Sauntering Vaguely Downward

I'm not usually a fan of the articles contributed by members of the academic community to the esteemed publication Nature, but this one really pissed me off.

"Design your own doctoral project" by Jesko Becker.

I warn you, take a deep breath and brace yourself for an onslaught of unabashed, tone-deaf horseshit if you decide to click that link. Reading it made me want to scream. A lot. Because so very few people in the world are in a position to spend months or years, as this author clearly did, doing a vast amount of unpaid labour in order to cook up a doctoral project and then chasing funding for it. You have to already be nicely sorted out for that. This aspirational bullshit is exactly the kind of thing that puts off less privileged members of the academic community (which, M. Becker, is 99.999999% of them) from pursuing doctoral work in the first place, or makes them feel like failures when they can't complete it. Doctoral work is already very badly paid, and even if you are lucky enough to land a funded position, the funding is almost always insufficient to cover the actual duration of projects. Nearly everyone with a PhD that I have ever met in the UK worked at least a couple of months on their doctoral theses without pay. It is an absolutely shite system and it is not to be encouraged. So don't go telling people, "You don't need funding, just follow your dreaaaaams!" People have to pay rent. They have to eat. Some of them have families to care for. They need money to do those things.

It doesn't just take "autonomy, determination and perseverance" to make an unfunded doctoral project happen. It takes MONEY, and not just money for the project. YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM, M. Becker. You are not the solution. Bugger Off.

Spotted by the bloke in Brussels: Pikachu onesie, modeled over sexy black lingerie.

I had the peculiar experience of being patronised by someone whom I'm guessing was about half my age today.

After I went to the gym, I popped into the associated overpriced coffee franchise to grab some lunch to eat at my desk, because I had forgotten to make my lunch the previous evening.

I brought my items to the till and then remembered I'd forgotten my phone at home as well that morning, so I didn't have my loyalty app thingie.

The person behind the till rang up my items. "Excuse me, sorry, but I forgot my phone. If I get a receipt, can I claim my points later?"

Cashier, whose face had suddenly gone anime-eyed: "Awwww, you're American! Yes, of course you can, my darling."

Me, flustered: "Oh, okay, thank you."

*pause whilst I paid and cashier printed receipt*

Cashier, in a sing-song voice and with a gesture that looked as though it might end with a pat on the head: "Here you go, sweetheart."

Me: "Um, er, thank you?"

And then I ran out of there before she could offer me a lolly, as long as I promised to be a good girl for Mummy for the rest of the day.

Today's Unscientific Poll is purely hypothetical, of course!



( except it isn't )

I was going to muster up the energy to post some photos from the weekend, but then the pamphlet for local elections in Hometown USA popped through my door. And it is a thing of beauty. Honestly, I haven't been this entertained by printed material since...well, since The Secret Barrister, which I read fairly recently, so never mind.

Anyway, I present you with some samplings of candidate statements for US Senator, which just in case you didn't know this already, is a six-year term. I'm not sure if some of these people would last six minutes in office.

All credit for misspellings, random capitalisation, and incoherence goes to the original authors.

From Alex Tsimerman, I give you an excerpt, because six paragraphs of Alex Tsimerman might break the internet:

Are we better now than a few years ago?* Stop Seattle fascism with idiotic face!

I, Alex Tsimerman, speak to all Washingtonians stop Seattle emerald degenerate super smart freaking idiot, who bring Seattle to number One Fascist City in America with Nazi Social Democrat Mafia with progressive Gestapo principle. That always choose dirty garbage rats that drink from fat cat toilet and who make your life miserable and brought us to total collapse. Enough is Enough.

* No. But this is literally the only coherent sentence in your statement.

From RC Smith, whose six paragraphs are almost entirely dedicated to the dangers of wireless communication, we have:

We're allowing industry controlled FCC to microwave poison our children, families, homes, workplaces...(google: microwave sickness webster's**). We must stop deployment of these deadly 5G cell tower transceivers (google: press democrat Verizon antennas***). Enough's Enough!****

** "a condition of impaired health reported especially in the Russian medical literature that is characterized by headaches, anxiety, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and difficulty in concentrating and by changes in the cardiovascular and central nervous systems and that is held to be caused by prolonged exposure to low-intensity microwave radiation." Not terribly illuminating, as the distance from, intensity of, and length of time of the exposure are not defined here.
*** I did this so you don't have to. Funnily enough, the article is about how the residents hated the large size and ugly appearance of the antennas, not the radio waves coming from them.
**** Hey, I know someone else who thinks that. You two should meet! OR MAYBE NOT. O.O

From the "Oh dear, there is way too much to unpack in here, and also, which state do you live in and what office do you think you're running for" files, I bring you Mohammad Said:

...As an immigrant myself Spanish speaking, I advocate to institute a guest worker program, so Latinos come to work in the US leaving their families behind given enough time to go back to visit. Amended Constitution to reform War Powers Act, National Guard under State control and Second Amendment as privilege and not right, foreign born American citizens able to run for president. Cut foreign aid, former President Obama gave Israel 38 billion dollars from tax payers in the next 10 years. No politician protested. Reign on military not treat them as sacred cow, need to finance our infrastructure.

From the "Someone needs a lesson in the definition of the word hubris" files, I bring you a very small excerpt of Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente:

I don't have to pretend to understand the minority issues because I am one. I don't have to pretend how to create jobs because I have created thousands...I don't have to pretend to understand international relations because I've traveled extensively and both lived and worked abroad.

And finally, the jewel in the crown comes from George H. Kalberer, who cannot see the tragic element of his ability to believe simultaneously that innocent civilians in America should not be unjustly slaughtered and that innocent civilians in Asia should be:

...Compel Body Cams on each and every Cop in America with strict Federal supervision - all Body Cam information stored on Federal Computers and available to FOIA requests - All Police Unions abolished by law - Each and every Cop involved in the death of an unarmed person must be immediately fired and banned from Police work for Life both going forward and retroactively*****.

...North Korea - Kick Jung's Ass with 30,000 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. China - Kick Xi Jinping's Ass, by Blockading, then Conquering China by firing the necessary number****** of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles to destroy all Nuclear Targets, all Air Defense Targets, all Military Targets including each and every Chinese ship, submarine and airplane launched from a safe distance with a goal of no loss of American Life and with no US ground troops used until after China's Unconditional Surrender.*******

***** How do you fire someone retroactively?
****** This suggests he actually did the calculation for the necessary number for North Korea! Well done Mr Kalberer! Although he may want to check what the actual US stockpile of Tomahawk missiles is, considering that less than 300 were used during the entirety of the 1991 Gulf war.
******* Will they be required to Surrender in ALL CAPS?


Key statement at the end of the pamphlet: "Statements are the opinions of the authors and haven't been checked for factual or grammatical accuracy by the Auditor's Office." NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.