Farts in a Bathysphere : Professional Rants
“He described my assistance as being as welcome as a fart in a
bathysphere.”
From the novel, The Main
by Trevanian.
The Farts in a Bathysphere website is a forum to support the ranting of professionals on subjects dear to their hearts, both individually and collectively.
Our philosophy is simple: if someone has published misinformation, it is fair game for factual debunking. Passion is not just allowed, it is expected, but the basis of every rant must be entirely factual, and the thrust of all arguments must be objective. That being said, we far prefer plain speaking and simple language over technical jargon and obfuscation. Where technicalities are unavoidable, they should be highlit and, where possible, linked to separate explanations or references.
So, in the spirit of factual accuracy, please note that the technical drawing at the top of this page is of a bathy-scaphe rather than of a bathy-sphere. The difference is that a true bathysphere is a passive undersea vehicle, depending entirely on the surface vessel from which it is suspended, whereas a bathyscaphe is a self-contained undersea vessel incorporating a bathysphere at its heart. Both share the fundamental characteristic of an extremely small, enclosed, sealed accommodation space for the aquanaut crew.
The Blog
Farts in a Bathysphere is a forum for professionals to rant knowledgeably on any technical subject for which misinformation has been published. Our principal vehicle is our blog, which simply provides the framework for our essays.
- The Blog – home page for the Farts in a Bathysphere blog.
- Recent Rants – the most recent rants.
- Favourite Rants – all-time favourite rants.
- Rant Chronology – chronological catalogue of all the rants.
- Rants by Author – catalogue of rants by author.
- Suggestions – your chance to suggest a topic to be addressed.
One of our fundamental tenets is that, while stupidity is incurable, ignorance needs only illumination; our goal is to illuminate topics where factual clarity has been publicly obscured by the murk of ignorance, or even by the deliberate injection of misinformation.
The Bloggers – the Ranters Who Write Our Essays
The two founders and principals of this endeavour refer to themselves as Fart One and Fart Two. To find other members of the Farts in a Bathysphere community, there is a complete roster available, and their contributions can be found via the Rants by Author catalogue.
Although we created Farts in a Bathysphere to be our personal vehicle for expressing our steadily escalating frustration with the misinformation appearing almost daily in public forums, we are not averse to sharing. If you have a pet peeve on some technical subject’s misrepresentation in public, feel free to submit a suggestion.
If you have even stronger feelings, and believe that you are a potential caped crusader against technical misinformation, then consider submitting an application to join our community. It’s our private club, so we reserve the right to pick and choose whom we let in, but if (in Pyhonesque style) you share our chief weapons of passion, knowledge, articulacy, and humour, you are unlikely to be refused.
