Blog? I Have A Blog?

Heap big malfunctions at Skunk Works North Campus -- if it really was a stardrive, we'd be on the edge of droppin' right out of warp -- resulting in long days and therefore about zero bloggage.

It all started Sunday, interrupting a fine day of attic-insulation with the Data Viking. So it's still chillier than I'd like in here (though less than it was) and DV had to stare over my shoulder for a couple of hours while I tried things that didn't solve the problem.

Three days later, we've found one thing that was a definite show-stopper but others remain. And each step takes an extra 30 - 40 minutes 'cos the "stardrive" has to cool down, access covers have to be unbolted, one does $WHATEVER, reassembles, and there's a 10-minute warm-up cycle. Are we havin' fun yet?

Meanwhile, Tam tells us the stock market's tanking. Cheerleaders keep claimin' the States have now got an "information economy" as opposed to making, oh, cars, water heaters and kitchen tables, or growin' tasty comestibles. Well, fine, as long as all the plates we like to call Global Civilization are spinnin' and balanced atop the poles, that does generate a lotta bucks but you know what's the real problem with it? When the plates fall, "information" is something you can't eat, drink or sleep in, on, under or with. You can't smoke it and it won't dance with you. It's...nothing. When the barbarians are at the gate, you cannot scare 'em off with software or algebra or ray-tracing. Even Archimedes, the original mad-scientist-with-a-ray-gun, had to have physical artifacts to put his cleverness to use.

So good luck, "information economy." Ghu, steady the hands of those who spin and balance the plates; 'cos it'll stink on ice if it all falls down. Gonna be mighty cold sleepin' on a park bench under a downy layer of information.

Oh, and the next nattering nitwit who tells me about the "free market" here in the States gets to write "Feds Step In, Stabilize Falling Market" on his own forehead 500 times with a fine ballpoint. "Managed" does not equal "free." Idiot.