Keeping track, sort of...

I managed to finish off the rush job last night after closing the store, and got it to the client - along with about another 1400 words of "regular" work this morning (I managed to luck out this morning, as most of the new stuff was the same one-page certificate repeated for a bunch of individuals).

Then I wrote a bunch of invoices, overlooking one job (which I'll take care of tomorrow) as I proceeded with the next item on the plate.

By about 2 pm, I had made passable progress with that item, but not enough to quit for the day (that point is 800-1000 words in the future), at which point Galina called, asking me to come spell her at the store.

How can I say no?

One thing I'm noticing about spending the last couple of hours of the business day at the store: there are a significant number of Spanish-speaking customers who come in to buy phone cards, and pay for them with small change (kinda noticeable when making a $5 purchase).

I'm noticing this, but not quite grasping the significance, if any. It's almost as if buying a card with accumulated change makes it an unexpected benefit of everyday life. Me, I really don't remember the last time I raided my small change stash for anything; maybe it was for an "emergency" box of Pampers back in the day, or because I needed quarters to wash the car.

Just a data point, that's all.

Cheers...

Update from the face of the salt mine...

I've committed 3200+ words to phosphor today, which isn't all that much considering my output over the past couple of days, but enough to make me want to kick off for the rest of the night. I have 2,400 source words left for tomorrow, which I am sure I will be able to send off by the early afternoon.

* * *Galina is watching a SciFi channel show designed to get everyone hot and bothered about global warming. I find it notable that when Al Gore speaks on the subject, he keeps referring to the "best scientists" who are "highly respected" in their fields, as opposed to that old standby, "the scientific evidence." In the end, however, the issue is not whether the world is getting warmer, but whether human action is the major driving factor behind any such warming.

Here's an excerpt from a recent article at Canada Free Press:

"Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention," [said Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia.]

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?

No. Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.

Hearing heads like Gore's speak of "our ability to reverse the trend" reminds me oh, so much of those rationalists of yore, who imagined themselves to be at the pinnacle of progress, or of the head of the U.S. Patent Office about 100 years ago who was so impressed with the status quo that he seriously suggested closing down the office, as "everything that was useful had already been invented" (or words to that effect). (For that matter, listening to Gore, I am reminded of one Paul Erlich, who kept publishing books in the 1960s and 1970s telling us that we'd be totally out of resources by the 1980s and that millions of Americans would die in famines by the 1990s.)

In any event, hearing Gore speak about those "best scientists" reminds me of a fellow I used to work with at IBM when I was at Borland, who in a former life had been an executive for a tobacco company. Keep in mind that there was once a time when "the best medical doctors," using the words of my IBM contact, would earnestly attest to the harmlessness of smoking (I even have an advertisement - from the 40s? - where some quack is quoted as saying how Camel regular cigarettes were so much better for the throat than other brands; hint: "regular"="unfiltered").

Keep in mind, too, that no scientist in his or her right mind today - whatever the field - will make too much of a stink about the shoddy theories being bandied about to explain the results the political paymasters want: such action is known in some circles as "pissing in the soup." (And make no mistake: the flow of grant money does stop if the results aren't politically correct; a couple of NASA scientists found that out the hard way back in the early 90s.)

Isn't it curious, though, how we all been taught to see easily through the bought-and-paid-for scientific "arguments" in favor of a politically unpopular product (cigarettes), but seem to have been easily led to the point of giving credence to a politically popular theory (global warming, caused by humans) that is not one iota less bought-and-paid-for?

Cheers...