The wisdom of Scott Adams

http://search.dilbert.com/search?w=the+natural

"P.S. Yes, I am in a bad mood this week. Why do you ask?" snaps the famous cartoonist.

Sometimes it takes losing your rag to get at a simple statement of the truth:

"The loser worldview is that whoever is causing the problem needs to fix it for you.

"The problem with the loser worldview is that in many cases the only person who CAN fix the problem is you, even if you had nothing to do with causing it. A winner in that situation fixes his own problem. A loser sits indefinitely waiting for others to solve it for him, even knowing that won't happen. [...]

"If others are at fault, and they have the ability and motivation to fix the problem for you, by all means take a run at it. But if the only person who can fix your problem is you, and you choose not to do it because the fault is with others, you have taken the loser path. You literally chose the path you know will fail because of some misguided sense of rightness."

- Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert)

And one way to assess solutions, he says in "The Joy Of Work", is to formulate them as newspaper headlines. For example, if you think what you need to do in your job is use your time more efficiently, the story would be "Cubicle Worker Becomes Billionaire Thanks To Careful Scheduling".

Brilliant.


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A lament for All Souls

This lament by Iain Dall MacKay was composed on hearing of the death of Patrick Og MacCrimmon - a family famous for its piping tradition whom I first saw mentioned in the writings of George Macdonald Fraser.

A commenter to the above notes that MacKay was mistaken, so that his friend heard the lament. A 1927 recording is here.

UPDATE (21 January 2021): Historical and musicological information here:

https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10170/148/MacDonald%2C%20John-Hugh.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

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Scotland's independence: like I said... (2)

"Labour is paying a heavy price for leading the recent campaign against independence, and persuading the Scottish people they’d be better off voting ‘No’. Its core voters in cities such as Glasgow and Dundee felt betrayed by the party standing on a platform with the hated Tories.

"Having done so, Labour is now held accountable for delivering the cross-party promises of further devolution made in that frantic fortnight before the vote. Every day those promises remain undelivered, the clamour grows that Miliband’s party has deceived Scotland into rejecting independence.

"Accusations of treachery and trickery have a special potency in Scottish history, from the betrayal of William Wallace to the massacre at Glencoe. Now, however unfairly, Scottish Labour finds itself cast as the perfidious enemy within, and its poll ratings have plummeted. On the latest projections, at least three-quarters of Labour MPs in Scotland would lose their Westminster seats to the SNP if the Election were held tomorrow – the equivalent of the Conservatives losing every one of their MPs in Essex and Kent.

 

"That would eliminate any chance of a Labour majority, and – one way or another – it would guarantee a second referendum on Scottish independence, which next time the SNP would comfortably win. Goodbye Union. Good luck, Scotland. And goodnight Labour."

 

- Damian McBride in today's Mail on Sunday

"I think it's coming anyway. The panic last-minute promises from HMG are a gift to the Yes camp, who can say, "Would they have offered these concessions if they didn't think we'd leave; will they keep their promises if we don't?"

"Then later, if the promises aren't kept, it'll be let's vote again, now we know; and if the promises are kept, then it'll be like one of those I-need-some-space "trial separations" that end in divorce proper.

"Salmond's done it, with the assistance of an incompetent and negligent Westminster."

- Sackerson, "Salmond has done it!" (9 September)

(Source: The Independent, 30 October 2014)

(Hat-tip for the heads-up to John Ward.)


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Impure as the driven snow: pollution in the Arctic

From Jason Box's Dark Snow Project.


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Eco light bulbs, uselessness of

 

(source)

The nights are drawing in and I switch on the lamp to continue reading. It gives just enough light to advertise its presence, but not enough for me to see the words in my book.

Great. I'm saving energy, but wasting what I'm using.

(pic source)

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The politicians' clock

(pic source)

Ed Miliband on abolishing the House of Lords:

"It's time to reform the way we're governed, it's time every part of our country had a voice at the heart of our politics, it's time to have a senate of the nations and regions which serves our whole country so that we can truly build a Britain that works for all and not just for some."

Where do politicians get their sense of time?

And how will this (latest) enormous change to the Constitution be decided? By a Parliamentary committee? On a whim of the Prime Minister - as with the attempted abolition of the Lord Chancellor? By Order in Council?

Whose country is it, anyway?


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FU Power

Prototype

Fradley University in Staffordshire recently announced an internal joint venture between its Sustainable Engineering Facility and its Green Genes Department.

Briefly, the university envisages a radically new form of power generation called the Fradley University Sustainable Eco Green Gender-Neutral Anti-Racist Diverse Power Initiative, snappily condensed to FU Power. It is based on genetically modified hamsters.

The Green Genes Department has been tasked with using the very latest genetic techniques to splice elephant genes into hamsters to create giant one ton hamsters, the biological engine of this exciting new energy source. David Cameron is said to be very interested.

The huge new eco-hamsters will be used in specially engineered power generating treadmills designed by the Sustainable Engineering Facility.

As the eco-hamster rotates the treadmill, it turns a high efficiency turbine to generate electricity, effectively converting hamster food into sustainable power. An interesting wrinkle in this ambitious project is to modify the hamster gut to tolerate low grade cellulose materials such as straw, dried vegetation and even old books.

“Apart from their main feed, we hope our hamsters will consume old books to help with our demanding new recycling targets,” confirms project director Dr Baz Broxtowe during our brief chat in the university dining hall.

“Books?” I ask.

“Yes books - absolutely. Of course we are thinking of books nobody reads these days such as most of the university library. Also books such as old Bibles, encyclopaedias and those great thick novels by Dickens and that Russian guy, Warren Peace.”

“What happens when the eco-hamsters get too old to work the treadmills?” I ask.

“Great question,” Dr Baz replies with enormous enthusiasm. “We intend to recycle them into Power Burgers for local schools. Should be a very acceptable addition to the school meal.

“I’m not sure if schools...” I begin but Dr Baz is on a roll.

“Because our current eco-hamsters are still far too small and much too dozy to work the treadmills we’ve pushed things along and already come up with a few recipes to ease the pressure on project timescales.”

“Really?” I reply, peering anxiously at what I assume is a beef burger.

“Yes. How’s yours?”

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