WEDDING PICTURE

Tomorrow (3/19/19) is our 37th wedding anniversary.  I sure wish Linda were here to enjoy it with me.  We drove to California on our honeymoon, and had lots of fun - even though I did run the car out of gas on the first day!

My daughters haven't aged a bit.

DON'T SWEAT IT

Do you see me here?

There seems to be more than a little concern about our social-media giants, specifically Google and Facebook, compiling information about their users for advertising or other nefarious purposes.  Personally, I’m not too worried.  Here’s why. 

I am a frequent reader of something called Google News; every morning I grab a cup of coffee and plop down in my favorite chair, to see what’s going on in the world.  Google News brings you links to current journalism, under topics such as Headlines, World, Entertainment, Sports, Tech, Health, etc.  They also have a section titled: For You: Based on Your Interests.

Based on the articles Google offers me under that rubric, it obviously believes that I am:

            A Millennial

            Female

            About to interview for a new job

            Vitally interested in Robin Williams and Ariadne Grande

So that’s why I don’t worry much about my personal profile.  Also, Google sometimes presents a user with “Local” news.  For that purpose  on occasion they have concluded that I live in San Jose, Portland, and – usually when I’m not there – Borrego Springs!.

A NEW BLOG SERIES - FOR PUZZLED ANCIENTS

For the benefit of old people everywhere (well, those that can read English) I hereby inaugurate an occasional blog-mode that, for want of anything clever, might be called: “Eh?  What’s that mean, sonny?”  My kick-off term is “trope”.  I see it in sentences like: “Oh, just another Internet trope.”  Apparently a “trope” is bad, somehow – but how, and why?  Please explain.

HOW TO SPLIT UP THE LOOT

The type of committee I am talking about would have on white coats - and maybe include a few women

This isn’t exactly a “frivolity”, but then, again, it has very little to do with OVCA directly – so I stick it here.

I have been writing about things I know little or nothing about for a half-dozen years or so.  All that time I have nurtured a suspicion that “we” (society) are making some fundamental mistakes in how we allocate research funds.  In particular, I have continually felt (and expressed, if poorly) the notion that, whereas big research programs are best for testing new hypotheses and working out their details, the actual innovative hypothesis itself is more likely to come from a small (<4. say) group – or a single scientist working, and thinking, alone.  Thus, it is not surprising to find that a scientific report on the efficacy of drug XYZ has upwards of several dozen “authors” – but it was Einstein who proposed the existence of gravitational waves.

Consequently I wish that research funds could be distributed somewhat differently.  At present, for the most part, the money is divvied up by substantially large, bureaucratic committees – and, it seems to me that large bureaucratic committees can be expected to give birth to more of the same .  I wish there were a way to divert more funding to isolated investigators with “whacky” new ideas – and do so effectively.  

I’m not sure how that would work.

But, anyway, read this persuasive article from the NYTimes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/science/science-research-psychology.html