flightless hag

A chronicle of the adventures of birdwoman: a lonely, talentless freak who wanders the internet in search of entertainment.

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Location: Philly

I'm a 40-something married white female, survivor of weight watchers, avid reader of pulp. Dogs (not cats), extreme right (handed, not politics), ENTJ, alto, wanna-be knitter.

January 29, 2010

give me that old timey music

OK, so why is it that I'm sitting here, listing to Air Supply, and am completely happy to do so? I know, intellectually, that they're not a great band. But I LOVE THEIR MUSIC. It just makes me calm and happy.

Or is that the wine and brandy I've drunk tonight?

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January 21, 2010

my dog, the spooky bibliophobe

Loki the dog continues to live up to his name. He is a mischief maker. But he has one really weird personality quirk. He is afraid of books. Yes, books. They spook him out, especially if you fan the pages. He steps back, tilts his head, then barks at it and runs in circles.

Speaking of weird phobias, I was on a blog today - little green footballs. I remember that site being too uber conservative for me back in the day. Then I was reading somewhere, don't recall, how LGF was ignoring the fact that the IPCC changed its mind on global warmening.

Last I knew, LGF guys were doubters, not believers.

Lo and behold, there has been a sea change over at LGF! They are moderate these days, with some leaners from both sides giving a lot of thoughtful argument and creative insult. It's kind of fun to lurk in their comments! If you are a moderate, like me, head on over. It's a great place to kill a few minutes when you're waiting for your next class of victims... errrr students.

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January 09, 2010

Poor IT Team

So, unless you've been living in a cave (and since Osama's living in a cave, that's probably not an excuse), you know about the attempted bombing of that plane around Christmas. And you've heard all the hullaballoo about lack of responsibility, where does the buck stop, etc, etc.

The media has been justifiably hard on The Powers That Be. How could this happen, post 9/11? But then, I read the details. I see the complaints about "how hard is it to follow and connect data" and "misspelling of suspect's name not caught" in a completely different light. And I think I know why no one was fired.

I imagine there's a 25 man (person, sorry) dba team somewhere whose job it is to make 172 archaic database systems talk to each other. They're probably given a nightly batch window to synch these db's that's 40 minutes long. None of the db's is probably newer than 2005, and most are probably older than 2000. Things like spelling correction and fancy google like searches just aren't possible.

My guess is that the intelligence problem in this case was completely database driven. And when only 2 people know how any given database system works, any manager is hard pressed to fire either of them.

Have I mentioned how glad I am to be a teacher these days?

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January 03, 2010

Repeal Suffrage?

OK, here's my new thesis.

It seems that, ever since the early middle of the 20th century, our government has followed more social supporting trends. Government has gotten more empathetic, and, by necessity, less logical.

This coincides with allowing women to vote.

Are politicians leaning more toward social programs and less toward pugilism and balanced budgets because they think this will (does) appeal to the female vote?

Whether or not you agree with all of the spending on social programs, new and old, do you think this idea has any merit? Discuss.

(This is my shot at being a social studies teacher. See why I'm a chemistry teacher?)


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