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The Carrot's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, May 29th, 2009 | | 6:07 pm |
And four to go.
I launched the boat yesterday in the wind, rain and with temperatures in the high 40's for most of the day. Aside from the occasional retreat down below to warm my ass up and suck down a few cups of tea I spent most of the day outside, bending on sails, tuning the rig and all those hundred and one things that are not optional once there's water under the keel. By the time I finished up I crawled down below, climbed into my rack and slept like a dead man for two hours before heading home. Tomorrow's forecast is for 5 -10 kts of SW wind, 2 - 4 ft seas and temperatures in the 70's with sunshine. Time to leave the laptop at home tomorrow, cast the thoughts of FOXP2 enhanced bald rats from my mind, not shave and do some sailing...and it's about fucking time. | | Friday, May 22nd, 2009 | | 3:43 pm |
High PSI
I didn't feel well this morning; in fact, it felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head ala Marty Feldman. I found my way over to one of the clinical areas and had my blood pressure taken. 170/115. Wow. Long-term that's medically dangerous. I guess that's the price I'm paying for 70+ hours a week PLUS whatever time I'm tossing into the startup. I went outside to get some fresh air. It was about 90 degrees outside, but dry, and the wind was steady and warm. It's technically still spring but it was a nice summer day. So I went for a walk down the street to get an early lunch and some fresh air. I was standing in line and the guy in front of me was hemming and hawing: should I have the bran muffin or the banana muffin, I know what the 'Soup of the day sign' says but what sort of other soup do you have, are your English muffins fresh, etc, etc. My stomach rumbled again, reminding me of how hungry I was, my head was pounding, and I desperately craved peace and quiet. "You inconsiderate little prick," I said, "hurry the fuck up." No punching, no violence, and a meek 'I'll take a banana nut muffin and a medium coffee' squeaked out of him in about .005 seconds. After I got my salad I went outside and walked around the back of the building, then sat on a pile of railroad ties next to the track and ate. Peace and quiet at last...even when the Pan Am freight came rumbling by, a couple of loud diesels pulling about 100 cars...but then again I like trains. Back to the office, back to Maureen in Clinical, and a BP check. 110/70. Much better. Off to Maine this weekend, then some final fit-up work on the Maria Jane on Monday before launching on Thursday. It can't come too soon. (And for the lurker) And yes, S, the cat is both fed and unfed, and the cat box is used and unused, but that still means there's only a 25% chance of having to clean it. So if you consider 25% to be good odds, or at least worthy of placing the bet, then by all means carry on. | | Thursday, May 21st, 2009 | | 3:20 pm |
Curve Ball
We can imagine no recommendation for using the government to manipulate fertility that does not have dangers. But this highlights the problem: The United States already has policies that inadvertently social-engineer who has babies, and it is encouraging the wrong women. ''If the United States did as much to encourage high-IQ women to have babies as it now does to encourage low-IQ women, it would rightly be described as engaging in aggressive manipulation of fertility. The technically precise description of America's fertility policy is that it subsidizes births among poor women, who are also disproportionately at the low end of the intelligence distribution. We urge generally that these policies, represented by the extensive network of cash and services for low-income women who have babies, be ended. The government should stop subsidizing births to anyone rich or poor. The other generic recommendation, as close to harmless as any government program we can imagine, is to make it easy for women to make good on their prior decision not to get pregnant by making available birth control mechanisms that are increasingly flexible, foolproof, inexpensive, and safe (p. 548-549) - Hernnstein and Murray, "The Bell Curve" | | Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | | 4:03 pm |
| | Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | | 10:39 am |
| | Sunday, April 26th, 2009 | | 6:31 pm |
Not with a bang, but with a rasping cough and fever...
(email received by the BBC) "I'm a specialist doctor in respiratory diseases and intensive care at the Mexican National Institute of Health. There is a severe emergency over the swine flu here. More and more patients are being admitted to the intensive care unit. Despite the heroic efforts of all staff (doctors, nurses, specialists, etc) patients continue to inevitably die. The truth is that anti-viral treatments and vaccines are not expected to have any effect, even at high doses. It is a great fear among the staff. The infection risk is very high among the doctors and health staff. "There is a sense of chaos in the other hospitals and we do not know what to do. Staff are starting to leave and many are opting to retire or apply for holidays. The truth is that mortality is even higher than what is being reported by the authorities, at least in the hospital where I work it. It is killing three to four patients daily, and it has been going on for more than three weeks. It is a shame and there is great fear here. Increasingly younger patients aged 20 to 30 years are dying before our helpless eyes and there is great sadness among health professionals here." - Antonio Chavez, Mexico City | | Friday, April 24th, 2009 | | 12:55 pm |
Climate Change
I stepped outside for lunch and was amazed. Sun, warm air, a light breeze. I walked across the street and stood by the banks of the little river that runs alongside the road and the parking lot. There were a few ducks merrily paddling along, and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a frog jump out of the bushes and splash into the water. After yet another New England winter it felt like EVA on another planet. | | Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 | | 3:56 pm |
Writer's Block: Going Greener
I suppose I could stop dressing up like Elvis and tearing around the streets in my big V8-powered '70's sports car. Or at least try to minimize the amount of soot-laden fumes pouring out of the exhaust like a 1917 British battleship. What stops me is that the car really has a lot of pep since I removed all of the pollution control stuff; that engine was just getting choked by that damn catalytic converter. Now it's too fast and too fun to stop.  | | 10:36 am |
Happy Earth Day
 Planet Earth as seen by Voyager 2. I am completely unable to see my house from here. | | Thursday, April 16th, 2009 | | 3:09 pm |
| | Monday, April 13th, 2009 | | 12:54 pm |
Havana day dreaming
" President Barack Obama directed his administration Monday to allow unlimited travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba, and to take other steps to ease U.S. restrictions on the island, a senior administration official told The Associated Press." I banged a Cuban chick a few times*. Do I qualify? But seriously...fucking Cuba. Cuba. Teenage hookers strolling El Malecon, Hemingway, fishing, sugar cane fields, old cars. Cigars. Rum. Girls. Lots and lots of girls. An economy ready and willing for, well, just about anything that'll make a buck. It's just a matter of time now, really. 90 God-blessed miles from Florida...and the door is about to spread wide open, nice and invitingly, and the gringos are coming. Fuck me. * Yes, she was nutty. Thanks for asking! | | Saturday, April 11th, 2009 | | 1:46 pm |
| | Thursday, April 9th, 2009 | | 9:07 am |
| | Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 | | 11:24 am |
| | Sunday, March 29th, 2009 | | 10:43 am |
| | Saturday, March 28th, 2009 | | 8:06 am |
| | Friday, March 27th, 2009 | | 3:09 pm |
Followup Procedure
A long time ago I posted a story in alt.tasteless titled " Experimental Procedures" that described my experiences while using an SSRI to combat a severe depressive episode, including my cold-turkeying off of the SSRI. In the same posting I also described my cat's experiences while involuntarily using said SSRI. What did I gain from the experience? A) Using the cold-turkey method to stop taking an antidepressant is probably a stupid thing to do for humans and cats, B) "You'll get over it" is a valid working philosophy, and B) Cat lovers will send you nasty emails years after the fact if they perceive you done Kitty some wrong. The next year, Google decided to ban my postings from Google Groups and everything I'd written in alt.tasteless went down the Memory Chute. Like Paul's Severe Letter all that remains are vague bits of memories. Except for a few archived copies that the misguided saved, it's all gone. To quote Stephen King's extended version of The Stand: No great loss. None of it was exactly Hemingway. (cue wavy lines, subtitle reads "2009")In my Inbox is the following email (elements redacted to protect the stoopid): " I am currently beginning the work on compiling a site on depressive behavior and treatment...I am writing this letter to ask permission to mirror your posting of 17 August, 2001 onto the site at a permanent URL.
"I intend on using the postings from alt.tasteless as illustrative over anything else...alt.tasteless is a unique resource...
"I realize this letter is unnecessary by many standards of the Internet, as people compile their own archives of postings, and this is a tacit agreement when posting anything of worth, that many people will reproduce it for years to come. However, I would prefer to secure your permission to reproduce your writing, as I feel it's simple good manners to let you know I'm considering mirroring it."I can see the light gleaming in this person's eyes as they wrote this, brimming with self-confidence and what they feel passes for reasonable intelligence. Unfortunately, that light in the eyes is ambient room lighting shining through the back of their empty, fluid-filled skull...and it isn't all that bright. Perhaps they were slowly masturbating at the thought that I might actually read their email and say to myself "My goodness, Carrot, isn't that nice? Somebody's asking permission to use a posting you made on a public fucking Usenet group. You know, public, like in available for everyone. Kind of like that awful ex's vagina. I'm surprised there wasn't a tollbooth on that thing. Oh wait, there was... "How grand to know that there are still people in the world who not only hold misguided beliefs about public speech and copyrights but who can also be tossed feet-first into a running industrial-strength wood chipper without the world losing a single strand of any DNA that could even remotely be classified as precious"Hmmm...I wonder what Herry would do?" Mirror away, you groupie baboon. Mirror away. The person in question also mentions pestering another former member of a.t. as well. Somebody needs to get a fucking clue, stat, and it ain't me. ObT (to the emailer): To paraphrase Herry: if your friends tell you that you're not fat, they're polite liars. | | Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 | | 2:24 pm |
Locke-Ober and out
At the Locke-Ober restaurant in Boston, we sat in one of the third floor rooms and talked to a VC guy. Here's the idea, here's what it can do. Here's what it can't do, and why it's designed not to do that. Background checks: yes, we're computer people, but it's 2009 now and computational biology is big. I know you know what that means, I say, but as a refresher it means that it's easier for computer science geeks like us to work in biology than it is for biologists to go into our areas of expertise. Our tools work in this space and theirs, for the most part, do not. Don't think of it as genetics, I say, think of it more along the lines of Hillis' computer made of tinker toys. It's not Turing complete, not by any stretch, and instead of porn and chat rooms you get chemistry. Useful chemistry. He's fucking nuts, the ex-boss says while I play with my food. He's also right. Here's how the money works, he says, and starts explaining why the burn rate is the burn rate, why we need each and every planned position and why ideally we stay in the Boston area. A ring of the service bell and the waiter brings us wine. We each sip the Kuentz-Bas and relish it, but it's obvious it's not an especially rare treat for the money guy. He finishes his wine, puts his glass down and says Gentlemen here's the $64,000 question: could you use this to engineer sequences that only target niggers? My eyes bulge out at this point but before I can say anything the ex-boss says I'm not sure we're on the same page here. We get up, grab our coats and walk out without another word. We end up walking down Tremont Street, smoking and not saying much, and then we both turn to each other and say "The niggers?" out loud, in incredulous voices. | | Friday, March 20th, 2009 | | 3:14 pm |
Spring has sprung
Finally, spring. T - 62 days , give or take a day or two, until launch. In other news... "I thought you'd have kids and they'd look like Africans." - email from an old high school chum. No wonder I don't go to the high school reunions. | | Thursday, March 19th, 2009 | | 3:56 pm |
Just watched this again last night
 "Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?"
"Regrettably, yes." |
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