Don't get the Devil a hairpiece, or there'll be hell toupée.

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" features a disco-era guitar riff over a New Wave milieu, which together end up feeling dated rather than retro, and inane lyrics (i can't decide whether "jejune" or "sophomoric" would be more apropos) sung by voices so off-key that they're a case example for why Autotune happens. I can see why y'all are so excited about it.

So Chris Jones brought this smug little tip list to my attention and, lo, did my gorge rise.  Find here my response:

1. The "cool" perks are being phased out
   If you're sucker enough to go to a start-up because of the "cool" perks, then i guess you're shallow enough to believe that phasing out flashy crap is a bad sign.
2. You stop trying to explain to your family and friends what your company does
   The assumption that your family and friends are "laymen" that need special translating skills is obscenely condescending.
3. The job description you were hired for no longer fits what you do
   Is that a bad thing?  Then maybe talk to your boss about it.  A good company reëvaluates a contributor's role whenever necessary.  Things change.  Are you adjusting?  Do you want to adjust?
4. You keep hearing "that's bullshit" in your head during the quarterly company pep talk
   Nothing special about start-ups in this regard.  And if your start-up has "quarterly pep talks", you're already in trouble.
5. You realize that your degree got you here, but you're not using it
   So fucking what?  There are tons of people in tech who have degrees that are unrelated to their job.  Many of them are happy with their work.  We already know that college doesn't do a good job at preparing you for the working world.  Stop deluding yourself.
6. Your angel investors become, well, demonic
   Finally, unreserved agreement.  I saw it happen at gBox 5 years ago.  I could not leave quickly enough.  VC can also be unwelcomely and destructively meddlesome (that was at Visible Path).
7. You increasingly compare your life to the movie Office Space
   If this is happening at a start-up, you're utterly fucked.
8. You increase your blog and web comic consumption, and your performance doesn't suffer
   Don't blame the start-up for your own suck-ass attitude.
9. Grad school – any grad school – suddenly sounds appealing
   It's not merely about being bored.  Maybe you've just had an epiphany about a change of direction.  Again, this is a personal thing, not a start-up thing.
10. The CEO defers going public for "another couple of years"
    Your company is massively fucked and you don't even know how bad it is.
11. You stop recommending friends for positions at the company
    Huge red flag, but again, not start-up specific.
12. Your job title is increasingly disproportionate to the amount of responsibility you have
    This is just a re-run of 3.  You might be fucked; you might simply be suffering from not having your voice heard.  Find out.
13. The company overpromises and underdelivers
    See 10.
14. Your move to full-time from contract keeps getting delayed
    See 10.
15. Your company is no longer a start-up
    Guess what, you nincompoop: successful businesses are run by grownups. Stop trying to chase the eternal perfect start-up so you can keep being an overpaid adolescent. You want career growth; start-ups want to become a real company, too, either on their own merits or by getting acquired by a real company. Making it to the next level doesn't mean you can't keep going to work on your scooter.

My generation, when we were kids, dreamed of joining NASA to become astronauts.

The current generation of kids can dream of joining NASA so they can make rude drawings on other planets.

This sadness came across my Twitter feed:

Hey #GOP, we lost a generation of voters due to the issue of gay marriage. Let's get some of them back by backing prison and drug reform

— Phu Mai (@PhuLMai) March 29, 2013

The blindered naïveté is breathtaking; to consider that an entire generation of voters was lost because of the GOP's steadfast aversion to same-sex marriage both manages to overstate the amount of voters lost, overestimates the importance of the issue in the GOP's platform, while also laboring in the delusion that the GOP would back prison reform (it might have a chance if painted as an anti-union thing, but against the specter of being considered soft on crime, forget it) and drug reform (and shit on the memory of the Reagans? are you mad?), and that even if it did, that these two things would somehow get some of the fictional lost voters back.

This poltroon calls himself a RINO, because the label one wears is more important than the principles one lives by, at least to him.  This is how he suddenly, in 2013, realized that opposition to gay marriage is an issue that's breaking the party apart, instead of, you know, being an intrusion by federal and state governments into the civil rights of citizens.  What are rights compared to the power that one's party wields, after all?

The Millbrae transit station has this circle of tilework in the middle of the lobby.  It's polished to a glossy finish, as you can see, and surrounded by ugly pylons because... i don't know.  I'd guess that it's so smooth that people slip on it, so instead of finding an attractive way to reduce, eliminate, or secure traffic, the attractive slabs are instead marred by yellow caution tape.

There's more than a few things at work that echo this.

The older i get, the more often i laugh and sneeze the way my dad does.

We spent our normal Sunday morning at the community garden, except that we were accosted by some activists when we first got there.

"Is this your garden, sir?"

"One of the plots is mine, yes."

"We're here because we're concerned about the purity of our food supply."

"OK, but the community garden rules are very clear.  No herbicides or pesticides, no chemical fertilizers."

"That's good, sir, but there's an even bigger scourge that nobody's talking about.  Sir, do you aid your plant growth with telepathy?"

I stared.  "Uh... are you serious?"

"Very serious!  The effects of telepathy-aided produce on the human mind is one that weakens resolve and makes us more vulnerable to mind control from corporations and the government!  There are studies that—"

"Look, that's the sort of technique you might find in an agrifactory, where they can afford to find, let alone pay, a telepath.  My wife and i do all the work in our plot.  Are you saying that we look like telepaths?"  They started gibbering and i cut them off.  "Look, i don't give a shit what WorldNetDaily or Alex Jones have been telling you.  There's no actual scientific proof of what you're saying.  Now please leave."

2wanda came up once they left.  "Honey, would you go think at the romanesco?  It's not looking very good and i don't think it's the gopher."