Something something Scott Adams something

Scott Adams, creator of the great comic strip Dilbert, is sort of a prick. He is a horrible boss, and recently penned a charming misogynist rant comparing women to children begging for candy. Now we learn he likes to bash critics on message boards under a pseudonym.

Two things I forgot about The Cosmic Computer

A: Wow, did the Federation go in for automation in a big way.

B: There's a wrench wench! She doesn't really get to do anything but she exists and is good at what she does.

Backstage at Astounding

"[...] never go backstage! Never go to their offices and talk to them. You’ll find out!"

On having tucked The Avatar into my book bag to reread it

It's distilled essence of Bad Poul Anderson fiction of the 1970s....

Nuanced subject lines are the best subject lines

David "Axis of Evil" Frum goes Commie:

Especially after 2000, incomes did not much improve for middle-class Americans. The promise of macroeconomic stability proved a mirage: America and the world were hit in 2008 by the sharpest and widest financial crisis since the 1930s. Conservatives do not like to hear it, but the crisis originated in the malfunctioning of an under-regulated financial sector, not in government overspending or government over-generosity to less affluent homebuyers. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bad actors, yes, but they could not have capsized the world economy by themselves. It took Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and — maybe above all — Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s to do that.

In the aftermath of the catastrophe, the free-market assumption and expectation that an unemployed person could always find work somewhere has been massively falsified: at the trough of this recession, there were almost 6 jobseekers in the US for every unfilled job. Nothing like such a disparity had been seen since the 1930s. The young faced the worst job odds. But some of the most dismal outcomes were endured by workers in their 50s, laid off from middle-class jobs likely never to see middle-class employment again.

[snip]

Speaking only personally, I cannot take seriously the idea that the worst thing that has happened in the past three years is that government got bigger. Or that money was borrowed. Or that the number of people on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid increased. The worst thing was that tens of millions of Americans – and not only Americans – were plunged into unemployment, foreclosure, poverty. If food stamps and unemployment insurance, and Medicaid mitigated those disasters, then two cheers for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid.

Thank goodness Frum had to go abroad to find a place where his ideas could be safely tested at reduced risk to Canada (Unless Harper gets a majority, in which case we're fucked).

Nicked from Elfs

Do Scanners Live in Vain?

Blame Will Baird for pointing this out to me.

Despite health challenges, OSC still writing essays at World Watch

In fact, I see two recentish essays and I see no sign that his difficulties have in any way impacted the clarity of his vision.