Scientists who can only get grant money if they go with the established line about climate change. Environmental groups who are able to raise more money if they can instill a sense of crisis.

I've known and worked with both scientists in environmental fields and environmental groups. They ain't rollin'.

ION - cat vs. bunny: [link]

Has anyone here coordinated a big office move? If so, I would happily take any advice or anecdotes on what to make sure I have/do, things that will come up that I wouldn't have thought of, etc. And if you had to do a budget for it, advice on that, as well.

It wasn't THAT big an office (about 20 people total) but I did coordinate it.

My one stroke of genius was to get the floorplan and number the rooms. Then we put big numbered stickers on every-blessed-thing that was going over there. EVERY thing. Then I put copies of the numbered floorplan all over the place. And great big number signs in each of the rooms. I was a reall little PitA about the stickers.

The solitary item that got misplaced was a printer that Beth (that ditz) had to spend half our first day looking for. She had NOT PUT A NUMBER ON IT because, and I still remember this vividly, "Everyone knows what my printer looks like."

Other than Beth, we resumed full operation the very next day.

Aims, I was the deputy for my department of 12 people for a big-ass office move that involved more than 100 people. The main person was the building manager (who was awesome). My tips include: change makes people wig out, so you will do a lot of hand-holding; plan "getting rid of crap from your files" days well in advance - bring out the shredder and make it a party from 3-5 on a Friday; provide boxes and labels - one color label for each person or some scheme like that (we had numbers - every single person in the move had a number); make a plan for plants and fragile stuff - a holding area where they can be placed temporarily; have ONE person, preferably IT, move the computers and phones, and give VERY detailed instructions about how they should be left by the staff; communicate a LOT with your staff so they feel confident that you are on top of things and wig out less.

I don't know anything about getting new furniture, sorry.

Fortunately, we have the new furniture (mostly) taken care of - donations from the county. The rest we'll buy used.

I am printing out those posts and putting them in my move folder.

Thanks so much!!

Is it possible to do a floor plan of the new space and figure out which furniture will go where, so you know what you need, and you don't end up with credenzas in the hallway?

MSM is MainStream Media, right? Because I've done work tangentially related to HIV prevention, I always read it as Men who have Sex with Men.

Hence the claim that Al Gore has gotten rich(-er, actually) since his political days.

I was skimming too quickly, and read these together as some sort of "Al Gore has sex with men for money...FOR THE ENVIRONMENT" claim, and wow did my eyebrows go up.

But, y'know, if he does? And it works? (Or, heck, even if it doesn't work), go him!

Is it possible to do a floor plan of the new space and figure out which furniture will go where, so you know what you need, and you don't end up with credenzas in the hallway?

Yep. I'm getting my graph paper tomorrow!! WOOHOO!!

This is depressing: Shiller: House Prices Still Way Too High

Check out the graph. From another blog:

The "Shiller" part of the index comes from its co-producer Yale Professor Robert Shiller. He has an index of American home prices going back to 1890. According to this index, the housing bubble we just experienced was by orders of magnitude worse than any other we have ever seen in this country. Moreover (you better be sitting) housing prices have a lot further to drop, and I mean a LOT further, before returning to the trend line. He believes we are only halfway back to fair value and usually during a correction we overshoot fair value.

When Will Housing Bottom?

This headline sounds like something I might make up:

Scientists To Tape Magnets To Crocodiles To Confuse Them

(This link is to the HuffPost summary. The actual headline is less fun.)