Man, I could have sworn I wrote down a description of Antique Rot before. When a undiversified town loses it’s economic base, it also loses it’s youth to new opportunities elsewhere. The town and it’s population are now aging and dying. One of the ways to hang on for a little bit longer, maybe squeeze …
Category Archives: All News
The Decembering 2024, Once More With Feeling
One of the ways I mark the change of the seasons is when I get my first order designating it as a holiday gift. It’s my sign that I need to revise this post for a new year and gird my loins for the MAXIMUM PRODUCTION that’s soon to come. This year it happened on …
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My se7en Book Report
Because Peter Clines is a wonderful person and sent me the Penguin Readers edition of the movie adaptation of se7en, I feel obligated to complete the activates section at the back. We still owe Peter a visit to a town called SHAME in our next Extra Life play. CHAPTER 1 1a) Vanity 1b) Sloth 1c) …
How I Got My Laser Eye Injury
It has been brought to my attention that I have never actually written this story down before, merely told it in person to many students for valuable lessons and also for laughs over cocktails. It is a litany of bad ideas from several people that all came together at once to reach out and zap …
Evolution Of Safety Equipment – The Berkeley Box
For folks that haven’t been lucky enough to experience the “Phil Points At Things That Aren’t There Anymore” Manhattan Project Tour of Berkeley, there is a secondary bit of education that comes courtesy of having 160 years worth of chemistry buildings still standing to point at. I similarly do this for students when getting them …
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Camino Primitivo After Action Report, Part 2
With Spring all sprungen and allergies going off, I am having a weird sensation of being unstuck in time. It is hard to believe almost a year as passed since we walked the Camino Primitivo, seems like it was just the other week, with a side order of anxiety that I am not training to …
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CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE – Kneejerk Spent Fuel Solutions
People who believe they have True Ultimate Power want nice, simple, sound bite executable solutions that obliterate nuance and complications with BOLD & DECISIVE ACTION. Were those actions good and appropriate? Ehhhhhh. [The twenty-third in an ongoing series of my compiled explainers for my CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE quizzes. There’s never really a right …
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Phil vs. LLMs
Last year, my friend Ed made a post regarding the nascent proliferation of ChatGPT and competitors into various search engines and other products. With a moment’s contemplation after reading it, I just realized how spectacularly bad this could go if, for example, you went to do a search for an chemical’s Material Safety Data Sheet …
BONUS MONEY RANT: Maundy Money
Per the Catholic Church, and other denominations that notionally agree with their calendar, it’s Holy Week. Pretty much every day in from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday has a special name. For example, as I write this, today is Fig Tuesday because important fig related things happened today in the life of Jesus. Tomorrow is …
EXTRA LIFE 2023 – Encore! Encore!!!
First of all, thank you to everyone that contributed to make Extra Life 2023 the highest amount TEAM SENSIBLE SHOES has raised for children hospitals in the seven years we’ve been doing this. Also, your donations make our Shadows of Brimstone gameplay more chaotic and fun than it is normally as you claim incentives so …
Commodore Blacknuts
In previous posts, I’ve mentioned the Hash House Harriers and Hash Names which are are almost universally generated by terrible embarrassing events. It is time to discuss how I got mine as it is damn hard to embarrass me as I have a cultivated lack of shame that lets me have ADVENTURE! In case you …
THE DECEMBERING 2023
One of the ways I mark the change of the seasons is when I get my first order designating it as a holiday gift. It’s my sign that I need to revise this post for a new year and gird my loins for the MAXIMUM PRODUCTION that’s soon to come. This year it happened before …
EXTRA LIFE 2023
It’s that time of year again where among the ways I celebrate my birthday season is by staying up late and playing a lot of games. That’s right, it’s time for Extra Life again! On Veteran’s Day weekend, November 18th, 19th and 26th I will be joining the rest of Team SENSIBLE SHOES for a …
How I Learned What “Deliquescence” Is
Well folks, someone asked. As you may be aware, as a safety professional, I sometimes get asked to help clean out dead people’s office, labs, homes and storage units. This is because the deceased might have has a reputation or survivors/estate people Find Things They Did Not Expect/Want To. In this particular case, the call …
The Upcoming Spain Itinerary
The Coffee Engines are now idle. Everything that could be made before I jump on a plane at stupid in the morning on Sunday has been. All that remains is ship the last couple orders tomorrow morning, make up the Transatlantic Reset BBotE sampler vials for Fr. Gabriel and I, and then get to the …