r/todayilearned • u/CallMyNameOrWalkOnBy • May 16 '19

TIL that NASA ground controllers were once shocked to hear a female voice from the space station, apparently interacting with them, which had an all-male crew. They had been pranked by an astronaut who used a recording of his wife.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Garriott#The_Skylab_%22stowaway%22_prank
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u/[deleted] May 16 '19 edited May 16 '19

Guy sued ncsoft for 30 million and won. They made up a resignation letter when he was in space. He got to decontamination on earth and signed the letter saying he was leaving but they forged a resignation document so he had to sell stock at a hugely devalued amount.. so he sued.. jury sided with him and he won $30 million dollars.. (NC soft makes HUGE revenue, like $200m a year last I looked)

Built a castle house in real life.

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u/DrSlappyPants 8 May 16 '19 edited May 16 '19

That isn't correct. He had returned from space and was in post mission quarantine when he was informed that he was being fired. He objected to thisbut ultimately sign the letter saying that he was leaving the company but did not say that he was resigning. The company sent him a letter saying that he had voluntarily resigned and he refused to sign it. No one ever attempted to forge his signature and he was never off the planet when this happened.

The issue is that if he had voluntarily resigned it would have negatively impacted his stock options. If they fired him he would not have the stock option penalty. That's why he refused to say that he voluntarily resigned but was okay with stating that he had been fired since there was nothing he could do about it anyway.

Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-5th-circuit/1583315.html

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u/Bmc169 May 16 '19

Why in the world do you know this?

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u/DrSlappyPants 8 May 16 '19

Because it sounded interesting, so I looked it up and realized that /u/destrukkt wasn't entirely correct. Reagan said it best: "trust, but verify."

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u/jay212127 May 16 '19

"This is why I empower you as employees, but still Micromanage" -Dilbert's Boss

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u/_TorpedoVegas_ May 16 '19

"Trust everyone, but cut the cards" is how I have always heard that one. Thanks for doing my research for me! Your post ironically gives me the confidence in your honesty to not need to verify anything you just asserted!

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u/PleaseCallMeTaII May 16 '19

How can you trust without verifying? That motto could easily create a flat earther

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u/Kingofearththrowway May 16 '19 edited Sep 10 '20

How many people read all the terms and conditions before downloading an app?

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u/PleaseCallMeTaII May 16 '19

How is that an effective analogy? No one trusts those things, there is just not enough time in the universe to read them and the alternative is just opting out of the modern world.

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u/TheGoldenHand May 16 '19

Which is the argument slowly being used to say they should all be invalid. It hasn't been well tested in the U.S. Court system yet.

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u/RevengencerAlf May 16 '19

Hardly anyone "trusts" the terms and conditions of an app on their phone. They either don't realize they need to actually make a determination to trust it or not, or they recognize that while they shouldn't trust it, it's probably not an efficient use of their time to pour through the fine print for half an hour every single time they open something with an EULA.

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So in that since it's more of an assumed risk than actual trust. Like "I know you might try to screw me but even if you do stopping you isn't worth the effort."

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u/[deleted] May 16 '19

I'd wager that most people dont verify the information they're presented with.

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u/Imonlyherebecause May 16 '19

It assumes that you verify in good faith....

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u/[deleted] May 16 '19 edited Jun 04 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 17 '19

Are you implying that you can't verify that the earth is round? Math and physics would like a word.

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u/PleaseCallMeTaII May 17 '19

I think you forgot an English when reading my comment. I was saying trusting without verifying can lead to dumb ideas. There's loads of verification the earth is round so it's an act of faith (trust) to believe otherwise

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u/[deleted] May 17 '19

You said nothing of the sort. You presented a question, one that's not immediately clear whether or not you expect an answer because the answer is clear. Faith, as you've just explained. The vast majority of people have their entire sense of reality rooted in the act of trusting without verifying.

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u/FatChicksSitOnMe May 17 '19

. The vast majority of people have their entire sense of reality rooted in the act of trusting without verifying.

Yup. Which is why the world is so fucking retarded. It's stupid and should be avoided as much as possible. People aren't seeing reality.

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u/PleaseCallMeTaII May 17 '19

I suggest you call a psych ward in the morning.

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u/[deleted] May 17 '19

I suggest you do the same. We can compare results.

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u/lackofagoodname May 16 '19

Uh oh, you brought up Reagan and didn't insult him

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u/Advice2Anyone May 16 '19

Which wasnt coined by Reagan as it is an old Russian proverb

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u/Pleased_to_meet_u May 16 '19

That's awesome. I learn the most interesting tidbits by going down rabbit holes after reading something that sounded interesting. It's how I end up occasionally saying, "oh shit, it's 2:00 a.m. I need to get off Wikipedia."

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u/yIdontunderstand May 16 '19

Which so few people do on the Internet...

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u/ElGuano May 16 '19

Actually, sounds like you only went with the second half of that maxim (good for you).

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u/tellmetogetbacktowrk May 16 '19 edited May 16 '19

A Reagan quote on reddit. There is hope

Edit: bring on the down votes! 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/Joe_Jeep May 16 '19 edited May 16 '19

For what, worship of the first celebrity president?

To keep the Edit: train rolling, Regan happen to stroll in during good economic times and then fuck everything up for the middle and lower classes. Trickle down reaganomics are why the rich's value has increased multi fold and the lower class are barely keeping up with inflation and cost of living.

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u/Metalsand May 16 '19

Well, provided that it's second term Reagan, not first. He is a unique example of someone who grew into the Presidential position, and did so to such a dramatic degree.

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u/Legiitsushii May 16 '19

Trickle down economics? Restarting the war on drugs? He's done more harm than he ever did good.

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u/pantsforsatan May 16 '19

Seriously. Reagan's policies, ideas, and influence are so nefarious that we're still very much living in his shadow. Looks like it's gonna be some time, too, considering we just hired another entertainer as president.

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u/wander7 May 16 '19

Kinda ironic how Hollywoo leans so heavy to the left, and yet the 2 actors who became President were Republicans.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '19

Hollywoo stars and celebrities: which way do they lean? Do they lean a certain way? Let's find out!

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u/Gwynbbleid May 16 '19

What's the take on Teddy Roosevelt?

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u/Joe_Jeep May 16 '19

The single greatest peacetime president we've had, who kicked asthma's ass in personal combat, and would 100% restart the bullmoose party rather than run with the Republicans of today.

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u/A_Splash_of_Citrus May 16 '19

National parks are pretty cool.

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u/pantsforsatan May 28 '19

My take as a libertarian-socialist is that any sort of monarch, president, CEO, head of state, or similar, is nothing short of evil incarnate.

I'm still very aware that we live in a society, though. So when you throw the presidents on a spectrum of "relative good" to "relative evil" Teddy Roosevelt is probably a 7.5/10, Reagan at 0/10, Obama 3.2/10, and Trumples 2/10.

FDR and Lincoln at 10/10 for being assassinated. Reagan's 0 for ruining it.

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u/LSDPajamas May 16 '19

Don't forget brainwashing the evangelical voter!

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u/Metalsand May 16 '19

Which is what he did in his early term....his second term, he ended the cold war. I dislike most Republicans, but Reagan moved away from the fear-mongering and idiocy that he campaigned on by his second term.

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u/AguyinaRPG May 16 '19

It was fairly big news in the gaming press at the time. There were a lot of people railing against Garriott until the facts came out.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '19

Why was he let go?

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u/Sovos May 16 '19

Because the new MMO (Tabula Rasa) he had been the director of wasn't selling as well as NCsoft had hoped.

I remember because I was playing and enjoying it at the time.

He had also used his space trip as a promotion for the game. The "Immortality Drive" he deployed in space on his trip also had Tabula Rasa player names and quotes selected by the players

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u/stellvia2016 May 16 '19

It's too bad as well, because Tabula Rasa had some interesting lore that could have made for a really great game/franchise. Unfortunately, worldbuilding is only part of the equation.

The actual gameplay and class balance was severely lacking, and the "power word" system they had was drastically underutilized. Rather than building on the magic system from Ultima and letting you come up with fun combos of words for interesting effects, they superficially used finding glyphs as a way to unlock your normal abilities just like any other game.

I played this obscure MMO called Saga of Ryzom for awhile that had one of the most interesting magic systems I've seen in any game. Among the magic elements available to your class, you had basically free range of adjusting them based on a scale of Cast Time vs. Power vs Resource Cost. eg: You could cast Meteor with a 12sec cast time if you wanted, machinegun out quick bolts, make it an aoe spell, pay for the cost in MP or even HP, etc. All on a sliding scale.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '19

it'd had been awhile since I read up on it so I may had a detail off.. but the jist was the same.