“No bucks, no Buck Rogers.” – Gus Grissom, as quoted in Tom Wolfe's “The Right Stuff But while that maxim is true around here, and at labs and universities in general, the polarity is reversed for staff – no Buck Rogers, no bucks. Staff exists to support scientists who bring in the money from which […]
Classical Gas. Srsly.
I am sitting in a building built to the highest standards about four years ago, from the ground up, at great expense. Only the most crucial people get a cubicle in this building, much less an office. Yet the meeting room I'm spending the day in has no outlets in the walls for the 20 […]
and has been for at least the last century. Part N in a series. This edition: lead. Aside from the direct deaths, add in all the hundreds of thousands of lives ruined by violence, both the victims and the criminals (whose crimes were likely in no small part due their exposure). And they knew. NY […]
Here’s me getting into shape for the new year: 6:33 pace, 116 bpm HR. And that bump on the right? It matches this bump on the left: All my ankle braces are for the other ankle. Sigh. Training. It’s always something, some setback. Thanks be to eBay for the Donjoy Iceman, which I’m still hoping […]
This is fun. I picked all the liberal/socialist/commie options (gas tax, cap and trade, single payer, stimulus, let tax cuts expire, etc), and I get 4% growth, and a $62 B surplus by 2021. So what is it that we’re arguing about? In other news, I want to play NLHE with the prez. I’m not […]
I was going to go off on a rant, but Matt Taibbi hit every note I was going to hit. Launder billions of drug money at the highest level, and defer your bonus for five years. Defer. Not lose. Fall asleep on the subway, and spend the night in Rikers. And pay for the DNA […]
Tagged OWSDilbert is once again setting up shop in my workplace: This is my day every day this week. Sigh. I used to be a scientist. Also this. And this.
And cops. Today a motorcycle cop almost hit me when he swung out and made a (what would be for any of the rest of us) illegal U-turn in order to give someone a ticket for DWB. Guess it was important to give that ticket Right Now, and not wait three seconds for me to […]
Ghetto birds crash into each other, crime rate does not soar as criminals do not rush to take this opportunity to burglarize and escape undetected. How on earth did we ever survive in the big city before helicopters circled overhead day and night? Oh yeah, we spent the millions those helicopters cost on patrol cars […]
But it’s the one that our (formerly MS-employed) CIO chose, so I have to use it at work. Don’t get me started on the stupidity of the MS Exchange email server (vault?). That is all. Update: Apparently not all. I got tired of my IMAP laptop getting emails many times faster than my Exchange desktop, […]
Calling in drone strikes on a wedding party with non-combatants, including children, present: ok Killing US citizens without a trial, evidence, or oversight: ok Killing citizens of countries we’ve made no declaration of war against: ok Wiretapping every US citizen without a warrant: ok Torturing people in black prisons in Eastern Europe: ok Torturing US […]
Charlie Stross: “I don’t get to vote; I just get to live in a world where the winner’s policies defines a whole bunch of parameters for my life. No, I’m not bitter or anything …” If it’s any consolation, I do get to vote, but because I live in California (what, the world’s sixth biggest […]
Tagged Election, voteAnd why not? The new climate is unlikely to be Blade-Runner-esque everywhere, so why shouldn’t it happen on an otherwise lovely day with high clouds, a rich sunset, and snow-capped mountains? I hadn’t rented a car for work in a long time, as the place where I work no longer sees fit to send most […]
Tagged Future Shock, Gattaca, Shockwave Rider(h/t The Agitator. Source.) I suspect there is a similar graph to be made of the War on Some Terror But Not That Terror Caused By Random Drone Strikes From Above. Or Cyberwar, But Not The Cyberwar Perpetrated Without Declaration By Us. More good news: Long Beach, along with the DEA, shuts down legal medical […]