Sicky McSickerson

[dr_tectonic]

I felt a lot better yesterday, but I still ran out of steam at about 3 and went home early. I can feel slightly virtuous about this because we found out on Monday at our staff meeting that PTO gets paid out of an institution-wide pool instead of the divisional budget, so it's actually good for our (local) budget if you take time off.

Aside: We also found out that the budget this year is kinda grim (NSF funding is down by a couple percent), but funding will be flat the next couple years and so things will be better. Institution-wide, there are going to be some cuts this year, but my division is probably one of the safest places to be. So not great news, but it could be worse. I'm not fretting.

We went over to the Joneses' last night and said hi and played Munchkin Bites. I got to use the Special Bookmark™ that SJGames sent with something we ordered. Jerry won, and while I could have stopped him, I didn't, because, frankly, I wasn't going to win, and I'd rather not sleep on the couch for someone else's victory.

Throat's still sore, lymph nodes enormous. Achy and tired. If you are given the option to catch this bug, I recommend that you give it a pass.

Comments

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Is your institute only funded through NSF?

What a bummer. Oh, well; science isn't really necessary...

Feel better soon.

yeah, well. . .

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Science is important, but in Yakima County, where my dad is commissioner, they're trying to decide how many firefighters and sheriffs they're going to be letting go to find some way to make the budget work. So it could be worse.

Re: yeah, well. . .

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Sure, but my guess is that that's largely state/local taxes, right? The cut to NSF is a direct consequence of the Bust tax cuts needing to be paid for.

Re: yeah, well. . .

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Excellent point. Thanks, now instead of feeling like something unfortunate was happening, I feel like things are a result of poor decisions. Much better. ;)

Seriously, though, in other odd news I've heard that several computer game studios are laying off lots and lots of staff and making huge cuts all at the same time. Ugh. That includes the closing of Electronic Arts Los Angeles (pretty much the whole studio), possibly Oddworld, and Sammy.

Not earth-shattering economic news, but it kinda hits close to folks I know. I heard about all three of those plus this news yesterday, which is a weird coincidence. . . layoffs are common in January, but focused in industries I keep track of? That's a little more unusual.

Re: yeah, well. . .

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

I guess at least to me, this always makes me feel a little better, because bad decisions can sometimes be corrected. (It doesn't mean that things aren't unfortunate, of course...)

I'm sorry if you're having friends who are getting axed. The computer game industry has made no sense to me since I first started knowing people who worked in it back when dr_tectonic and I were undergrads. But it's easy for folks like me (who have very long term contracts, and the possibility of tenure) to lose touch with how folks in industry are doing. I know that life as a working stiff ain't easy.

Re: yeah, well. . .

[k8cre8.livejournal.com]

And, economic downturns are often boom times in the university sector, that is, when the economy tanks, people go back to school.

Re: yeah, well. . .

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that's not been the case in the case of the economic uncertainty in the US in the last few years, because it's hit a lot of university endowments really hard, and because public universities have gotten squeezed by state governments that are having trouble paying their bills.

But it's also true that we in the university world start to cry bloody murder quickly, and I don't know how much the tears I'm hearing from colleagues in the US matches reality.

Here, we're chugging along, though things ain't especially easy.

Re: yeah, well. . .

[k8cre8.livejournal.com]

That's true. It's been an *enrollment* boom, but, not a financial boom. At the same time as the increase in enrollment, most institutions are seeing their budgets shrink, whether private or public.

At the college I'm at, enrollments for this semester are up still up, I believe it's around 5% from 2 years ago. However, it's a public institution, and the state has cut our budget about 25% over the same period. And, the cuts are anticipated to continue.

Re: yeah, well. . .

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

See, here's the thing that makes me crabby. There's a really simple solution to all of these problems: raise taxes.

More and more I am coming to the opinion that anyone who doesn't pay their taxes willingly and support tax increases to pay for common goods is a bad citizen and should be publicly shamed for their selfishness. (Jon Caldara and Douglas Bruce, I'm looking at you.)

Re: yeah, well. . .

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

There are certainly reasonable arguments about reducing the role of government, and it is also true that reducing taxes can be a spur to investment. Having been in Norway last fall, I don't want to live in a country that taxes taxation to their level.

On the other hand, what pisses me off about the US is that it's so profilgate in its use of astronomical amounts of money badly. $80 billion for another year of Iraq war is a bad idea, but at the very least, they could pay for it, rather than making their grandkids do it or cutting science funding because times are tough.

I have this image of the US in ten years, where there's practically no taxes, and the only thing government does is pay for police people to avoid chaos on the streets and troops in 5 countries around the world (who are conscripted). And still a military-sponsored deficit.

But hopefully it's wrong.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's some soft money, but most of our funding comes straight from NSF. Normally, this is a good thing...

idea

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Man, you need to put this into your game.

"OK, a tornado hits. However, the government funding for dopplar radar was cut, and you didn't know about it in time, and so the trailer park residents are taken completely by surprise."

Of course, you probably already have that in there.

Re: idea

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Our target audience is emergency managers. They already get to beg for mill levies to pay for a new fire truck, so it would just be preaching to the choir...