Kameron Hurley

My Crazy Book Bugs Are REAL SCIENCE!

Escherichia coli (E. coli) can give you a severe case of food poisoning or, with a little genetic engineering, a useful plastic. Scientists at San Diego–based Genomatica, Inc., have announced success in manipulating the bacteria to directly produce butanediol (BDO), a chemical compound used to make everything from spandex to car bumpers, thereby providing a more energy-efficient way of making it without oil or natural gas.

So when do I get to be labeled a hard SF writer? heh heh

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Quote of the Day

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So

Apparently Washington Mutual failed yesterday.

I’ve never experienced a Great Depression. I’m not stoked about it.

Most things are a lot more fun to read about in history books that to live through.

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Friday yet?

This has not exactly been the best week. I want a do over…

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"The Most Important Reading You Will Ever Do"

How books have changed your life.

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Training Daze: Off Week

Due to pool closure, allergies severe enough to keep me home from work on Monday (I’m just now feeling about 80% human), pump failures inducing sugar woes (yesterday was *awful*), and the fact that it’s fit test assessments at work (which means no regular work workouts this week), I’ve decided to take the week off from my training schedule.

I’m dedicated and all, but not stupid. Things like breathing and steady sugar numbers (my god it’s a fucking miracle to have on a pod that works after three straight failures) = good times. I also have a date on Friday that I’d like to be cognizant for. This will require things like breathing and steady sugar numbers.

The plan is to pick the training schedule back up where I left off come Monday morning.

Also, as a consolation prize for my shitty week, I finally bought this t-shirt:

Because I’m awesome.

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One for the Road

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More Reasons I Won’t Be Reading the Twilight Series

This neatly sums up everything I intuited about the books.

They just stank too much of that Anne Bishop “I’m writing a feminist romance ha ha ha just kidding there are cock rings and child rape and incest but really I had feminist intentions because so many women just can’t get over how hottt guys are which makes them weak and prone to rape and incest and falling in love with their rapists because rapists are hottt” thing.

Rapists, vampires, werewolves… whatever. You know, hottt dudes that you should “save yourself” for.

Yeah.

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Omnipoddery: OmniPod Suckage

So last night I pull out one of the 5 new replacement pods I received from the Omnipod Insulet Corporation.

I went to activate one.

And the first one out of the box FAILED.

FAILED.

A REPLACEMENT FOR A FAILED POD FAILED.

I called them up, reported the failure. They are sending me another one.

I put on a new pod. Activated fine. But today I tested at 345 at lunchtime.

WHAT THE FUCK SRSLY?????????

The pods generally do this right before they fail (rising blood sugar followed by occlusion error beep, followed by flat line beep). I injected myself with my vial and syringe. I just didn’t trust the fucking pod anymore. I expect I’ll get a beep any time. If my sugar is still off when I get home, I’ll have to change it out again and call them.

I finally wrote Insulet corporation a complaint letter. EDIT: I have now also called them and made a formal complaint. I think my 300+ sugar number is leading to increased amounts of ire, bitchiness, and distraction.

I’ve fucking had it.

I wouldn’t trust a fucking form of birth control with a 20% fucking failure rate. Yet here I am, entrusting my fucking life – and limbs, and vision, and kidneys, and etc. – to a medical device that FAILS 20% of the time.

Back in Februrary, an Omnipod marketing manager had this to say about the “rumor” of a 20% failure rate:

“People on the product have some problems sometimes, of course, but the incidence is very low. That 20% figure is just ridiculous!”

Ha ha. Yeah, a 20% failure rate IS pretty ridiculous!

It’s not just me, either. That’s the kicker. I knew there was a 5-10% failure rate. I could have – maybe – lived with that.

20% is too much.

I haven’t seen this many 300+ numbers since I left the fucking hospital.

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Fit Test

Well, it’s that time of year again – time for our quarterly fit test at work.

My blood pressure is about the same – still in the good range.

Pushups and situps remained the same – about 50 each.

My only real accomplishment was shaving off those 4 lbs that I’d gained just before the last fit test. I’m not manic about losing weight, but I’m committed to *maintaining* my weight, so I was happy to see that I’d shaved off those plus one, which keeps me at my base line.

I’m telling you – too much WoW and too many flourless peanut butter cookies was enough to tip me over the edge. I like maintaining my weight, if for no other reason than that clothes are expensive.

My measurements may be slightly better as well, but they sounded about the same to me as she read them off. Again: maintenance is good. I’ll be able to compare them when they hand out our assessments next week.

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