I've heard many stupid things relating to the economy lately. Things like bonuses, posh retreats and what-haves for bankers bailed out by our previous administration. Kudos to Obama for putting the smackdown on bonuses, BTW.
So I'm starting a new series called "Stop Whining". It's a populist-style rant for all the well-heeled people who think that these economic times mean things like buying a $2000 dress instead of a $5000 dress, less vacationing in Aspen, no private jets and driving themselves around. Basically, people who don't know what it feels like to be on the cusp of losing everything.
Ironically, I've heard the MOST bitching from these sorts of people. Mostly in the New York Times. Both entertaining and infuriating.
Segment 1: Gee, how can I possibly live on 500k a year? And, the Consumerist responds.
11 February 2009
09 February 2009
Scientific Malaise
For some reason, I'm feeling really rotten today. To paraphrase Jimmy Carter, a feeling of malaise has washed over me.
Instead of sleeping it off, genius me is here at work instead because I want to go for a run later this afternoon. And I'd feel bad if I did stay at home and felt well enough to go out for a run. So I figured I'd suffer for the cause and at least be a warm body. A warm body that wants to pass out over my laptop and take a nice long snooze.
I'm taking this opportunity to catch up on reading journal articles. I have about 20 journals that I like to cruise through. On rare occasions, I find very good articles. Most of them time, I'm neither impressed or disappointed. Then, I find articles that makes me want to go kick some butt.
Take this one for example:
"Application of multi-factorial design of experiments to successfully optimize immunoassays for robust measurements of therapeutic proteins"
So DOE is a fancy way of saying "planning our experiments beforehand so we know we'll get good results". Standard fare, IMHO. So why do they get to publish THAT? It'll be practical,sure. But it does not advance scientific knowledge when someone says "I did the scientific method". I saw alot of presentations like this at Photonics West-stuff that's either 20 years old or presented LAST year at the same conference (same slides, almost same order=new presentation! Who knew?)Pretty disappointing, actually.
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Instead of sleeping it off, genius me is here at work instead because I want to go for a run later this afternoon. And I'd feel bad if I did stay at home and felt well enough to go out for a run. So I figured I'd suffer for the cause and at least be a warm body. A warm body that wants to pass out over my laptop and take a nice long snooze.
I'm taking this opportunity to catch up on reading journal articles. I have about 20 journals that I like to cruise through. On rare occasions, I find very good articles. Most of them time, I'm neither impressed or disappointed. Then, I find articles that makes me want to go kick some butt.
Take this one for example:
"Application of multi-factorial design of experiments to successfully optimize immunoassays for robust measurements of therapeutic proteins"
So DOE is a fancy way of saying "planning our experiments beforehand so we know we'll get good results". Standard fare, IMHO. So why do they get to publish THAT? It'll be practical,sure. But it does not advance scientific knowledge when someone says "I did the scientific method". I saw alot of presentations like this at Photonics West-stuff that's either 20 years old or presented LAST year at the same conference (same slides, almost same order=new presentation! Who knew?)Pretty disappointing, actually.
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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