In the interest of Intelligent Design, the Kansas education board has redefined science.
… the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.
This is really, really sad. This is backsliding on hundreds of years of progress.
In other news, even the Vatican supports Evolution.
Let me just remind you that Evolution is a fact, not a theory.
Today I did manage to get up at 05:00, run from around 05:15 to 05:35, and get to work by 07:15ish. I have the actual time in my log, but alas, I am too lazy to pull it out.
Swimming is important. Swimming makes the upper body strong. I really need to look up the pool schedule here at Wash U. I went through all of the trouble and expense of buying swim trunks and some goggles. I might as well use them.
Work today consisted mainly of filling out an AHA fellowship proposal, which I’m not exactly finished with. I’d say I’m 2/3 finished with filling in the forms, and then comes reference forms, mailing reference forms, inserting other documents into the pdf using Adobe Acrobat™, etc.
I also spent some time trying to figure out why Hermenegild’s laptop won’t run our visualization software correctly. It seems to be some kind of problem with a crossmojination of OpenGL libraries of one sort or another. After spending about an hour on it, and checking through all of the usual suspects, I left it to him to fiddle around with it and do some more googling. I’m a little disappointed in Ubuntu on this one, but it could be a cruddy chipset from Intel. It’s the i915 video chip, so if you have any Linux DRI/DRM/OpenGL experience with that chip, please do let me know.
That’s about all for now. There’s some musing going on on the Internets™ about whether Microsoft is really making a change with this online services crap. My guess is, no. They always put the cart before the horse. They design things first to bring in money, and second to perform a useful function. This is not the way of the coming world. The useful function has to be the goal. Making money is artfully tacked on in the background. Not that it shouldn’t be thought of… it’s more of a design issue with the function part.
Anyway, I’m waxing poetic. Here are today’s stats:
| Sleep | Water | Exercise | Coffee | Alcohol |
| 08:00 h | 2.364 L | 00:18 | 1/2 cup equiv. | 1 drink |
Grants.gov has moved to requiring Windows-only PureEdge software in order to apply for a grant. Worse, their response to the scientific community’s outcry on this platform-dependence is to use VirtualPC with a copy of Windows. They reason that this is acceptable because Microsoft distributes VirtualPC with Office now. And we all know, EVERYBODY has Office. We pick it from the Office Tree of Giving.
This is the age of the Web 2.0™ The government, the self-same government that took Microsoft to task over lock-in, is moving from a well-liked, web-based platform (FastTrack) to some obscure piece of Windows-and-IE-only software?
What the hell is going on?
ADDENDUM 2005-11-02 @ 16:12:
Here is what I wrote to them:
Hello,
I am writing to inquire as to why the web-based FastTrack software has been abandoned for the Windows-only PureEdge software. PureEdge’s assertion that VirtualPC running Windows is an adequate solution for mac users is somewhat questionable. Furthermore, users of the various BSDs, Linux distributions, OS/2, plan9, Inferno, etc are left without any access. Is there pressure on PureEdge by Grants.gov to include support for other platforms? Perhaps a plugin for the open-source Firefox browser instead of IE?If there is in fact no current plan or desire for a more open grant application system, would you please direct me as to who might have some influence in changing this?
Thanks,
[signature]
and here is their prompt response:
Dear Brock,
Thanks you for your recent inquiry to Grants.gov concerning the Pure Edge viewer.
Grants.gov has been working with Pure Edge to offer a viewer that is compatible with as many operating systems as possible. We feel that we are not too far from achieving that goal, and when we do, we will be sure that information will be posted on our website. In the meantime, we apologize if the viewer options we offer for your operating system are not acceptable. Our goal is to ensure the widest possible acceptance of Grants.gov and certainly not to exclude anyone from the electronic grants submission process. To that end, as a first step, we ensured that the Pure Edge viewer will work with a Windows emulator program, as described on our website.
Grants.gov employs the PureEdge Viewer 6.0 for viewing and completing application forms. The PureEdge viewer’s 508 compliance is described at http://www.pureedge.com/products/products/PureEdgeAccessibilityGuide.pdf. Grants.gov sponsored testing of the PureEdge viewer demonstrating the viewer’s compatibility with the widely used Jaws screen reader. An enhanced version of the PureEdge Viewer that will include compatibility with a broader range of screen reader products through support for industry standard interfaces for accessibility is in the process of being tested and upon successful completion of testing will be posted to the site.
Feel free to contact us should you have further inquiries.
Thank you,
Ryan
Grants.gov, Customer Support
www.grants.gov
Recently, I started logging all of my work hours. Due to hurricane shenanigans, the plots so far have been rather odd-looking.
As the captions in my gallery say, these are strictly time spent on project and work logistics. These do not include break time. They do not include personal logistics, even those that are tangentially related to or supportive of my work-related activities. This is just time spent writing, setting up simulations, getting necessary documents, sending necessary documents, etc. My total time for September was 34.95 hours. Total time for October was 47.33. This despite the fact that I spent almost two weeks on moving-related activities. I predict that my November numbers will be much higher, since it’s the first month not totally screwed up by Hurricane Katrina-related activities. Total hours for November may be as high as 100 or more.
This logging has been very interesting for me to look back on. As a result, I’m going to start logging other aspects of my life. Minutes of exercise per day. Hours of sleep per day. Volumes of water, of caffeinated beverages, etc consumed per day. I’m debating posting the stats daily, in order to encourage me to blog more. I’m also adding “Blog post” to my nightly checklist, in order to encourage me to keep posting. It’s easy to let a blog atrophy. I have high aims for this blog, so I can’t let that carry on the way it’s been going.
Comments and complaints are welcome, as long as you don’t blog-spam me. That’s been quite a problem lately.
PubMed now also allows RSS subscription to journal searches. It is indeed a new era for science.