Well, how about this: I quit my job. Actually, that’s not strictly speaking true–last Thursday I gave my two weeks notice, and while I am technically employed (and getting paid) through the end of that period, today I was “released”. In corporate-speak this means: don’t come in any more–now that you’re not on the team, we don’t want you to… Read more →
Author: Mr. McLaren
Aside
When The Black Wind Blows
I’ve been very busy the last few days, with a combination of post-moving stuff (hey, look, we’re close to family now, and it’s the holidays), and with some important changes at work (on which I shall write a very journal-y entry shortly). Which explains why I haven’t already written about an utterly unacceptable, and miserably predictable, incident. Quite a bit’s… Read more →
Even Deeper Field
You may recall that I was pretty seriously geeked a while back by the implications of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Well, they’ve taken a new image, using infrared light this time, which lets them see even deeper. There is information, images, videos, and more about the newly release survey at the Hubble site. Read more →
Aside
Aside
Speaking of battle-of-the-sexes banter fodder, and academic papers, you did all see that article last week about the researchers who wanted to compare the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users? You know, the one where they had to cancel the research because they couldn’t find any men in their 20s who had never been exposed to porn…
Bias in my favour
You know the punchline: “I don’t make the rules, I just enjoy them.” I pull this out every now and then when Dr. Wife points out to me some way in which our society is constructed to make things better for men, while giving women the less pleasant end of the stick. I’m sure I’ll get a chance to use… Read more →
Aside
I love how the article’s author is so sanguine about this aspect of his analysis, dropping it deadpan in a single sentence at the end of the piece: “The bad news for authors is that their royalties will decrease since they are based off of retail sales price.” Surely the simplification of the production and distribution system should result in less profit for publisher/distributor/vendor–i.e. the parts of the system simplified–and not in less profit for the bit that remains just as hard as ever?
A short comment on the US Health Care Debate
I’ve been mostly keeping my nose out of the US debate–I don’t understand the debate, since I look on a certain level of access to quality health care as a right of all me–but I do want to point out the comments of John Gary Maxwell, a 40 year veteran surgeon. You should read the whole piece, but here’s a… Read more →
Thought For The Day
Still Alive
Apologies for the lack of content over the last little while, and the last week particularly–the preparations for The Big Move have just destroyed whatever slim shards of free time I can normally wrest from my schedule. Since everything is now on the truck and on its way, and I’ll be spending the next three days doing a very gentle… Read more →
The Men That Don’t Fit In
There’s a race of men that don’t fit in, A race that can’t stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain’s crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don’t know how to… Read more →
The end of an era
So, last night was likely my last time as a regular attendee of the Halifax Gentlemen’s Poker Association’s weekly meetings. Since I’ve been pretty consistent about attending these for several years now–I think the first one I went to was just before Sarah was born, as I recall making jokes about having to leave suddenly to rush to the hospital,… Read more →
No Surprise Here
Speaking as someone who’s lifelong love ofSome might say “addiction to”… reading was to some significant degree ignited by regular trips to pick up comics from the used bins at Allison The Bookman, it’s no surprise to me that research shows that kids reading comics “increased their vocabulary and instilled a love of reading”. I’d say there’s a serious degree… Read more →
I drink alone
Well, my plan to try out a couple of interesting beers each night for the six nights kind of fell apart. Primarily this was down to too many nights when my all-day meeting schedule ran over into evening activities. (For the record, the official count was 57 hours of scheduled meetings over 5 days, and that doesn’t include the social… Read more →
