Obsidian Wings

your price of gas open friday thread

by liberal japonicus

Over here, I don't think much about the price of gas. No really critical uses of the car, and gas is sold in liters. For me, there is some sort obsfucation constant that is added whenever you translate something from imperial to metric. "It's 39 degrees celsius" and I yawn. 'It's 103 degrees Farenheit' and I think 'geez, that's hot!'

For gas, that's exacerbated by the rule of thumb (i.e. lazy) conversions I use. So I figured that my liter was roughly half a gallon, give or take. Hell, maybe my liter is half a gallon, and everyone's liter is different. Thank god for post-modernism!

Anyway, here, a liter of gas is 145 yen and is right now 79 yen= $1, which makes that $1.88/liter. However the quick and dirty conversion that most folks do here is 100 yen to the dollar, even though that 80 yen range has been going on since before the tsunami. So my crappy 2l=1 gallon conversion, along with my lazy yen to dollar then gets you $2.90 a gallon. Hey, I can live with that, it's not like it's California, right?

However, the discussion about $5 a gallon gas made me re-realize (i.e. look up) that 1 gallon is actually 3.785 liters, so doing it all by the book, you get

.....

.....

.....

1 x $1.88 x 3.785 which gives you $7.11 a gallon. 

Geez, that's expensive!

So now I'm left with the question of whether this arose because I'm just lazy at conversions or if this was a psychological denial mechanism. I suppose both things could be true. So talk about that, or the price of gas, or anything else that metaphorically fills your tank.

Cue the HUZZAHS! and the urine tests

by Doctor Science

It is an exciting week Chez Science, because Sprog the Elder is about to start a FULL TIME JOB. WITH BENEFITS. IN HER CHOSEN FIELD. (Said field being "library and book work". Because "best-selling novelist" isn't something a sensible person *counts* on ...)

It's taken almost a year and half of temporary work, part-time work, and answering ad after ad after ad. And living at home again, because she couldn't afford anything else.

We are *so* relieved and proud of her -- the number of her friends who've found full-time employment is shockingly low. Many have fled to grad school, hoping to ride out the recession without going (further) into debt peonage. It's terribly hard on an entire generation: Sprog read Krugman's End This Depression Now! and it actually *cheered her up*, because "he talks about reality as we know it, instead of brushing it off as Kids These Days whining."

For this job, as for the other full-time (but temporary) job she's had, she had to have a pre-employment drug screening.

The Dropsical Woman by Gerrit Dou. Both Western and Traditional Chinese medicine stressed that the doctor should observe the patient closely, but in practice it was impossible for a male physician to directly observe much about a female patient's body. Urine was a much safer target for medical observation.

I hadn't realized how normal these things had become -- I thought of them as being only for certain jobs, like working in a hospital or operating machinery. My husband and I have just been doing consulting or contract work for the last decade or so, and we haven't encountered anything like this. He has to have a background check every year, because he does part-time work as a coach working with young people, but he's never been tested for drugs.

In googling about for info, I am informed that this practice is because

Alcohol and drug abuse creates significant safety and health hazards and can result in decreased productivity and poor employee morale. It also can lead to additional costs in the form of health care claims, especially short-term disability claims.

However, the tests don't screen for alcohol, which in my experience is far more likely to be a problem in the workplace than other, illegal drugs.

So I have some questions for those of you who are more in touch with the workforce than I

1. How long has this been going on?
2. What do you think are the major forces driving it: pressure from customers or clients? Liability? Pressure from worker's comp or medical insurance companies? Government pressure?
3. Do you think it makes any difference? Does it really reduce problems in the workplace?
4. Does it actually screen many people out? Is this "Drug Testing Theater", like the TSA's Security Theater? -- and if so, who is the audience?

anti and pro military on the left (retry)

by liberal japonicus

This weekend, I was watching the internet thru my new iphone, which was a bit like taking in a baseball game thru a knothole in the fence. You can catch the basic action, but you don't see the whole game.

So it was with the second campaign of the CT-LGM blog war*. The first, which could be termed The battle of Conor's bluff, was part of a larger war and centered around whether one should vote for Obama despite the use of drones or make a statement and vote for Gary Johnson. The second campaign, The fight of Navy's need, took place over the weekend. (I hope those attempts at factual restatements don't insult anyone on either side) In both campaigns, some current and former ObWi commenters were part of the troops arrayed. This post is not about either of those fights (so I'm not linking to them, though going to CT and LGM should be sufficient) but about what I think is the larger question behind them. If that intrigues, check below the fold.

*I should add that whether or not is was a 'war' is questioned by some of the participants.

A master debater

By liberal japonicus

The title is a hangover from the detour into Portnoy's complaint. I didn't see it and I'm now at a a retreat with students. I caught a small bit of one commentator saying that Romnet behaved like an alpha male and that this might hurt him. Given the amount of testosterone that gets tossed aroun here, I'm not sure if we will any dent, but have at it.

a shiny toys recommendation friday open thread

by liberal japonicus

I just got the ipad app for Age of Bronze graphic novel. I've mentioned Eric Shanower's graphic novels before, they are stunning and well worth a read, but an enhanced iPad app has the strips colored by John Dallaire and a hyperlinked reader's guide by Thomas Beasley. The app is 99 cents and then you buy the individual issues. The first 4 issues are out, and they are a joy.

Of course, being an open thread, not just apps, but any shiny toy is fair game. And if that doesn't satisfy, throwing your drink across the lawn and telling all the damn kids to get off of it is fine. And if you need some background music, well here you go.

A different green

by Doctor Science

In every wood in every spring

there is a different green.

-- J.R.R.Tolkien

This is a section of a picture I took last week on my morning walk:

I used an Olympus D-510 camera, which is really pretty old at this point.

What I was hoping to capture here were the many fine shades of green in the treeline. The nearest trees are along a stream, and the willows really stood out to my eyes as being different from the other trees. The willows are the short trees with a kind of blurry look because their leaves are so very small. They also looked a trifle duller or more olive than the other trees: their leaves are also on the greyish side, and they generally change color early.

So why are all the greens in this photo so dull or brownish to my eye? Is it something about

• My monitor? Each monitor is different, though I can look at plenty of other landscapes and see all the green my eyes desire.

  

  Eliot Porter, Moss-Covered Log.
• My eyes (or maybe my visual cortex)? I know that I have a very strong preference for green, it "stands out" for me more than it does for at least some other people. Not counting my husband, who is slightly colorblind: he can *see* red and green, but he doesn't *notice* them, they're kind of dull, nearly-brown colors for him. Among other things, this means that the classic philosophy question, "When I say 'red', am I having the same sensation as when you say 'red'?" has a known answer for us: "No."

  ...and now I just spent a bunch of time unsuccessfully looking for an online test for tetrachromacy to give the Sprogs.

• My crappy camera? This strikes me as extremely likely. Does anyone have a suggestion for a *good* point-and-shoot digital camera that costs under $100? No point spending more while Moore's Law is in force. Also, I'm pretty terrible at taking pictures these days, because I need separate glasses for near and distance vision -- so I can look at the world, or look at the camera's screen, but not both.

Tango Bal (1913), by Sonia Delaunay. At Centre Pompidou, Paris, but not pictured online.