Sunday, March 11, 2012

meltdown

Since the start of JUMP in 2007 I have had this on my cubicle wall.


I've been waiting for the stages to tick through, but they really haven't, and we've been basically stuck at phase 2 for the last 4 years. This is probably because, in Japan, the goals of projects are sufficiently woolly that you have to try really hard to fail. But then, last Friday, the samurai struck, and Phases 3-7 all happened simultaneously. I'm not sure whether we will be able to negotiate anything sensible, but at present I feel like giving it all up and going and sitting under that tree in Kenchoji.

6 comments:

William M. Connolley said...

Samurai?

James Annan said...

It's samurai all the way up. Some of them even have real swords that they polish religiously.

Hank Roberts said...

Hm, is there a competing project that's attracted those who manage?

http://home.comcast.net/~ghaff/docs/theword.html

James Annan said...

That's nice, though round here no-one ever bothers to ask the opinion of those who will actually have to do the work, we are just told what it is - eg most recently that the new buzz-word is "tipping points" at which we recoiled in horror...I suspect the coming months and years will be spent working out how to dress up sensible research as it if is addressing this (non-)issue.

EliRabett said...

They will lose interest in

ok, back to your desks kids.

Hank Roberts said...

> tipping points

Well, you could define that as providing climate information to the people who watch the economic tipping points.

For example, economics of any power plants. They all get rid of waste heat.

When will enough warm stretches occur during the average year -- during which they have to derate the plant -- that the beancounter tips over? (return on revenue drops to where they have to close or remodel the plant).