End of first competition

Taking a few minutes to reflect on the past week of competition at work.

I'm tired - not from the competition, but from late nights trying to make ends meet for the family. I just seem to spend so much time COOKING - that and working out. That, and maybe an hour of gaming or chatting with da rabid hedgehog is enough to call it a night. I hope that when Cheryl's conference is out of the way we can get down to more balance, but the next week it'll be hunker down and get the job done.

This past week, I got an appreciation for the work put in by program officers. Lotsa dedication there, as well as the committe members who put in a massive amount of work for no pay. I feel honored to work with such a community of people.

It's amaaaazing what our young Canadian scientists are up to. Some of the research is really cutting-edge, I just wish that it were better known. Too bad I can't talk about it.

Having seen the talent that exists in our universities, it's easy to see the continuum of science education from high-school, to undergraduate, to graduate and beyond. I know this is not a profound conclusion and I'm not the first to make it. It just suprises me how little attention is paid to science/math at the HS level considering that the next generation of scientists and engineers (and innovators) can be grown locally.

All this has motivated me to take Monday off, and make it an ORSF day where I'll try to do some fundraising and some writing. And cooking, of course...

Wired News: Bush Ripped on Global Warming

Damn. HELLO AMERICA!!! GET WITH IT, WOULD YA??

Why does this NOT surprise me. Could this be the Watergate that will bring down Bush?

I wish!

See Wired News: Bush Ripped on Global Warming

Computer crash blues

Well, I found out the hard way that you don’t mix a pre-Service Pack 2 edition of Windows XP with a SATA hard drive….

You see, the original edition of Windows XP (of which I have a copy) does not recognize large-capacity SATA hard drive on first installation. However I subsequently worked out the install of the SATA with the help of MS customer service, but I kept getting intermittent crashes to desktop. Odd.

That lasted until this past Monday, when I was in the process of "backing up" a DVD onto my hard drive, and then, WHOOPS… the Blue Screen of Death appeared. ARGH.

I was unable to boot the comp until late last night when I installed my old IDE hard drive.

So far, things look fine, but who knows?

An unexpected e-mail

Ah, j'ai reçu un courriel de Louise (Louise M., pas Louise K!) Le petit courriel qu'elle m'a envoyé m'a fait sourire, et m'a inspiré à reconstruire mon "blogue."

Éventuellement, j'espère consolider toutes les petites informations dispersées que j'ai publié au courant des années, et les avoir en une seule place. P'tit train ira loin!

Lessons I'd forgotten...now remembered

A lot has happened over the last few days, to make me reconsider where I am in my life and what I want to do with it...

Cheryl went away this weekend to visit a close friend who is in hospital, and who has come very close to dying. He's still not out of the woods, but we are cautiously optimistic.

Mark is a person who has struggled against Crohn's disease for almost 50 years - and has had first-hand experience of our health-care system which will term as SHAMEFUL.

I can't help but feel that it would be a great injustice if he died. He's not the kind of person you'd think as being courageous, and I'm sure he would laugh if I would suggest it; but I can't help but feel a great deal of respect for what he has accomplished with his life in spite of his condition. Through several times where our families vacationed together, he somehow put me back in tune with love I had of nature, and for some reason years ago Ihad let go...and for that reconnection I am thankful to him.

Mark's sudden illness, coupled with the "traffic accident" that I witnessed a close friend have at her workplace, and which I related in this blog earlier, got me to thinking.

Not the kind of rational, down-on-paper kind of thinking, but rather a sub-verbal dialogue.

Here, these two individuals, facing very different circumstances, struggle to live their lives according to their convictions. I find this admirable - and I now realize that I have not had the courage to live the same way. Not to live according to my own convictions, but to have allowed myself to be led by illusions, either my own or someone else's.

So it was in this frame of mind that I stumbled across an old song by Men Without Hats on YouTube, entitled "I Sing Last." Somehow, when I listened to these lyrics, it described pretty much where I feel I am:

We've been told lies. We've been herded around
Taken for rides, told that this is the one
We've learned all the steps and where do they lead
Right back to zero or not far I believe
Making history as we open our eyes
And no one's quite sure so we... We improvise
And wherever it leads us is wherever we'll go
I'd dance forever if they'd let me, you know

Wearing our hair up in anger we cry
The revolution's dead, it went out in style
The children are learning much faster than we
Soon they'll be older, but then again, so will we

Time has come for each of us to decide
To follow blindly or to step out of line
The party is over it has been for years
Let's use the water to wash up, not for tears

Seems such a pity
It seemed we had the same dream
And thinking of things past
You sang first I sang last
You sang first I sang last
You sang first I sang last

...and time has come for me to decide.

YouTube - Organic Chemistry Music Video "Resistant to Base"

While taking a few minutes away from ORSF stuff, I spent a few minutes cruising YouTube and I stumbled across this little gem....

For those of you who remember Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love", us science geeks might get a kick off a cover on the song: Check the YouTube - Organic Chemistry Music Video "Resistant to Base"

Hilarious!!!

Science vs. Corporate Communications

Ever witness a traffic accident?

Well, I have, kinda, it's an accident that a friend of mine had in posting on their blog something related to their workplace that was better left unsaid. A Bad Thing happened, and there were repercussions. I got that kinda queasy feeling of witnessing an accident, and it got me to thinking about a whole sordid mess of office politics and what seems to me the basic incompatibility of mindsets of Science and of Corporate Communication. (My emphasis added.)

It seems to me that one of the basic premises of Science is the free exchange of communication, of revealing the truth (as facts), and the thrashing out of explanations.

On the other hand, Corporate Communications has as its fundamental premise the communication of selected information (not necessarily fact), the "spinning" of the message (whether these are, at best, truths or half-truths), and the overriding importance of getting the message across as opposed to thrashing out of opinions to getting to the truth.

This gets worse as person trained in science (as I am) tries to embrace the world of corporate communications (as I did) and tries to reconcile the two. I tried, and failed.

While I don't argue that it is possible for the concepts of Science and Corporate Communications to co-exist, what I contend is that these mindsets are fundamentally opposed to each other, and that it is only by one mindset compromising a core value that the two can co-exist. And it is for each person to decide how far they are ready to compromise their core value in order for these two things to co-exist in the same brain - and incidentally how far one is willing to compromise their core value to "get ahead" in the organization. On this last point, I know of what I speak. 'Nuff said.

I have seen examples of individuals in several workplaces that refuse to compromise their integrity in the face of pressure to do so. They choose to do or say what they believe in - and they suffer the consequences of that because it doesn't fit in the mold of Corporate Communications or in the stated values of the organization.

Now, if what I have just said offends someone, then they'd better try and sue "Dilbert." I suspect that the very same people that would laugh at the comic strip and comment that it's true to life would be deeply offended if "open secrets" of their own organization were made plain in a blog or a comic strip and if it implicated them. I understand the concept of confidentiality, but I think that we've gone too far on the PC route if we can't state our own opinions without fear of corporate reprisal.

Just look at this story of the interference of American scientists by the American administration. And we in Canada shouldn't think that this hasn't happened already!

I, personally, wish I had the guts to speak out the way some of my colleagues and some scientists have from their own convictions. But I haven't, and don't, because I have a mortgage to pay and kids to take care of. I'm too in love with my income and my way of life to risk change and to have the courage to live my live the way I think I really believe in...

It's sad. It's so sad.

:-(

Canada 'must act' to curb global warming: Harper

re: Story that Canada 'must act' to curb global warming (Sympatico / MSN)

Finally, our Prime Minister may have gotten the message. If he didn't get the message from his scientists, he might have gotten the message in yesterday's annoucement that humans are 'very likely' to have caused the average increase in temperature observed since 1750 (aka global warming). And if he doesn't act on that message, then I suspect, or rather hope, that the voters will remember.

I'm not optimistic that our present government will really do what is needed. I find it VERY hard to believe that our Prime Minister, who five years ago was dead-set against the Kyoto protocol and called it a "socialist agreement that would only suck money out of the world's wealthier economies" will turn around and embrace that environmental cause. Sorry, but that particular leopard will NOT change its' spots...

And if I thought all this was bad, but then a friend sent me a story which made it worse: it appears that scientists were offered money to "undermine" the climate change report published yesterday.

I'll have more to say about that when my blood pressure goes down...

Réchauffement climatique : Baird ne l'aurait pas cru | National | Radio-Canada.ca

Bordel! MAIS QUELLE SURPRISE!!

N'importe que plusieurs de nos chercheurs canadiens ont dit IL Y A DES ANNÉES que le réchauffement de la planète soit réalité, il fallait que M. Baird, le ministre fédéral de l'environnement aille en France entendre la même conclusion de la bouche de quelqu'un d'autre... voir Réchauffement climatique : Baird ne l'aurait pas cru National Radio-Canada.ca

Ceci n'inspire pas à la confidence!

Buying bottled water is WRONG!

This made my day.

Finally, a scientist who has the cojones to stand up and take a stand AGAINST the use of bottled water!

I always thought it was a "yuppie" thing to do, which made NO environmental sense... Read: Buying bottled water is wrong, says Suzuki.