably compared to baby grand pianos -- were apparently about to lose their minds with tension. If the astronauts couldn't remove the bolt, the old camera would stay in, doing its 8-track cassette version of astronomy.

And so the astronauts kept turning and twisting and kvetching and grunting -- and still the bolt wouldn't move.

It was at this moment that the core dilemma of being an American astronaut reared its gnarly head: Unlike other people, astronauts can't swear.

Maybe they could back in the days of The Right Stuff. But those guys weren't miked all the time. These astronauts are so wired they're actually tweeting the mission.

I'm not saying I'm in favor of bad language. Indeed, I'm very conservative on this score, in general. But it is a time-honored technique of mechanical engineering to lubricate a recalcitrate bolt, screw, nut or nail with prodigious amounts of vulgarity.

Certain words act like WD-40. I cannot specify them in a family blog.

But astronauts, being heroes, are merely permitted to use incomprehensible jargon and astronaut-words like "egress." They are not allowed to utter the very easily understood words that are deemed to be obscenities.

If those astronauts on Thursday had not been miked and live-streamed on NASA TV, I guarantee you the dialogue out there in the payload bay would have been something like this:

Grunsfeld: Give the little piece of [vulgarity] a really hard shove.

Feustel: I already gave the [vulgarity] a turn so [expletive] hard I can't believe the[vulgarity] is still [expletive] stuck.

Grunsfeld: [Expletive.]

Feustel: [Expletive] A.

Grunsfeld: OK, Here's the plan: Together, with all our strength, let's just heave the [vulgarity] to the left and hope for the [expletive] best.

Feustel. Great idea. Here we go.

Grunsfeld and Feustel (in unison): [EXPLETIVE!!!!!]

Grunsfeld and Feustel: It's loose!

Mission Control: We copy that. Superior work, gentlemen. Now lets move on to the next [extremely offensive expletive] task.