Bitter cold is here Moisture is sucked from the air Nose bleeds run rampant
Monthly Archives: January 2013
Because There’s A Ryan Gosling Tumblr For Everything
Hey girl, you know you want to check out the programmer Ryan Gosling Tumblr.
My personal favorite: Hey girl, did you lose a timestamp? Because I’m pretty sure it’s DateTime.Now().
It should be criminal for someone to be as hot as Ryan Gosling. Seriously, dude, save some hansom for the rest of us.
This Looks Gorgeous
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is a new game with animation by Studio Ghibli. You may know Studio Ghibli as the creators of “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke. They are the most creative animation studio in the world. This game seems to be no exception to that. It is just beautiful. Alas, it appears to only be for the Playstation 3 so I will never play the game, but those of you with PS3 systems should definitely check it out. Studio Ghibli deserves all of your money.
Stay Classy, Virginia
Say you’re a Virginia state representative. Say you are a veteran of the civil rights movement. Say the first black President of the United States is being inaugurated to begin his second term. Say said inauguration happens to fall on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Say you get an invitation to said inauguration. Say, though, that your government is still in session. Do you go? Of course you do!
Say you’re the Virginia Republican party. Say that a Virginia state representative has left the state to attend the second inauguration of the first black President of the United States. Say that this event gives you the power to pass any legislation you damn well please. Say that you really want to gerrymander political boundaries to make it much easier for Republicans to get elected. Do you bring that bill up for a vote in said representative’s absence? Of course you do! Because you are dicks.
But you are no ordinary dicks. Your dickishness can only be described as otherworldly. So what else do you do? On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when a veteran of the civil rights movement is away, you adjourn your day by honoring Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.
South Carolina politely claps.
Snot Freezing Weather
Yesterday was cold. Today is snot freezing weather. That’s when you step outside and take your first breath of cold air and everything inside your nose freezes. It’s also when you know you really shouldn’t be outside.
This is really the first snot freezing event we’ve had this winter. Given that it’s already January 22nd, it’s well overdue. Not that I’ve missed it. It looks like tomorrow will still be cold but above snot freezing. One day isn’t so bad.
We’re still waiting for a major snow event. We’ve already broken the record for latest 1″ snowfall in a season set in 1899. Additionally, it’s been 330 days without a snowfall of at least 1″. One month to go before we’ve officially gone a whole year without an inch of snow. There’s a small chance of snow on Friday, but other than that the forecast is more of the same.
Something ain’t right folks. It seems like every other day we’re shattering 100 year weather records. The time to act is now.
Department Of What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
This one’s for the ladies.
Are you adventurous? Do you want to have a baby? Then you qualify to be the first one on your block to own your very own Neanderthal baby! Don’t let the Joneses beat you to it! Order yours today!
This is actually kind of interesting. Neanderthals are actually quite similar to us. It is possible that they can also be just as smart as us. Bring up a Neanderthal in present day and they would fit right in. Well, except for their looks. And there’s the problem. We already have plenty of other races for Republicans to fear. Do we really need another species?
If you can get your hands on a copy, read Issac Asimov’s “The Ugly Little Boy”. It’ll give you a pretty good idea of how this whole experiment would turn out if it were allowed to proceed. Without the time travel, of course.
Is There Really A Nursing Shortage?
I have always thought yes. This article claims that the nursing shortage is actually just a myth. There are a lot of things in the article that just don’t jibe, though.
One thing that is interesting is that 43% of newly licensed RNs haven’t found a job 18 months after graduating. This is interesting because it follows the same paradigm that is being reported in almost every other sector in America. Companies are looking for employees, but they’re not looking for employees without experience even though what they are looking for are entry level positions. This is likely just a short term correction due to the economy and I wouldn’t worry about this nearly as much as the author of the article seems to be.
The author then makes a claim that, even in the long run, there is not nursing shortage and that projections assume that nurses will perform the same functions that they do now. He believes that nurses will be replaced by robots. I have made the same argument when talking about replacing specialists like neurosurgeons, but I find it a bit unbelievable that the same can be said about nurses. Nursing is mainly about interaction. A lot can be inferred of a patient’s condition simply by observing and talking to the person. I believe that, one day, robots will be able to perform such functions as well, but that day is far into the future.
I think, if anything, the nursing shortage is going to be greater than expected for the same reason they author claims there will be no nursing shortage. The trend is certainly towards giving nurses more responsibilities, not less. Therefore, the projections, if anything, underestimate the amount of nurses that will be needed in the future.
It is possible, of course, that there is a bit of Dust Bowl economics going on here. Come to California! Jobs for all! Great wages! Then people go only to find that everyone else had the same idea and the wages are barely livable if you can even find a job. We certainly recently saw that with law school. The difference here is that law schools almost certainly knew about the poor job market yet were continuing to inform law students that things were just dandy and the evidence was there if law students did some research. The evidence seems to suggest that nurses will be in demand for quite some time and, thus, is a safe bet for now. Chances are that it too will eventually suffer from Dust Bowl economics in the future. That’s how job booms always seem to end up.
Movie Review: Zero Dark Thirty
Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars
Spoiler Alert: Osama Bin Laden dies at the end.
Book Review: The Fourth Hand by John Irving
Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 2/5 stars
This book is completely forgettable. I know this because I was 30% into the book before I realized that I had already read it.
No More Rapescans
Looks like the nude body scanners are going bye bye. Good riddance. I have no problem with some stranger seeing my junk, but the things just plain didn’t work. Wear certain types of clothes and you would have to be aggressively pat down even if the scanner didn’t show anything. The scanners were also quite easy to fool if you knew how. Talk about boondoggle.
They are not going away completely, though. They’re just switching companies. The new ones will be developed by L3 and have special software that will make the images less nudie. They’re also supposed to be more effective. The new ones will also not be x-ray technology so no more worries about radiation poisoning either. My guess is they found out the radiation levels from the Rapiscan devices were much higher than advertised.