It's that time of year. Things have been a tad hectic of late and aside from a few minutes a day fulfilling my ninja obligations I've not been online much. However,  I just slogged through 389 E-mails, and am now otherwise nearly caught up.

There are a few links that have caught my eyes over the last few weeks. In many cases I intended to offer meaningful insightful commentary, but in the absence of any actual insight I'll just leave them here.


We are in deep kimchee. Really deep. There is no way out that does not involve considerable pain. The Tea Party types have talked a lot about cutting spending but specifics are few and far between. Paul Ryan actually has a plan  but pretty much everyone seems to be averting their eyes, as it is alarmingly sound and therefore a bitter pill indeed. Well, not everyone. Ace has more thoughts here.

Golly, this is so awful it almost defies parody. However, as I am a geek, it does remind me of a Star Trek episode.

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For those who wonder about these things, there is some good source material on the biological processes of Kaiju here. (Curiously not mentioned is the fact that Gameras digestive system is navigable via minisub and contains enough air for a couple of children to survive for several minutes.)

...and for those socially benighted 'people' with engineers disease, we have a special link on the same topic just for you.

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...and aprons and glasses and umbrellas and shotguns and grenades and really big knives.

How did I miss this?

There is a new Black Lagoon sequel. The series will be focusing on that sweet, love-able maid, Roberta.

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Christmas afternoon, with snow reported to be on the way, I asked my folks if they needed me to pick them up anything.

They said no.

Somewhere out west Pete is no doubt laughing a loud, mocking Slavic laugh at the pandemonium this 6-8 inches of whiteness has caused us silly non-Russians.

However, this area simply has not had to deal with this on a regular basis since the 80's. This really is the most snow we've seen in nearly 20 years and by far the earliest meaningful accumulation on the south-side in that time. The last few winters only snowstorm of note occurred in February of this year and was somewhat less severe. Until this weekend, it had been the worst snowstorm we'd for a long time. (Though an ice storm in 1999 did cause some major problems)

Although I was supposed to be off today, a pleading text from my supervisor convinced me to head in this morning. UPS is on the peninsula in Newport News.  That area, on the northern side of the roads, gets snow much more frequently, but even there this storm had overwhelmed the road crews. It took me over an hour to make what is normally a 30 minute commute.  Only about 10 percent of our workforce made it in and worked our butts off trying to get the brown trucks loaded. However, we ended up well past driver start time with virtually everything in our delivery area closed and the roads quite treacherous. Thus UPS shut down without unloading all trailers for only the second time in the 19 years I've worked there. (The only other time was for a hurricane). A few trucks are running very abbreviated routes but that is all.

Tomorrow will be one busy day as we catch up. We'll be starting 2 hours early, which for me means getting up at 2AM...Its almost like.... Christmas....again.

^{I guess the only thing to do is read Yotsuba&!}

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^{Elf by Simosi}

I got the best Christmas present evah.
14 1/2 hours of sleep!

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After the flu and associated hospitalization,  missing two to three weeks worth of classes and Christmas hours at UPS, I had exams last week. I was a bit concerned due to the large amount of class I missed just prior to exams, which resulted in this answer I gave to one of the 15 short answer questions on the Asian History Exam.

The May Fourth Movement was a political movement that began on May Fourth in a certain Asian country. Regrettably, as I have been absent for three weeks I cannot be more specific than this technically correct definition. This is the third sentence as required by the instructions.

As an added bonus, as per a request from Ubu, here is another picture of Saber...dancing...in a bunny suit.

 
^{At Brickmuppet Blog we do aim to please}.

Now back to unlimited cardboard box works...

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Via The Daily Mail

Police Chief J.R. Blyth, who was called in to investigate, described the discovery at the George Washington Hotel in Pittsburgh as 'the most grisly murder scene in his 35 years in law enforcement'.

Detectives had spent eight hours of overtime on the investigation before Chief Blyth realised the blood wasn’t real and that the murder scene was in fact the leftover set of a horror movie filmed two years ago with Corey Haim

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One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes eagerly (perhaps too eagerly) brings us news that Space-X has successfully launched the cargo version of their their Dragon Capsule into orbit.

 ^{Oh I SO do Want !}

 Space-X  has developed both their their rocket and spaceship independently of NASA design houses with an eye to providing a commercial launch service. One of the customers they are hoping to get for both manned and unmanned versions of Dragon is, ironically, NASA who would like an alternative to Soyuz with which to supply the International Space Station.

Pete Zaitcev suggests that this means Space-X has sold out and should not be considered alt-space as they are making considerable efforts to play by NASA rules and get government contracts.

I tend to disagree. NASA is a customer and they are catering to that customers needs. IMHO they are right to try to get as big a share of that market as possible to improve their cash flow. The rocket and other kit is designed outside the usual NASA system. 

Your mileage may vary, so by all means, have at it in the comments. In the meantime, here is the video:

 ^{Update: Added promotional image. Also, scientific babe is, of course, Misaka Mikoto, better know as a Certain Scientific Railgun.}

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There is a brief account by Fuchida of his view of the attack here. Interesting in that it gives some idea of the sheer force of the explosion that sank Arizona.

We were about to begin our second bombing run when there was a colossal explosion in battleship row. A huge column of dark red smoke rose to 1000 meters. It must have been the explosion of a ship's powder magazine. The shock wave was felt even in my plane, several miles away from the harbor.

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Due to this virus, I'm missing my last Chinese Politics class...the big exam review-everything-on-the-exam-will-be-covered-here class.

Ghaa!!

OTOH I do have a letter from the hospital so I should be able to get something in an office visit.  As to the bug itself, I slept for 13 hours. I don't hurt as much. My fever is down around 100 and I am much less weak.

 I hope to be able to return to work/school tomorrow.

Picture is unrelated:

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Any ideas?

Seriously.

There are several genuine computer geniuses who occasionally drop in here. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the feasibility of preventing/mitigating a future fiasco of this magnitude given the realities of technology.

Are there any realistic options?

Given that there seems to be a good deal of info unreleased and getting it back is pretty much impossible, is it feasible to somehow try and 'lance the boil' so to speak on this current catastrophe so we don't have to deal with the 'drip...drip...drip' effect while trying to conduct   all manner of delicate negotiations?

Any ideas?

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Been laid up in bed pretty much since Friday after work with a worse than average head cold. Today the coughing started. About 7 hours ago I noted that my temperature was 103. About 6 hours ago I noted that the coughing was excruciatingly painful and there was just a touch of blood involved. Given that I was getting weaker, not better and given that I had to be to work at 2AM and, given that my job is at UPS, and the fact that especially around December 5th one really needs a medical justification for not showing up, I got a much needed shower and went out, only to realize that the only place still open was the hospital.

Although I was indeed dragging it's really gauche to be going to the ER for a damned cold. 

To my astonishment, I was out in under 90 minutes. I must say that Harborview Medical Center is a really professional outfit and now 3 out of the 3 times I've been there in the last  year it's been about as pleasant non-horrific as is possible when one feels like a buffalo chip being used as a Voodoo doll.

 There was no Pneumonia on the X-Ray and I was diagnosed with an acute viral infection.


Other than that, my only concern was my second chest X-ray in about a month, but that was unavoidable.

My only prescription was a codeine based cough syrup which tastes like ass, yet is effective...and is juust niice.

Things don't hurt as much anymore and there's this  thread on /d/ that looks really fascinating now...but I'd best not blog about that at all 'cause if I did no one would ever talk to me again...

Oh wait.

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Things are busy this fall in Brickmuppetburg.
...so here is a picture of Saber in autumn.

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I'm currently carrying A's and B's in all my classes. As I type this, I've got on my plate: 2 term papers, a couple of hundred pages of readings, two tests and a makeup quiz next week, exams in 21 days and my work schedule has suddenly become quite hectic (which is actually a bit of a relief). I'm working my butt off and have been for years....

....which is why I pretty much collapsed and sucked my toes for a while upon reading this.

I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I've worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.

"did u get the sorce I send

please where you are now?

Desprit to pass spring projict"

^{The staff of the College of Bullshit counseling a student}

Still, as infuriating as some of these things have been, I've stuck with it and am now about one year from graduation.

I have never cheated.

Which makes this thing all he more demoralizing, much more so than any of the above FUBAR events have been.

What
is
the
fucking
point?

There seems to be remarkably little recognition amongst my fellow students of the gravity of the situation. One girl felt that paper writing services were bad 'because it was hard to find any for free and in order to compete one would have to pay for them'.

Yes the worst thing about cheating is that in some cases it requires one to pay for something one gets on the internet.

My head hurts.

This semester, my exams, at least are largely immune to this as most of them are essay heavy.
However, the papers I have to do are not cakewalks.
...and all the while I can be pretty sure that several of my fellow students are contracting theirs out while I travel about looking for references while working at UPS in November/December.

Given the widespread nature of the problem, I have to wonder what my degree, that I've already spent >$40,000 on, will be worth when I finally have it.

As I said it's just demoralizing.

Damn.

Update:
Not academic but quite related...Colleen Doran has been "Griggsed".

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Rubio has pulled it off handily.

Rand Paul seems to have won big.

There is good liveblogging all over the place, I recommend CDR Salamander, The Anchoress, Pudding Central,  RS McCain, The Corner, and RCP. For the view from the other side you might want to drop in on Kos and the Huff puffies .

It isn't looking good for the Senate, but as I type this Republicans are looking at 60 or so pickups in the house.

UPDATE: Nikki Haley looks to have pulled it off, as have Tim Scott and Allen West. Damn wacist wipubwicanz...
Senate is now un-winable, but the house looks to be a bigger win than anticipated.

Defrost the pudding.

UPDATE: Good speech by Boehner. It is late I have 2 hours to sleep. Good night.

UPDATE NEXT DAY: Woah...
I hadn't seen the last bit of Boehners speech. It's still a very good, non-triumphal victory speech...just...damn.

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When I got off work today, I went straight to my new polling location in Churchland. When I had changed my address and drivers license at the DMV, I was sure to change my voter registration info.

Alas I am not in the system.

I've voted in every election except a few uncontested midterm elections since 1988.

The poll watchers actually asked if I had changed my registration status at the DMV as this has been an issue today in this precinct.

Well, after some searching I was informed that I might still be on the rolls at my old polling place in Newport News, on the other side of the tunnel traffic I had just slogged through... The polling place that is actually walking distance from work.

Before I left I got specific instructions on where and how to register at the registrars office.... ...which is pretty self explanatory but so was the DMV. The pollwatchers were professional and helpful and, again mentioned that this had been an issue this morning. In fact two other people had the same issue before I left.

I'm discouraged, so I should jut blow the whole thing off, I mean it's not like one vote is going to matter....'sides this thing is in the bag...


NOT!

That's how 'they' GET YOU!

Besides, too many people have died to give us this right.

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After a remarkably spread out 2 weeks of exams I did manage to get all "A"s and "B"s.
Oddly, I got docked 4 points on one for giving too comprehensive an answer.

Tomorrow is the election.
I think it is going to be more of a near run thing than is being hyped.

I have just gotten in and need to be to work in 4 hours...so I'm just gonna leave this here...

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