tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post7821254036553359185..comments2024-03-18T03:27:18.777-04:00Comments on Rabett Run: Where the Money GoesEliRabetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-76214574553214876722017-02-08T20:55:14.935-05:002017-02-08T20:55:14.935-05:00Aside: there's a guy over at RC who's aski...Aside: there's a guy over at RC who's asking for someone to check his computer code, which hasn't agreed with the consensus science on solar input, near as I can tell from his description:<br /><br />http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/non-condensable-cynicism-in-santa-fe/comment-page-2/#comment-670698Hank Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07521410755553979665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-24100780639544069242017-02-06T14:39:25.702-05:002017-02-06T14:39:25.702-05:00https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/1619...https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16194881_1754804481504693_6089211345346189787_n.png?oh=e2410f51973c46ab6de8230d251d349c&oe=5947EEA6Hank Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07521410755553979665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-45649394951205813942017-02-01T09:38:22.746-05:002017-02-01T09:38:22.746-05:00The inappropriate thread yielded me a semijewel, i...The inappropriate thread yielded me a semijewel, it is: 'It makes sense in a DSM sort of way'. Thanks. Moving on.cRR Kampenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07571285063752477448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-13144381931121305422017-01-31T04:20:23.459-05:002017-01-31T04:20:23.459-05:00Indeed. I left the academic world on the grounds t...Indeed. I left the academic world on the grounds that I was already 27 with no money, and the prospect was of repeated postdoc short term contracts with minimal pay and security. This was at the late-1990s funding nadir, and I'm not temperamentally suited to endless job/grant applications.<br /><br />No one does academia to get rich. In fact, given the situation with tuition fees and further cuts, it looks like academia if going to be reserved for the already-wealthy and hermits, as per the 1800s. Sad. <br /><br />The cynic in me thinks that the kind of people who go on about the size of these grants are the kind of people who would automatically be thinking - if they got such a grant - of how to funnel as much of it into their own pocket as possible, instead of using it to do research. But perhaps that's mean.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02729454651003425550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-38378677813332053802017-01-30T15:49:05.903-05:002017-01-30T15:49:05.903-05:00For many years after I realized I wanted to know s...For many years after I realized I wanted to know something about everything instead of everything about something and abandoned science for art, I supported myself by working on the administrative side of academic organizations and think tanks, particularly in helping prepare proposals and reports. It always galls me to see people misrepresent the money, which is rarely enough to support the work. Eli's figures are accurate, and the pittance that supports the highly qualified lower end people who have given over a decade to learning and understanding and doing worthwhile things is being sneered at from the wrong end. None of these people, the non-celebrities whose work and ethics are as honest as the day is long, are being paid enough.Susan Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16935228911713362040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-3327231498409023342017-01-30T05:37:38.272-05:002017-01-30T05:37:38.272-05:00In the UK, grad student funding is now - in the sc...In the UK, grad student funding is now - in the sciences - mostly at least 3.5 years and, in some cases, 4 years (which comes with various training obligations). Most universities requires that PhD students complete within 4 years, so it is rare that you end up funding a PhD student beyond that. However, it is difficult to get PhD support on UK grants (it mostly comes via some kind of training scheme, rather than via direct grant applications) so the EU funding has been allowing there to be more PhD students than would be the case were the only funding coming from within the UK. It will be an interesting few years.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-90293498531476576022017-01-30T04:48:44.226-05:002017-01-30T04:48:44.226-05:00Another big difference is that grad student stipen...Another big difference is that grad student stipends and tuition are paid by the government/university for three years, after that they either go begging or on to a grant. Since it is hard/impossible to get such support from UK funding agencies that means there is a real pressure to get EU funding. It is going to be interesting in a year or so.<br /><br />Eli should also mention that while he can put $10K for materials with a vague budget, in the UK the specification has to be much tighter.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-50916091714347404872017-01-30T04:44:26.856-05:002017-01-30T04:44:26.856-05:00I had not realised that 8c was Thomas Lee Elifritz...I had not realised that 8c was Thomas Lee Elifritz. That explains quite a lot.<br /><br />As far as the post goes, it's very similar in the UK, with the exception that there isn't a 9 month salary in the UK. UK academics are paid a full 12 month salary (unless they've negotiated some reduction) whether or not they are funded. Some of their salary can be included on grants, but this simply means that some of their salary is covered by the grant, not that their salary is increased because of the grant (although, a well funded academic can more easily negotiate a pay rise, but it is limited). As with the US, a big fraction of grant funding goes to cover costs borne by the institution and to pay more junior researchers. Some grants are quite large, but all of that money will be allocated in advance and it doesn't suddenly mean that the Principal Investigator suddenly has access to lots of money. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-53466815315420295962017-01-30T02:13:53.239-05:002017-01-30T02:13:53.239-05:00Please do not feed the trolls or haters. It doesn&...Please do not feed the trolls or haters. It doesn't go anywhere.<br /><br />Just for pleasure, here's rather a nice poem which was referenced as a memorial to Vera Rubin by someone else whose name I forget. Sadly, the nice spacing of the original will probably disappear, in which case you can go to the original here:<br />https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46568<br /><br />Planetarium<br />By Adrienne Rich<br /><br />Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750—1848)<br />astronomer, sister of William; and others.<br /><br />A woman in the shape of a monster <br />a monster in the shape of a woman <br />the skies are full of them<br /><br />a woman 'in the snow<br />among the Clocks and instruments <br />or measuring the ground with poles’<br /><br />in her 98 years to discover <br />8 comets<br /><br />she whom the moon ruled <br />like us<br />levitating into the night sky <br />riding the polished lenses<br /><br />Galaxies of women, there<br />doing penance for impetuousness <br />ribs chilled <br />in those spaces of the mind<br /><br />An eye,<br /><br /> ‘virile, precise and absolutely certain’<br /> from the mad webs of Uranusborg<br /><br /> encountering the NOVA <br /><br />every impulse of light exploding<br /><br />from the core<br />as life flies out of us<br /><br /> Tycho whispering at last<br /> ‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain’<br /><br />What we see, we see <br />and seeing is changing<br /><br />the light that shrivels a mountain <br />and leaves a man alive<br /><br />Heartbeat of the pulsar<br />heart sweating through my body<br /><br />The radio impulse <br />pouring in from Taurus<br /><br /> I am bombarded yet I stand<br /><br />I have been standing all my life in the <br />direct path of a battery of signals<br />the most accurately transmitted most <br />untranslatable language in the universe<br />I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-<br />luted that a light wave could take 15 <br />years to travel through me And has <br />taken I am an instrument in the shape <br />of a woman trying to translate pulsations <br />into images for the relief of the body <br />and the reconstruction of the mind.<br />Susan Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16935228911713362040noreply@blogger.com