My 5th anniversary gift from my corporation: an absurdly expensive pen. It's half the length of your regular bic. What does one do with such an item?
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(7)
12:38:50 PM,
Thursday 22 December 2005
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Colds are supposed to follow nice predictable population curves. They aren't suppose to regroup.
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10:20:03 AM,
Wednesday 21 December 2005
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He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.
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(3)
02:08:27 PM,
Tuesday 20 December 2005
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That that NSA decided to forgo the formality of acquiring a retroactive rubber stamp from a secret court on one category of its eavesdropping is one of the less appalling things I've learned about my government lately. As far as I can tell, the reason it's so exciting, compared to the murder, torture, kidnapping, and incompetence, is that we have a case. It's the same reason that I heard endlessly about the relatively trivial Ms. Plame. I would rather we had an opposition with a firm moral footing from which to provide alternatives, than one with a legal toehold from which to launch indictments.
From one (infuriatingly obtuse but sincere) viewpoint, I would think that the US government has more right to spy on its own citizens than foriegners, anyway. I'm far more concerned about transparency and accountability than privacy. Privacy must always be limited, and a privilege, something that can be taken away from those who abuse it. We acknowledge as much in our schools, our prisons, and our hospitals. People are not to be trusted. This goes twice over for governments, corporations, committees, and other responsibility-shifting devices.
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(4)
10:17:01 PM,
Monday 19 December 2005
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I put a throat drop in my pocket. Moments later, I pulled it out, only to discover that I'd transformed it into a small rubber pig.
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(1)
10:10:21 AM,
Saturday 17 December 2005
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I've been feeling happy about presidential term limits lately. Also about Cheney as Vice President, come to think of it. Nothing like the immediate prospect of being out of power to make a world leader well mannered. Otherwise there's always the risk of them believing their campaign literature about the catastrophe that would befall us under different leadership, and how important it is for them to stay in power to make sure we stay on track.
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12:39:32 AM,
Saturday 17 December 2005
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And now I'm back to a computer science masters with a concentration in Human-Computer interaction. Round we go.
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06:13:28 PM,
Friday 16 December 2005
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Never mind all that. I just found my program. Actually, I found it two years ago, but I thought it just a Computer science certificate. I didn't realized there was a whole program in human factors.
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(1)
05:39:37 PM,
Friday 16 December 2005
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The rudderless yet career-minded thing to do would be to start working towards a Masters of Public Health. I'd be good at it, it wouldn't be terribly difficult or expensive, the classes would all be fairly interesting. My main discomfort at work is that I'm unqualified to make decisions about the content of what I'm doing. This would fix that. There's also plenty of interesting things I can envision doing in the field, plenty of software to write. The trouble is, I hate the health care system. I hate the acedemic flavor or it. I hate conferences. I hate doctors, especially the sort of doctors of the sort who end up on panels for this sort of thing. I hate what government jobs do to people. What I do like is the data, and the empiricism, and pushing empiricism further into medicine. I like the work, the building contraptions and running the data through. I like designing studies and reports, deciding what to measure and how. I like the appliedness of it all; I don't think I'd actually be happy coding, because inevitably you're writing someone else's software, and you aren't sure why. But public health isn't the application I would have chosen, it will forever remain a random fluke that I'm in the field at all. And it is true that I like the government employees and doctors better than the unix database administrators. And really, I'm a better analyst than programmer in many ways, it requires more sense and less orderliness. And there are no doors that would swing shut behind me, simply from taking a class or two with the governments money. It isn't really much more commitment than continuing in the job, which I'm doing regardless for a while. But it's rudderless. And, come to think of it, I don't think I want the job of any of the MPH holders I know.
I think there's a colorful little wheel, like the life spinner, turning in my head, with health, economics, software design and law scribbled on it. Probably a few others as well: mechanical engineering, architecture, an MBA. It doesn't seem attached to anything, though; I keep drifting along just fine regardless.
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(5)
05:20:20 PM,
Friday 16 December 2005
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How to be an ambassador, for patronage picks. I'm somewhat reassured by the estimate that 30% of ambassadors are hacks. It would worry me if they were all like David Wilkins or Ron Weiser, a member of the National Executive Committee of Victory 2000. I love the phrase 'National Executive Committee of Victory'. I see it as a banner, with of Victory! added in red paint.
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(1)
11:53:59 AM,
Thursday 15 December 2005
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Will not link to obviously stupid studies...
Will not link to obviously stupid studies...
Will not link to obviously stupid studies...
But, but, cooking pots? I'm fairly sure vervets don't cook.
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(2)
11:04:53 AM,
Wednesday 14 December 2005
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I have lost my voice. Entirely. It's somewhat fascinating. I am entirely unable to speak above a whisper. I can't even croak properly.
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09:52:56 AM,
Wednesday 14 December 2005
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site & script courtesy of Moss
