Busy day at the lab. My buddy called me this morning to tell me that we didn't get our grant. He later came in and let me know that he was looking at the wrong proposal. We don't know if we got it yet. We probably won't. Kind of sucks to have to hear it twice.
Ouch, not cool. Still, good luck. Will you let us know either way? Now I somehow feel a vested interest.
Update: No dice. Sucks because it was a solid proposal. It's a very political thing right now. Not enough money. At any rate, I have two killer projects in the works, and a lab that values me. I am lucky in that respect. At least a grant I am co-investigator on got funded. Always a bridesmaid...
I'm sorry to hear that pal. Your ship will come in soon, in a big way.
mk, in case you didn't guess, I was playing around with the new-user-flow and taking some notes. In doing so, I made "thisisanewaccount" and forgot to log out. Sorry for the confusion. You must have wondered how this new account was so sure of your success...
the hubski welcome video is done. I'm sure thenewgreen will post soon. I'm on a conference call at work right now discussing what would happen if a customer came in with symptoms of Ebola. Corporate waste at its finest.
It was a long drawn out scenario with lots of nonsensical steps… long story short - the CDC would shut us down and we all work from home. But here's a new fun time waster: Take the number of people on the call (67 today) and guess at average salaries (I went with 100k based on the people I knew on the call). Add 30% for benefits weighting (which is on the low end) and figure the cost of the call. 100,000 x 30% = 130,000 130,000 divided by 2000 = $65 per hr $65 x 67 people = $4355 per hr $4355 x 2.5 hours - $10,887 meeting cost that's $72.5 per minute in people costs (not including other costs like conference calls, buildings, webex, etc) so that's $11,000 to remind us to follow common sense
I was at a meeting once about floor pockets at a stage at a large university. It was a project under construction and there was a flag on the play. The entire architectural team showed up - 5 architects, 8 consultants, 6 university representatives. The contractor was at lunch. When he reappeared half an hour later, we asked him "can you move that?" He said "uh, yeah. Is that what this is about?" An hour there, an hour back, 20 minutes to park, 20 minutes from the car, half an hour waiting, 15 minutes to debrief and talk about all the time we just wasted, times 19 guys that bill out at $200 an hour.
hahahaha that's nothing. Yesterday I had a call with 137 invitees that was only on dial-in. I don't know how many people did dial in but I know it was enough that the call was "full" when I attempted to do so. I think the limit is 125, so sounds about right. I'll have this call once every quarter.
I guess it would take one person not following common sense to make significantly more damage than $10,000. Although maybe there was a better/cheaper way to convey that information. Like a mass e-mail? But who reads those carefully... They might have had a meeting before the conference to decide how to tell you guys :P Yay corporate.
ha, that's hilarious, but not really. I think I'll hold off on posting the intro video until it's implemented in to the sign-up flow. Waiting on forwardslash or mk to put it in there. I dig it though steve, nice work as always.
Trying to figure out if I'm going to be fired on Friday, which is doing wonders for my feelings of self-worth.
Being fired is a right of passage, like puking when you drink too much or having a goatee. All of these things suck, but they're just something we all have to do. -This is of course, somewhat gender specific. You are not your job. You are not your car. You are not your grades. You are not what you imagine others think you are. Those moments when your head is clear and silent, when you feel contented, THAT is you. -jobs are a dime a dozen. You will be fine! Hang in there pal!
I'm still unsure if that's what this meeting is about because nobody will tell me. My mind jumped to the worst case. Regarding the quoted text: it's kind of scary that you said that, because at the end of my session today it was decided that what you said there is essentially what we're going to be going over during the next one.You are not what you imagine others think you are.
Dude, I've spent years thinking that others imagine the worst of me. Feeling and carrying around a guilt that is not of my own making. It's nuts. I used to (and to an extent still do) imagine that people saw me as something negative. It's a horrible way to live. Our internal dialog can be our worst enemy. Being mindful of our thoughts is a very, very important thing. I think some people are naturally, or conditionally better at doing this than others. The good news is, you can work at it and become more aware of using your mind/thought/internal dialog as a tool to turn on when needed and not have BLASTING at all times. Good luck! I'm glad you are attending sessions and I hope you are finding them valuable.
Hah, well it's the way I've been living my entire life. thenewgreen can I shoot you a pm - I've got a question that I have to ask somebody and it may or may not be something you'll have something to say about.
My sympathies. I'm due to get laid off at the end of the year. The fear is palpable. Sucks a lot of energy out of you too. Hope you get some good news soon.
Yeah, my morale is nonexistent at this point. This will be the second company to drop me in three years. I give them my blood, sweat and tears only to be shown the door when a pencilpusher in some corporate dungeon a thousand miles away thinks it'll save a few pennies. It's so frusturating! All I want is to work hard for a little piece of mind. But you're just a number to these people. I've pretty much checked out at this point. Short of blowing up the place they won't get rid of me until this next campaign is over. They still got a little more soulsucking to do before the hammer falls. Meantime I'm looking for something really worthwhile. I'd love nothing more than to beat them to the punch. I'm a mix of fear and excitement. Be careful kids. It's scary out there.
Yeah. I got an email from our adviser today asking to meet with me, our general manager, and one other person on Friday after our executive board meeting. Apparently I'm the last person to find out about this meeting, and our GM was talking to people in my department about the department, and had no intentions of telling me. Needless to say, I'm displeased right now.
At 4pm my cousin Ashleigh and her husband Chris arrive from San Diego. The prompt for their visit is Bill Cosby. Apparently, it is one of her husbands bucket list items to see Cosby live. The Cos is performing Saturday night. I will not be seeing Cosby, I saw him years ago and crossed him off my bucket list (actually, he wasn't on it) but been there, done that. I'll be seeing Wilco this weekend at the NC Museum of Art. I'm very excited for the show. humanodon recently shared some of his poetry with me and I made this tune out of one of them. That was fun. Last night, kleinbl00 joined our Hubski team call and that was pretty kick ass. KB and I have texted for the past year or more, we've emailed, hubski'd, collaborated on music, podcasts etc and once, a few weeks ago we talked on the phone for a bit, but this was the first time I had seen the man behind the myth. It was a pleasure to talk with him about Hubski, where we are at and some of the stuff in the hopper for the future. -Good times. He only wears one sock He appears to have all his teeth. Like most of us, he looks bizarre upside-down. Thanks for your time KB. Edit: eightbitsamurai, just finished cardio. Was too nice today to do a video. Went on a 4mile run, did weights and some and too. Feel great. Started T25 at about 190lbs, today I'm at 180. My target is 170. Sweet!
I Android is OS X. It isn't iOS and I'm okay with that. I'm actually kinda likin' it. Would happily ditch the globular weird Android emoji, though. WTF. II A colleague and I were bemoaning the fact that "douchebag" is a difficult sobriquet to level at a woman. I reflected that "douchebag" is a great word in that it's a non-sequitor that is only offensive because it is used for offense. My colleague suggested "douche-hag" which gave me a chuckle but it occurred to me that "hag" makes it very gender-specific. I've become much more aware of gender issues since having a daughter and I'm recognizing more and more that the default for women in English is belittlement, not empowerment. III The new Mac Mini is out and it's expensive and the RAM is soldered. I could build a Hackintosh that would dust the shit out of it for half the price. Meanwhile I'm listening through Doubletwist so I could reasonably jettison iTunes, especially since I have a 24TB server. So I'm trying to decide between buying a Mini and restoring the status quo or doing something completely different and go over to FLAC. Lord knows I have enough ratio on a handful of trackers to get serious about it. IV Michelin Pilot Road 2s have treated me great for the past 7800 miles, which is unheard of for motorcycle tires. But for the past 200 they've gone from "unsettling" to "disquieting" to "disturbing" to "terrifying." Francesca is therefore in the garage (a friendly neighbor volunteered a parking spot - talk about awesome) and I took the Dodge this morning. Which proceeded to bust a bead on the shitty-ass road into this weird-ass job. So, hey. Glad I dissipated my tire karma on something with four of them, rather than two.
I'm recognizing more and more that the default for women in English is belittlement, not empowerment.
That's a powerful realization. Read that line galen and remember that George Orwell or whatever you want to call him said it too, but in different words. as in But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought
oh my god klein i read the worst article about douchebag on facebook the other day It was so bad it wasn't worth sharing on Hubski. I not only disagree with it but think it's stupid. So only read it if you wanna rage a little.
Yeah, I don't think I saw it here. I didn't like it. I didn't think the author did a good job with their argument. I was really confused as to why Batman/Bruce Wayne was somehow, arbitrarily a douchebag. Like the author was very good at saying "So-and-so! They're a douchebag!" The author was not good at saying why. And also he called John Wayne a douchebag and kind of lost me there. And also he said Cyclops is a douchebag when really all Cyclops ever did was love Jean Grey and not get along with Wolvervine, he was actually generally kind of a better person than Wolverine?
Best "douchebag" quote I ever heard? douchebag - someone you don't like douchebag in Hollywood - someone more successful than you There's a fair amount of "sour grapes" to it, and I think the fact that it's a sobriquet leveled at white men has more to do with the fact that we have so many other slanders to level at other races and genders. Women will be called gender-specific things. Other races are likely to get something other than "douchebag" first. His comment on the lack of white-people slander is linguistically deaf. Ethnic slurs are used to delineate "other" and when you're a white male, that ain't you. Read a book about China once, for example, that pointed out that the word for "japanese" basically means "foreign devil" and if you want to talk about any other race of foreigner, you have to say the equivalent of "foreign devil, other than Japanese."
I bet you could change the emojis if you're willing to waste your time on that. I'm not sure if this tutorial works on OS X but it's worth a try if it's something that bothers you. As for insults, I find that asshole is a good gender-neutal one. Everybody has/can be an asshole.
I wanted to say "100% correct," but I am not actually sure. Some people refer to "driving places and sleeping in one's car" as car camping, so to be explicit, I will be sleeping in a tent, but it'll be campsite camping - the car will be there, we'll have a firepit and even flushing toilets a walk away from the site, should emergencies occur a park ranger or officer will, undoubtedly, be within reach. I'm hella excited. Most of the camping I have done in recent years has been with my brother who is infinitely more experienced in such affairs than I. This time I will be "leading" the trip of sorts. Not pictured: portable charcoal grill and beach. YES. THE BEACH. I'm gonna climb one of these fuckin' towers. (Will it embedden?) 
Excellent. You can bring more essentials like better food, better wine and guitars. I do like a minimal trip too and if I can be far, far away from people and civilisation so much the better. That tends to dissuade anyone from coming with me though. But then it's quieter. I was going to post a bunch of of these in a Hubski #TripReport tag but never got around to it. (Edit: Hubski image embed doesn't like https links, eh?) (Second Edit: Ah, Huski image embed doesn't like uppercase .JPG mk)
I am seriously considering a #tripreport if I take good pictures and the weekend goes well. I'm hoping the fact that it's offseason will help ensure a less-crowded camp area. I picked a campsite close to the bathrooms deliberately, without realizing it also made me much closer to potential neighbors. However, it should be in the 50s-60s F here, and windy, so the families shouldn't be interested and we'll be done with weekend beachgoers for the most part. The water will be much too cold for swimming and even for lolling about in, I expect. I have been discouraged from camping alone, although I have my own resentful theories as to why that might be. The point stands that if one is alone and injured far from civilization and without a cell phone, one could be pretty much screwed badly. Car camping I think is a great start towards a "more-solo" camping career, or my "taking the lead" camping career, because I get to pack totally everything I can think of without worry about weight or leaving things behind. I would like to go backpacking and do longer-term camping in the future, but one step at a time.
True 'nuff, ease yourself into it. The camping aspects of a backpacking trip I find pretty much the same; just a little more thought into what you need to take; but the opportunity to get further away from things appeals to me infinitely more. I'm aware of the risks of solo trips which is why I don't do silly things when I'm out there. Haven't had to hack my own arm off. Yet. Then again I'm someone who regularly SCUBA dived solo off the coast here which you absolutely, expressly and utterly should not do - especially at night, which is when I liked it the best.
Get to bed early and get up early. You'll feel amazing. REMEMBER TO MAKE SMORES.
That photo makes me miss the long stretch of beaches between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz... I was considering a camping trip during Veterans Day next month. But then I was told that camping in New England this time of year is more akin to what you'd see in survival shows than the miles and miles of warm and quiet mountains trails of California :(
Raining like crazy here in Oregon. The weather dude is telling me that we've had 1.75 inches today with still more to come. Weee! The walls/roof/windows are leaking in the old warehouse building that now serves as the office. Rainwater is generally not compatible with computers. Also Looks like I need new waterproof shoes. Delivered a gift certificate prize (finally!) to a fellow employee who rode his bike every day in September. Way to go, dude! On my way back picked up some coffee that I've not tried before; pretty stoked for tomorrow morning.
I liked today!
Lemme know how you like the coffee -- always looking to find new mail-order coffee-roasters. Not a big choice up here in New Hampshire, and I can't get down to Boston often. Ever tried Happy Mug? It's all I know in the online world that's affordable, but I LOVE it...
My sister got me this bomb necklace: I got ice-cream for the first time in and a while and it was awesome. I love peanut butter. And I'm finally going to get good arch-supports for my horrendous flat feet sometime soon. Edit: Lately I've been struggling with the fact that I have lots of ideas in terms of projects that I know I'll never have time to do. I don't want to be a jack of all trades, I want to be really good at a few specific things. I want to draw, write, play music, maybe try film, design my own website, make a videogame, and I don't have time to do all of those things -- at least, do all of them well. I hate having to choose.
Started to get cold here, I had to wear a flannel shirt today. mk: I'm looking at a glioblastoma group to do research work in. Previously I'd shied away from cancer research because I'd heard giving mice tumors all day got a bit depressing after a while. But, I like their approach, and they offload the animal work to other groups!
Literally just got done sac'ing rats with hepatocellular carcinoma from a failed experiment. I used to have pet rats. It's hard sometimes.
Rats, sigh. There's some good rat news. I just read this article on training rats to trade on Wall Street . Think its worth a post?
Ha. Just read this paper on HCC minutes ago:
Cancer research is hard. Too many cooks in the kitchen, if you ask me. Everyone wants to be the one who "cures cancer", so everybody goes into cancer. Hence, NCI has one of the worst funding rates of any institute. Be afraid. Be very afraid. As for the review, it won't be your last bad review. We try to make everyone else feel stupid, because it gives us catharsis for all the times other people have made us feel two feet tall. The trick is to not take it personal, even if you feel like it is.
Aye, though this would be from the point of view of "we have this awesome method we can apply to anything, let's try this understudied disease that people haven't made much headway on". Personally I'm interested in the general principles of cellular systems. Having some disease on the end of that is a nice way to give a project tangible benchmarks though. Had a minor bout of "that's unfair, those other guys didn't have to do all that", but it subsided... Oh and thundara you need to stop writing such long sentences no one can understand you seriously stop this is going on for way too long you need to understand punctuation should be used to punctuate things... MehCancer research is hard. Too many cooks in the kitchen, if you ask me. Everyone wants to be the one who "cures cancer", so everybody goes into cancer. Hence, NCI has one of the worst funding rates of any institute. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
As for the review, it won't be your last bad review. We try to make everyone else feel stupid, because it gives us catharsis for all the times other people have made us feel two feet tall. The trick is to not take it personal, even if you feel like it is.
NEVER write in long sentences when writing science. I had to learn that, as well. It's my natural tendency to write complex sentences with lots of embedded clauses and descriptors. The problem with this is that the majority of the people who will read your work are 1) not native English speakers, and 2) don't have a ton of interest in your language skills. Keep it concise and simple, and don't ever assume that the person who is reading what you wrote knows as much as you do about the subject matter. They don't.
Who had the key? Usually by the time I get back on Wednesday, the bar has been open for hours and everyone is on their third round. I actually thought that the bar was on Lock Down like most of Ottawa (capital of Canada). veen, being currently in our home and Native land probably thought the same. Our friends to the south, who are no stranger to terroristic threats, might hear something about this as it seems to be the headline item on cnn.com, "There's a frenzy outside Parliament Hill," reports CNN. On Monday, a Canadian "friend of Isis" killed a Canadian soldier with his car. The Canadian was then killed by police. Today, a gunman killed a Canadian soldier who was guarding the National War Museum. This man or another man went running through the halls of Parliament shooting. Case is ongoing and at 2:44, no one knows much. I'm rattled. I'll have a Stella, please.
Turned in 10 pages on human rights in latin america this morning, feeling some relief. Taking tonight for myself, after my last class gets out in 2 hours. Sleeping in tomorrow and working out hopefully, getting some blood moving and some energy out. Back at the library grindstone tomorrow night. Topic for study, the decision of the United States to use Atomic weapons on Japan. I'll buy the next round.
*Edit: I saw a poster for this weird lecture series and website Correction. I saw a poster for Creatonists trying to teach creation science to non-science majors.
Just passed my HR exam, I think it went pretty well. 3 more to go. Went to my ARV interview yesterday. Apparently the school already has the equipment to have a radio but they said you could only broadcast in one room and they tried a couple of years ago and the project failed miserably. Nobody seemed too eager to try again :( Maybe i'm just shit at convincing people? Meanwhile, i hope they take me into the club for video making but it seems like they interviewed lots of people and I have no clue how good the others are... And I really should prepare better for these. I'am ashamed to say I was not even ready for a "three words to describe you" question. Fail. If they don't take me in, I'll try pushing to take control of the equipment they don't use anyway.
It would make a good #askhubski, "What three words describe you?" Congrats on the HR exam. Good luck with the ones to come!I'am ashamed to say I was not even ready for a "three words to describe you" question. Fail.
-That would be difficult for most honest people. However, the words they're looking for are things like "passionate, dedicated, committed etc.
Motivated, creative and Elizabethy -That would have been the ideal answer. What a dumb question though. It has nothing to do with who you are though and everything to do with whether or not you can think on your feet.
It's actually a pretty common interview question, like the worst default/best quality question. It's not about thinking on you feet, it's about being prepared and I wasn't. No big deal but i'll know to prepare for important interviews in the future. It is a dumb question tho. I bet everyone has mostly the same answers. Kinda like "traveling" is not really an answer to "what do you like?" because pretty much everyone likes traveling.
Going to New Orleans this weekend. I haven't had a second to myself to think or read quietly or take a walk in so long. In a few weeks everything will be vaguely back to normal. In the meantime, sleeping on the floors of seedy motels and drinking cheap bourbon and meeting new people. If I could hop a freight train to get down there, life would be perfect. I yearn to go camping _refugee_. I am trying to convince some friends that Zion National Park should be on our radar in December, though I'm not sure how much of it is open at that time.
Tomorrow CJSW's Funding Drive Week starts! I've been volunteering a lot lately and it is still great to do. If I'm lucky I'll get to meet Chris Hadfield at the station this Friday, he'll come by then when I'm on the phone taking donations. This Sunday will mark the halfway point of my time here abroad. It's crazy, time is flying by. Next week my parents will visit Canada, so I look forward to seeing them again.
Nothing new to report, all silent on the Midwestern Front. Edit: Actually that's a lie. Whoever had my phone number before me managed to get it on a call list. So now I have multiple calls a week/day sometimes asking for someone (not me), always from diploma mills or auto insurance somethings.
Crazy, countercultural revivalist biographical theatrical project rolls ever closer to production. Various funding sources for other projects scud and boil across the sky of possibility like time-lapsed clouds over a hopeful ocean. The yeses continue to mount up. Also, LA, baby. ;)
I went to the Saatchi Gallery which is a really good art gallery (modern art) near Chelsea in London with a bunch of friends from university, then Amorino which is a really nice ice cream shop (like a gelateria). Then I had dinner at Las Iguanas which is chain restaurant but quite nice actually that serves South American food and most importantly two for one cocktails ;) So that was a good day. Back to studying today though. Yaaaaaawn. PS: yes, it's the Saatchi Gallery as in the one owned by the guy who strangled Nigella Lawson but apparently he gave it to the public in 2010 so it's not his art gallery any more. Anyway it's free so it's not as if you're giving him money.
I was recommended AIrbnb by a friend and am possibly going to be using it to visit Amsterdam next week because I've got a week off from work. Any recommendations for places to see and things to do?