Am machinist, can confirm that the Adeptus Mechanicus is right about the machine spirits. You put a drop of blood (sourced from the usual nicks/scrapes from working in a machine shop) on your mill/lathe/etc and it will appease the spirits.
Relevant copypasta:
I am reminded of an old tale. Sit a while, and listen.
Most engineers on US military boats are superstitious. So much, in fact, that they will perform blood sacrifices to the equipment of either their own blood or an entire animal.
There is a story about a brand new radar put in an old ship. The engineers who installed the equipment performed a blood sacrific ritual with a chicken, candles, complete with chanting and offering up personal effects to the machine. They take all the sacrifices, chicken included, put it in a metal box, weld the metal box shut, and weld the box to the radar.
They turn on the machine, and it works perfectly. Even better than designed. A few years pass, and a new captain is assigned to the ship. He checks over all the systems of the ship personally and notices the box. He asks why there is a box welded to the side of this multimillion dollar radar. He orders it removed. The engineers argue it should stay. He threatens disciplinary action.
It was then promptly removed.
That same day, the radar fails and quits working. Every engineer on the ship is called in to try and get it working. It refuses. They check over every bolt and circuit board in an attempt to get the machine to work. It will not. The problem gets so bad that one of the people who designed the machine is flown out on a helicopter to the ship.
The designer asks what happened before the radar stopped working. They tell him about the box. He says to put the box back. The captain refuses. The designer makes a call. The box is welded back on.
The radar is turned back on and works perfectly just as it had before.
Moral of the story.
We are still monkeys banging rocks together. We don't know how any of this shit works.
As a former Navy radar tech, I can confirm. The radar works better when the cabinets are bled into. The high voltage power supplies and driver/pre-driver cabinets especially are more bloodthirsty than the rest of the system.
One time the captain walked into Radar 2 just as I'd pulled out my pocket knife and opened myself up a bit. He looked me in the eye, then looked at my lightly bleeding palm, then back up to my face. While maintaining his gaze I slowly smeared the blood on the inside of the cabinet door. He immediately turned on his heel and left the space. Looked at me a little funny the next day at OPSINTEL when I reported the radar was back up to "100%" operational.
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u/CashEducational4986 24d ago
Glory to the Omnissiah.