March 2021: still happily married to the were_gopher who is enjoying a nascent career as an extra-science teacher at the local secondary school, specialising in what's not on the National Curriculum ("Now, class, after you've prepared your Uranium Hexaflouride...").
I'm on course to be one of the last Old Civil Servants, having spent 40 years in the same Department. I start working part-time later in the year, alternating weeks with the various companies who are looking for new/old blood. If all goes well, next year I'll offically retire and start full-time with one of them. It means my extravagant, gold-plated pension (hah!) is deferred for another 10 years, but at least I'll have one (or the Weregopher will). In my spare time I'm writing my memoirs: a fair amount will be redacted, but I can tell you that the final chapters of autopope's ninth Laundry novel bear an uncanny resemblance to the incident involving the Cabinet Minister, the Microsoft Security Chief who was somehow still working for the CIA, and the alpacas.
That's right, Bruce Schneier picked up on it too...
Hal is a legend among his peers in social gaming. He's in demand as the "Leeroy Jenkins" tester: go into a setting and start seeing what breaks, so the developers can see if it either can be fixed and made unbreakable, or whether the breaking is actually a good thing. I have no idea how he does it, and I don't think he does, either. What I do know is it earns him enough to be financially independent.
Jodie's currently in Milan doing a live arts degree and mentoring first year undergraduates in the same. The last of her Ayn Rand fixation has died away and now she's channeling Baruch Spinoza and Henry Moore in equal quantities, which is doing wonders for her NetChannel ratings and merits the occasional spot on the local TV channels.
And now the good news
I'm on course to be one of the last Old Civil Servants, having spent 40 years in the same Department. I start working part-time later in the year, alternating weeks with the various companies who are looking for new/old blood. If all goes well, next year I'll offically retire and start full-time with one of them. It means my extravagant, gold-plated pension (hah!) is deferred for another 10 years, but at least I'll have one (or the Weregopher will). In my spare time I'm writing my memoirs: a fair amount will be redacted, but I can tell you that the final chapters of
That's right, Bruce Schneier picked up on it too...
Hal is a legend among his peers in social gaming. He's in demand as the "Leeroy Jenkins" tester: go into a setting and start seeing what breaks, so the developers can see if it either can be fixed and made unbreakable, or whether the breaking is actually a good thing. I have no idea how he does it, and I don't think he does, either. What I do know is it earns him enough to be financially independent.
Jodie's currently in Milan doing a live arts degree and mentoring first year undergraduates in the same. The last of her Ayn Rand fixation has died away and now she's channeling Baruch Spinoza and Henry Moore in equal quantities, which is doing wonders for her NetChannel ratings and merits the occasional spot on the local TV channels.