Eventyr

links for 2009-09-30

• David Mitchell: Pointless studies are the key to evolution [The Observer]
  "What separates us from the beasts, apart from fire, laughter, depression and guilt about killing the odd beast, is our curiosity. We've advanced as a species because we've wanted to find things out, regardless of whether we thought it useful. We looked at the sky and wondered what was going on – that's why, for better or worse, we've got DVD players, ventilators, nuclear weapons, global warming, poetry and cheese string. And it's for better, by the way."
  (tags: humour education research academia Funding)

Extending Deadlines

"By the next morning the Pirate Captain had hit a bit of a wall. He'd spend half the night on his major work, but it wasn't really coming together. It didn't help that every time he got to a tricky bit, he'd play a couple of hands of solitaire or waste half an hour trying on hats. He'd had the boat sailing in circles for a while now, to give himself more time to finish, and he really didn't know how much longer he could keep it up before Marx suspected something."
-- From 'The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists' by Gideon Defoe.

This resonated with me today, as I work on paperwork to extend the deadline for my PhD work, after a lot of time sailing in circles and too many games of solitaire.