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I am always so impressed by anyone who studies for a PhD. I have friends who’ve done it and it just seems like a bloody nightmare. I’d rather do special forces selection (at least that has some nice walks).
But I have just found out that, in Finland, if you get our PhD they give you a frikkin sword!
(I am very in diversionary behaviour today rather than face some actual work)
@GSS ex-noob:
I’ve been saying for years that this was guaranteed to happen – that once Tesla had proven electric cars could actually sell, the bigger manufacturers would get in on it and their economies of scale would kick in, and Tesla would find itself scrambling because everybody else was doing it better. It’s not as though this is the first time this has happened, even just limited to the automobile industry, where a small company brought out a new feature that was eventually taken up by the big names and the small company ended up either getting bought out or driven out of business.
@Moon: Tumbler is great about taking the piss out of pompous creeps.
@Alan: Range Rovers here fall into the “truck that never gets dirty” and also “pretentious, much?” categories. Because it’s not like we don’t have domestic trucks/SUVs/Jeeps that work better, cheaper.
One of them broke down in the flatlands here, on the main drag, in the middle lane at a famously complex corner (due to being laid out in horse and buggy days). I was behind it. No one in the car moved. I called 911 and last saw the occupants being Spoken To by the constabulary as I and all the other good citizens slowly went around them. Laughing.
@Alan: Out-capitalizing the capitalists!
@ gss ex-noob
You could probably write dissertations here about the social impact of Land Rovers.
It’s often said of Land Rovers themselves (it gets confusing cause that’s the name of the company as well as the vehicle) “With a Land Rover, you can’t tell if the driver works the land or owns the land”.
Similarly with Range Rovers “Equally at home outside a stately home or a council house.”
They are truly classless here. The former Queen had both. They were the only cars she personally drove. She was considered a bit of an aficionado; as confirmed by the fact that whenever she ‘upgraded’ she chose what are generally considered the best models rather than the newest ones.
It’s funny though, Land Rovers tend to appreciate in price and Range Rovers massively depreciate. Which is good for folks like me. I was able to source that one, £56K new, for 1700 quid. I had to get a train up to Wolverhampton though. All Land Rovers are really dear in Cornwall because people really like/need them. But they’re a lot cheaper in the cities as they have that ‘Chelsea Tractor’ thing; and the reputation for being the vehicle of choice for drug dealers.
The test here is whether people let you out at junctions; and people seem pretty cool about RRs (except in London; but you pretty much just have to close your eyes and go for it there anyway).
And this development just in, according to Zoë Schiffer: all Twitter office buildings have been locked and badge access suspended:
https://web.archive.org/web/20221118054521/https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1593391604785504257?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
And more from the San Francisco Standard: https://archive.ph/i1lE4
Alan:
That’s just some of the universities in Finland – although that includes the Uni of Helsinki which has a serious primacy complex compared to the others.
More importantly, you have to buy your own sword and top hat – which you could do even without a PhD. The university only grants you the right to attend this pompous graduation ceremony (karonkka) wearing them. Other than that, people sometimes wear the distinctive hat semi-ironically for a May Day picnic.
Specifically, I will have to buy the sword and top hat if I ever finish my PhD. I haven’t yet dared to find out what they cost, but I can guess it’s a lot for my budget. Possibly I can rent them. In theory, I could skip the karonkka entirely, but that’d be considered a major loss of experience, a killjoy attitude and a sign of not respecting academia.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering if Musk isn’t going to get sued by Eli Lily over the ‘free insulin’ prank and its fallout. Unlike most of the pranks I read about (i.e. ‘Pepsi’ tweeting “Drink Coke; it tastes better”), that one did a lot of major harm before being discovered. And it was a consequence that Musk should have seen coming and set up ways to prevent happening, if he had half the brains he claims to have. Or at the very least, demand Musk hand over the personal info of the prankster who posted the insulin tweet so they can sue them for damages as well.
Though that whole incident does show one reason major companies don’t practice altruism all that much, if just saying ‘free medicine for all!’ is enough to make investors abandon them en mass in less than a day. That says nothing good about the major players in the stock market and their culture. Not that there weren’t a zillion other examples of that already….
@Redsilkphoenix
That’s entirely Eli Lilly’s problem and none of our own, nor is the person who pointed out the problem culpable for anything whatsoever.
@Redsilkphoenix:
Yeah. It’s things like that that are why I feel schadenfreude when I see the DOW tank, or read stuff like this:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/11/18/xwym-n18.html
I think we’re heading for a crack-up of 1929 proportions that will see a lot of these
Goa’uld System Lordshedge fund manager types lose their shirts. Undoubtedly there’ll be a lot of collateral damage to ordinary people and small businesses, but then, the same people are already getting screwed en masse, and the only way that stops is if the superrich lose enough of their power (and therefore, the money from which that power derives) that their stranglehold on politics loosens enough to let another FDR do another bunch of major reforms. So, it might be like lancing a boil or getting dental work: painful, but necessary, and worse the longer it’s put off.Especially in light of climate change. That stranglehold might have to be loosened before a certain deadline or civilization itself will be doomed. So, the sooner the better. I just hope it isn’t already too late …