We were told at the time, that the Brits has a surface group in the area, and didn’t want a sub submerged in the same area. Neither we, nor our radar saw anything. But in 21 years spent in the navy, I’ve never seen seas like in that 1st deployment. Modern subs, with round hulls, are optimized for submerged steaming, only cruising on the surface when arriving/departing ports or when operationally necessary (i.e. shallow waters or transferring personnel).

I’ve probably been out in seas just as bad as that 1st deployment - when the boat is rocking at 600-800 feet submerged depth, it has to be really, really bad on the surface, but being submerged, I really didn’t get to see it on those occasions.

My first deployment in a fast-attack submarine, in the fall of 1991. We were working under British operational control, and they ordered us to cruise surfaced, in the North Sea. I was standing watch as a lookout, with another lookout and the Officer of the Deck (OOD), in the sail superstructure of the boat. We were wearing body harnesses and lanyards, clipped into the superstructure - normal procedure.

I was a sailor aboard USS SUNFISH (SSN549), a Sturgeon Class boat, where the sail superstructure was 25 feet tall. We were in 48 foot seas.

The 3 of us on watch that night were washed overboard more than 10 times each. Often all 3 of us at the same time… flung overboard, hanging by our lanyards, trying to roll around and grab onto the ladder rungs, or one another, to get back into the bridge pooka. None of us broke any bones or lost any teeth, but we were pretty battered and bruised by the end of it.

That was the first time I got to see the entire boat out of the water… at the top of the wave, I could see the stem planes, stabilizers, the end of the towed-array housing, and the propeller. At the bottom of each trough, we’d see just a tiny hole of sky, through the water, as it all crashed down upon us, and we all hold on, trying to stay inside the superstructure.

We pulled into the Navy Base at Rosyth Scotland the next afternoon. The windshield, booked in for surface operations, was completely missing, as well a the port running light. We sustained damage to our observation periscope and main communications antenna as well.

The experience was both scary and exhilarating.

The way of the future…VCRs went away. DVDRs went away, replaced with DVRs and membership streaming, where you can “buy” a movie on Amazon Prime, but if they lose the rights to the movie, so do you - oh well. Your Tesla will brick, if Elon gets mad at you, and your video games will stop working if “the man” unplugs the server. Oh, and dont get caught pulling out your old dusty VCR to record the Super Bowl to watch later…thats a copyright violation. The oligarchs want to make sure the plebes eventually own nothing. If the masters can take it all away, the peasants will do what they’re told, be quiet about it, and smile when in sight of the masters.

I’ve enjoyed Linux since Windows MEllennium Edition convinced me that I didn’t like paying a lot, in money and time, to be an unpaid product testing guinea pig. A work friend put Windows 2000 on that laptop when ME went bad. I used it until a got a blue screen of death one day, and switched to Linux. The 1st was a $230 ePC that could be had with Windows XP or XanderOS (a flavor of Linux). I chose the latter, and had a great time of it. I’ve since used Mint and Ubuntu.

The problem could be that, with all the advancements in technology just since 1970, all the medical advancements, all the added efficiencies at home and in the workplace, the immediate knowledge-availability of the internet, all the modern conveniences, and the ability to maintain distant relationships through social media, most of our lives haven’t really improved.

We are more rushed and harried than ever, life expectancy (in the US) has decreased, we’ve gone from 1 working adult in most families to 2 working adults (with more than 1 job each), income has gone down. Recreation has moved from wholesome outdoor activities to an obese population glued to various screens and gaming systems.

The “promise of the future” through technological advancement, has been a pretty big letdown. What’s AI going to bring? More loss of meaningful work? When will technology bring fewer working hours and more income - at the same time? When will technology solve hunger, famine, homelessness, mental health issues, and when will it start cleaning my freaking house and making me dinner?

When all the jobs are gone, how beneficial will our overlords be, when it comes to universal basic income? Most of the time, it seems that more bad comes from out advancements than good. It’s not that the advancements aren’t good, it’s that they’re immediately turned to wartime use considerations and profiteering for a very few.

Oh, you can set up a dual boot system, so you don’t have to completely jump ship. They also have setups that run entirely on a thumb drive now.

I did dual boot for a little bit when I want into business 14 years ago. While I liked Linux, I wasn’t sure I could run a business without Windows, but soon discovered that everything would be just fine without Windows, and got rid of it.

I’m in my mid-50s. I play Warzone 2100 and BOS wars on my computer. I’ve has Steam for several years, and have a game there…I think it’s “World of Goo.” I like to stick to games that serve as stress relievers, and take no more than about an hour. Between owning a business, 2 teens, 3 schools, 4 sports, a wife, a house that would love to fall apart if I’d only let it, a lawn to mow, and 2 antique cars I love to keep driving, I don’t have much more time to let myself be sucked in to some of the really cool stuff I see.

I recently bought a replacement PS2 though…the old one broke, and I’m still in love with GTA Vice City. I usually just steal a cop car and do vigilante mode until I’m killed though.

My 1st desktop had Windows 95 on it. It worked OK. A few years later, I bought a laptop pc with WindowsME (Millennium Edition), and it became the last Windows product I’ve owned. A work colleague installed Windows 2000 on that laptop, and it worked for a couple months, until I got my “blue screen of death.”

At that time, they started selling the ePC notebooks, available with WindowsXP or Linux (the XanderOS) I stepped out of my comfort zone, and got the XanderOS variant, and have had Linux computers since. I’m currently using Mint on an old Panasonic CF-30, and Ubuntu on 2 laptops built by System 76.

My wife likes Mac, but I’m not a fan. My kids get a pretty rounded experience, between using their moms Mac, their dads 2 variants of Linux, and their Chromebooks at school.