Tag: science

Some days, it is just hard

First, a bit of social/political commentary: this going in and cancelling NSF grants: I’ll admit to having very mixed feelings.

On one hand: basic scientific research is rarely immediately profitable, and much of it will not pan out in terms of producing something material. But: it is important, not only because expanding human knowledge is good, but also because you never know when having research “on the shelf” will come in handy (e. g. research was already done on RNA type vaccines before covid hit).

So, yes, the NSF should be funding science.

On the other hand, some of what the NSF was funding IS stupid and a waste of time and money. Don’t ask me how I know.

A saying about babies and bathwater comes to mind.

But in the current academic climate, any time you want to fund something, even a STEM project, the wokes will want their cut and cry “bigotry” if they don’t get it.

And here is the rub: the MAGAS are against the wokes, but also against science. The liberals are for science, but also support the wokes. Sigh..

Workout notes

Minimal knee pain last night. Wonder how effective the knee sleeves are.

Workout: pull ups: 10 singles (HARD), then 8 sets of 5 (alternating pull ups, chin ups, two sets of mixed grips) then a set of 4 (penalty reps). It was hard..don’t know exactly why.

Downstairs: bench: 10 x 134, 3 sets of 5 x 160 (best in a while?)

deadlifts: 10 x 134 straight bar, wagon wheel with the straight bar: 10 x 184, 10 x 224 (glutes and lumbar were slightly sore from the last straight bar session)
4 inch trap bar: 10 x 244

high incline: 2 sets of 10 x 94, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10.
Two 1 mile (plus) commuter walks to and from Walgreens.

Some late May politics and social issues…

Will the House impeach President Trump?
I still think that Fareed Zakaria raises some good points. But as the Muller Report gets digested and summarized..

More and more Democrats (and a Republican) in the House are clamoring for impeachment. I had wondered if there were enough votes, given that there are about 30 moderates representing reddish CDs. Fivethirtyeight thinks that there *probably* are.

Note: Nancy Pelosi is probably wise to slow-walk this.

I’ll be interested to see how this plays out. Note that Trump admitted (albeit, probably unwittingly) that Russia helped him win.

What I find interesting is that so many conservatives are fine with Trump praising a ruthless dictator who executes even his own officials. One was just recently executed.

And I admit that I am disgusted with Trump’s relationship with the military and how there seems to be little push-back (this is about the Navy, at least at first, trying to ensure that Trump didn’t see the ship name “John McCain”. Talk about a “triggered snowflake.”

Other issues

Thank you, Meryl Streep, for pushing back on this “toxic masculinity” nonsense.

Political correctness on campus: yes, some students ..AND FACULTY..will reject science if they think that the science in question runs counter to what they think “ought” to be true. Biology catches this from several angles: religious nutters can’t deal with evolution, and the woke can’t deal with the fact that humans aren’t blank slates.

I think that online discussions aren’t helping matters. I wonder if overuse of Twitter is leading me to stat thinking in slogans and catch phrases. There is some research that suggests that Twitter could make you dumber.

How cool is this?

Yes, we’ve seen the first images of a black hole. A lot of top-notch talent worked hard to make this possible. Here is one of these people, who is destined to go down in the science history books:

 

 

And in sports: regrettably I had to miss the Bradley Baseball team beating Iowa (though I went to a wonderful lecture on digital privacy and law enforcement/trail matters. If only they were on different nights.