Day 274 - Do I Have Homework Now?

July 8, 2011

So I might have to read this textbook this summer. I'm actually confident I don't have to read it, but I think it might be a good idea if I re familiarize myself with science.  It's been a while.  We were so close for so long.  And then we just kind of drifted apart.  And now we might be back together.  There's just so much to process.  

Science is making a lot of promises right now.

This news was kind of unexpected and may have led to some Chateau St. Michelle, 

which made this sound way better than it actually was.

Linkage:

Space Shuttle: 135 Launches in 135 Seconds

CNN cut all the Space Shuttle launches into one video.

100 Great Things About America

from CNN Money

Rob Delaney Jumps Off The Manhattan Bridge

The story is in the title. 

Save the James Webb Space Telescope

From Wired

 We have already spent a ton of money on this, and now we're thinking of bailing out and learning nothing.  Hubble seems like a pretty convincing argument for funding discovery. So is this argument.
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My Summer at an Indian Call Center

Call-center employees gain their financial independence at the risk of an identity crisis. A BPO salary is contingent on the worker's ability to de-Indianize: to adopt a Western name and accent and, to some extent, attitude. Aping Western culture has long been fashionable; in the call-center classroom, it's company policy. Agents know that their jobs only exist because of the low value the world market ascribes to Indian labor. The more they embrace the logic of global capitalism, the more they must confront the notion that they are worth less.


At the end of each training day, the Qualis would drop me back at the Toyota showroom. From there I would walk down a narrow, unpaved lane and turn onto an even narrower alley, just wide enough (I learned the hard way) for a human to squeeze past a cow.

Like most BPO agents from out of town, I rented a room in a workers' hostel. For the equivalent of $80 per month, I got a nine-by-six cell—a plywood double bed, a ceiling fan, and two windows covered in newspaper—plus two hot meals a day