I am burdened by pessimism

I care about all the things the guy in this cartoon doesn’t.

I do not want to live in the hellscape a Republican victory would produce. I fervently want Harris to win. However…I feel a prophecy coming on.

I prophesy that even if we get the best possible result, a clean sweep by the Democrats capturing the White House, the Senate, and the Representatives, November will be a nightmare. There will be contested elections. There will be false electors. There will be lawsuits. Elections will linger unresolved until Spring. And that’s the gentle stuff.

There will be riots. There will be assassinations. The Capitol will be assaulted. Gangs will roam the streets, attacking anyone not wearing a MAGA hat. Congress will be in chaos, while the Supreme Court looks on in approval, and the NY Times opines on the virtues of fascism.

Mind you, that is the best result to expect.

I don’t own any weapons of war. Maybe I should take some time in early November to sharpen the kitchen knives? Having America wiped clean by a series of climate catastrophes would be a positive outcome.

My personal experience matches this observation

Everyone who has gone to grad school knows this, but we also recognize that this study was executed by grad students who just wanted to get through the next few years.

A study of Swedish PhD candidates has shown the vast toll that doctoral studies can take on mental health. The survey adds robust data to discussions about the mental-health crisis in academia. Studies and anecdotal evidence have long shown that PhD students can experience immense pressure to publish and to find funding and jobs in a brutally competitive landscape.

The analysis looked at the rates at which all Swedish PhD students were prescribed psychiatric drugs and were hospitalized for mental-health problems. It found that, on average, the longer they were doing doctoral studies, the more they needed to access such services. By the fifth year of studies, the likelihood that PhD candidates needed mental-health medications had increased by 40%, compared with the year before study (see ‘PhD pressures’).

I’ll admit that I had a relatively easy time in grad school — I had a good, supportive advisor, and I got through the whole program in five years, and also got support for 3 more years after completion. I knew of other faculty who were absolute monsters, neglectful and cruel, though, and even with a good advisor I felt the pressure of that rising curve. It’s interesting how quickly the curve drops after the fifth year. I wonder whether that’s because they had adapted to cynicism and despair, or because they’d found positions. Grad school ends, you know, and it ends with a sudden increase in the intensity of the experience, culminating in a defense that cleanly completes the process. I remember the relief of finally finishing.

I do wonder how grad school compares to the life of normies, though. I suspect that that transition from trainee to the workforce is difficult for everyone. Except med students?

The study found that uptake in medication varied across academic fields. Those in natural sciences saw a 100% increase by the fifth year compared with pre-PhD levels, whereas those in the humanities and social sciences saw 40% and 50% increases, respectively. Medical students didn’t see any uptick in prescriptions.

That last sentence is just weird. I’ve known med students, and the stresses are enormous. Is it that the med students have access to the dispensary and the good drugs, or that there is so much pressure on them to conceal their stress?

Do you believe him yet?

Elon Musk revealed the latest generation of his Optimus robot on stage. They didn’t do much: they walked slowly into the audience, accompanied by protective Tesla employees, while Musk hyped them up.

“The Optimus will walk amongst you,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk qips. “You’ll be able to walk right up to them, and they will serve drinks.”

Musk explains it can basically “do anything” and mentions examples like walking your dog, babysitting your kids, mowing your lawn, serving you drinks, etc. He said it will cost $20,000 to $30,000 “long term.”

“I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind,” Musk says.

They had some interacting with attendees, handing out cups of ice and playing rock-paper-scissors, but I’d bet those were remote controlled by other engineers, out of sight. The claim that they’d be able to take care of your pets or kids is ludicrous, coming from a guy notorious for his neglect of, and abuse of, his children.

He’s not going to be able to produce a reliable robot with all those capabilities for $30,000, and no, I’m not going to spend tens of thousands of dollars to own a big clumsy machine to take care of my evil cat poorly, and to serve me drinks. We recently had to replace our refrigerator, and we just laughed at the idea of getting one that had internet access and a drinks dispenser on its door…why would we want that monstrosity in our home, when you can’t even store a package of frozen peas in it?

As usual, Musk is just confirming that he’s a very bad salesman whose lies are getting increasingly unbelievable.

The language police are coming for you

It’s not who you think it is. It’s not the people who use pronouns, it’s the ones who want to abolish words they don’t like.

But, you might say, that’s a cartoon making a humorously exaggerated claim. Nope, those are the literal words of Project 2025.

The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.

But, you might continue to say, you’re a white man. You have nothing to worry about.

Unless you’re living in Florida, of course.

Also, as ProPublica revealed when they published Project 2025’s secret training videos, a representative of the group said If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.

They really think they can warp reality by controlling the dictionaries.

Bring me the head of Arthropleura

We’ve known about these amazing fossils from the lower Carboniferous for a while — it’s Arthropleura, a gigantic 2.5 meter long millipede. Imagine cleaning up your kitchen when a beast 2 or 3 times your length fluidly, sinuously crawls out from your baseboards. Wouldn’t that be neat?

One of the only problems with imagining that is that none of the fossils to date have had a head. Sure, it’s imposingly large, but what kind of face does it have? It’s a millipede, and millipedes are harmless detritivores who aren’t going to be a threat at all, unless you’re a pile of moldering leaves or a fungus. It’s centipedes that are primarily carnivores, with pointy sharp venomous forcipules that can deliver a nasty bite. That Arthropleura is in the millipede clade tends to blunt their potential menace.

Good news, time-traveling super-villains looking for a pet! The head of Arthropleura has at last been discovered, and it’s centipede-like, with strong bitey jaws, and also has stalked eyes. It’s a bit squished.

(A and B) Three-dimensional reconstruction. (A) Dorsal view. (B) Ventral view. (C and D) specimen inside the nodule. (C) Part. (D) Counterpart. Co, collum; DT, digestive tube; H, head; Pt, paratergite; S#, sternite number; St, syntergite; T#, tergite number; Te, telson. Reconstructions are made from Phoenix X-ray Phoenix V|tome|x CT scan. Scale bars, 1 cm (C and D) and 5 mm (A and B).

(A) Dorsal view. (B) Ventral view. (C) Back view. (D) Frontal view. Left maxillae were removed on (B) to better illustrate the mandible below. The red circle on (C) indicates the position of the digestive tract.

However, it’s still thought likely that it was a detritivorous. This has advantages for those of us who really want one as a pet: it’s still an intimidating creature, but in its free time it can roam the lair, cleaning up any untidiness.

Yes, I might fantasize a bit about keeping a few Arthropleura about the house. Better than a dog, anyhow.

I had The Talk with my chair

I turned in my application for a sabbatical next year. It’ll almost certainly be approved. Yay!

While I was there, I also discussed my future plans. I’m going to start phased retirement the year after that, 2026, and teach a 75% load that year. I’ll be negotiating with my colleagues about the years after that, but I’m thinking I’ll probably be outta here in 4 years.

I just hit my breaking point and decided to commit to an exit strategy. All of my classes are so inert — too many quiet faces staring expressionlessly at me every day. The students are fine, I just think I’m getting too old and losing that spark to trigger good engagement. They deserve better.

More good news: maybe there will be a job opening for a new biologist in a few years…if the administration eventually approves a replacement.

This is why the Republicans want to ban NOAA

The mayor of Colleyville, Texas, Bobby Lindamood, made a perfectly reasonable suggestion that we should nuke Milton, after removing the radiation from the bomb, of course.

In a since-deleted Facebook post, Bobby Lindamood, the mayor of Colleyville (a Fort Worth suburb) wrote: For the amount of destruction this next hurricane is brining, it’s time to throw a simi nu/ke bo//mb (minus the radiation) at this dude and see if we can stop the rotation. It may save more than it can hurt.

He added, Just casting thoughts and ideas. This is gonna be bad.

Spoilsport NOAA has thrown a wet blanket on that idea.

During each hurricane season, someone always asks “why don’t we destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them” or “can we use nuclear weapons to destroy a hurricane?” There always appear suggestions that one should simply nuke hurricanes to destroy the storms. Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.

I ask you, who do you want to listen to, some nerd in a lab coat or a proud MAGAt in a cowboy hat?

The big hat must cover a big brain.

Hey, Florida, you still there?

Don’t bother to answer, just get out while you can, if you haven’t already. Milton is supposed to make landfall soon.

As someone in Minnesota, I don’t understand why anyone lives in that morass of swampland. Sure, we get occasional tornadoes, but they’re pitiful compared to hurricanes; yeah, it gets a bit cold in the winter, but we just hunker down in a cozy warm house until the blizzard blows over, and we’re not sitting in a puddle of sweat all the time. There’s also the difference between a governor Walz vs DeSantis.

Follow the Mississippi north. We’ll welcome you with some hotdish and a pair of mittens.

What’s the best and worst state?

I’d have to agree with the extremes of this entirely subjective and data free map.

I have to disagree with some of the middlin’ state rankings, though. North Dakota is a terrible place, I think it got a higher ranking just for Fargo, which really belongs in Minnesota. I’d rank Wisconsin above Iowa. Texas is ranked way too high.

Yeah, Mississippi is kind of the leaking colon of the country.

Is my conference from hell finally over?

About a year and a half ago, I had an absolutely miserable experience. A student and I were going to the American Arachnology Society conference at Cornell University; we paid up the conference fees, made a lovely poster, booked our flights, and traipsed down to the Minneapolis airport…where we sat for two days, watching our flight get delayed and delayed, and eventually, finally, they gave up and told us that our flights were cancelled, we should go home.

That was terrible enough.

All this was paid through university travel funds, and I did all the responsible stuff of getting our registration fees reimbursed (I thought), and while we were miserable and disappointed, we were done. Except…my nightmare had only just begun.

You see, all travel expenses at my university go through some accounting software called Chrome River. We didn’t go? We spent less than we’d told it we were going to? Some of the planned expenses were bouncing back with reimbursements? Total shit fit. I’ve been dealing with its conniptions ever since, getting cryptic demands and threats by email.

What totally threw the software was a) Cornell said we were getting reimbursed, but we didn’t, and I only just got a check for the registration fees this week, and b) the rotten airline did not reimburse us at all, but instead billed the university for $60 for flight cancellation. That’s right, they cancelled the flights, but we got charged extra for the inconvenience.

Chrome River has been dunning me, personally, for the money for the past year. If I didn’t cough up something in the next few days, I was going to be held responsible for spending less money than we had planned, and was going to have to pay up or else. All year long, I’ve been getting these horribly opaque machine-generated emails from some evil accounting software.

Well, I think I’ve finally jumped through all the flaming hoops they’ve demanded of me, getting all the ridiculous paperwork filled out and filed today. I’m done.

Except…I’m told that tomorrow I have to log on to Chrome River and press three buttons to finalize everything. I’m terrified. I’ve seen how Chrome River reacts to tiny deviations from its required protocol. What if I press the wrong button, or press them in the wrong order, or fail to show the proper respect while following its demands? This hell might go on even longer.

I think I might have to retire sooner than expected just to avoid dealing with Chrome River ever again.