Budgeting for real science

Hello Felix readers, Cave Johnson here.

Since last week’s article, we have had an amazing number of questions sent in — one. In all honesty, I was expecting no-one would read the piece, let alone send in a question. I think I’m beginning to like you, test subjects.

If you had complete control over Imperial’s budget, what would you change and why?

Keith asks, “If you had complete control over Imperial’s budget, what would you change and why?” Firstly, I’m not sure what the rate is between your funny British money and the dollar, but I’m guessing that your college’s budget is large enough to settle most of the civil suits currently against us, and then there may even be enough left over to start paying the boys in the lab. To be honest, they weren’t too happy when they started being paid in ‘Cave Dollars’, Aperture’s latest internal currency, after IOUs and the ill-fated spreading of our A.S.S. (Aperture Science Stock) options between employees.

On the upside, the bean counters and the guys over in Legal said it was completely fine to print our own money, as long as we promised to actually pay them back with ‘real money’ at some point. With the current lab retention rate there’s not even a need for a pension plan, so they’re essentially working for free. Some people have likened Aperture to a dictatorship but I prefer to think of the lab boys as ‘volunteers for Science’, and I’m Science. With a capital S. They’re free to leave at any time. If they can make it out.

Considering that I get paid for every word that I type for Felix, I’ll try to answer the above question fully, and I won’t tip-toe around the subject. In this case, words aren’t cheap and I’m typing my way to science. I definitely won’t be padding out sentences with useless and superfluous words, just to get some quick bucks, nor will I spend a long length of time reminiscing about my days making shower curtains. That reminds me of the time I made a new waterproof shower curtain coating, based off human skin. It didn’t sell too well — something to do with mutated flesh, and completely unfounded rumours about people being strangled by their curtains when they weren’t looking. As a side note, I would advise against using surviving test subjects of human-snake hybrid programmes, for tissue donations. I probably wouldn’t want to use the bodies of the failed test subjects either.

Ignoring the mountains of debt and the on-going lawsuits, I would still want to spend all of the money on the progression of science. For far too long, scientists have been restricted by funding and being told what they can and can’t research. I didn’t get to where I am today by avoiding science that people said wouldn’t work. Science is about taking rules, bending them over your knee and beating them till they learn to stop interrupting your progress. Money just gives you a bigger cane.

Science is about taking rules, bending them over your knee and beating them till they learn to stop interrupting your progress

There are many important aspects of science that still have vital, unanswered questions. Are left-handed people really evil? What happens when we try to replace your whole skeleton with metal? Magnets — how do they work? Can we graft wheels onto amputees? How many giraffes does it take to build a super-collider? Finally, why is it that I can’t get the funding for research into portals, but Black Mesa gets government money for some useless inter-dimensional testing? Dimensional science is boring, expensive and far too safe for real scientists, like us.

Coincidentally, if you want to take part in any of the above testing, please contact your college’s testing associate. Just a few notes: if you’re right handed, don’t worry — we’ll just remove your hands and swap them around. If you’re not an amputee, don’t worry about that either — Aperture’s butcher is also a board-certified surgeon. And mortician. If you’ve got no bones, and it’s not due to a previous testing opportunity at Aperture Science involving our repulsion gels, then good news — we have many new testing opportunities waiting for you! However, I’m afraid that if you’re not a giraffe we can’t let you into that last test. Half-giraffes are welcome to apply though.

Back to the topic in hand, I would also look to cull the weakest of the Union’s clubs, to reduce the expenditure of the college, and to ensure that only the strongest of the societies survive. I propose a new series of tests at Aperture whereby we are able to pit clubs and societies against each other, to see how resilient you are. There would be a range of tests, from assault courses and sporting activities (such as dodging some fast moving bottomless pits) to puzzle solving and staring competitions. The victorious societies get to continue existing, and they may even get a small trophy. We’ll see how that goes. Trophies are expensive, so you might have to share.

Hope that answers your question Keith. As previously, any correspondence (questions, resumes or money) can be sent to felix.games@imperial.ac.uk with the title “Ask Cave”, and they’ll forward it on to Caroline.

Watch out for those shower curtains. CJ.