The Slightly Disgruntled Scientist

The trouble with searching for a PHP problem that affects your blog is that you find the other three million affected blogs and nothing else. But it did lead to this happy coincidence:

Not these ones.

Warning: spoiler.

An Introduction to Crowd Control

The science theatre can be a dangerous place. Between the tens of millions of volts leaping out of a Tesla coil, the hand-bleaching acetone and the neurotic theatre coordinator, theatre demonstrators have more than enough to worry about before they even leave their house in the morning (except for that last part). Science is a perilous enough activity without adding the general (ie. uneducated, unwashed, untagged, etc…) public to the beaker. Compounding matters by adding an audience is just asking for trouble.

In contrast to the usual coherent and rational political debate that forms the meaty substance of this country’s media reporting, we are occasionally served the starchy, rehashed sidedish of xenophobic controversy. This time around, we are (apparently) interested in adding a new condition — a test, in fact — to applying for citizenship.

No, not a nominal and ineffective ploy to garner votes from a population whose chances at such a test would be dubious at best — we’re above that. The test will look at Australian values. At morality. At political ideals. Where traditional entry requirements just examine the mind and body of a potential citizen, this test will examine their heart. And possibly wallet. But mainly heart.

Last week, I bought a magazine from a homeless vendor…

Vendor: Cheers, mate. How’re you today?
Me: Yeah, not bad…
Vendor: Yeah, you’ve got that look — “not great, but I’m not gonna complain to the homeless guy…”

…of Your Impending Darwin Awards Nomination

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