What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. And sometimes gives us super powers.

Exactly. Or at least doesn't kill us. FTR, Peace Corps for the germs and construction for the chemicals/asbestos/etc, in an "I'm already effed" kind of way.

Huh - just got an email from our new company president announcing that summer hours will start a month early this year. I'm assuming this means another year with no raises...

My eyeroll at the article is moderated because it seems clearly targeted at women who want a reaction from men. As such--you need to know your audience.

If it's men in general, that is.

I've had enough guys complain about "women" (i.e. not me in particular, because, seriously...) with short hair to not take it personally. Dude, you don't have to worry about how you're going to be controlling my head. You really don't.

I am in another place of craving pretty clothing. Both the other women in today's meeting were wearing pretty. One had dusty rose and lace, and the other had pirate pouffy sleeves. Even my satin skirt didn't abate my jealous coveting.

If I had to do the doppleganger FCM I'd probably chuck Bardem, just because I know less about him. But that's as far as I can go at this time.

Hate flip flops because they flap. The flatness doesn't inherently bother me--only the Chinese mary janes are so flat that I can't wear them. I do ballet flats all the time and that amount of flat is just fine.

We always called flip-flops flip-flops. Never thongs.

summer hours will start a month early this year

Heh. In my company, summer hours means "we're cutting your lunch hours and hinting real hard that we need as much overtime as we can guilt out of you". Damned hurricanes and tornadoes and wildfires.

Analysis of a hypothetical mission: Manned Missions to the Outer System

It’s the radiation constraint that pushes our propulsion technologies well past current capabilities, shortening acceptable trip times and demanding speeds that in our current context are almost surreal. Back in 1968, Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey sent the ‘Discovery 1′ mission to Jupiter without evident regard for radiation shielding, and young optimists like me in the audience assumed that the outer planets would be within reach some time in the early 21st Century. Now we’re talking about putting together a set of missions that vaguely resemble Clarke and Kubrick’s a century later than the film had supposed.

Not only about a century after 2001, but very expensive too:

All of this adds up to huge costs, some $4 trillion, which compares to a US GDP of $13 trillion in 2006 and a world GDP in the same year of $48 trillion. The five expeditions to the outer planets would clearly demand an international initiative, one that would cost 1.5 times the U.S. cost of World War II in 2006 dollars.

At the strategy meeting yesterday, we got some bullshit about how the new British government wants to cut salaries in the public sector, so we were already suspecting that the pay freeze would continue. (Nevermind that we're a commercial company in the States...the mothership is British and that's what counts!)

Hahaha! I so am those little old ladies in Hawaii. We`ve been wearing flip-flops for generations, we just call them slippers. Zori. My sister stopped wearing them because her husband hates the flappy noise, and I call that downright oppressive. Also, they don`t have to be flappy. But yes, I have indoor slippers and outdoor slippers, and there`s a transaction at the shoe bench just inside the house. The SO wears shoes in the house and I tried to stop him once and he was all, why, and I was all...because it`s Not Done. But you know, our house is all tile and all pet furred, and it`s his house so he can wear `em if he wants `em. He does most of the sweeping and mopping anyway.

Also, they don`t have to be flappy.

How are they not flappy? And still flip floppy?

Ok, there`s a technique, I dunno how to describe, where you mildly grip with your toes, and the whole sole comes up and down with your foot, and I dunno...but it`s quiet. I swears.