As Cleo points out, velociraptors were chicken-sized and feathered.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Monday, January 13, 2025
Bannon vs. Musk
“I Made It My Personal Thing To Take This Guy Down”: Bannon Vows To Keep Musk out of White House
Steve Bannon has warned that he will do everything in his power to keep Elon Musk out of the White House, as the fallout from the H-1B debate over Christmas continues to spread.
“I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day,” Bannon said, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
“He will not have a blue pass to the White House[;] he will not have full access to the White House[;] he will be like any other person.”
“He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Bannon continued. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it; I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.”
The newspaper notes that the “center of the clash” between Bannon and Musk is the issue of H-1B visas, but also Musk’s role in the incoming Trump administration.
“The problem is that the techno-feudal lords use them [H-1B visas] to their advantage[,] and people are furious,” Bannon says.
“76% of engineers in Silicon Valley are not Americans. It’s a central part of taking back our economy. They are the best jobs, and blacks and Hispanics do not have access to them.”
Bannon said that he had been a supporter of Musk when he made a donation of $250 million to support Trump’s election campaign, but the H-1B debate had made him realise Musk cannot be allowed to pursue his vision of “techno-feudalism.”
Well, well, well.
I'm not a fan of Steve Bannon, and while I'm firmly a Musk skeptic, I don't have nearly this much animosity against him.
the Q-tip
Trivia: a cotton swab or pad is called la ouate in French (pronounced "waht"). So a Q-tip is called a un bâton/bâtonnet ouaté, i.e., a "cottoned stick/sticklet."
trustworthiness
Remembering those bygone days when you could turn to Twitter for fast and trustworthy information on a rapidly developing story like:
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) January 11, 2025
- The reseviors were all full
- Hunter's laptop
- Covington Catholic
- White supremacist at Youngkin rally
- Border Control whips
- Jussie… https://t.co/t3zsVB6cwf
Pardon the goofy typos.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
job-status update
Tomorrow is Monday. I have to visit the building where I work/worked tomorrow to pick up a new set of contact lenses (and that'll be the last time I visit a glasses/contacts shop run by a "sus" old man). I also promised my Korean coworker that I'd stop by our office to visit him. With his contract that lasts until June, he'll be working by himself since my boss and I both no longer have a reason to come in to the office (but more on that in a bit).
The boss called me a bit after noon today to say that he didn't get to talk with the CEO, but he did talk with one of the CEO's underlings from HR. The CEO, said the underling, was indisposed with the flu (convenient), so whatever the boss had to say could be said to the underling. The boss replied that he wanted to speak with the CEO directly, but he did end up saying a thing or two to the underling, anyway.
Upshot: according to the underling, even if we get a new contract for six months, we can no longer work in our office in Daechi-dong. The boss said fine, and that we could work from home (I wince as I imagine all the phone calling* going back and forth). Six months of that, then done. So this week, it's likely I'll be going to the office to box my shit up, then on the weekend (because the boss, who has his pride, doesn't want to be seen moving out), we'll use the boss's newly repaired SUV to transport everything to our respective residences.
Of course, we still don't know whether we'll secure a six-month contract. I imagine the boss will meet with the CEO... soon. I'd like to say this week, but who knows with that man? He's a flake who makes decisions only at the last second, and he ignores communications that are sent to him. Whatever. This will all soon be over.
__________
*Or Zooming.
signs and wonders
So James Woods’ house miraculously survived after left-wingers said it burning down was a sign from God.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) January 10, 2025
So what’s the sign now? Will we get any updates?
Jack Smith resigns
Good riddance, Jack Smith. Unfortunately, he leaves behind a corrupt DOJ that's more intent on witch-hunting than on doing its actual job. There will be other Jack Smiths.
Don't Cry Cryo
You need to watch this to the end.
Credit: John from Daejeon. "Peaceful bilss"?
You'll notice that the typed-in title for the thumbnail includes a vocative comma, which means the title is a comment being addressed to "Cryo," which in this context is a pun on cryogenics and crybaby. But the vocative comma appears nowhere else in the video, meaning "Don't cry" isn't being addressed to anyone, and it's why I didn't include the comma in my post title.
the thing I haven't written about
Back when I wrote this post, I said parenthetically:
(If we get a contract by this Friday, I'll stay.)
Well, we don't have a contract, but the boss told me on Friday that our illustrious CEO's secretary had finally contacted him, and the CEO wants to meet directly with my boss on Sunday (technically, today as I write this). The boss does better with the CEO when they meet face to face because the CEO lacks the spine to act against the boss when they're in front of each other. So there's a chance the boss might wrest another six months from the CEO, in which case I guess I'll be going back to work, as if nothing happened, for another six months. But for me, it'll only be six months. The company obviously doesn't want us, so why stay? And I don't want the boss to use this probable reprieve as an excuse not to do anything about making his new company while we work on finishing the current series we're working on.
We'll have to talk about all of this on Monday (although I expect the boss will be calling me Sunday night to talk about how his meeting with the CEO went), but my intention is to quit the company after we do our six months. And if the boss doesn't have a company for me to join this year, then I guess I'll figure things out on my own. I'm also a bit annoyed that, if I do go back to work, I'll have to put self-education off another few months.
It's always like this, every year or every two years: our team gets threatened with extinction, and then there's an eleventh-hour save. It's frankly no longer worth it. I want stability, not the sword of Damocles. Expect more news soon.
Oh, yes, one more thing: it occurs to me that I've been with this company for ten years (longer than with any previous company), and I don't think they've published more than one set of textbooks that I've worked on during that time. And that set apparently got seized by a Korean R&D team and reworked into something both unrecognizable and retarded.
the -8ÂşC, 9K walk
I took my first walk along the Tan Creek in a while: the old 9K route out to the Han River confluence and back. There's a ton of construction going on there now, not just that silly off-ramp that they've been building for over a year. It seems they're adding some kind of short access road at about creek level, plus another car/truck bridge across the creek (with space for the creek's water to flow through beneath). The whole thing is ugly, and by the time it's done, traffic will have built up to the point where whatever problem they'd been trying to solve is no longer solved. Just like in the DC area when they try to widen, say, Route 495 by adding one lane in each direction: traffic is constricted for years, and the pressure continues to build. Then one day, the new lanes are opened, and there's a momentary sigh of relief... until people realize that, with ever more cars on the road, the extra lanes don't do anything to improve circulation. If there were some magical way to—poof—create new lanes in an instant, our problems would be solved. But that's only in my dreams.
Anyway, there's a lot of ugly construction along the Tan Creek, but I like the new biking/walking path they've set up for people going east along the Han toward Hanam City. Not much has changed for people going left and west along the Han, toward Yeouido and eventually the Gayang Bridge, then just past that to the Ara Canal, which leads one to Incheon.
No angina tonight. Not a twinge. It helps that I've been sort-of fasting for the past few days (smoothie + a spoonful of almond butter, and nothing else all day), and I'll be continuing right up until my appointment this coming Friday. The hospital sent me their automatic patient-history questionnaire about my recent BP and pulse, which is the first in a series of text messages they'll be sending over the next few days to prep me for the hospital visit. I'll get reminders of what appointments I have, where they are, and at what time they'll be; I'll also get a QR code so I can enter the hospital on the day of my appointment.
I don't expect my A1c to be very good; I was 5.9 last time, four months ago, but I may be over 7.0 right now since I went a little off the chain both during my walk and between the walk's halves (Thanksgiving). I've been tracking my numbers on a Google spreadsheet, using a formula that takes daily glucose numbers and converts them into A1c results, but I wonder how accurate the formula is (as well as how accurate all of my home equipment is—BP, blood sugar, etc.). I'm going to ask the docs whether I can get scanned for blockages again, and I'll also ask them a somewhat unrelated question about coming in for a colonoscopy—something you're supposed to do when you turn 50, which makes me five years late.
It was about -8ÂşC (18ÂşF) tonight, which turned out not to be terribly cold, but I'd bundled up, anyway, wearing my winter vest under my down coat, plus two layers of gloves, a scarf, and two layers of hats: a beanie with a balaclava over it (here's a pic of a balaclava... better that than a dickie). I was cozy the entire time, probably because I kept my hands in my coat pockets, and probably because the cold wasn't really that extreme.
As long as this weather holds, there will be many more winter walks to come.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
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