Though the conference I’m attending is, in fact, quite off-the-web, I don’t think that I divulge too much if I say that it’s all about the money. Generally, federal grant funding. Specifically, federal grant funding flowing out of the stimulus bill. Even more specifically, federal grant funding flowing out of the stimulus bill to liberal-arts colleges like the one that employs me.
The news is, by and large, good. Fuzzy, still, but pretty good. The words “astounding” and “stupendous” were thrown around pretty freely as descriptors of the size of the monetary figures. Thankfully, novelist William Gibson has recently provided a little guide to the million/billion/trillion scale:
A million seconds is 11 days
A billion seconds is 32 years.
A trillion seconds is 32,000 years.
This lines up pretty well with how long it’ll take to pay off the debt.
So your whole conference boils down to two words: We’re Screwed.