#i'm obsessed with the underwater regions

[the-commonplace-book]

sorry babe can't talk too busy swimming with the fontaine fishes

[starliitstories]

with @nightshaderps

Gentle hands were reaching underwater. Nebula wasn't exactly the most familiar place for Hazel but she never refused an opportunity to study and learn more about aquatic plants in different regions than just Pohjola's. Her slim and long fingers carefully collected a yellow-ish leaf and quickly closed it into a magical test tube. Despite being in almost kneel deep water and searching for plants and taking water samples from some of the most difficult terrains, Hazel was completely obsessed by this job. She felt this deep connection to water and considered it as her favorite element. But the way she always got so focused on her work, a witch was rarely aware enough of her surroundings and forgot to make sure nothing was wrong around her. So after she spotted a stranger from a corner of her eye, Hazel jolted and almost splashed down in a forest pond she had been standing. As she struggled to keep her balance, a quick yelp escaped her lips as she clutched a test tube against her chest. Wet clothes were easy to dry. But this small yellow-ish leaf was now more important to her. But as much as she tried her best, a witch was soon forced to sit down and wet herself. This way she could still make sure that precious little plant was still tightly secured in her hands. "UM, - hey!" Hazel greeted him with the most sweetest and slightly embarrassed smile, sitting in a water. "Didn't see you there. Sorry. Got little surprised by your presence. I'm just collecting samples and taking notes. This little pond is so clean and fresh that some of rare aquatic plants are really thriving here." She chuckled, not wanting to admit that she had absolutely no idea how long he had been here. But trying to act casually in her situation probably made her seem even more funny or weird.

[jackalgirl]

Only one (1) day behind now. Just got done with yesterday -- Bart Kemper from Kemper Engineering. Fascinating. Very powerful commentary about the need to not put people into something when you don't understand the design life of that thing, that engineering first principles include understanding your requirements, and how those requirements will impact things like design life: "There is no respawn, you're not coming back from this, you only get to say 'oops' once."

Oh! And also directly contradicting the idea that it was too expensive to pay for advice/help from the submarine/submersible community as complete hogwash. Like my dude, these are professional engineers who are straight-up obsessed with this stuff. They will literally stop what they are doing -- eating and sleeping even -- if they get a chance to help you out with Their Blorbo.

I'm starting today's testimony now; tomorrow's the last day so by the weekend it'll be over. Then we'll just have to wait -- a long time, I'm guessing -- for the BoI to conclude what they think caused the implosion. But I really hope that better regulation comes out of this, and I hope the USCG takes on board all of the recommendations they got. It would be amazing to go partake in a submarine dive, or live in an underwater habitat (I have never stopped loving the idea of working undersea a la The Abyss).

Oh, also, the main site (here: https://www.news.uscg.mil/News-by-Region/Headquarters/Titan-Submersible/) has been updated with all kinds of new evidence, presentations etc. The censors have redacted to, imo, a ridiculous amount (they redacted the name of author of the NAVSEA on acrylic windows from the image of the cover page of the NAVSEA and I'm like, why did you do that? And not redact his name from the explanatory paragraph on the slide immediately in front of that image?), but there's a lot more info, if you are into that sort of thing.

I don't know if you all are following this -- as a retired Sonar Technician, this kind of stuff interests me intently. Trigger warning: some really scary descriptions of stuff that should not have happened, including people dying.

The guy who’s testifying today, David Lochridge, is mad (I mean, justifiably so, I think). He is mad at Oceangate, he is made at OSHA, he is mad at the Coast Guard. He kept receipts and notes for everything. They keep having to stop the hearing to reorganize their documents because he has so much. The Oceangate lawyer does not have the letter that Oceangate’s previous lawyers sent to this guy after they’d been informed of his Whistleblower status that basically reads like they followed the things that Whistleblower protection tells you not to do like a checklist of things to do.

Basically, I think the point he is getting across without actually saying this is, “I worked my ass off in 2018 and 2019 after Oceangate fired me to give you (OSHA, Coast Guard) what you needed to prevent this from happening, and you did not stop them.”