In the USAF, I would sometimes be required to show off the aircraft I crewed (KC-135R) at various airshows around the country, and invariably someone would find the button for the one thing I hadn’t pulled a circuit breaker for, and while all hell would not break loose, it always freaked out a few people (myself included if I wasn’t inside the jet at the time).
And as a button-pusher myself, I totally get the urge. It’s labeled/not labeled, and it’s a button–why the hell wouldn’t I want to push it and push it good?
Reminds me of the power outage in 2005 that took LiveJournal down for days:
“Another customer in the facility accidentally pressed the EPO button, then depressed it, replaced the protective case, and left the building. […] This is the second time this has happened to us in the years I’ve been there. The first time the button was unlabeled and unprotected and some dude thought it opened the door.”
No, but I flew through McConnell a lot! I was stationed down in that cultural Mecca known as Warner Robins, Georgia. And, IMHO, the only good thing about Warner Robins, Georgia, is leaving Warner Robins, Georgia.
LOL. Wichita wasn’t much better, but it’s less hot at least. I lived near Wichita and went to several of the air shows, being a jet nut in Middle School.
I keep a list in my head of the exotic aircraft and spacecraft I have touched. I know… oils and such, but at least I have never knocked a plane off the wall.
The worst is all the space capsules under that ugly plexiglass… damn me!
I too worked for a museum until recently. I used to berate the “touchers” sternly like unruly children. I usually started with “… please don’t stick it in your mouth too!”
I also work in a museum, with loads of interactive things you can touch and push to your hearts content. Naturally, this means people think they can touch and bang on everything. Once a kid threw his hat on top of a 9-foot high display case and his mom told me “Well can’t you just climb up there and get it?” a) hell no, b) it’s a solid plexiglass case wtf am I going to climb?, and c) hell no lady, I’m a volunteer and that is above my pay grade. You wait here while I get security.
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.
IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.
Three Tibetan monks have been hard at work since Monday morning on the mandala, which are created and then destroyed in a ceremony to symbolize the fleeting nature of life.
[…]
Chodak added that the child who damaged the mandala inadvertently taught everyone the lesson it’s supposed to impart.
Not to excuse the kid’s actions (or the parents for letting the kid do what he did), but that’s kind of awesome. You create something, explicitly for the purpose of destroying it in a ceremony to show that all things are fleeting, and someone comes around and destroys it first. It’s like the universe saying, “You want to do a ceremony about life being fleeting? Well, let me show you how right you are…”
But yeah, it was on display for, what, all of ten minutes?
