I’ve spent the last 2 days on site at a pharmaceutical company in Molndal, Sweden. I now realize if I die I should try and be reincarnated as a research chemist.  Reasons in no particular order:

• Really good facilities.  You’ve probably seen cosmetic/drug ads on TV that show bright, spotless labs filled with gleaming equipment and attractive, hardworking, happy scientists.  This is reality in the industry.  Even as a guest, they found me an office (normally shared by up to 2 people) with a door that closed, individual temperature and lighting controls, natural light, excellent ergonomics… Either these people make far too much money, or management realizes how much more productive workers are when freed from workplace distractions.
• Female:male ratio that’s significantly better than most other high tech industries.
• If you get bored, you can make your own psychedelics.

In unrelated news, I will not be attending the AES conference this weekend in Paris.  While I am in the right corner of the world yet again, I have done very little with FireWire since ~Christmas apart from performing a few kernel merges and recording a rock concert badly.. so I wouldn’t really gain or contribute much.  Oh well, see you in October.