Anyone remember Pepsigate on ScienceBlogs?

Since we discontinued the ads on this site, I (and other bloggers) get lots of promotional crapola from people who want to put them back on — I will not. I thought this invitation from sourceglobalmedia.com was, well, unethical.

Please let us know pricing and options to place content relevant on your website but would have 1 link to Gaming Industry website. Further details:

● We will reimburse yourselves for a one off administration fee in uploading and maintaining the content on your website as long as the site is still live.

● Within the body of the content Please do not suggest the article is paid / sponsored / advertorial in the content

● We will provide you with the article that will include citations and images, as to make the content with editorial value, we request that all these are kept in.

Please come back to me and we can provide both content and payment.

It’s that second clause in particular. They’ll provide content, but we are required to pretend it is our own original work, and not mention that it was paid advertising. We won’t do that. That’s sleazy.

If you suddenly see posts written in an entirely different style, babbling about my amazing scores in fast twitch video games, you’ll know I sold out. The legal debts must be getting to me.

100% ready and champing at the bit

I am organized! Now ready to face the spring semester, although I’ve also learned that I’m apparently up to be the biology discipline coordinator*, so I may not be as ready as I think. I got a lot done today, at least, and will be able to walk brightly into my new classes, not looking at all like a pole-axed cow.

Tonight I’m going to take a deep breath and relax by going to the movie. Little Women is playing, which I hear is very good, and also Dr Doolittle, which is getting panned. I think I’ll go to the one that I might have a chance of enjoying.

*There are no perks at all associated with being the discipline coordinator, not even a fancy hat. Maybe my first agenda item as I rise to power is to propose the creation of a fancy hat, to make it all worthwhile.

I have to go back to work today!

I know it’s a holiday, but it’s also the day before classes resume, so I have to go in and make sure everything is ready and perfect. It’s also my last day to work in the lab before an unusually hellish week — we’ve got job candidates coming into town to interview for our ecology position, and I’m on the committee doing phone interviews for our biochemistry position. It’s going to be a killer couple of days, but the good news is that this first week should be the worst week.

Space Force must be suitably armored

You may have heard that the Space Force has announced what their uniforms will look like — boring bog-standard army camo. Many people are mocking this decision, and rightly so. There is only one acceptable choice for the Space Force uniform, and this is it:

Obviously, that’s an officer’s uniform…I imagine there will be variants for various ranks, and something less intimidating for the privates. Some kind of simple armor, perhaps? A helmet with a slit for the eyes? I’ll leave the design for the lesser ranks to others.

Uh-oh. Drexel is going to get a shake-up

This is not supposed to be possible. How do you redirect grant funds to strip clubs?

The former chair of the Drexel University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering spent more than $96,000 on area strip clubs and sports bars, in addition to $89,000 on food and iTunes purchases, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.

A university audit showed the longtime professor, who spent nearly three decades at the school, made numerous, unapproved purchases between 2010 and 2017 that he tried to be reimbursed for through research grants, according to state prosecutors.

My grants have all had long, detailed breakdowns of the proposed budget; the awards are then salted away by the university under multiple accounts with designated purposes, like “salaries”, “equipment”, “supplies”; there is a university administrator who monitors everything. I don’t have a checkbook that accesses the accounts. When I want to use my money to buy something, I go through university purchasing, which can draw on the funds, and they buy it for me. Last year I got a new incubator, which was justified under my proposal, and then I realized I needed a second one, which was not, and had to write an explanation to the administrator explaining why I wanted to move funds from one category to another to purchase this equipment. When we had the HHMI grant, we were frequently juggling the budget — this category came in under budget, this one looks like it was going to be a bit over — and we’d have to contact the Howard Hughes institution to clear it.

So this guy had an engineering grant, and he was able to blithely shuffle money from it into entertainment expenses? Unspecified entertainment expenses, since he wasn’t going to be able to invoice a local strip club, and just redirected reimbursements straight into his pocket to the tune of $185,000?

Unreal. I predict that a horde of accountants are going to crack the whip over every department at Drexel, because this is the kind of sloppy management that gets grants yanked.

Oh, yeah, and that department chair has already been fired, and is probably going to jail.

The madness is setting in

I keep looking outside and thinking, “It’s not too bad yet, I can probably make it to the lab and back”, so I may just make one quick trip outside of my shelter. Before I’m snowed in. To check on the spiders. It’s only about 150 meters. I could make it.

If you don’t hear from me again later this morning, send a search party.

Hatches battened

It’s -22°C out there, and I decided to take a brisk walk to the grocery store to stock up on essential staples, since there’s a major winter storm on the way, hitting us around 8am tomorrow and escalating to a blizzard on Saturday. I grabbed some red beans and brown rice and garlic and coffee, so I can survive the weekend with all the essentials. I will not be leaving my house for any reason from this point on until Sunday: the cat and I will be hunkered down with the shutters and blinds closed and some warm blankets and hot beverages, and we are prepared for anything. I’ve got bread and cheese in case the power goes out, even.

I’m so prepared that I’m going to be disappointed if this one fizzles out.

Mainly, though, since classes start up again on Tuesday I’m going to use this time-out to get a leg up on Genetics and Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development, the two courses that will probably eat me alive this semester.

A major award!

It’s indescribably beautiful!

It was a stunning prize notification to arrive in my email this morning. There’s even a press release!

Pharyngula has been selected for the 2020 Best of Morris Award in the Business Services category by the Morris Award Program.

Each year, the Morris Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Morris area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2020 Morris Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Morris Award Program and data provided by third parties.

Look at that! Finally appreciated by my local community…except there’s this little voice in my head wondering what “marketing” I’ve done, or how, as a “small business”, I have contributed to community service. What information did they gather? Aww, what the hell, it’s a Major Award! I should put it in my front window!

So I was going to claim my award, but there’s a little comment in my notice.

As an Award recipient, there is no membership requirement. We simply ask each award recipient to pay for the cost of their awards. The revenue generated by the Morris Award Program helps to pay for operational support, marketing and partnership programs in support of local businesses. Congratulations on your selection.

Oh. I can get a nice plaque for $150, or a crystal award for $200, or both for $229.

Gosh. My pride is slightly deflated.

It’s a catch-up day

It’s not on my calendar, but I do have a set of priorities today:

  • Dirty work. I have to clean up the cell biology lab from last semester, because another class will be using it this semester. I have to store away microscopes and computers, and scrub benches.
  • Setting up fly stocks for my genetics lab.
  • Feeding spiders some of those same flies.
  • Shoveling sidewalks. We got more snow last night.
  • Picking up all the things on the floor that our cat spent the last week knocking over.

More will probably come up. It always does.