Four Months Later...

It finally arrived! Without getting a shipping notice as they promised, so even when Wicked Lasers finally finishes they still messed up. But, in any case, it's here, and in working order.

Now all I need is a pit of sharks and a spy to lower into the pit...

Libertarianism

A brief and random thought. Plato proposed that the best system of government is a benevolent tyrant, to which I would also attach 'competent' as a prerequisite as well. It occurs to me that libertarianism, when you boil it down to its ultimate precepts, is a call for exactly this situation. The smaller you make government, the less it is able to restrain the actions of its citizens. If you place all the decision-making power in the hands of individuals without effective oversight, then inevitably some people will start asserting control over the system, via economic or physical means. Libertarianism thus boils down to a thoroughly unsubstantiated belief that people who achieve power in an unregulated system will exert that power benevolently.

Wicked Lasers sucks surprisingly hard

I ordered a Spyder Pro Arctic laser from Wicked Lasers on June 15th. It is now September 24th. They have promised about eight times that I would have it within a week or two in the intervening time. Most recently, they posted a shipping schedule on their website promising that anyone within various order ranges would get their lasers by specific dates. The date my laser was due according to that schedule was September 13th.

This has without a doubt been the worst customer service experience of my life. They have a 'live chat' link on their website that just has you fill out an email comment card. Emailing them gets a canned response and then maybe if you're lucky and you wait an extra week someone will eventually write a one-line reply saying "It's coming!" Would I buy from these clowns again? Hell no. The laser looks awesome on the website, but you know what? If I can't get my physical hands on it, then screw how it looks on the website.

Photovoltaic reactor?

Random thought of the day. If you stuck photovoltaic cells all over the inside of a nuclear reactor, how much additional energy would you capture? That would be converting the output energy directly into electrical power, whereas the current design has to capture the output energy as heat going into water, then transfer that energy through conduction to another pipe of water, then transfer that energy through mechanical means (turning a turbine) into electrical energy. It seems like photovoltaics might capture a worthwhile amount of energy.

Sporadic, Ain't I?

Well, it's been quite a while since I posted - almost a year, in fact. And since I haven't linked anyone to this place, I'm quite unsurprised it's gone unread. But here's my update, anyhow.
Governor Lynch remains the most popular politician in New Hampshire by a long degree, with positive approval ratings even among avowed conservatives; notably, his ratings leapt up and stayed there after he appointed Kelly Ayotte to be Attorney General, which in a single stroke nullified the anti-choicers (because she would appeal an anti-choice law up to the Supreme Court), while his public reasoning didn't cost him pro-choice support (because no one else could have been approved by the Executive Council, and because she's been competent and honest at the job so far) and won him more moderate credentials (by pointing out that one disagreement didn't disqualify her).
And of course the fact that he's been able to stand back and let the Republican legislators assault each other didn't hurt, nor his quick and effective response to the flooding emergency so soon after Katrina left everyone thinking a lot about disaster recovery. I'm not expecting to be back in New Hampshire this year (unless the economy *really* melts down or something), so I made a cash contribution in place of going back to work for the next campaign. He's not facing any serious opposition yet anyhow, as so far every prominent Republican leader in the state has been unenthusiastic about going up against him and his 70% approval.
I've also made a donation to Jon Tester, who's running for Senate in Montana - I guess I just like getting in early for these guys who run underdog campaigns against well-financed but ethically-challenged opponents, huh? Tester's opponent, one Conrad Burns, is toupee-deep in the ongoing Jack Abramoff criminal-lobbyist scandal, and right now Montana is looking like a top-tier pickup opportunity. Tester is competing in the primary against a guy who's more connected to the Washington set than to Montana, so I'm favoring him.
Work is going pretty well. The ethics code is being revised, and there's some new stuff about political contributions in it - but on clarification, I'm safe with any of the candidates I'm likely to get interested in. Good people, intelligent and good-faith management, amazingly successful company, all of that stuff keeping me happy with it - and if there were something I wasn't happy with, I actually have the rare situation of being fairly confident that I could bring it up and have it addressed, so don't expect to see much negativity showing up here about work. Plus the whole nondisparagement clause, so even if I *wasn't* pleased with something I wouldn't be posting it on the Internet anyhow.
On a sadder note, our cat, after a long and mostly active life, died. I don't really care to go into more detail.

Moved

Well, I've moved. It's a nice apartment, and I've got pretty good furniture in it. There were a few unpleasant surprises - the wall jack I was planning to hook a TV up to turns out to be antenna-only, no cable, and the train is close enough to hear toot... but not *right* nearby like most of the other places I looked. But, on the plus side, I was able to get my cable internet hooked up already, and have my primary computers networked.

I start with my new job on Monday. It should be a good place to be; the pay is good, they're very clearly focused on keeping employees happy, and they're very successful. It's just a bit unsettling, of course - big change, new direction in life, cliche, cliche, cliche. But still all true.

Our cat is going to be absolutely lost for a while. She liked to lay down next to me in the evenings when I was on the computer - as I inevitably was. She liked the hum of the fans, the shifting screen, the click of the keys, and the easy access to petting via sticking her head over the keyboard until I obliged or pushed her back. At least, those are my suppositions. She's never been very communicative.

Moving

So now I'm in the early stages of the moving process. An apartment is in the process of being rented, we're going to get a U-Haul to carry stuff down, and I'd better get cracking on bringing down my still-packed stuff from moving back here last May. It's not too bad - just a lot of boxes of books.

Anyone who knows me knows what the decor for my new apartment will be. Shelves on all spaces not otherwise occupied. Books-a-plenty. And I'll once again sit down and get them all sorted into proper order. It sounds boring, I know, but there's just something pleasing about having them all in their proper order - for the first time since moving in down in Baltimore.