Cookingisscienceiscookingisscienceiscookingis...

One of my favorite anecdotes was one she told to illustrate why it's important not to be too easily offended. Sometimes what seems like overt racism/sexism is simply poor social skills or awkward phrasing (we all suffer sometimes from foot-in-mouth syndrome). Case in point: she applied for a summer job at MIT in a physics lab as an undergraduate. She didn't have any specific lab experience, but the professor asked, "Well, can you cook?" When she said yes, he told her she was hired. Jackson, confused, replied, "To do what?" It was not, as it happens, to whip up some tasty grits for his breakfast each morning; rather, the professor assumed that if she could cook, she had the practical skills necessary to learn her way easily around the lab.

Yum: go read the rest!
And Happy Ada Lovelace day
--ml

Aaaagh

$170,000,000,000 with no strings attached.
$165,000,000 With tons of outraged: "They can't do THAT!"
but only after the fact.

Kids, it is a problem of scale. Don't worry about the missing bubblegum after the car disappeared.
--ml

Deep Thought #73/A-145

Why does this culture make us all so angry?
Is anger the only resolution?
--ml

Dum Luks Stockpot, politics

Deep Thought #47509

The world is a closed system.
As presently operated, there are too many people for it to sustain. A very few have considerably more than enough. Most have less than enough.
The solution is not to eliminate the excess.
The solution is to change the system to create a means to support all who are here.
And to increase that number only if the new system supports it.
--ml

Dum Luks Stockpot, economics, politics

Horton Hears a Jack Boot

Per McJoan at DailyKos, Scott Horton offers:

We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship.

I remain astonished that Shrub and Darth climbed into their helicopters and beat into the sunset on January 20th. The only time I wish to see either again is at their war crimes trial at the Hague.
--ml

Dum Luk's Stockpot, Politics, Scott Horton, John Yoo, G W Bush