Stuff that's too good for the shoutbox but not enough for its own thread

[Zichao]

Case anyone was wondering, Phantom's wife: still in the cooler.



I also missed the episode where her dislike of pirates was explained. Of course I don't actually need to see it to know that it involves some sort of sub-Bruce Wayne twaddle about childhood trauma, but until I do I'm assuming it's something akin to a clown-phobia.

[Gilles de Rais]

Frankly, I don't understand you.

You live in France. The country with the greatest tradition for outstanding comics. But where you can (if you know the places) find Japanese mangas and American 'comics'.

And you still look at this strips? They're not even funny ones like Calvin & Hobbes or whatever. They seem to pretend to tell a story! Arg!

[Zichao]

If it's not free and online I'm not interested.

Never really got into western comics, tbh. Perhaps you can read them for free online too, I've never looked. The newspaper comics aren't good because they're good, it's something else.

[roadkill]

Given the trajectory that your career may take if you don't look out, Alex is probably more useful for you than the Phantom:

[Zichao]

There. Are. No. Words.

Meanwhile, the Lockhorns continue to impress me (bottom left).



And if someone gets carried away all three of them are already dressed for the funeral.

[roadkill]

I worked for some years for a guy who always wanted every report to be shortened by about 30%, and then have a one-page summary tacked on the front.

He was right. It sometimes took hard work but it was always an improvement, both in clarifying the argument, and in improving readability. I put this lesson to good use when this guy left and was replaced by another one who always wanted reports to be longer.

Shorter can often be better:

We had an urgent computer capacity situation where we needed an upgrade in a hurry. Somebody wrote a business case with justifications, costs, configurations, all the rest of it and sent it to the guy. The paper came back with a number of queries penned in the margin. So the author expanded the paper, addressing each one. It came back again, with more queries in the margin.

After 12 iterations of this, lasting more than three weeks and growing larger and larger, matters were getting desperate. So when that iteration of the paper came back with still more questions penned in the margins, I suggested that, instead of expanding the paper to address each one, we should simply delete the paragraph against which each question had been raised.

After two more iterations of deletion, the much reduced paper was approved, funding was forthcoming and the equipment order was placed. Scarily, to this day, I do not think the guy understood what we were doing.

I don't believe in godliness but if I did, simplicity would be next to it.

[Zichao]

I've got a pile of books about GPS systems and space politics in general here, and I just found what seems to be the best essay ever.

"The central aim of this chapter is to show how US outer space discourse, an imperial discourse of technological, military and commercial superiority configures and prescribes success and successful behaviour in the politics of outer space in particularly gendered forms. US space discourse is, I argue, predicated on a heteronormative discourse of conquest that reproduces the dominance of heterosexual masculinity(ies), and which hierarchically orders the construction of other (subordinate) gender identities. Reading the politics of outer space as heteronormative suggests that the discourses through which space exists consist of institutions, structures of understanding, practical orientations and regulatory practices organized and privileged around heterosexuality.
As a particularly dominant discursive arrangement of outer space politics, US space discourse (re)produces meaning through gendered assumptions of exploration, colonization, economic endeavour and military conquest that are deeply gendered whilst presented as universal and neutral."

No, seriously.

I only skimmed the rest of the article as I could actually feel my brain cells melting, but it seems to be a history of US space propaganda interspersed with (apparently entirely unconnected) acidic remarks about heteronormativity.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and either rape someone or shoot myself. I haven't decided which yet.

[Gilles de Rais]

I love academia!

It's like that article I read long ago about reading the Top Gun movie as a gay-iconic movie but without the humourous piss-taking bits...

[roadkill]

[Zichao]

The first annual Zichao defense blog awards: ArmsControlWonk

Most blogs about military stuff are either boring or an epidemic of stupid. This guy's funny and good, even if you're not interested in nukes.