tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51415277947847855272024-03-18T20:29:08.451-07:00Go Forth and Innovate!Innovation, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, and University ResearchKeith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-63210656537101019042013-06-06T06:56:00.000-07:002013-06-06T06:56:15.320-07:00Never To Return
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgylu_dPOYKn6anyWuzFOgJxXqWH9CyBfdBYejkI1J1bfr4A7LDl9Nvrzp9R4X2QPPDJc-bqbjog8RRfTn2WiOIQgNwp3W8A0CjzvjIGAVQl-trVb-yXfZx3aZ0rjXvVqGivQd1D64Sd3o/s1600/NTRCoverWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgylu_dPOYKn6anyWuzFOgJxXqWH9CyBfdBYejkI1J1bfr4A7LDl9Nvrzp9R4X2QPPDJc-bqbjog8RRfTn2WiOIQgNwp3W8A0CjzvjIGAVQl-trVb-yXfZx3aZ0rjXvVqGivQd1D64Sd3o/s320/NTRCoverWeb.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">At precious few
moments in what passes for our existence as sentient beings, we experience the
joy of completing an arduous task that has encompassed our entire attention for
countless hours and endless months. I’ve had that pleasure over the past few
days as two of my mammoth ebook projects have been uploaded without error and
accepted for self-publication by Amazon’s <a href="https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin?ie=UTF8&ld=AZKindleMakeM">Kindle
Direct Publishing</a> (KDP). Normally, such an event might not be cause for
excess celebration were it not for the additional burdens imposed by KDP and
the serious flaws and inconsistencies in their [expletive <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-navtoc-is-this.html">“nav.toc”</a>
deleted] KindleGen rendering software and the accompanying documentation –
burdens that cost me an additional two months of extra work. I suppose I should
take solace and be amused at the fact that major publishing houses are having
the same experience, but then … is this progress?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I never expected
to write a novel. I’m certain that Al Kenion, my honors English professor at
Wake Forest University for four semesters, didn’t expect it either based on his
red-lining of my often wacky weekly themes. Of course, nothing has changed.
Fifty years later, I’m just as wacky as ever when it comes to content, but
minus his red-lining – not to mention my atrocious use of syntax and
punctuation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So why write a
novel? In this day and time, content comes and goes at the speed of the
Internet – they don’t call them “browsers” for nothing – leaving little room
for growth into a classic, except maybe for the occasional cult following such
as that surrounding <i><a href="http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html">Game of Thrones</a></i>.
And one certainly is not going to get rich in the era of micro-payments coupled
to uncontrolled pirating, although the 70% Kindle self-publishing contract is
very appealing in the hope of “winning the lottery” by going viral. And it’s a
free service!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For me, writing
the novel <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D6OU41C">Never To Return</a></i> was all
about turning the churn of genealogical prospecting and my curiosity about the
lives and behavior of my ancestors into an instantiation – that’s a geek word
meaning specific realization – of what they were really like based on my own
life experiences with people, my own peccadilloes, and my own interpretation of
the historical record of my ancestor’s existence. It was a challenge that I
could not pass up, especially given the boredom of being a retired person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And so <i>Never To Return</i> tells the story of the
Stoner and Morgan families of Rowan County, North Carolina, beginning with the
marriage of Milas P. Morgan to Camilla Stoner prior to the Civil War and the
birth of their son, Adam, in the spring of 1861. The trials and tribulations of
their extended families in the community of Morgan Township, a community formed
mostly by German immigrants at the time of the Revolutionary War, plays out
through both the mundane and the extraordinary interplay of people dealing with
the vicissitudes of life in a time of war. It is a story of death in its many
forms, childbirth, marriage, fornication and adultery, graft and corruption,
leadership, incompetence, fear, cowardice, heroism, utter despair, and all the
other manifestations of the human condition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ultimately, <i>Never To Return</i> is a story about people,
the most interesting of all subjects. I had fun writing the novel. I hope you
get a chance to read it. You can get a free “quick look” at the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D6OU41C">Kindle online store</a> by clicking
on the cover image and scrolling through parts of the ebook.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And for those of
you who get hooked on the real-world characters in my novel – isn’t it fun to
see an actual picture of the lecherous First Sergeant Daniel Basinger bedecked
in his Civil War uniform – and are not fully sated by the fictional story,
there is the companion ebook and massive tome entitled <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D625496">The Stoner Family of
Rowan County</a></i> that comes complete with every court record and land deed
that you ever wanted to digest. You can
also peruse it for free at the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D625496">Kindle
online store</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Oh, and for
those of you who are classics purists, <i>Never
To Return</i> is not a spoof of <i>Gone with
the Wind</i>, even though I do like to be wacky at times. I revere both
Margaret Mitchell’s book and the movie, but they portray and reveal only the
plantation aristocracy of the old South. The movie in particular is a period
piece with great acting, but whose male characters often come across as
pusillanimous nerds. <i>Gone with the Wind</i>
does not even remotely describe the life of a yeoman farmer in Morgan Township
and what the Civil War was about for them and their families. If you want to
know that story, read <i>Never To Return</i>.
I spent a great deal of time perusing modern history books about the period as
well as reading every extant issue, most of which exist, of the weekly
Salisbury newspaper, the <i>Carolina
Watchman</i>, from 1857 through 1868. It was a rewarding experience. And for
the curious, I chose the title <i>Never To
Return</i> to emphasize the death of so many men in the Civil War and their
failure to return home to their families and loved ones, not to comment on or
spoof the loss of the plantation aristocracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m one of the
lucky ones. The modern technological and information age has given to me the
most wondrous gift of providing a free medium to express myself and to bring to
fruition major projects that keep me mentally young while having fun. It
certainly beats sitting in a rocking chair on the porch at the local retirement
home. Isn’t innovation wonderful!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And don’t forget
to buy a few of <a href="http://mcdowellebooks.com/">my ebooks</a> at
Amazon.com!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-14201342406061346592013-05-30T13:16:00.000-07:002013-05-30T13:16:28.260-07:00Please Pass The Mustard!
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEglnhJyDxFWG5HUgjyIva3tuK7mGVZYop4prO3MzlC3Z3u4zpNHdpBhP-J4vp8ZENmKv7hEzhl0iDashn7WREh0aGucZc407iNYr-eItVx4Q2m-vvktHqjAYLreksUKtpI0_1PGJ_pwA/s1600/AngusBurger.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEglnhJyDxFWG5HUgjyIva3tuK7mGVZYop4prO3MzlC3Z3u4zpNHdpBhP-J4vp8ZENmKv7hEzhl0iDashn7WREh0aGucZc407iNYr-eItVx4Q2m-vvktHqjAYLreksUKtpI0_1PGJ_pwA/s1600/AngusBurger.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">By Keith McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">It was a simple act. I inserted the
plastic credit card with the magnetic strip purposely aligned on the top left
into the card reader at my local Shell gas station pump and rapidly withdrew
the card, certain that once again, I would be authorized after typing in my
area code and punching credit. But alas, all I got was a message to see the
attendant inside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I tried again. Same message. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Not wishing to appear insanely stupid
and knowing that my credit line was impeccable, I trudged inside muttering to
myself about accidentally getting the small magnets on my clip-on sunglasses too
close to the magnetic strip on my credit card. Scientists like me always have
such a ready explanation for unexpected phenomena.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The busy attendant interrupted her
processing of a line of paying customers, all of whom were giving me the evil
eye, and informed me that I should change the speed at which I withdrew the
card from the reader since that often was the problem. She was obviously
processing me as a silly old man who had not joined the credit card generation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Retreating sheepishly and somewhat
embarrassed to the gas pump, I tried several more times while varying the speed
of insertion and withdrawal. Same message each time. Frustrated beyond measure,
I did the manly thing, got in my car, and drove off for a soothing meal at my
local MacDonalds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Like all great connoisseurs of
burgerdom, I appreciate the fine distinctions between an old-fashioned
ranch-style burger with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and pickle versus the synthetic
Big Mac with its secret sauce. And, of course, there is the Angus burger with
plenty of onion and lots of strong, spicy mustard. Sadly, Texas doesn’t have
those wonderful green chili burgers found in New Mexico. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I choose the Angus burger meal and reached
into my pocket to extract the misbehaving credit card when what to my wandering
eye should appear but the logo on said card. Too my horror and chagrin, it
wasn’t the expected overlapping red and orange circles on my MasterCard, but
the blue logo of my Randal’s grocery card. I was using the wrong card! How
could I have missed the obvious?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Like any typical husband, I wanted to
blame my wife for shuffling my wallet full of plastic cards, but this time I
was stuck with my own malfeasance. The MasterCard was located where I always
keep the grocery card. So much for force of habit!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But let’s be clear about this! Exactly
how many cards do I have? Let’s see. There are two credit cards, a debit card,
two grocery cards – one for Colorado, three hotel chain cards, a restaurant
club card, two airline cards, one international SOS card, a passport
information card, a AAA auto card, a bank card, three business association
cards, two health cards, several government ID cards including a driver’s
license, a couple of retailer cards, an REI membership card, several partially
used Washington Metro cards, a compliance HOTLINE card, and a VIP entry card.
Did I miss one?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Even in retirement, I clearly need one
of those </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_Lift"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Lifestyle Lifts</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">
compliments of the TV commercials featuring Debbie Boone. The sag under my chin
and all those wrinkles around my eyes were clearly caused by dealing with too
much plastic and the embarrassment of choosing the wrong card. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But do we really have to deal with all
that plastic in the modern electronic-IT age? Actually, NO! Believe it or not,
you can now replace your plastic cards with a cellphone and some wireless
technology. At Verizon, it’s called the </span><a href="http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/explore/?page=isis&cmp=KNC-58700000030514092"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">ISIS Mobile Wallet</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">. You pay by synching your cellphone at checkout and clicking away.
Hopefully, the bill is achieved through </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RFID tagging</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">
of the products you want to purchase. While not widely available, it’s clearly
the future. So much for that fistful of plastic!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Even better, you really don’t need to
leave the comfort of your home to shop … and I’m not talking about the standard
web surfing experience. Real shoppers want the feel of being there and the
tactile experience. Enter the </span><a href="http://www.katsiafas.com/visualperception/similar_examples/"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">3D graphical user interface</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> attached to a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">virtual reality headset</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">
complete with electronic gloves and in the future, a sniffer to provide the
olfactory dimension. So much for a static 2D computer screen!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Just image going to your favorite mall
anywhere in the world and entering the store of your choice. The smell and the
atmosphere will be there including the ability to reach out, touch, and pick up
anything of interest to you. Can I still squeeze the bread loaf to check for
freshness? Merchants will go out of their way to insure a quality virtual
experience, coupled with the ability to purchase their products with ease and
have them arrive quickly on your doorstep. You don’t believe me? Such </span><a href="http://virtualeshopping.com/"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">simulated 3D
tours</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> already exist on the Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But what about my craving for a Big Mac
or an Angus burger? Surely that will not be satisfied by a virtual world? I’ll
still have to get into my car, purchase gas with my mobile wallet, and head to
my local MacDonalds. Not so fast! The </span><a href="http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/4752296-mit-trying-to-create-food-replicator"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Star Trek Food Replicator</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> is here … or kind of here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Let’s refresh our memory on the
production of “food” as a generic item. In the olden days, pioneers stored up
on salt, pepper, flour, cornmeal, sugar, molasses, vinegar, fiber from the
garden, protein from animals and beans, potatoes, and so forth. They used these
primitive ingredients to prepare “food.” The modern food replicator will do –
and does – the same thing. Starting with containers of the basic ingredients,
the proper proportions are injected into a preparation vessel and microwave
cooked as appropriate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And out pops a Big Mac. Or, at least, it
will “taste” like a Big Mac. With experience, some measure of “texture” and
“smell” will also be achieved. To future generations, it will become the “Big
Mac” experience. If you don’t believe in multiple “Big Mac” experiences, order
a Big Mac in South Korea and see what you get!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Yuk is all I have to say. I like my Big
Mac and I want mustard on my Angus burger. And will I have to tip
electronically the virtual waiter who responds to my voice command on the food
replicator?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Just imagine the TV fare fifty years
from now. You’ll be able to choose between the geek chef cooking competition
for the best replicator recipe or a half-hour show entitled “Replicator Review”
for those desiring haute replicator cuisine. Captain Kirk, what have you done
to us?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So the next time you insert that plastic
credit card into the gas pump, let’s hope you don’t get the message: “see
attendant.” Who knows what will happen to you after that? Just don’t forget to ask
for the mustard!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-60599886309004042442013-05-21T06:37:00.000-07:002013-05-21T06:37:26.950-07:00The Clock Is Ticking
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-pGIGkim2EToCPZoisUlR-Ppfjxmwyq-9OV3CNxEvre0t_56pWHMxiENiFvsOLAOMdGat5O6fek8ToxPBnTV1IG44lAcEsP9dF6bcyP3FjRafcG6IwdN1ifm38uYLAXWf0g3Rqn9PmM/s1600/HPlusSymbol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-pGIGkim2EToCPZoisUlR-Ppfjxmwyq-9OV3CNxEvre0t_56pWHMxiENiFvsOLAOMdGat5O6fek8ToxPBnTV1IG44lAcEsP9dF6bcyP3FjRafcG6IwdN1ifm38uYLAXWf0g3Rqn9PmM/s1600/HPlusSymbol.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Keith McDowell</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay. What can I say? I took the plunge compliments of Dan
Brown’s latest novel <i><a href="http://www.danbrown.com/inferno/">Inferno</a></i> and enjoined a modern
version of a medieval crusade during the past week. Like Brown’s iconic sleuth,
Robert Langdon, who exposes evil while in disguise as a Harvard professor of
symbolism, I raced from clue to clue using my Safari browser sans, of course,
one of Langdon’s ever present and enigmatic female companions. My quest? To
save myself from the ennui of retirement in the hope of enlightenment about the
fate of humankind. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you wondered what happened to my last week’s blog!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I won’t spoil the fun for those of you yet to experience the
formulaic misadventures of Professor Langdon – that dude is one lucky stiff –
but suffice it to say that his latest encounter with death and the powers that
be involves the oldest and most sinister of all villains … ourselves! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just in case you haven’t been paying attention to the latest
news that isn’t new news, humankind is heading at an exponentially accelerating
pace towards a mass extinction event that will make the Black Death or plague
of the Middle Ages seem tame by comparison. At least, that’s what the bearded
fellow wearing a tutu with “The End is
Near!” placard about his neck likes to tell me as I walk past him during my
morning constitutional. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is all of this talk of doomsday mere hyperbole set to capture
our attention for someone’s fifteen minutes of fame? Or is it another
conspiracy theory hatched by those who would keep us distracted from matters
that really count? And exactly what is the nature of the latest incarnation of
our impending doom? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I nervously began my quest for the truth by carefully typing
the word “transhumanism” into a Google search form and awaiting a return
response, certain that my computer was about to crash. To my surprise, I only
got Wikipedia instead of the government hacking into my computer while causing
the screen to flash in brilliant red letters, <span style="color: red;">ACCESS
DENIED</span>! That seems to only happen at NCIS.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But wait! What about the blue symbol that popped up on the
Wiki page? Surely “h+” must mean something! Are THEY trying to tell me that the
hydrogen ion is the source of our future destruction? Nope. Wrong
interpretation of the symbol.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Transhumanism has been with us for a long time and takes
many forms. Quoting from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism">Wikipedia</a>,
it “is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the
possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition
by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human
intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.” Now that’s a mouthful to
ingest in one gulp! And believe me, you’ll need lots of time to fully digest
the transhumanist primer at Wikipedia. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For many, transhumanism is an alarm bell sounding out the
demise of the human condition as we’ve always known it. For others, it signals
the coming transformation of humankind into a new “posthuman” or “human plus”
(the meaning of the h+ symbol) era. But for our quest, it represents the very
existence of humankind versus our ability to destroy ourselves through an
exploding global population and the consequences that result therefrom such as
global warming and the accelerating depletion of our natural resources.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The following <a href="http://www.citeste-ne.ro/eminent-scientist-claims-humans-will-be-extinct-in-100-years/">population
chart</a> reveals our fate:<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWLnVPMv24dp-M5GUqAgHhNu3MNoiZo11sx6HQIXllTfNVhtMThF1jJeALauXWYcN6srTzuoEoLqiH9xlSjhKsG1xQaaJhKH-CTlLS94WDuf7sbeDqWU3g6XAFZnSZoED3YN-cWt47i4/s1600/PopulationChart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWLnVPMv24dp-M5GUqAgHhNu3MNoiZo11sx6HQIXllTfNVhtMThF1jJeALauXWYcN6srTzuoEoLqiH9xlSjhKsG1xQaaJhKH-CTlLS94WDuf7sbeDqWU3g6XAFZnSZoED3YN-cWt47i4/s320/PopulationChart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Folks, by any stretch of the imagination, such growth is not
sustainable and humankind is now exponentially approaching the tipping point,
or perhaps better said, the breaking point. Will we destroy ourselves through
the normal processes of war or a pandemic, or will we accidentally invent our
own poison? Or will the posthuman transformation occur first thereby saving
posthumanity? And what form might posthumanity take?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I personally like to divide “posthumanity” into three
classes:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Super-humans</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The Borg</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Cylons</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Super-humans are those beings produced by directed evolution
through genetic and chemical manipulation. They will be stronger, more
intelligent, disease resistant, and have a host of other positive attributes –
although unintended consequences will also emerge. To the surprise of most
people, we’ve long since begun this transformation by popping pills into our
mouth on a daily basis and by dumping the excess into our natural environment.
But in the end, super-humans will still be a biological construct, trapped in
an inherently “wet-ware” machine and directed evolution takes a long, long time
to occur.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We can fix the “wet-ware” condition by becoming “The Borg”
from <i>Star Trek</i>. In this version of the posthuman, we
integrate “wet-ware” with software and hardware. Again, this transformation is
already occurring at an accelerating pace, but there is a proverbial science
fiction fly in the soup. The “sentient being” at the core of the Borg being is
still basically residing in a “wet-ware” brain, an inherently slow and
cumbersome construct for which the symbol for the hydrogen ion seems
appropriate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But our quest isn’t over! As the electric power grid once
again flickers into a brownout condition due to the Texas heat and over
consumption by too many air conditioners, I hastily scroll my Magic Mouse to
find the answer. It’s the Cylons!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cylons à la <i>Battlestar
Gallactica</i> are self-aware, sentient computers housed in an autonomous
robotic body that they control. They are the next step up the evolutionary
ladder. Once they emerge – and I’m certain that they will before the
Twenty-first century is over, they will exponentially blow past normal humans,
super-humans, or the Borg. They are our future!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will cylons arrive on the scene before the social and
destructive meltdown from overpopulation? Being infinitely and rapidly
adaptable, they will likely survive almost any condition thrown at them by
Mother Nature or the stupidity of humankind. And therein lies the hidden truth
not revealed in Brown’s <i>Inferno</i>. It
won’t be humans who emerge from Dante’s Hell, even if we curb the growth of the
global population. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so as darkness descends on the era of humankind, we
reach the end of our quest and stare into the red eye of a cylon as it pulsates
back and forth while hearing the final benediction from the infamous mechanical
voice: “By your leave!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-60141222776990252582013-05-09T12:19:00.002-07:002013-05-09T12:19:58.765-07:00I Ate The Bones!
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi42A4o6YmH81X_IvGZuNhHHXyssgh154NIp8FOffNAkJkEKQZq_3h5LsNISo9qVPEyD7jxCegFu7ZXcTruDw3Tc5Ug30G_5dW4_fLRuq41WT19teJp_0kuoc5lf3nwiyc3SI-6k7-wFQ8/s1600/IAteTheBones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi42A4o6YmH81X_IvGZuNhHHXyssgh154NIp8FOffNAkJkEKQZq_3h5LsNISo9qVPEyD7jxCegFu7ZXcTruDw3Tc5Ug30G_5dW4_fLRuq41WT19teJp_0kuoc5lf3nwiyc3SI-6k7-wFQ8/s320/IAteTheBones.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Keith McDowell<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The latest marketing jingle from Kentucky Fried Chicken
unwittingly expresses a condition now becoming all too well known to Americans.
Under the dual rubrics of “balancing the budget” and “reducing the deficit,” right-wing,
self-proclaimed conservative politicians continue to push for the now
discredited austerity budgeting measures that have failed so miserably in
Europe and are deprecated by almost all economists.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Their strategy is simple. Ignore the facts. Obstruct all
progressive legislation. Engage in a massive and organized campaign of
sloganeering and disinformation. Filibuster. Introduce and vote for absolutely
worthless and stupid bills. Trash talk any and all initiatives supported by
President Obama, no matter their source. Divert attention from the real issues
facing America by creating phony and trumped up sideshows. And demagogue issues
that play to the heart of the extreme right wing who now form the presumed base
of the Republican Party. In short, just say NO!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The litany of these actions and their outcomes has grown
into a cancer metastasizing all across our nation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take, for example, the small community of Buena Vista,
Michigan. This week, the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/buena-vista-school-district-closed_n_3240613.html?utm_hp_ref=politics">school
district</a> laid off all the teachers and closed down the schools. The
children will not finish out the school year because the district ran out of
money and the state is balking at further infusions of cash. How ridiculous is
this? Where is the adult leadership? I’ll tell you where. They are busy
pandering to their political base instead of solving the problem. Buena Vista
is but a microcosm of what is happening everywhere and at all levels. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m especially impressed by the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57583588/house-passes-gop-measure-to-offer-pto-alternative-to-overtime-pay/">vote
on Wednesday</a> in the House of Representatives regarding overtime pay,
namely, the notion that an employee should have the ability to defer overtime
pay in preference for paid time off at a later date. As anyone who has ever
supervised people in a business knows, this would be a major loophole ripe for
plundering by management. Employees will be pressured to put in the overtime
and somehow that promised “time off” will never appear. I should know. I’ve
lost many a “comp hour” to this game.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tragic story which unfolded this week in Cleveland
reveals yet another dimension of the austerity mindset. As camera crews and
reporters searched for and interviewed anyone willing to add their bit of
trivia, parents and relatives of other missing children and young adults
requested that their stories be broadcast in the hope of another miracle.
Unbelievably in America, something like 100,000 such miracles are needed! So, exactly
what resources are we providing to law enforcement to empower them to close
this astonishing gap?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sadly, the Cleveland story also revealed another aspect of
life as we now experience it in America. Did you by chance notice the teeth of
many of those people interviewed by CNN in their coverage? You would think that
most of the people inhabited a third-world country given the condition of their
dentures or lack thereof. How is it in America that so many people have come to
such a condition?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then we have the madness known as sequestration –
unless, of course, one happens to be a congressman in need of a reliable flight
back home to woo constituents and convince them that you really are taking care
of the nation’s business. I’ve <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2012/12/secastration.html">previously
described</a> the effect that sequestration, or “secastration” as I call it,
will have on our innovation ecosystem, but I’m compelled to reiterate that
plight.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every scientist or engineer who has ever participated in
proposal review in Washington, whether at the National Science Foundation or
any other federal agency, knows that roughly a third or more of all research
proposals are excellent with nothing to distinguish one from another other than
possibly the identity of the organization and geographic location of the
proposer or possibly the chosen funding initiatives of the agency. But in the
world of secastration, only about one out of ten proposals will be funded.
Folks, that’s not going to get the job done when it comes to keeping America
competitive. We are dooming an entire generation of young STEM researchers who
don’t have some form of tenure or stable support to a wasteland where even the
bones are consumed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And with a “Hi-Yo Silver, Away,” a masked man from Texas rides
into Washington to save the day. Only this masked man doesn’t wear a white hat.
His name: Congressman Lamar Smith, chairperson of the House Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology – a committee that I had an opportunity to <a href="http://mcdowellebooks.com/Testimony2005.pdf">testify before</a> in 2005. I
once met Smith a decade ago at Texas Instruments and talked with him about
nanotechnology and the future of technology commercialization. He’s an amiable
person and looks the part of the Lone Ranger. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But behind that façade of being on your side, he’s just as
screwed up as the rest of his counterparts on the GOP side of the science
committee. He wants to politicize scientific research and the funding thereof
by pushing forward a bill entitled the High Quality Research Act to require
oversight of the scientific research process. He has even demanded that the NSF
justify to his committee certain funded projects that were approved by panels
of independent scientists. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, also from
Texas and the ranking Democrat on the committee, immediately fired back a
blistering letter rebuking Smith. Details of the proposed legislation and
Johnson’s response are available at the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/lamar-smith-science_n_3165754.html">Huffington
Post</a>. As one of my friends described it, Smith is attempting to lead
America on “a race to the bottom.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then we have an example of one of the true nut jobs,
otherwise known as James Porter, the new President of the NRA. As a confirmed
genealogist and student of the South, I know all about the “war of northern
aggression” versus “the war between the states.” Despite politically correct
protestations from revisionist historians, the phrase “war of northern
aggression” is an apt characterization of how Southerners viewed and named the
American Civil War – the best title for that event. But going down the rat hole
of debating such points is not what Porter’s comments were about. This is a man
who believes that armed rebellion against THEM, presumably those of us who
support the federal government and its three branches as created by the
Constitution, is a likely event. What nonsense! And it all has to do with guns
and the second amendment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe in and support the second amendment, but I also
believe in domestic tranquility through gun safety. There is no reason for
individual Americans to own or possess guns or weapons capable of rapid fire
with an essentially unlimited supply of bullets, although the exact limits on
that can and should be debated. Furthermore, background checks are an essential
part of gun safety. I personally support the registration of guns, but that’s
not likely to happen. Think about it! I have to get a driver’s license to
operate an automobile and I have to register my car and transfer the title when
I sell it. These requirements and the attendant bureaucracy don’t stop me from
owning or operating multiple cars. The same will be true for proper gun safety
regulation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could go on describing and documenting the cancer that is
spreading in America. How about the diversionary tactic of the Benghazi blame
game? Or how about the senators from Oklahoma who are stoking the right-wing
flames by claiming that “Obama’s” Department of Homeland Security is <a href="http://www.dailypaul.com/284772/ok-senator-inhofe-confirms-obamas-dhs-buying-up-domestic-ammo-to-bypass-2nd-amendment">buying
up ammunition</a> to defeat the second amendment? Do they really want to turn
on another Timothy McVeigh?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have a message for moderate Americans. Stop whining about
all this. Stop whispering that maybe Obama should drink beer with the nut jobs
or maybe that he’s not getting the job done. Embrace the real F-word: fact, not
fiction! Get out the vote, stand up for middle America, and remove from office using
the ballot box those who espouse the nonsense. If you don’t, they’ll be licking
their chops while burping “I ate the bones!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Image from kfc.com.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-8012619204917764432013-04-30T11:56:00.000-07:002013-04-30T11:56:15.428-07:00These Boots Were Made For Walkin'
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsDpSc6ENT4nN9vtZgdnZ7fN3R7HnY5W9UgrB0xg1bNOSPDLnnYhF6rlJ4NGyDijzpR4FN1zB6xXIGOlnmKgpyGgdk7M08zGaaaQ3Sw-Ho69JhD2LkkUt4YUa6oi8esFg6v0auKOVIlso/s1600/BootsBlog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsDpSc6ENT4nN9vtZgdnZ7fN3R7HnY5W9UgrB0xg1bNOSPDLnnYhF6rlJ4NGyDijzpR4FN1zB6xXIGOlnmKgpyGgdk7M08zGaaaQ3Sw-Ho69JhD2LkkUt4YUa6oi8esFg6v0auKOVIlso/s1600/BootsBlog.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Keith McDowell<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or maybe not! Much to my chagrin, my favorite well-broken-in
hiking boots separated the sole from the upper boot near the heel during a
three-mile walk this past Sunday. And
it happened on both boots at nearly the same moment. So much for glue versus
stitching!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With all due respect to Nancy Sinatra and her hit tune of
1966, hiking boots have always been the bane of mountaineers or even those
people who enjoy simple hikes. Whether it’s blisters, sore feet, black toe,
jammed toes, or numbed nerve endings, boots have a way of bringing a halt to
the heartiest of souls. I should know. After over 500 backpacks and summit
attempts spanning some forty-five years, I’ve experienced it all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I especially remember a moment back in the early 1970s when
I realized that I had lost the feeling in my right foot when I touched it
following a long week of hiking using my old-fashioned, leather winter boots –
years of melting silicon “bear” grease into the leather had made them heavy
beyond belief. I couldn’t afford the fancier double-lined boots of that era. I
visited with a medical friend who was also a mountain climber and he told me:
“Don’t worry. Do nothing. Your nerve endings will spring back into life one
day.” Yeah, right! But he was correct. A year or so later, I woke up one
morning with my foot on fire. Feeling had returned.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, it is with regret that I toss a reasonably comfortable
pair of boots into the trash bin and contemplate my next move. Should I
purchase some inexpensive, soft, and light-weight hiking boots with cleated
soles or go for the much more expensive, hard, and heavy mountaineering boots?
And how about glued-on soles versus stitch? Of course, I could shoot the moon
and go for the best of the best – a pair of <a href="http://www.limmercustomboot.com/cgi-bin/CustomBoot/index.pl">Peter Limmer</a>
boots.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But time is of the essence and I need to get a new pair
broken in. You see, at 69 years old, I’m headed for Colorado in July to join my
son, my nephew, and my brother to climb Pikes Peak and a few other 14’ers. My
brother has never climbed a mountain so this should be an interesting
adventure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Boots aside for the moment, the world of mountaineering and
the gear used by mountaineers have changed significantly over the past fifty
years. Innovations abound in just about every aspect of the sport – hmm, is
mountaineering a sport or an extreme activity?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take, for example, the use of electricity. We’ve gone from
batteries used to power headlamps and radios to solar panels, whether the <a href="http://www.peakmountaineering.com/advice-articles/kit-reviews-advice/going-solar/">hard
foldup variety</a> or the <a href="http://shop.solar-wind.co.uk/acatalog/portable_flexible_solar_battery_chargers.html">flexible
ones</a>. What can I say? It’s essential that we power-up those laptops and
connect to social media while chilling out in our tents in the Colorado
back-country or the base camp on Mt. Everest. And for the truly bleeding edge –
I’m not talking about the blisters on your foot, how about a <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/computing/83988-a-laptop-that-can-be-rolledup-other-flexible-bendable-displays">flexible
computer display</a> that rolls up? Oh, and don’t forget to take along your
favorite GPS device. It’s important to know your exact coordinates in case you
get lost. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My old ripstop nylon tents with aluminum poles that are
guaranteed to attract nearby lightning have been replaced with <a href="http://www.sierradesigns.com/?cid=SD-PS-sierradesigns-06162011&gclid=CLWL4-XL8LYCFYef4AodRBwAAQ">Sierra
Designs</a> free standing, ultralight tents featuring ExoFusion technology and
DAC Featherlite<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">® NSL
poles. And my tent pegs that must be pounded into the ground with your boot –
tough to do when there is only rock or snow around – have been replaced by a
Jake's Feet™ corner anchor system. Shucks! If only I could afford all this new
technology.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fellow hikers whisper and point at me these days when I
travel into the back-country with my old <a href="http://www.kelty.com/c-backpacks.aspx?cid=kelty-PS-keltybackpakcs-06162010&gclid=CP2fma7A8LYCFUff4AodYBEA-A">Kelty
external frame pack</a> from the 1960s as shown in the photo at the beginning
taken in 2005 with my sons prior to a hike to the west side of the Grand Teton.
I think it was called a BB4 pack and was one of the last of the so-called
“green packs.” My sons as well as Kelty have moved on to the modern contoured
frame systems that claim to provide enhanced stability. In my day, it was all
about getting all the weight over your center of gravity. These days, I’m happy
just to get my center of gravity moving. I think I’ll pass on this one since my
backpacking adventures are just about over and the BB4 still works for me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Speaking of packs, there is no end to the <a href="http://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/daypack.html">choice of day packs</a>.
Many people including my youngest son prefer to accessorize with a <a href="http://www.rei.com/search?query=hydration+bladder">hydration bladder</a>
in order to drink fluid at any time during the hike through a tube hanging next
to the mouth. Stopping to rest is optional. My daypack is an Alpine Designs
pack purchased in the late 1960s. It’s been my constant companion ever since
and is part of my ritual. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I particularly recall a day in 2002 while hiking back down
the “road” from the microwave towers on Mt. Princeton after a training hike
when I passed some folks going up. They purposely stopped me to “admire” the
museum piece on my back and couldn’t believe that one was still in service or
that the leather bottom and leather straps had not long since decayed. Such is life when one is old and a
cheapskate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then we have the clothing. Personally, I still like my
old corduroy knickers and my navy blue Peter Storm wool sweater imported from
England. I look just like a Swiss guide in that outfit. But wait, knickers no
longer stop just below the knee. They’ve become convertible pants and a host of
other marketing slogans. And Peter Storm sweaters – they’ve been replaced by
fleece jackets, vests, anoraks, shirts and pants. I have to admit that I like
my North Face fleece jacket, but I’ve always wondered whether fleece actually
describes the nature of the material of which it is made or the effect on my
pocketbook. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still remember when Gore-Tex became the replacement for
wool in the late 1970s. Now-a-days you can find all kinds of brand names and
fabrics that claim active stretch fits to one’s body, anti-wicking, sun
protection, and even sweat-activated. I have several different varieties and
they do keep me warm and dry on 14’ers. All and all, the innovations in
clothing and fabrics have been a real plus for mountain hiking. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oxygen remains a serious issue on 8,000-meter peaks with <a href="http://peakfreaks.com/oxygen.htm">POISK oxygen cylinders</a> manufactured
in St. Petersburg, Russia still the standard. One would think that innovators
could come up with something new, but no such luck so far. But then entrepreneurs
have perfected the concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_bar">oxygen
bars</a> where one can go to get a snort and hang out with like-minded folks.
My brother suggested we take an <a href="http://shop.oxygenplus.com/collections/elevate-pack/products/elevate-pack">Oxygen
Plus Elevate Pack</a> along with us this summer. You get over 50 flavored
breaths per “tank” for a mere $35.99 including system and three “tanks.” And it
only weighs one-half pound! I’ll keep his suggestion in mind when I’m panting
like a dog at 14,000 feet on Pikes Peak.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Innovation remains important for mountaineering as more and
more people take up the sport. I have an extreme suggestion. Let’s invent a
bio-nanostructured suit similar to the one on the TV show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_(TV_series)">Continuum</a> that is
flexible, covers the entire body, and has a function not unlike body armor or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton">powered exoskeleton suits</a>.
The skin could absorb light and convert it into electrons similar to
photosynthesis. The electrons could flow through a fractal-like network that
self-assembles into a complex circuit that moves the electrons to
nanostructures that produce heat on the interior side when the temperature
drops, but shut down when too hot, thereby regulating the person’s perceived
warmth and avoiding frostbite. The extra electrons could flow to a collection
point that recharges batteries used to provide power to all electronic systems
including a heads-up display on one’s goggles showing oxygen supply and other
vital body and systems parameters. The suit would come with all kinds of
built-in communication systems. I’ll leave it to the reader to supply
additional functionality. Trust me! Such a suit will eventually be created and
marketed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But then, as always, we must return to the issue
of my feet and the procurement of a satisfactory pair of hiking boots. Let’s
hope my choice doesn’t “walk all over me.”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</span><!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-10632749896519236242013-04-23T06:59:00.000-07:002013-04-23T06:59:19.513-07:00Private Eyes
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mh_EI7weuK6EqiWuM9ng_sIHC501oGvU7hHAgkP3bf5Ys4kSPuXiEmHnkIczemOITMBy3pQ8TwD2UDiGh0Uozm6Jp_Er09mX7sORbj5inoV7MpfOttI4zV5R2heHOrW6tY0ccRTLC-8/s1600/PrivateEyesPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mh_EI7weuK6EqiWuM9ng_sIHC501oGvU7hHAgkP3bf5Ys4kSPuXiEmHnkIczemOITMBy3pQ8TwD2UDiGh0Uozm6Jp_Er09mX7sORbj5inoV7MpfOttI4zV5R2heHOrW6tY0ccRTLC-8/s1600/PrivateEyesPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Keith McDowell<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 1981, Daryl Hall and John Oates released the now famous
rock and roll tune “Private Eyes” whose lyrics begin with the line “I see you,
you see me.” It’s one of my favorite songs, but it also hauntingly symbolizes a
major theme of the horrific events that unfolded last week at the Boston
marathon; namely, the exponentially growing presence of electronic surveillance
and monitoring of our daily activities, whether by private or public sources,
and no matter the intention, whether accidental or deliberate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
None of us doubt that the immense volume of electronic data
collected and the subsequent use of crowdsourcing through all forms of social
media including old-fashioned television led to the identification and capture
of the perpetrators in a relatively short period of time. And none of us doubt
that massive amounts of data are being generated and collected every second and
every minute of every day about us. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We all applaud the successful outcome late Friday evening
and thank the heroic efforts of all the first responders from the depths of our
hearts. Like you, I was deeply affected by the obvious emotional trauma imposed
on so many people who saw things no one should ever have to see or have to
experience. And who can forget the stories of those who died and those who
suffered grievous injury. President Obama eloquently captured my own feelings
as a former graduate student at Harvard and a resident of greater Boston for
five and a half years when he said: “This is personal!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But like 78-year-old Bill Iffrig who was knocked down by the
blast near the finish and who was helped to his feet by a first responder, we
must travel the final fifteen feet and cross the finish line. And that means
for one thing coming to terms with the flood tide of data about us accumulating
on IT disks around the globe. Is our future going to be one where an all
invasive computer system accesses all electronic nodes and watches over us à la
the plot line in the TV program “<a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/person_of_interest/">Person of Interest</a>?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who owns all that data and who should have access to it? Do
your iPhone data and images belong to you? How about the content of your
personal emails? And just what are the rules for accumulating and deleting
data, if any exist? Furthermore, what do we mean by the term “data” or the term
“access” when it comes to data?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will never forget an experience I once had as a university
administrator at a public university while attending a meeting of the faculty
senate. I’ll leave the name of the university a mystery in order to protect the
guilty. Several of the faculty were outraged that the university was requiring
them to accept a new smart ID card that had a strip capable of opening locked
doors when properly swiped, thereby controlling access to buildings and
facilities. Such swipe cards are now routine in most hotels. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the faculty members were absolutely certain that the
smart cards contained a GPS tracking system capable of following their every move
and reporting back to university administration. If only that were true! For
several days thereafter, I had fun taking out my ID card at various meetings,
holding it in front of my face, and speaking the following in a loud voice:
“Scotty, you still there? Please beam me out of this meeting!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such nonsense aside, GPS tracking is a formidable tool and
convenience. In 2011, I had a tire blowout on I-85 in northern Georgia. After
attempting to change the tire on a slope and watching my poorly constructed car
jack bend from the stress, I hopped into the car and dialed OnStar. They
instantly knew my location, sent out road service, and followed up until I had
a new set of tires on my car. Now that’s a great use for GPS.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But how about the GPS in my cell phone, or those
surveillance cameras on every street corner, or the airborne drones –
autonomous or not – flying overhead, or the satellites in orbit checking out
babes on the beach, or the interception of all forms of electronic
communication including juvenile tweets, or the cataloging of our medical
conditions in health databases, or the data mining of our online activity and
purchases, or whatever else it is that pushes your hot button when it comes to
privacy? Of course, the National Rifle Association and Congress have made sure
that we still don’t have taggants in gunpowder in order to track down the bad
guys since that would be an invasion of privacy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For me the principle is simple: there can be no expectation
of privacy in public places or forums independent of the manner in which the
surveillance is carried out or how the related data is accumulated. From that
principle, our legal system should branch out in typical Talmudic fashion to
parse the meanings of the words public, private, data, access, and all the
other related terms in our vocabulary while maintaining the fundamental
principles enumerated in our Constitution. Like many, I believe we have fallen
far behind the legal curve in this arena.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We live in a new information and knowledge era exponentially
changed and accelerated from previous experience. While social media and data
have always been present in our lives and have always been used to solve
crimes, nothing in our previous history really compares to what happened in
Boston. Who could have guessed that crowdsourcing – including the peculiar and
somewhat old-fashioned brand of shutting down Boston for a day by common
consent – would help solve the marathon bombing in close to real time? Shades
of the <a href="http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/">SETI@Home</a> personal computer
project!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Claire Cain Miller in a recent New York Times article
entitled <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/business/data-science-tracking-the-numbers-of-our-lives/nXR74/"><i>Data science: Tracking the numbers of our
lives</i></a> captures the essence of how society has changed. Data science, a
subset of network science in some measure, has now become a full-blown
discipline with academic curricula available to inquiring minds. And let there
be no doubt, jobs aplenty are there for people trained and educated in data
science. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Information in all its many manifestations pervades our
daily experience in an unrelenting stream and drives much of our
decision-making. Whatever the future holds for us as individuals and as a society,
it is imperative that we embrace that future by taking the time to understand
where we are as a civilized society and by learning from transformative events
that occur, even tragedies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are all Boston.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
EndNote: Credit for the amazing image of Bill Iffrig at the
beginning of this blog goes to John Tlumacki of The Boston Globe. I recommend
that you visit <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/photos/portfolios/john_tlumacki/">his
website</a> and peruse the many excellent photographs posted by him. He is
truly a gifted and talented photographer. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-85012321430517856432013-04-15T10:47:00.001-07:002013-04-15T10:47:45.117-07:00What the "nav.toc" is this?
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEidrfpMc18SwOZ3AUXtHzr4qH4EcjpK1gIt6YVA9KpUq2e7gyFvHNu7Q3yONqgovJt9NxwVJ2ZaUt5ZGckEDxxZxq9__C5l0U3frOt4H0-_Qsx0DIXJeaxz57v9uj2Vz2shhFF6HwuzM/s1600/WhatTheNavPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEidrfpMc18SwOZ3AUXtHzr4qH4EcjpK1gIt6YVA9KpUq2e7gyFvHNu7Q3yONqgovJt9NxwVJ2ZaUt5ZGckEDxxZxq9__C5l0U3frOt4H0-_Qsx0DIXJeaxz57v9uj2Vz2shhFF6HwuzM/s1600/WhatTheNavPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Keith McDowell<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am I angry, frustrated, flummoxed and depressed? You bet!
And it’s all due to my self-publishing experience at Amazon with their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform. I’ve been run over by an innovation engine
driven by a pack of technology geeks who are directed by some apparently
clueless managers lacking good business sense. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Harsh words? Undoubtedly! But you don’t kill the geese –
namely, ebook authors – who lay the golden
eggs simply to advance technology for profit under the guise of being more
“end-user friendly.” Whatever happened to “content-creator friendly” and the
important business concept of “self-publishing?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t get me wrong! I’m a strong proponent of end-user
friendly for created electronic content across all devices whether a computer,
a tablet, or a smart phone. But does it have to be so “nav.toc”
complicated for the content creators, especially those who want to self-publish
ebooks? Here’s my story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Several years ago, I wrote and self-published with Amazon an
ebook entitled <i>Go Forth And Innovate!</i>
and followed that up last year with a genealogy ebook entitled <i>Together
Forever</i>. Initially, it took me several months in late 2010 to understand
what kind of file was required for upload to Amazon and how to markup that file
with appropriate HTML tags. I’ll get to the format of JPEG images in a minute.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You have to know that I cut my teeth writing machine
language and Fortran II code beginning in 1964 and have produced probably a
million lines of code in my lifetime including a very complicated web system
that produced over 300 different types of freshman chemistry questions. It ran
for over five years from 1997 to 2003 and was widely used by both college and
high school students to practice for chemistry tests. Needless to say, I became
a Javascript and HTML guru after spending about 600 hours writing approximately
30,000 lines of code. But then, I had to prove to my sons that the old man could
still function as a programmer in the Internet age.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, imagine my surprise in 2010 when I discovered that
formatting the code for a Kindle ebook was primitive HTML at best and poorly
documented on the Kindle website. Of course, the original Kindle reader itself
was the leading edge in the market of ebook readers as a standalone device and
one could forgive Amazon management for not seeing the future. Nevertheless, I
accepted the situation and was pleased that producing ebook files in native
HTML wasn’t very hard to do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fast forward to last Friday as I sat before my computer
prepared for a login to KDP to begin the process of uploading my latest two
ebooks. One is a novel set in the Civil War period that is based on the factual
history of some of my ancestors from the Stoner and Morgan families of Rowan
County, North Carolina. It’s my attempt to define what they were really like as
people. The second book is a massive genealogy tomb on the Stoner family and
intended as the non-fiction companion to the novel. It took me two years to
produce the content in these books including a fastidious compliance with the primitive
HTML rules imposed by the rendering software at Amazon circa 2010 and 2011.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine my horror last Friday when I realized that the new
Kindle Previewer which apparently uses something called KindleGen to render the
ebook from an HTML file now requires HTML 5 and Cascading Style Sheets unless
one wants a crap presentation format for your ebook’s contents. In one step, we
go from the primitive to the bleeding edge of technology. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After walking a few miles in my shoes on Friday afternoon, I
visited the local bookstore on Saturday and purchased a sufficiently thick and
weighty HTML 5 bible to serve as a bookend for my previous collection of HTML
and Javascript bibles documenting earlier versions. I’m now past page 100 on my
way to page 1017. Somewhere after page
200 I’ll hopefully learn about the new “nav” element that’s essential
for making the table of contents functionality – that’s TOC to the heathens among
us – in ebook readers work properly. I certainly want those who purchase my
ebooks to “Go To” TOC when their hearts or minds so desire. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am I right to be mad about this? Well, yes! And let me
explain why by giving several examples.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Back in the good ole days of the early to mid 1970s, IBM
produced a mainframe computer known as the 360-series. Like many practicing
theoretical chemical physicists of that era, I wrote Fortran IV code and ran on
those computers using their Job Control Language (JCL). Just for the fun of it
one day, when several fellow graduate students and I were all bored with
reviewing hexadecimal numbers from our core dumps, we attempted to communicate
with each other using only JCL. That didn’t last very long, but here’s the
point. Hypothetically, if you wanted to understand how the delimiter
“blocksize” worked, you looked it up in manual number 87 which pointed you to
two other manuals. After an hour of such navigation through the manuals, guess
what? You were back at the original definition of “blocksize” having learned
very little. IBM manuals of that era were a beautiful example of a
self-referential system. I always suspected that there were precisely 128
manuals in the long row of them since that number equals the number 2 raised to
the 7<sup>th</sup> power – 7 being a mystical number throughout history.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what did Amazon do with their giant leap forward for
ebooks? They created a Kindle Publishing Guidelines document that is mostly
worthless, not really usable, and creates confusion. Of course, there is also a
guide for the Previewer that is quite long and then, my favorite, hyperlinks to
technical specifications and documents on the Web. Shades of the 128 IBM
self-referential manuals! I went to the links about the navigation element and
TOC. I can only assume that there is a sinister conspiracy going on between
major publishing houses and Amazon to eliminate self-publishing if their best
answer for help is to link one to these documents. Even a confirmed computer
jock like me can only cry: what the “nav.toc?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And how about JPEG images? Come on guys! Give us some simple
information. I start with an image that has a fixed length-to-width ratio. I
open it with Photoshop and increase the image size until either the length or
the width hits the maximum permitted by the KindleGen rendering software. I
save the image in the web format to reduce size and work to achieve maximum
quality. At that point, either the image is worthy of publication or it looks
too fuzzy or whatever. End of story. So, please tell me a maximum length and
maximum width criterion along with maximum size permitted for the JPEG file and
we’re done. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As all competent computer jocks know, less is almost always
more. Simplicity is always the correct answer – unless you’re some creative
artist who wants a finely tuned ebook. I’m happy for you if that’s the case,
but how many people actually use all the bizzillion features in Microsoft Word?
I’m absolutely sure that by the time I read all the new Amazon verbiage and get
to page 1017 in my new HTML 5 bible, I’ll have constructed a simple template in
which to imbed an ebook that will satisfy most circumstances with minimum
tinkering required. It’s always that way. But I’ll put a “nav.toc”
amount of effort into getting there and reformatting my two ebook files. So why
can’t the folks at Amazon provide everyone with that simple bulletproof
template to begin with? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I truly feel sorry for the average self-publishing ebook
author. For now, you’re screwed. It doesn’t have to be this way. As a society
and especially as one that has endured many technology transformations, we know
how to do these things right. It’s not a mystery and we don’t have to invoke
the mystical “seven” to get it done. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So stay tuned! You’ll soon be able to enjoy reading my
salacious novel <i>Never To Return</i> on
your iPhone but do you really want to plow through my genealogy ebook on that
device?<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-68981215945966955902013-04-08T11:02:00.000-07:002013-04-08T11:02:16.408-07:00Skip the Cheese Crackers?
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQIOMFPvSZWytTT_pgY6eFZnkNzSRhtaGHhVN_rxw9Q9v0iD0yzP_Ic-On2dOS4zCgwpadn12Ifxy42D9KHDlzXU_dODoiT9_LS5zrL_YBKTYTnzuREqvf3RU9NPwsa9MC1dy1PCnOwXA/s1600/CheeseCrackerPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQIOMFPvSZWytTT_pgY6eFZnkNzSRhtaGHhVN_rxw9Q9v0iD0yzP_Ic-On2dOS4zCgwpadn12Ifxy42D9KHDlzXU_dODoiT9_LS5zrL_YBKTYTnzuREqvf3RU9NPwsa9MC1dy1PCnOwXA/s1600/CheeseCrackerPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Travel is always the first to go. Whether due to another
effectiveness and efficiency purge, budget reallocations, or the current game
of sequestration, travel by our nation’s scientists and engineers is always
viewed as a nonessential activity and one ripe for the budget ax. And true to
form, the White House Office of Management and Budget last year on 11 May 2012
produced the latest incarnation of just such a </span><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2012/m-12-12.pdf"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">travel restriction memorandum</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not to be outdone or ignored, the pundits have opined,
national laboratory leaders have rebuked, university presidents have scolded,
and STEM trade journals have reported. Take, for example, the recent article by
William G. Schulz entitled <i>The Road Less
and Less Traveled</i> published in <i>Chemical
& Engineering News</i> on 25 March 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Schulz emphasizes the “unintended and negative results” of
such travel restrictions including increased bureaucracy, frustration, falling
behind the curve, and the ability to attract top talent to national and
government laboratories. Do we really want the C-team managing the
cradle-to-grave timeline for our nuclear weapons arsenal? Or quoting Sandia
National Laboratories Nancy B. Jackson, a former American Chemical Society
president, from the Schulz article: “How can scientists do their work without
collaborating, brainstorming, hearing other views, and finding out how similar
problems are solved?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jackson goes on to add: “I don’t understand why Congress is
so intent upon doing all they can to drag us down from the number one global
position in science and engineering research. … American exceptionalism cannot overcome
a lack of support for science and collaboration among scientific peers.” True
indeed! Jackson eloquently states the obvious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But what’s the real story behind travel restrictions and
life as a scientist facing the uncertainties of one’s chosen career path? Is it
really a path paved with such “sturm and drang?” Well, yes and no! Here are
some of my personal experiences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was the spring of 1979 and I was scheduled to be a
speaker at the annual Sanibel Conference hosted as always by the </span><a href="http://www.qtp.ufl.edu/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Quantum Theory Project</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> at the University of Florida. Of course, the conference was
no longer being held on Sanibel Island, but at a luxury hotel on Florida’s Palm
Coast. I didn’t have any travel funds to attend the meeting, so I did what any
self-respecting scientist would do. I conned my wife into believing that the
meeting would be a fabulous vacation for her and our newly born son, then about
eight months old. She agreed, packed our gear for a beach trip, and off we drove
from Clemson, South Carolina, to the Florida coastline north of Daytona Beach.
But alas, Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. It was a cold and windy week with no
opportunity for sunbathing or even a walk on the beach. So much for that
junket!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course, there were other Sanibel Conferences. I
especially remember the year that I drove to the Palm Coast but stayed at a
really cheap and rundown motel on the mainland about a twenty minute drive from
the expensive conference hotel. The many motorcycles in the parking lot
accompanied by their potbellied and leathered owners should have been a clue
for me, but what the heck? It was an experience, especially the breakfast
conversion at the adjoining diner over a meal of greasy eggs, burnt bacon, and
congealed grits. Who could have guessed that the Hell’s Angels or their clones
were interested in theoretical chemical physics?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And then there was the travel office at Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL) during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Upon filing a travel
request and getting it approved, one visited the travel office and received a
generous travel advance, typically in the form of a fistful of $100-dollar
bills. The game, of course, was to best one’s personal record for minimizing
travel expenses and hence maximize one’s financial return against the
guaranteed daily expense rate. And the secret: cheese crackers! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That’s right. LANL scientists were known for their ability
to survive for extended periods of time on a diet consisting principally of
cheese crackers and water. I’ve always wondered what the KGB personnel who
inspected the luggage of LANL scientists visiting Russian nuclear sites in the
Ukraine thought about those boxes filled with cheese cracker packages – not to
mention custom agents at the more exotic locations where physicists typically
host their conferences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And then there was the infamous “skyjacking” memorandum of
the 1980’s related to travel restrictions. Unfortunately, I no longer have the
memo but it was basically a list of “do’s and don’ts” for LANL personnel
travelling around the world and how to avoid being singled out for torment or
torture by a skyjacker should such a skyjacking occur. Prominent on the list
was a comment about travelling and eating cheese crackers or other such unusual
activities that singled one out as a scientist. But, of course, my wife claimed
she could always immediately spot a scientist or engineer and she was right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The list also contained such items as wearing mismatched
socks, reading technical journals on the airplane, engaging one’s fellow
passengers in the mysteries of quantum mechanics, or discussing other technical
matters related to the safety of the airplane. It was also strongly suggested
that one not remind fellow passengers about life in the City of Los Alamos. At
the time, laboratory employees had a lot of fun coming up with possible fake
identities we could assume for the purpose of international travel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Surely you jest” is likely your response, but, yes, the
memorandum really did exist pretty much as I’ve characterized it. And the
cheese crackers? You bet! I still eat them when I travel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Travel restrictions have always been with us during times of
budgetary austerity and national security. It’s a cycle that endlessly repeats
and never ends. And for each and every scientist or engineer, it’s a story that
plays out in its own unique and sometimes humorous manner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But for our nation, such shortsightedness is a prescription
for failure in the game of global competitiveness. As Shirley Ann Jackson, the
President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, </span><a href="http://news.rice.edu/2012/10/12/jackson-calls-for-renewed-support-of-culture-of-science/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">recently said</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, we must
“invest in serendipity, because without it, there is no vitality in the
innovation ecosystem. Indeed, there is no innovation.” And that means travel to
conferences by our nation’s scientists and engineers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or as Alivisatos, Isaacs, and Mason stated in a </span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/the-sequester-is-going-to-devastate-us-science-research-for-decades/273925/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">recent article</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> about
sequestration in <i>The Atlantic</i>: “This
sudden halt on new starts will freeze American science in place while the rest
of the world races forward, and it will knock a generation of young scientists
off their stride, ultimately costing billions in missed future opportunities.
New ideas, new insights, new discoveries – these are the lifeblood of science
and the foundation of America’s historic culture of innovation and ingenuity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Should we skip the cheese crackers and stay at home? I think
not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-15708870004113537662013-04-01T08:52:00.000-07:002013-04-01T08:52:53.357-07:00"You Know Nothing, Jon Snow"
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUIt-QTq9cTk4gXCZLefmhgy5CgUcRfVqNOcjCnRtaTtzh7syf7q1CbUrlB8EQoiYWC-96FMq9KZZ-Iq5u34SX6Vvt500pPnCs4w9Vgt2iXuyWCWEOJMu0_3kYbpX22XfkPfi9fSrZxCA/s1600/YouKnowNothingPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUIt-QTq9cTk4gXCZLefmhgy5CgUcRfVqNOcjCnRtaTtzh7syf7q1CbUrlB8EQoiYWC-96FMq9KZZ-Iq5u34SX6Vvt500pPnCs4w9Vgt2iXuyWCWEOJMu0_3kYbpX22XfkPfi9fSrZxCA/s1600/YouKnowNothingPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Wilding
Ygritte’s remonstration of Jon Snow in the popular television series <i><a href="http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html">The Game of Thrones</a></i>
reflected more than just a reproof of his general knowledge of sexual matters,
but was more a comment on his youthful ignorance of the ways of men and nature.
Indeed, the five novels of the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire">A Song of Fire and
Ice</a></i> fantasy series written by <a href="http://www.georgerrmartin.com/">George
R. R. Martin</a>, upon which the television production is based, chronicle the
fictional intrigues of both high-born and low-born men and women as they play
the power game in the futile hope of controlling their destiny. The good become
corrupted by power while the bad show elements of humanity. And best of all,
this Easter weekend heralded the beginning of season three. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But the truth be
told, we have here in Texas our own live version of <i>The Game of Thrones</i> being played out on a regular schedule. In one
corner we find Bill Powers, President of The University of Texas in Austin, and
in the other, Gene Powell, Chairman of the Board of the University of Texas
Regents, along with several fellow board members. Refereeing the match are
members of the Texas Legislature while students, faculty, alumni, donors,
Governor Perry, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), and a host of other
engaged citizens serve as both handlers and cheerleaders for their respective
sides. It’s political drama at its best and at its worst, sure to entertain
while producing little of value and ultimately harming UT-Austin as an
institution of higher education. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Behind the mask
of rhetoric from the participants of being well-intentioned in their actions
lies what … a witch hunt, a fishing expedition, an attempt to discredit Powers,
a cover-up by university officials of unseemly activities by a foundation, a
power struggle between president and governor, an effort by Perry to privatize
public universities, the “seven breakthrough solutions” promulgated in 2008, micromanagement
by the Regents, arrogance from the university, a hidden political agenda
secretly being managed by the TPPF, an attempt to turn UT-Austin into “Training
U,” or some other yet-to-be-revealed purpose? Such is the essence of a great
story as the audience is left to ponder the next turn of events. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Neither side has
shown a great deal of positive leadership in this latest tussle. Certainly,
Powers has a record of distinction and achievement as the president, although
his creation and initial support of the forgivable loan program from the Law
School Foundation was a really dumb idea. I suppose we all get a mulligan every
now and then. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some have
accused UT-Austin as an institution of being the bastion of arrogance, even to
the point of bullying others. I’ve seen my fair share of that behavior at many
levels, but is Powers responsible for that or is it in the Longhorn gene pool?
And is that a proper reason for the Regents to focus in a singular manner on
UT-Austin?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Board of
Regents at various times in their history have shown true leadership including
the <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2012/08/atta-person.html">Competitiveness
Initiative</a> as a response to the report<i>
<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463">Rising Above the
Gathering Storm</a></i>, the <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/04/do-you-believe-in-magic-texas-ignition.html">Texas
Ignition Fund</a>, the South Texas Initiative to develop an emerging research
university connected with a medical school in the valley, and a positive effort
at cost containment, to name a few. But the Regents in more recent times have
shown a propensity to cross the bright line of governance and to meddle in
operational pursuits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Do we honestly
need another audit of the Law School Foundation and the forgivable loan
program, even if done by the Attorney General? Should the Regents be requesting
and spending time poring over 40-some box loads of open records documents,
especially given the time and effort it took for someone to collect all that
information? And how about the carping regarding Powers and the appointment of
a VP for fundraising, not to mention the request that Powers and fellow
administrators not delete emails – as thought they could actually remove emails
in the modern age of IT? Have the Regents reduced themselves to private
investigators rooting around metaphorically in university garbage cans looking
for evidence of infidelity? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And where in all
of this is Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa? In a recent <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/28/triblive-cigarroa-and-sharp-on-higher-ed-funding/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=alerts&utm_campaign=News%20Alert:%20Subscriptions">Texas
Tribune interview</a>, he gave a sterling endorsement for Power’s performance
with respect to his work plan, but artfully dodged commenting on the Regents
behavior. Seriously! His work plan?
Hmmm, maybe walking a tight rope is the best course, but is that leadership or
protecting one’s behind? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">UT Austin is a
state and national treasure not to be squandered away by petty political
bickering and mean-spirited back-stabbing for little gain. Whatever the true
reality that lies behind the unfolding drama being played out in the theatre of
the absurd, it’s time for the actors to realize that they are but pawns in the
greater <i>Game of Thrones</i> and that they
will soon pass from the stage, not unlike the characters in Martin’s books.
Let’s all hope that they don’t leave behind the ruins of HarrenHal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">“You
know nothing, Jon Snow.” The same could be said of our current crop of Texas leaders. </span><!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-88819049585589270932013-03-25T11:59:00.000-07:002013-03-25T11:59:24.391-07:00The Only Thing Stopping Us Is Ourselves!
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fEgvMaeZH0xeJxCOfhRQZf0GnwPQADOvk6y0AWLCDPHhDPmqddo1HFAfJJjndMRzLYOAgTb5vpwle7IUqlNInJGJZjRQBL46uKN1l7wdoYVoGGsmz1zbxXMt00IBsW6OhNv5QOOjJZY/s1600/IEPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fEgvMaeZH0xeJxCOfhRQZf0GnwPQADOvk6y0AWLCDPHhDPmqddo1HFAfJJjndMRzLYOAgTb5vpwle7IUqlNInJGJZjRQBL46uKN1l7wdoYVoGGsmz1zbxXMt00IBsW6OhNv5QOOjJZY/s1600/IEPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Once upon a
time, the Greek philosopher Socrates opined the aphorism “Know Thyself,” a
credo that centuries later became the core principle of the so-called “liberal”
education – a learning process founded on the notion that a well-chosen
sampling of the great ideas, literature, art, and history of humankind coupled
with critical analysis would produce a well-educated citizen, capable of
independent and reasoned thoughts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Like many in my
post World War II generation – a generation that promoted civil rights and
challenged the American war-making machine in Vietnam, I greatly benefited from
the “liberal” education provided to me by my alma mater, Wake Forest
University. Whether in the Honors Program or through the many campus and
community activities of that era, we were a generation of college students
engaged in understanding who we were as human beings and using that knowledge
to create a better society. Personal and intellectual integrity as well as
being true to one’s self were the hallmarks of the Wake Forest experience. It
was never about the politics of the left or the right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Half a century
later, the educational process has in many ways been converted into a
multi-year conveyor belt of data accumulation and training with the student
posing as a customer expecting to receive appropriate credentials for a job –
no matter their individual performance – and with industry expecting a
“trained” workforce. Parents seem to want cloned automata of themselves with no
room for individualism or independent thought. And we’ve overlaid the entire
process with excessive external accountability and testing to ensure that
predetermined metrics are being met, whether those metrics are driven by a
political agenda, by the musings of some powerbroker, or whether they even have
any basis in a factual reality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And on top of
this stressed educational system, we have the slow recovery from an economic
crisis leaving many of our youth living with their parents with no job or in
jobs far below their abilities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The net result
is predictable. We have produced a large cohort of apathetic students moving
along the conveyor belt toward careers often chosen by others or picked for
reasons having little to do with their individual skill set or desires. How
large that cohort has become over the past half century is debatable, but they
exist and in large numbers. Is this the future of our educational system or can
we do something about it? Is there no room for innovation focused on the
student as a person?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/">Dr. Richard A. Cherwitz</a>,
a professor at The University of Texas Austin in the Department of
Communication Studies, Division of Rhetoric and Writing, has answered that
question in the affirmative. Beginning in 1995, Cherwitz created the <a href="https://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/">Intellectual
Entrepreneurship (IE) consortium</a> as a “cross-disciplinary initiative
designed to leverage knowledge for social good by educating citizen-scholars,”
quoting from <a href="http://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=149309">a
recent article</a> in the magazine <i>Ujima</i>.
According to <a href="http://csc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/03/11/1532708613480477.abstract">a
paper</a> by H. L. Goodall, “IE is not a program, nor a compartmentalized
academic unit or institute; it is an intellectual platform and educational
philosophy for instigating learning across disciplinary boundaries and
generating collaborations between the academy and society.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In essence, IE
serves as an incubator permitting students to engage as entrepreneurs to find
their own intellectual sweet spot and what they are passionate about. As
Cherwitz recently stated in an email of 21 February 2013, universities should
produce scholars in a setting where “ entrepreneurial thinking and principles
are at the core of what transpires in classrooms, laboratories and studios,
empowering us to learn and then leverage our knowledge for social good – whether
in academic, business, political or social settings.” I couldn’t agree more. According
to Cherwitz, IE replaces my conveyor-belt motif of
“apprenticeship-certification-entitlement” with one of self “discovery-ownership-accountability.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the IE process,
student participants negotiate a “contract” that can expose them to graduate
work using graduate student mentors, expose them to work outside of their
chosen area of study, or involve them in external internships as some of the
options available. As Cherwitz stated in an email of 16 March 2013, IE students
“use their knowledge and expertise to tackle real problems facing the
community.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A surprising and
non-targeted consequence of the IE initiative has been an increase in diversity
as measured by the number of participants who are the first in their family to
attend college, are economically disadvantaged, or are an underrepresented
minority. Is this due to a native survival instinct from this group or to the
fact that other students have been programmed onto the conveyor belt? Many
people from my generation have speculated that our “intellectual entrepreneurial
spirit” arose from being a member of the emergent “middle class” of the 1950s
and often the first to attend college.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">My hat is off to
Professor Cherwitz and the IE initiative at UT-Austin. One only has to read the
many <a href="https://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/">testimonials</a>
from IE graduates and people who work with and hire them to understand how
truly marvelous and innovative this initiative is and how necessary it is for
universities to engage in the mindset of entrepreneurial thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The world is not
filled with mythical dragons waiting to burn us should we take a step forward
nor black holes to suck us in should we advance outside our comfort zones.
Instead, the only thing stopping us from passionately pursuing our intellectual
depths and our ability to contribute in a positive manner to society as
“tomorrow’s leaders” is ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-81426001484406609092013-03-18T07:53:00.002-07:002013-03-18T07:53:52.856-07:00Toys Not Included!
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFKbl8d1hy6o_78qLoXAfMscelziYXdp8WsTDbCh7KK6CjjpgNTmZjesMcEiYiinKyJpjfYTJDSMnoE8aJltVxQZX1LXQ9GUNaBYVeBxHRgmJRIRe_4IOypF9QWuCPdV2VGwywMaGnXK0/s1600/BatteryBlog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFKbl8d1hy6o_78qLoXAfMscelziYXdp8WsTDbCh7KK6CjjpgNTmZjesMcEiYiinKyJpjfYTJDSMnoE8aJltVxQZX1LXQ9GUNaBYVeBxHRgmJRIRe_4IOypF9QWuCPdV2VGwywMaGnXK0/s1600/BatteryBlog.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Keith McDowell<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t know about you, but I’m glad I was born with nine
lives. I used one of them up this past week organizing my federal income tax
records for H&R Block while simultaneously coming to terms with the family
budget. And, of course, just at the moment of maximum psychological stress, one
of my home fire alarms started that piercing beep guaranteed to annoy while
reminding one to replace the battery. Bad things always come in threes – or so
say the true believers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not to worry! Like every modern household, our home comes
complete with a drawer in the butler’s pantry filled with a vast array of
battery packs including batteries for my advanced hearing aides, quadruple A
batteries for their remote controller – a vanishing breed of batteries, and,
yes, 9-volt batteries for the fire alarms. We store the flashlights in another
location.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>Flashlight:
A metal tube used to store dead batteries<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And being a conscientious homeowner, I’m committed to replacing
all my fire alarm, 9-volt batteries at the same time. So what idiot decided
that said fire alarms must be placed in the most inaccessible locations
requiring the use of stepstools and aluminum extension ladders to reach them?
My 92-year-old father once broke his ankle at my age climbing down such a
ladder.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what about all those toys that are supposed to come with
said batteries – not counting the Energizer Bunny? Are they no longer included?
As we all know, he who dies with the most toys dies the happiest. Does my
5-year-old car count?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The remote control for that car recently started acting up
by refusing to lock the car when the appropriate button was pushed. A random
sampling of about five frustrating pushes was needed to get the job done. Like
any good scientist – meaning lazy person, I first opened the controller,
carefully took it apart, and cleaned the metal contacts, hoping against hope
that the battery wasn’t the problem. Who really wants to get into their car and
pay the gas bill to drive to one’s local Radio Shack to make sure you get the
proper replacement battery? The battery won this round.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then we have all those wireless gizmos, ergo toys! I
just replaced my old iMac with a brand new one complete with wireless Magic
Mouse and keyboard. You’ve really got to watch your finger action on the Magic
Mouse or you’ll wind up in the Netherlands of your open window with no clue as
to how to return to where you were. And, of course, its battery will have to be
replaced on a regular basis.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The wireless keyboard is especially efficient with respect
to size and design. It took me a few minutes to realize how clever the metal
tube is that is used to prop up the keyboard at an angle from the top. First,
you have to figure out that the right end of the tube is in fact a button that
turns the keyboard on. Second, you learn that the tube is actually the location
of the needed batteries. And, no, it doesn’t come with a bulb at the end
allowing one to use it as a flashlight during the inevitable power outages in
the hot summer months in Texas. How did they miss that feature – not to mention
it being a storage container for dead batteries?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the left end of the tube does come with a retrograde
coin groove used to unscrew the cap enclosing the batteries. If only modern
humankind carried coins around anymore! I must also admit that a certain amount
of manual dexterity is needed to reseat the cap in order to screw it back on,
assuming the coin hasn’t rolled away in the meantime. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t get me wrong! I love all those gadgets that improve
the quality of my life, even if dealing with a multitude of batteries and their
replacement is the price paid. And therein lies our story. Exactly how well are
we doing as a nation and a society when it comes to battery innovation? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does it make sense that the modern soldier on the
battlefield must be supplied with seventeen different batteries as I was
informed a few years ago? That’s a lot of weight and baggage to carry around,
especially in the extremely hot conditions of the Middle East. MIT created the <a href="http://web.mit.edu/isn/">Institute For Soldier Nanotechnology</a> to deal
with just such issues. And how about the <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/01/lithium-batteries">Boeing
787 Dreamliner issue</a> with the Lithium-ion batteries? Is that an example of
an innovation too far? I won’t be buying a ticket to fly on that airplane any
time soon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Surprisingly, many pundits and technical writers believe
that the United States has not sufficiently invested in battery research and
needed innovations, even though Indiana is building a new <a href="http://www.bicindiana.com/">Battery Innovation Center</a> focusing on
advanced battery technology using public-private partnerships, and Argonne
National Laboratory has an <a href="http://energy.gov/articles/team-led-argonne-national-lab-selected-doe-s-batteries-and-energy-storage-hub">Energy
Innovation Hub</a> targeted to batteries and energy storage, to name a few
countervailing examples.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Conventional wisdom posits that we are focused too much on
the commercial product and related profit at the expense of battery
development. Batteries are viewed as a commodity with a low profit margin
fueling a demand for “cheap, underperforming batteries” as opposed to innovating
“cost-competitive, high-performing ones.” Furthermore, <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/industry-inertia-holds-back-battery-innovation-7000008017/">Ellyne
Phneah</a> argues that for battery manufacturers there is a “lack of incentives
from a coal perspective” and that “customers are also not hankering for
improvements.” With respect to her latter point, I guess she doesn’t live in
the same world that I do!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A case in point occurred recently with the so-called “<a href="http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2013/02/21/the-tesla-broder-debate-and-what-it-says-about-decarbonizing-transportation/">Tesla-Broder
Debate</a>” and the notion of “decarbonizing transportation” using batteries.
Matthew Steep has provided an excellent analysis of that debate and the case
for and against electric vehicles (EV), principally automobiles, although
similar arguments hold for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bus">autonomous
electric buses</a>. My summary of the issues surrounding the use of EVs is as
follows:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /><ul>
<li>There is an initial sunk cost investment problem with building the EV battery-charging infrastructure.</li>
<li>Our culture must change from a “his and her” two-car family to a “local versus extended trip” two-car family. In other words, one EV and one hybrid or conventional hydrocarbon-fueled car must become the norm.</li>
<li>The cost and reliability of an EV must be addressed and satisfied for consumers.</li>
<li>The USA needs advanced transportation systems and a transportation network including highway infrastructure based on where and how we move about as citizens and the changes we need to make in our culture of doing just that.</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In simple terms for the specific issue of battery
innovation, especially at it relates to EVs, we need a <a href="http://theenergycollective.com/cliftonyin/189366/boost-battery-innovation">holistic
approach</a> based on power management across the board and not just single
cell innovations. The same is true in other sectors including solar
photovoltaic panels.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But is all this push for new battery innovation just wishful
thinking or does Mother Nature still rule the day? I vote for Mother Nature and
the science of thermodynamics. There are theoretical limits on what can be
achieved as described in an <a href="http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/kurt-zenz-house/the-limits-of-energy-storage-technology">interesting
article</a> by Kurt Zenz House and a graduate student, Alex Johnson, which
focuses on energy density. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Furthermore, can we really speed up the discovery and
innovation process through investment of additional monies coupled to effective
and efficient R&D management? Well, yes and no. Certainly such practices
are a pre-condition to accelerating the process, but there is never a guarantee
of success in a timely manner. It’s not magic. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_battery">history of the
battery</a> is replete with starts and stops and accidental discoveries
beginning with the Baghdad battery, linked capacitors, the voltaic pile, the
invention of “half-cells” in the Daniell cell, the use of porous media to
separate compartments, rechargeable batteries including the all-important
lead-acid battery in our cars, dry cells and then the alkaline battery, the
replacement of liquids with gels, and now the lithium-ion battery.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Where our global society and especially America
will end up when it comes to batteries, their use, and new innovations, is hard
to predict, but I’m sure of one thing. I love my toys! </span><!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-58157395408674019942013-03-10T12:51:00.000-07:002013-03-10T12:51:19.479-07:00The Academic Universe<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-UCTeX60TM1UKP35qrGAKAPoMrdJ40Q0NP3aaRDkZJni3eUA-IYrtlpIjGT6NZMKzH9yBcn6j6hLa_4wgmYpW_QBDaFJBtBhwHcn9Wz7GZkOIQXyk_uYyEgYihGt6sRbdEigCVGp9VY/s1600/AcademicUniversePic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-UCTeX60TM1UKP35qrGAKAPoMrdJ40Q0NP3aaRDkZJni3eUA-IYrtlpIjGT6NZMKzH9yBcn6j6hLa_4wgmYpW_QBDaFJBtBhwHcn9Wz7GZkOIQXyk_uYyEgYihGt6sRbdEigCVGp9VY/s1600/AcademicUniversePic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Located in the
shadow of the historic Alamo and permeated by the multicultural significance of
those who fought and died there for their independence, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_River_Walk">River Walk</a> in
San Antonio is both a place to enjoy the allure of a beautiful city and its
excellent cuisine and a place to ponder questions best left to such settings.
During the past week, as a guest of The University of Texas at San Antonio (<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5141527794784785527">UTSA</a>), I had just such an opportunity while serving as a member of
their External Review Committee (ERC), an operation designed to review
periodically the performance of UTSA centers and institutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Composed of a
very talented and personable group of individuals, ERC held serious discussions
about the place and role of centers and institutes in the microcosm of UTSA
and, more broadly, the slowly changing universe of academe in general. As
always in such discussions, two important questions emerged that are in need of
an answer. First, exactly what is the nature of the modern academic universe?
And, second, is that universe optimally structured and managed in order to
carry out the assigned mission?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let’s begin with
the mission of universities. There are three components: teaching, research,
and service. Viewed traditionally as siloed or stove-piped activities, each of
these three components over time have grown more complex and heavily integrated
to the point that a Venn diagram of their overlap looks similar to the image
shown above. Indeed, the service component is now typically referred to as
“engagement” rather than service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Based on this
model of three overlapping components that encompass the mission, it is possible
to define the nature of the modern academic universe through a prescriptive
listing of specific “buzzwords” or phrases associated with each segment of the
Venn diagram. For example, the following list would make up that part of the
academic universe assigned purely to the teaching function.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Teaching Segment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Active/Passive/Discovery/Group/Individual
learning styles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Technology in the classroom <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Online education<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Student as customer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Education versus training<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Experiential learning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Although partial
and not complete, this list displays the flavor of the current status of
teaching in the academic universe. Similar partial lists for the other segments
are as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Teaching-Research Segment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Research experience for students as a
stimulus and vehicle for learning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Student as lab employee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Research Segment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Search for new knowledge – basic research<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tenure and promotion – peer review<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Grantsmanship and funding<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Convergence and transdisciplinary teaming
approach replacing individual PI<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Complexity <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Grand challenges<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Research development<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Research compliance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Research-Engagement Segment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Consultant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sabbatical leave<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Industry partnerships and sponsored
research<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Proof of concept<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Intellectual property and patents<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Translational R&D<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Engagement Segment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Professional service<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Extension service – traditional for
land-grant universities<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Technology commercialization<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Startup companies and university
incubators<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Innovation centers and communities<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Public-private partnerships<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Entrepreneurs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Business plan competitions<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Engagement-Teaching Segment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Internships<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Semester abroad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Community service <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Student as innovator and entrepreneur<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">At the center of
all this segmented and detailed activity is the modern research university
where the teaching, research, and engagement components of the mission merge to
form a holistic enterprise that serves the greater good of our nation. And
therein lies our second question: are universities optimally structured and
managed in order to carry out this holistic mission? Are centers and institutes
the answer?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Quite frankly, I
don’t believe anyone knows the answer as to what would constitute the optimal
organizational chart. And just about everything has been tried when it comes to
parsing discipline lines versus project lines. It’s the age-old conundrum of
project management set in the context of the academic universe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Should we break
down the “hegemony of discipline lines” as described by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Duderstadt">James Duderstadt</a> or
should we institute “matrix management” as practiced at our national
laboratories? Certainly President <a href="http://president.asu.edu/about/michaelcrow">Michael Crow</a> is
performing an interesting experiment at Arizona State University as he recasts
and restructures the traditional departments at that university with an eye
toward educating students and engaging the greater Phoenix community in a
user-driven research environment tailored to put technology commercialization
on steroids. Should UTSA and other emergent research universities adopt such a
model? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I think not! But
it is imperative that we all address the evolution of the academic universe and
understand that we must adapt and change as globalization takes hold and
civilization becomes a highly networked and interconnected system. The
traditional university of our forebears is not a sustainable enterprise in the
Twenty-first Century. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdisciplinarity">Transdisciplinary</a>
and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translational_research">translational</a>
research and education embedded in a fully formed and adaptive innovation
ecosystem are the key to our future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-25166827873024850732013-03-01T07:17:00.001-08:002013-03-25T12:04:26.782-07:00If I Only Had a Brain!<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFgSvsgVgBil2nFDmslrQY0sleJsfzQrKZ6fHaSbnAZrotXp22ToH8aFanZVcvFKpDmB1NwMBEOvEy0yuq1RSTDhKAKBDdyiiZNR5euXs9MGSgfbuClfCR_fTqwyOcNah_fd5J0Csh0-A/s1600/IfIOnlyHadaBrainPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFgSvsgVgBil2nFDmslrQY0sleJsfzQrKZ6fHaSbnAZrotXp22ToH8aFanZVcvFKpDmB1NwMBEOvEy0yuq1RSTDhKAKBDdyiiZNR5euXs9MGSgfbuClfCR_fTqwyOcNah_fd5J0Csh0-A/s1600/IfIOnlyHadaBrainPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ah, that morning
cup of coffee that jumpstarts our mind and body in preparation for another day
of mindless bureaucracy, tedious work, and endless social networking, both
planned and unexpected. It’s the elixir of life that unlocks the innovative
potential in each of us, only to be crushed under the weight of our daily duties
and obligations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But wait! Maybe
your favorite brew from Starbucks is really part of a secret government project
designed to infect our brains with wireless nanobots through the ingestion of
coffee. And that Gen-6 wireless network we’re all waiting for, it comes with a
carrier wave linked to the nanobots that forces us to buy Krispy Kreme donuts
along with our coffee. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mind control –
science fiction or science fact?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Perhaps neither
or maybe a mixture of both, depending on your tolerance for conspiracy theories
or the inevitable domination of technology in our lives, especially as it
relates to the health and wellbeing of our bodies. One thing is certain. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/science/project-seeks-to-build-map-of-human-brain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/politics/index.jsonp&">Obama
Administration</a> appears poised to propose that our Nation take on a
multi-billion dollar, large-scale science and technology project similar in
scope to the Manhattan Project, the Man-on-the-Moon project, and the Human
Genome Project. It’s called the Brain Activity Map Project or BAM.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Proposed by
Alivisatos, Chun, Church, Greenspan, Roukes and Yuste in a very readable and
well-written paper entitled “The Brain Activity Map Project and the Challenge
of Functional Connectomics,” published in and <a href="http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2812%2900518-1">available
from</a> the journal <i>Neuron</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">,
BAM’s purpose is “to record every action potential from every neuron within a
circuit” in order to obtain “the dynamical mapping of the ‘functional
connections.’” Hmm, okay, so what exactly does that mean?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In principle,
the end game for BAM is equivalent to the entire reductionist history of how
scientists came to understand the behavior of matter in the form of a gas, a
liquid, or a solid at the macroscale all the way down to the level of atoms and
molecules. That story required several centuries to develop and is replete with
notions of complexity, connectivity, and emergent properties – topics that I’ve
reviewed in <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-is-easy-has-been-done.html">previous
posts</a>. The expectation is that BAM will reveal a similar story for our
brain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In simple terms,
our brain at the micro-level is composed of some 100 billion neurons that are
connected in a complicated circuit that changes over time (that change is known
as plasticity of the brain). In the aggregate, these neurons through their
individual actions produce at the macro-level functional behavior such as
cognitive reasoning and consciousness as emergent properties. As scientists, we
want to know how that all works. Indeed, understanding consciousness and what
that entails is for me the <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2012/10/are-we-there-yet.html">greatest
challenge</a> for the Twenty-first century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So is any of
this possible or is BAM a science boondoggle? At the whole-brain or
macro-level, brain research has undergone a major transformation over the past
decade or two. Using technologies such as EEG, CT, fMRI, PET, and MET,
neuroscientists are engaged in a massive exercise to map the macro-activity of
the brain. Instead of nanobots, human subjects often ingest chemical markers to
enhance the signal similar to those barium cocktails many of us have swallowed
for the ever popular GI series x-rays. And they expect you to hold it in while
you trot with bare feet on the cold tile floor to the nearest bathroom!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Texas in
particular is well positioned to carry out such research. Take, for example,
the <i><a href="http://www.brainhealth.utdallas.edu/">Center for Brain Health</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> at UT Dallas headed by Dr. Sandra
Chapman or the enormous investment in imaging facilities at the UT Southwestern
Medical Center. Working with local industry such as Texas Instruments,
Metroplex universities, medical centers and hospitals have forged multiple
public-private partnerships tailored both to pursue such research and to
generate downstream commercial products, especially in the broader area of the
human-machine interface. Every science and technology prognosticator that I
know believes that the human-machine interface, and specifically, the
brain-machine interface, will be the technology story for this century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But let’s return
to BAM and the technological issue of whether it is currently possible to
actually map the individual and collective activity of a large number of
neurons, whether in elementary lifeforms possessing minimal neuronal activity
or in human beings. Realistically, the answer is no, but we are on the brink of
being able to do so due to the <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-is-easy-has-been-done.html">“bnice”
convergence</a> of the bio, nano, info, cogno, and eco areas of science. It’s
going to happen within the next decade or two whether BAM drives it or not.
Whether by smart wireless nanobots that attach themselves non-invasively to
neurons or by some other process not yet identified, it’s going to happen. To
think otherwise is to deny the emergence of chemical markers such as the barium
cocktail. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are issues
with funding BAM. Will it be just a zero-sum game with funds being diverted
from other equally deserving, but small-scale projects, or a truly new
investment? What precisely is the goal of BAM, since some believe that it is
not nearly as well defined as sequencing the human genome, reaching the moon,
or producing the atomic bomb? Will health disparities arise? Will there be a
brain enhancement divide similar to the digital divide? And, of course, is mind
control by the government the ultimate motive for federal support of BAM?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Personally, I’m
not particularly bothered by these issues since they are similar in nature to
those that arise from any major research project. As for mind control, I
predict that will only become a potential issue long after we’ve all been
converted into the Borg via human-machine interfaces and computers have morphed
into self-aware cyclons, able to leap past human beings in a single bound.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The potential
for BAM as a component of the greater human-machine story of the Twenty-first
century is enormous. The spin-off in innovations and commercial products to
improve or repair our sight, hearing, and smell will define global competition
in this century much like information technology did for the Twentieth century,
not to mention the impact on many diseases such as Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia
and the contributions to artificial intelligence and computational
neuroscience. Any nation or any industry not planning for that eventuality will
be left behind. I support the BAM concept and the need for federal funding to
accelerate its emergence but, first, let’s bring together a collection of our
leading scientists and engineers along with appropriate ethicists to define
further the parameters and the goal of the project. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mercifully, some
of us will be spared from such new-age invasions via mind control or nanobot
monitoring of our daily routine – or as the scarecrow in the <i>Wizard of Oz</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> famously opined: “if I only had a
brain.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-57726690252014623132013-02-18T06:45:00.000-08:002013-02-18T06:45:35.308-08:00Technology-based Growth Strategy
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmXKpcEW87qGn-gUIBz6_-MdjDrRzrVPJaFbdHmEbnUNACLZepnd88_UoI6eJfBT-5lls-0C0JGvO1k8wylWQQIjm20GDXfEhXMB_s0FDGNF_JaagLhUQkkRhjjvOhZkyUGt9U6EZ-k6E/s1600/TechbasedGrowthStratPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmXKpcEW87qGn-gUIBz6_-MdjDrRzrVPJaFbdHmEbnUNACLZepnd88_UoI6eJfBT-5lls-0C0JGvO1k8wylWQQIjm20GDXfEhXMB_s0FDGNF_JaagLhUQkkRhjjvOhZkyUGt9U6EZ-k6E/s1600/TechbasedGrowthStratPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Global
competition, economic malaise, loss of manufacturing jobs, high unemployment,
and a host of other bad news! Where does it all end and how did we get into
this mess? Is innovation coupled to entrepreneurship the sure-fire answer?
While a tepid yes is the appropriate reply, that’s not the whole answer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As we have
described in our ebook <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Go-Forth-and-Innovate-ebook/dp/B004MYH0VM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1297445975&sr=8-1">Go
Forth And Innovate!</a></i> and in over eighty opinion pieces, America is
slowly but surely losing the global competition battle principally for two
reasons. First, we have failed as a nation to come to grips with a full
understanding of the complexity of a modern emergent innovation ecosystem
including the process of commercialization and, second, we have failed at the
national level to either create or implement rational policies based on such an
understanding. Furthermore, those failures have become inextricably tied to the
political gridlock facing our nation and the dysfunctional behavior of
Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Like many, I
believe that it is absolutely essential that Americans of all brands, flavors,
and beliefs come together in common cause to debate and frame the discussion in
order to ensure that reason and fact prevail. And in that regard, a <a href="http://www.nist.gov/director/planning/upload/beyond-business-cycle.pdf">recent
paper</a> by Gregory Tassey entitled “<a href="http://spp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/12/19/scipol.scs106.abstract">Beyond
the business cycle: The need for a technology-based growth strategy</a>” is a
must read and comports to and with everything that I have come to appreciate
and understand about the emergent global innovation ecosystem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The abstract to
the journal paper perhaps best encapsulates its message.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>This
paper assesses the limitations of monetary and fiscal policies for establishing
long-term growth trajectories and instead proposes a technology-based economic
strategy targeted at long-term growth in productivity. The model expands the
original Schumpeterian concept of technology as the long-term driver of
economic growth where technology is characterized as a homogeneous entity developed
and commercialized solely by industry. Instead, the new model defines
technology as a multi-element asset that evolves over several phases of the
R&D cycle, is developed by public-private investment strategy, and is
commercialized by a complex industry structure of both large and small firms.
Eventually, the policy choice is between traditional macrostabilization
policies that increase aggregate demand but do not significantly increased the
real incomes of workers, resulting ultimately in inflation; or a
technology-driven investment strategy that increases the productivity of the
economy, thereby increasing the capacity of an economy to grow without
inflation.</i></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Throughout the
paper, Tassey focuses on expanding the current narrow model based on increasing
“allocative efficiencies” through spending to stimulate demand while using
macroeconomic control mechanisms (example, “shovel-ready” projects), to one of
increasing “productive efficiencies” with a greater emphasis on microeconomic
growth policy. Some attention is also paid to an even higher-order of “adaptive
efficiencies,” a theme that I strongly endorse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tassey argues
that America must invest in five categories of productivity-enhancing assets:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Technology
(intellectual capital)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Skilled
labor (human capital)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hardware
and software (non-human capital)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Industry
structure and behavior (organizational/marketing capital)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Technical
infrastructure (public capital)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The emergent
complexity of the modern innovation ecosystem is recognized by Tassey and is
displayed in the image at the beginning of this article as copied from his
paper. From Tassey’s perspective, “long-term productivity growth requires
increasing the technological content of products, processes, and services” and
that “Achieving this goal requires coordinated advances in science, technology,
innovation, and diffusion (STID) assets.” I could not agree more!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And at the core
of this commercialization process, we must have an R&D policy “based on
three critical drivers: the amount of R&D, the composition of R&D, and
the efficiency by which the first two drivers are managed.” Increasing R&D
as a percentage of GDP goes without saying and its relative decline in the
United States is documented by Tassey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The composition
of federally funded R&D “has historically been focused on specific mandated
missions (national defense, health, space exploration, etc.) rather than on
economic growth as a first-order objective.” Unfortunately, such mission-driven
R&D carries with it a slow commercialization time line that is mostly
out-of-synch with the continuing compression of technology life cycles. Tassey
doesn’t clearly indicate detailed solution or policy pathways to resolve these
and related issues, but that discussion has been an ongoing one by this author
and many others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The efficiency
of how we manage the first two drivers is described by Tassey in the form of
“new public-private research infrastructures in the form of regional
technology-based clusters.” Such regional innovation clusters as part of a
vibrant multi-layered, hierarchical, but adaptive network have long been my
personal view of what should and must constitute a modern innovation ecosystem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the final
analysis, I agree with Tassey that “Government, with a lower discount rate, the
ability to undertake riskier projects, and the resources to support a broad
portfolio of long-term R&D must be a major supporter of the elements of
complex modern technologies with public good content.” But having said that, I
see no concerted effort being made in Washington or nationally to bring
together capable people to develop or to achieve such a plan other than by
those of us dedicated to the cause – the advances of the Obama Administration
notwithstanding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And therein lies
our ultimate problem as a nation. No matter how well Tassey and others
formulate or frame the issues, and no matter how energetically we debate and
discuss these issues, without action, there is no progress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-45436971974150843432013-02-07T11:26:00.000-08:002013-02-07T11:26:42.048-08:00You've Been a BAD Boy!<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujXFbjAwrz-WeXHz_tdnciuFyyg4YT2ZN62ktPMY6s4gc85zNSVYzPHs79OtUJ9ptTn2gLQmj7Gr3XvwihmZPAMiKSdUyC09yukl428cR0G0C5tp7csjgW9sFIyNg5VUMl49f_2tYRDs/s1600/YouveBeenABADBoy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujXFbjAwrz-WeXHz_tdnciuFyyg4YT2ZN62ktPMY6s4gc85zNSVYzPHs79OtUJ9ptTn2gLQmj7Gr3XvwihmZPAMiKSdUyC09yukl428cR0G0C5tp7csjgW9sFIyNg5VUMl49f_2tYRDs/s1600/YouveBeenABADBoy.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Lee_Ermey">Ronald Lee Ermey</a>! You’ve
likely never heard that name before but you know who he is. He’s the Gunnery
Sergeant from the movie <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/">Full
Metal Jacket</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> and the
familiar “in-your-face” drill instructor in many television commercials,
especially the more recent one for Geiko where he portrays an insensitive
psychiatrist outraged by the silly obsessions of his patients. But would you
have guessed that Ronald, better known as “The Gunny,” was indeed a real-world
marine drill instructor and now an honorary Gunnery Sergeant? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For me, the
visual image of “The Gunny” always brings to mind another person unknown
outside the halls of the scientific community. His name: Norman C. Blais – or
“Norm” to his friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Although rather
short in stature and now about 90 years old, Norm has always looked the part of
a marine drill instructor with his closely cropped crewcut, his wiry and
muscular body build, his angular jaw, his piercing eyes and commanding voice,
and his khaki pants held up by a standard issue military belt with shiny brass
buckle. A contrarian to his core, Norm has always been ready and willing to
debate any scientific issue, but only from a position based on the facts. To
his many followers and admirers, his experimental prowess peppered by his
skills as a theoretician have long been his stock in trade.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So who could
ever have imagined that one day Norm would retire from Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL). It happened on my watch. And therein lies a story and
perhaps a harbinger about how America got into its current economic mess
accompanied by the loss of manufacturing jobs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">All of us who
have known Norm Blais over the years were absolutely certain that he would be
the last person at LANL actually doing any productive work and the person who
would close down the lab on its final day. How could it be otherwise with our
own version of “The Gunny?” But retire he did in the early 1990s and I was
faced with the task of providing the customary “testimonial” at his retirement
reception. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Accepting the
“testimonial” task with some degree of impish glee, I presented to the audience
a previously undiscovered and unpublished theory proposed by Blais based on the
prevailing facts known at that time. Characterized as the “Blais Anomalous
Dispersion Theory” or “BAD theory,” the theory proposed a new evolutionary
pattern in the behavior and structure of large business or research entities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the
beginning, such corporate structures are mostly populated with worker bees and
a rapidly diminishing number of managers as one goes up the executive chain.
Shown graphically with the width of the graphical object indicating the number
of employees at each level, an early stage corporate structure looks like a
triangle resting on its base with lots of workers at the bottom and a single
person in charge at the top. Such an image connotes stability and comports with
our ancestral notion of a structure that will not topple over from the force of
gravity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But then time
takes its toll and the corporate structure becomes bloated with mid-level
managers and service providers until one day, only one person is left at the
bottom doing any real work or engaged in manufacturing anything of value. The
triangle has become a top, standing on its point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAjoHx7igXWENbEG2JGWC6v8-3fZgGefDWNiL5Fe0ohbvs3pwQBU7NiI_kt-MBxCve0NsMF9zqnaA6ryLtZ9cl9lnFegGGyLcRJJmD-EHtPSHxzp8-nXVPDrGddZ4QbiwvcHIh_FHHsY/s1600/SpinningTopPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAjoHx7igXWENbEG2JGWC6v8-3fZgGefDWNiL5Fe0ohbvs3pwQBU7NiI_kt-MBxCve0NsMF9zqnaA6ryLtZ9cl9lnFegGGyLcRJJmD-EHtPSHxzp8-nXVPDrGddZ4QbiwvcHIh_FHHsY/s1600/SpinningTopPic.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And like the
proverbial top, such corporate structures are inherently unstable unless we
introduce the one thing that can provide them with temporary stability. We need
“spin-doctors” to create the illusion that all is well and that frictional
forces will never slow us down and bring on the inevitable gravitational
toppling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">BAD theory was a
huge success at that testimonial ceremony as a fictional tribute to the role of
Norm Blais as the final cog in the structure that kept LANL from the
inevitable. He laughed right along with the spin-doctors sprinkled throughout
the audience. But who is to say that the BAD theory is not correct, especially
given our current economic circumstances and our loss of manufacturing prowess.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And so it all
began some twenty years ago with the retirement of “the science gunny.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-22484072114262628242013-01-31T11:27:00.000-08:002013-01-31T11:27:55.720-08:00The Myth of Faculty Infallibility<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFNYt6oGvvs1d2f83TU6Bx1rwqI6I1tEc91zf7Fipo20_vW3gHSwYr5THSOf5TBGv0qQh_q8DsLz-85C1g0p2qjokHbivTLpWd0oj6iHgMe0fl3w59RSi4f2dcEPRcU5MSDxdpQmjMcgc/s1600/MythFacultyInfallibilityPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFNYt6oGvvs1d2f83TU6Bx1rwqI6I1tEc91zf7Fipo20_vW3gHSwYr5THSOf5TBGv0qQh_q8DsLz-85C1g0p2qjokHbivTLpWd0oj6iHgMe0fl3w59RSi4f2dcEPRcU5MSDxdpQmjMcgc/s1600/MythFacultyInfallibilityPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Hear no evil,
see no evil, and speak no evil” is an intriguing credo worthy of consideration
in some instances, but also typically an excuse to avoid confronting the
obvious truth in situational encounters. Consider, for example, the case for
the infallibility of university faculty members; namely, the notion that
faculty are always right. How does that aphorism<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>work with respect to the commercialization of technology?
The answer, of course, depends on whom you ask.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By all accounts,
the process of transforming an idea or research discovery into a viable
commercial product or service is a complex one populated with numerous
evaluation procedures and decision branches. Not to be too harsh on faculty,
but the experience of most technology transfer and commercialization
professionals is that faculty members as a general rule are not prepared to
undergo such a journey and in some cases willfully subvert the process to their
own disadvantage. Why would anyone behave in such a manner and what is the
nature of that behavior and their ignorance?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the interest
of addressing these questions while hopefully avoiding some proverbial
dime-store psychology, I’ll “speak some evil” and relate my own experience in
dealing with faculty members and the process of technology commercialization.
Here are some of the issues that I’ve experienced or seen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most faculty members don’t know or
understand the process for moving an idea or discovery through the pipeline to
commercialization, although this situation has been changing in recent years.
Even worse, they fail to understand the technology commercialization jargon and
confuse, for example, the meaning and differences between an idea, a discovery,
an invention, or a commercial product. But believing themselves in the
infallibility of faculty, they refuse to accept their ignorance and pretend
otherwise, typically to the detriment of everyone involved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Far too many faculty members think they
know better than the professionals about how to commercialize their discovery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As a general rule, the “slow step” in
technology commercialization is not the office of technology commercialization
but the faculty member. It’s one of those “see, hear, and speak no evil”
moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most faculty members don’t understand and
often refuse to accept that the university owns the intellectual property
resulting from an invention disclosure, often as a direct result of the
Bayh-Dole Act combined with the contract between the university and the faculty
member. To everyone’s credit, such contractual arrangements are now being more
fully explained in an up-front manner to all the parties involved, especially
given recent court actions. The game of IP walking out the back door continues,
but is better understood and being addressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Faculty members refuse to invest the
necessary sweat equity into getting the details properly done during the
invention disclosure process. They just don’t believe the details are needed
for a proper valuation by the university prior to patenting or choosing another
branch in the decision tree. And it’s part of a knee-jerk culture primed to
always fight against perceived administrivia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Faculty members vastly overestimate the
potential commercial value of their invention disclosure. I’ve lost track of
the number of times I’ve seen estimates ranging into the hundreds of millions
of dollars. The presumptive value of such estimates is their power to convince
the university to pursue full patent protection and downstream commercialization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some faculty members enjoy invoking the
publication conundrum; that is, the perceived conflict between the timing
involved in the publication of research and the patenting process. While there
are certainly issues to be considered, university technology transfer
professionals fully understand them and the entire issue is easily and almost
always well managed. This is one of those “much ado about nothing” concerns
causing lots of angst and little else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most faculty members significantly
underestimate the development process and don’t accept scale-up or
manufacturing related concerns as issues. Although a downstream problem, it
sometimes affects the early stages, especially the juncture where the
university decides to pursue or not pursue an invention disclosure or return
full rights to pursue to the faculty member.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Contrary to folklore and the conventional
wisdom of pundits, universities often return the right to pursue an invention
disclosure through the commercialization pipeline to the faculty member. And
it’s done in a timely manner. Universities don’t sit on such invention
disclosures. There are many reasons why universities don’t pursue invention
disclosures including the lack of funding to pay for the patent process. No one
gains from sitting on potential intellectual property and university
administrators understand that proposition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Many faculty members don’t appreciate and
are confused about the variety of ways to obtain value from their invention
disclosure as intellectual property, whether through monetization (“cash on the
barrel head” to us old guys), royalties, or the differing kinds of stock
options in a startup company as the most obvious examples. It’s a game of
managing expectations and working with the faculty member to obtain an optimal strategy
for all the participants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Faculty members struggle with the issue
of becoming personally and directly involved in technology commercialization.
Such concerns include becoming an investor, a consultant, an entrepreneur, a
research administrator in a startup company, and a host of other possible
configurations. Sadly, many faculty members become sucker bait for fast-talking
entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Every technology commercialization
professional has their own collection of stories about such episodes, including
me. Rescuing people from such foibles is part of the business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Faculty members are sometimes confused
about the choice between licensing to a startup company versus a mature
business. Too often, they see gold at the end of the rainbow in the startup.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Proper valuation
and proper decision-making at each stage in the process of technology
commercialization is difficult and involves the interplay of people and all
that that entails. When correctly done, effective and full communication to and
with all parties is an essential factor. And for universities, that begins with
a training program before the fact to prepare faculty members for what they
will experience. Ignorance of the process must never be an excuse for someone
to fall back on the myth of faculty infallibility as a reason to bully or to be
truculent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’ve often been
asked by faculty members the following question: so what do I get from playing
the game and working with the university instead of taking my invention out the
back door? My answer is simple. You get trained and experienced professionals
who know what they are doing and who understand the consequences of all the
actions taken. You get lawyers and contacts to entrepreneurs, venture capital,
and mainstream industry. And it doesn’t cost you a penny other than the time
involved to provide the essential details in your invention disclosure. Best of
all, history proves that the financial remuneration that you ultimately receive
from your idea and discovery will be maximized when you play the game the right
way. While there are some outstanding exceptions that appear to disprove this
rule, there are also the many failures that no one knows about aside from the
insiders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Faculty members
are not infallible. Neither are technology commercialization professionals. But
when both groups work together in common cause and a full understanding of each
other, the potential for an innovation to succeed is limitless. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[Image copied
from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Speak-Hear-Evil-Monkeys-Patch/dp/B004UMUO8M">Amazon.com</a>.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-22758795554782698002013-01-24T06:50:00.000-08:002013-01-24T06:50:04.141-08:00The Great American Pastime<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixq0XpqmE4njgzNhidQ08gd7WEavXB6ZemBMl6NO9zrJQz8wANuhr3U_My_gjgPm0ZhaunfcWasGNy3TRTHdPD7klTSujvFZg-_dvfuNplvkiq_twS3jxNHIKwaQ13mShAa8xY79Nq5k/s1600/PastimePic1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixq0XpqmE4njgzNhidQ08gd7WEavXB6ZemBMl6NO9zrJQz8wANuhr3U_My_gjgPm0ZhaunfcWasGNy3TRTHdPD7klTSujvFZg-_dvfuNplvkiq_twS3jxNHIKwaQ13mShAa8xY79Nq5k/s320/PastimePic1.jpg" width="237" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The death of
Stan “the man” Musial this past weekend at the age of 92 evoked for many of us
memories of a bygone era, the era of baseball as the great American pastime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Baseball was
always a part of my life as a young kid in the early 1950s, especially those
many sessions of “pepper practice” with my father in the backyard of our home
on the Old Brickyard Road in Trinity, North Carolina. Unfortunately, my
fielding skills never did amount to anything more than the ordinary. Perhaps it
had to do with the quality of the baseball glove that I possessed. It was one
of those old-fashioned flat gloves with no webbing and nothing that resembled a
pocket. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dad truly loved
the game of baseball in his youth, although golf has taken over in his later
years. Indeed, one could even say that baseball provided him with his start in
life and his lifelong career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The story begins
in the mid-1930s when dad was the catcher for the High Point High School
baseball team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon graduation in
1937, there were no jobs to be had in the Great Depression and no money for dad
to go to college. But there was baseball in the form of the Globe Parlor
Furniture Company baseball team. In need of a new catcher following the loss of
a Mr. Dorsett, dad was hired by the company as a furniture upholsterer, but
principally as the new catcher for their team. According to league rules,
players could not be paid for playing, so companies recruited their players and
gave them jobs with the expectation that they would play, although each team
was allowed to have two players who did not work for the company. Dad was one
of the lucky ones who got the job and the right to play.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Company baseball
teams were a source of great pride in the 1930s and the Globe Parlor team was
no different. Founded in the late 1920s under the auspices of Mr. Charles
Barrier, one of the owners of the furniture company, the team was a perennial
winner in the Commercial League and later the Industrial League. Described by
many as a tightwad, Charlie loved baseball, came to every game, and supported
the team with a “blank check” in terms of equipment and uniforms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgETwZJ1MSFMy38lFORC0T17nsY8zZZ1Ch2wsX9a4K3qnaw5iTE4RGbsAfQLLHsO3ypbjxQ3YiiDOQMsqFSqogsKhZPxMjP-N6GhxKacuyvdOo3VjcCPdpBoIyEOjKOujpFZSrnxFlbGMM/s1600/GlobeParlorPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgETwZJ1MSFMy38lFORC0T17nsY8zZZ1Ch2wsX9a4K3qnaw5iTE4RGbsAfQLLHsO3ypbjxQ3YiiDOQMsqFSqogsKhZPxMjP-N6GhxKacuyvdOo3VjcCPdpBoIyEOjKOujpFZSrnxFlbGMM/s320/GlobeParlorPic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Globe Parlor Baseball Team Circa 1937<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Harding Atlas McDowell holds catchers
mitt behind batboy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The home field
for the Globe Parlor team was located at the now defunct Allen Jay High School,
south of High Point on the Fairfield Road. Games were played every Saturday
evening during the summer with an occasional cross-league game on Wednesday
night. Typically about 500 people attended the games.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dad especially
remembers games played on a field located on South Main Street next to the old
abattoir. The field was made of red clay with a creek in deep left field that
made for trouble. Most of the fields in those days did not have a fence, so
homeruns were basically caused by hitting the ball over someone’s head or into
a creek. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The uniforms
including the socks were made of wool and were very itchy and hot. As the
catcher, dad sweated a lot in the summer under all the wool and catcher’s
equipment. He remembers being covered in caked-on mud and dust following a game
on the South Main Street field. Players cleaned up with a bath at the local
YMCA that was not far away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Umpires in those
days called balls and strikes from behind the pitcher. That same umpire also
called the plays at 2<sup>nd</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup> base. Foul balls were a
challenge since the fields were not marked with lime after the bases in the
infield. Instead, a stake was placed in the deep outfield and used to figure
out whether it was a foul ball. Lots of arguments resulted from those calls!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And lets not
forget the practice of eating beans before a game, much to the disgust of the
catcher and some silly shenanigans that occurred at the home plate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Following his
service in World War II, dad was again given a job by the Globe Parlor
Furniture Company. The owners felt that they owed a job to the men who had
fought for their country and previously worked for their company. Eventually,
Globe Parlor was bought out by Burlington Industries and dad retired following
the demise of that unit having spent his entire working career in the furniture
business with Globe Parlor. Truly, baseball made a difference in the life of my
father. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For me, baseball
will always be about those lazy summer days as a teenager when my brother and I
got up early and went to the city softball fields across the road from
Brentwood Elementary School. It was a sure bet that enough boys would show up
for a game to commence, no matter how hot the day was or the fact that no one
had any water. Lacking proper equipment, the catcher stood near the backstop
and caught a pitch on the first hop. No one called balls and strikes since the
object was to hit the ball and play the game. Standing around in the heat was
not part of the recipe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Speaking of
balls and bats, I’ll never forget those shiny hard baseballs that had turned
greenish-brown from skipping through grass or their extra weight from being
left outside in the rain. The bats were typically either large, fat, and much
too long and heavy, or else short and pencil thin. The art of “choking up” was
a much-needed skill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’ll never
forget Mr. Aubrey Grimes, the city maintenance worker charged with dragging and
liming the fields before the late afternoon and evening softball games. We were
a constant nuisance for him since we “messed up” his fields in the morning with
our games, but he was a good spirit about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today, no one
plays sandlot baseball any more. Baseball for kids has become all organized and
homogenized, regulated and overcooked into a shadow of its former self and just
another sport to fill in a slot on the daily calendar. Infield chatter is a
lost art and shenanigans are forbidden.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And speaking of
baseball stories, I’ll never forget the non-stop chatter from my uncle, Myron
“Red” Hayworth – and yes, he was a red head. Red was a catcher for the Saint
Louis Browns and played in the 1944 World Series. Red was an excellent catcher
and managed pitchers quite well, but couldn’t hit very well batting .223 in the
1944 championship season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But Red loved to
tell his baseball stories to anyone who would listen, whether they wanted to
listen or not. And he had some good ones. He also had a collection of home
movies that he had taken in the late 1940s and early 1950s in baseball locker
rooms and at ball games. And then there were all those signed baseballs, bats,
and gloves that he owned. I’ve always wondered what happened to his collection.
It was priceless. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And so we mourn
the death of Stan Musial, a baseball legend and a truly great man. While his
life and the game of baseball don’t particularly have much to do with
innovation, entrepreneurship, or university research, they are still to be
celebrated and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do so. Musial will be
missed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLr4v1d2a_PgCptb2ihDu8CKhpSN4EB6qf4aUbKg_CWnRZK8scMJKx_xzgDyyYyKGvfEb6IXDbboPRMpKnSk5siqH29-iJ_h_6mAGaVMepARiZDAcoIhmknA9YT12XBsm11ZLpLTBgyEc/s1600/RedPic2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLr4v1d2a_PgCptb2ihDu8CKhpSN4EB6qf4aUbKg_CWnRZK8scMJKx_xzgDyyYyKGvfEb6IXDbboPRMpKnSk5siqH29-iJ_h_6mAGaVMepARiZDAcoIhmknA9YT12XBsm11ZLpLTBgyEc/s1600/RedPic2.jpg" /></a></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">[Note: Images of
Red Hayworth were taken from a signed copy of the St. Louis Browns Fan Club
book featuring Red Hayworth in the possession of Keith McDowell. For baseball
aficionados, note also that Red’s older brother, Raymond Hayworth, caught for
15 years in the big leagues, mostly for the Detroit Tigers.]</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-1812920836052013162013-01-18T07:42:00.000-08:002013-01-18T07:42:12.498-08:00Crossing the Line<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxYG0vNHcZZg8BQl0WhcnrxqRC-4k_Uhu87Wnwu3WD5hhUk8LYiP2QChFr9DiKq3xmBy7qor6PGQR06NFsPRETGhBqsf77F8YOr-TYDB9SIfYU6-bb6bT5-p9SnLtXUOuvZXKDgeblWlc/s1600/CrossingTheLinePic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxYG0vNHcZZg8BQl0WhcnrxqRC-4k_Uhu87Wnwu3WD5hhUk8LYiP2QChFr9DiKq3xmBy7qor6PGQR06NFsPRETGhBqsf77F8YOr-TYDB9SIfYU6-bb6bT5-p9SnLtXUOuvZXKDgeblWlc/s320/CrossingTheLinePic.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Confession is
good for the soul – or so they say. I suppose it depends on who is doing the
confessing, the nature of the sin involved, and whether redemption or
forgiveness is required – the Harper Valley PTA excluded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remorse and contrition are also part of
the show providing that special touch of humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lance Armstrong
confessed. The culture of the cycling society in the 1990s and the naught years
made him do it. Supposedly, it was how everyone “gamed the system” and leveled
the playing field – the details being irrelevant except to the curious and the
obsessed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And obsessed we
are as a society with sinners, saints, and our fallen heros. Nothing plays
better on the screen of life than the drama of the confessional act followed by
redemptive forgiveness – Oprah being the perfect foil. Scorners bask in the
glow of “I told you so!” and righteous indignation while true believers shed a
tear and embrace the sinner. It’s the perfect prescription for our next
emotional fix. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But behind the
role playing of the current set of actors and, yes, behind the crass
manipulation of the public to achieve predetermined goals, there are real
questions to be asked and answered about what is real and what is merely drama.
And most pressing of all is the question of when do human beings “cross the
line” and “cheat” on the established rules of a given game, even if those rules
are antiquated and easily circumscribed? Is it a sin to do so or have we
achieved a greater good by revealing a flawed system? Should we always follow
the moral imperative to stay within the intent of the prescribed rules or is
there an evolutionary imperative at play driving us to constantly reinvent the
game, typically by “cheating” on the given rule set? How about if we only bend
the rules?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lest you think
such ruminations are merely philosophical doggerel, consider the question of
achieving the competitive edge through innovation and invention. Is that not a
form of “cheating” on the established rule set?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have a test
for you. Which of the following innovations and inventions constitute cheating
when used: swimsuits covered with nano-scales, golf balls embossed with the
perfect dimple, aluminum bats engineered to drive the ball out of the ballpark,
exo-body suits designed to expand performance, or the invention of <a href="http://www.gatorade.com/">Gatorade</a>? What about “cheating” to build a
better racecar or enhance the performance of yachts in the <a href="http://www.americascup.com/">America’s Cup</a> competition? And my
favorite activity, animal breeding to achieve the perfect racehorse or the best
show dog – no matter the consequences to the breed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gaming a
rule-based system doesn’t have to be only about sports. Consider all the new
instruments created to make money such as Roth IRAs or credit default swaps to
protect derivatives. Does the financial collapse in 2009 mean that someone
cheated?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And how about
human and animal testing for medical research to improve the condition of
humankind through new innovations and inventions? When does that research
“cross the line” and become cheating? Do we really want our worse science
fiction nightmare to occur with the release of nano-agents similar to those in
the novel <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prey-Michael-Crichton/dp/0061703087">Prey</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Michael Crichton?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When does
pushing the outer envelope, thinking outside the box, being creative, or
walking to the beat of a different drum – to name a few of the standard, but
trite expressions – cross the line and become cheating? When does the saint
become a sinner – or does such a bright line even exist?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Does it matter
more to us when drug use or medical procedures are involved as opposed to new
technologies or materials? Or does the venue, such as a sporting event versus
the economy or public health, count in defining the bright line?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For me these
questions revolve around the issue of <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-do-we-value.html">what
we value</a> and how we operationalize that value system – the notions of
absolute right and absolute wrong being too rigid. I favor transparency over
secrecy in our actions as the best tool to protect the public good, but even
that has its limits. Do we really want to reveal the secret formula for
Coca-Cola?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The court of
public opinion will ultimately decide the fate of Lance Armstrong and his
legacy, but regardless of that outcome, his story reveals yet again the
struggle we face as a civilization to improve the human condition. Should we
bend the rules in our favor through innovation and invention and when does that
activity cross the line and become cheating? It’s your call.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[Attached image
copied from website <a href="http://www.compliancebuilding.com/2011/07/12/how-close-should-you-come-to-crossing-the-line/">How
Close Should You Come to Crossing the Line?]</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-23301449621179412402013-01-10T07:44:00.003-08:002013-01-10T07:44:59.765-08:00Invasion of the Data Snatchers<!--StartFragment-->
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfuZh5yKl8zUQ_xpA9e5CpKxvv-ieGU1qoGcfr6aW3M2ORj9P_wO2_I-Oult7ZoL6tooVJWb7cI9PzMCC_EQHamlEXvvByUmb1IPvbXlwMDb9paF2cAQbq6O1aJuKKQKrHMcDzVv4zzlg/s1600/InvasionDataPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfuZh5yKl8zUQ_xpA9e5CpKxvv-ieGU1qoGcfr6aW3M2ORj9P_wO2_I-Oult7ZoL6tooVJWb7cI9PzMCC_EQHamlEXvvByUmb1IPvbXlwMDb9paF2cAQbq6O1aJuKKQKrHMcDzVv4zzlg/s1600/InvasionDataPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And so it
begins! I’m speaking, of course, of season three – that’s <i><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/downtonabbey/">Downton Abbey</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> for those of you not keeping score.
Thank God, Lady Mary and Matthew are finally married, although his dithering
about accepting the Swire family fortune is, well, entertaining. And that’s the
point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Downton Abbey</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is an enormously successful television
series brought to us by Masterpiece Classic as part of the Public Broadcasting
Service. The story captures many aspects of life in the gilded age of early
Twentieth Century England by reveling in the upstairs and downstairs intrigues
of the landed gentry and their servants. The drama unfolds through excellent storytelling
and marvelous acting while set in the rooms and on the grounds of the
enchanting Highclere Castle. It’s escapist programming at its best. Even an old
goat like me has brandished a tear or two at the drama and snickered at the
punch lines from the incomparable Maggie Smith. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But <i>Downton Abbey</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is more than just a well-spent Sunday
evening. It’s a story that reminds us of the comedy and crassness, guts and
glory, sorrow and shame, and vagary and vulgarity of one’s own family and
ancestors. Who can forget the presence at family gatherings of old Uncle Nick
who was deaf as a doornail and sat in the corner with his hand cupped around
his ear watching the proceedings and pretending to hear everything? Our how
about those stories from grandma describing the nameless uncle who, bless his
heart, was a lecherous old fool and womanizer and who reputedly sired numerous
bastard children? Oh, the scandal of it all!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet, people want
to know. Despite the salacious details or the utter banality of someone’s
existence, people care about the lives and history of their ancestors. Just ask
the folks at Ancestry.com, or the librarians who manage genealogy rooms at
public libraries, or the clerks at county courthouses, or the archivists at
state records repositories. The modern search for ancestral data has exploded
in America and taken on a social dimension equal in many ways to that of social
media. It’s as though an alien has attached itself to our bodies and turned us
into a herd of data snatchers, eager to capture yet one more morsel or tidbit
of family history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And therein lies
our story. When and how does the right to privacy trump the right to have
access to public records – not to mention all those personal records posted
online at Ancestry.com or elsewhere, whether letters, Bible records, or
pictures of people? And who should pay for the proper archiving of those
records and the means of access to them? Genealogy data snatchers want to know!
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you think the
right to privacy isn’t an issue, consider the recent brouhaha over a newspaper
publishing the list of local gun owners based on a public government database.
Or consider the following point: should a genealogist publish a complete family
history including the names of living relatives? How does that impact identity
theft?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Whether we like
it or not, the Internet has brought civilization to a new era where a great
deal of information can be accessed about each of us or our ancestors. From the
point of view of a practicing genealogist like me, this is wonderful news.
After spending nearly forty years trolling through old documents and
graveyards, it’s great to access the same information rapidly with the click of
a mouse while sitting in the comfort of my own study unshaven and wearing
rumpled clothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t have a
simple answer to the question of privacy as regards accessing or publishing
public data including personal family data made public through Ancestry.com or
other websites and publications. So far, I’ve taken the position that if it is
public data, it should be accessible using modern technology – one should not
have to visit the county courthouse – and publishable under our nation’s
copyright laws. I don’t see how it can be otherwise. But then, I’m a genealogy
data snatcher!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unfortunately,
there is more to the story than the right to privacy. All across America, old
records are being tossed or shredded for lack of storage space or lack of
personnel to maintain them. Even worst, historical documents dating back a
hundred years or more are rotting in the corners and on the shelves of
unsuitable storage facilities at county courthouses. Every genealogist sooner
or later walks into such a facility, notes the black mold on their fingers, or
remarks on the blackened ledger book pages and the growing pile of crumbling
paper accumulating in the nooks and crannies. If someone doesn’t take the time
to photograph these documents in high resolution with a digital camera, the
information will soon be lost to all future generations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I challenge the
Gates Foundation, Warren Buffet, and all those other rich Americans with money
to spend to put that money to a worthy cause and save American historical
documents and records. Let’s immediately commit to having high resolution,
digital images taken of all old records. Don’t convert microfilm to digital and
accept the loss of image quality. Image the original documents. And if
possible, fund a project to transcribe those documents into modern searchable
files linked to the original images. What a boon that would be for the data
snatchers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And in the
spirit of the Findagrave.com website, let’s capture all tombstone inscriptions
and cemetery records into one online site. Believe it or not, tombstones are
not forever. Thirty years ago, my brother, my father, and I published a pamphlet
containing the cemetery records for the Pleasant Union United Church in
Randolph County, North Carolina. Today, some of those old tombstones have
become so corroded with the passage of thirty years that they are no longer
readable. Family history is being lost every day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--StartFragment-->
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But should we,
the public, have to pay for online access to digitized public records? Let’s
see. I pay a yearly fee for access to records at <a href="http://www.ancestry.com/">Ancestry.com</a>, <a href="http://www.fold3.com/">Fold3.com</a>, and <a href="http://www.newspaperarchive.com/">NewspaperArchive.com</a>. Mercifully, <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/">Findagrave.com</a> is free. While I grumble
at the total price tag of several hundred dollars, it’s basically a bargain
given the pleasure that it brings. Somebody has to pay to archive and provide
access to the data. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The invasion of
the data snatchers is here and it’s real. Maybe one day, the stories they
uncover and reveal will form the script for the story of your family. Will it
be one of gated communities and McMansions? Or will it be one of a struggle to
survive in a fast-paced high technology society? In any case, plop down in your
favorite easy chair next Sunday evening and enjoy the next installment of <i>Downton
Abbey</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">. You won’t regret
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-39356788034571353812013-01-03T11:00:00.000-08:002013-01-03T11:00:34.260-08:00CPRIT and Commercialization<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGshDPfp9J5A7wEoIK8-4InbvUQBSndCLqHWr8RruBLw1iu2HNjEyxoTNyzKWnkCKsvmcs_WpCxf-qMTWnrfUvAYld9_sftFqwfkgfNbgOsb_-DFnlgmza7CmDvdPu2xivkINOkR-Xdu8/s1600/CPRITPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGshDPfp9J5A7wEoIK8-4InbvUQBSndCLqHWr8RruBLw1iu2HNjEyxoTNyzKWnkCKsvmcs_WpCxf-qMTWnrfUvAYld9_sftFqwfkgfNbgOsb_-DFnlgmza7CmDvdPu2xivkINOkR-Xdu8/s1600/CPRITPic.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The creation in
2007 of the <a href="http://www.cprit.state.tx.us/">Cancer Prevention and Research
Institute of Texas</a> by the voters of Texas was truly a historic event in our
nation’s continuing war on cancer. Better known by its acronym of CPRIT, the
institute promised to turn Texas into the epicenter of a world-class cancer
research program that spanned the spectrum from basic research to clinical
trials to clinical practice backed by innovative new commercial products and a
thriving bio-medical industry driven by start-up companies. And like my many
colleagues in the business of university research and technology
commercialization, I was excited at the prospect of becoming a participant in
such an important endeavor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But then, as it
always does, reality intruded. As the planning began and the practical details
of CPRIT emerged and sorted themselves out during 2009 and 2010, concerns
mounted as to what CPRIT was actually all about. Two areas in particular drew
the most attention from members of the university community: the CPRIT
commercialization plan and the performance of the CPRIT management. Sadly, as
most often happens in such cases, these concerns were never sufficiently aired
and were buried under the desire to “don’t make waves” and to “drink from the
Kool-Aid” as it was being offered up. The second slogan in particular is a
favorite among Texas powerbrokers who want to influence how people think and
behave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">To understand
the first concern and many of the <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/news/texas-cancer-agency-okd-11-million-grant-without-r/nTJp3/">present
troubles</a> at CPRIT – including the resignation of its top management and
many of its external proposal reviewers, it is essential to place that concern
about technology commercialization into the broader context of Texas politics
including the history of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF). Let’s face
it! Texas powerbrokers want a piece of the action. They want a return on their
investment in Texas politicians. And that means a direct pipeline to state
funding for their personal projects and, in some cases, a direct pipeline to
controlling how university research is commercialized. What drives these people
is the desire to push aside a fair and transparent process and to build in
backdoors for them to skim funds into their own pockets, one way or
another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does anyone remember
Introgen Therapeutics or Convergen? It’s call cronyism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But it’s more
than simple greed, the desire to make a fast buck, or the <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2012/04/so-you-want-to-be-entrepreneur.html">entrepreneurial
spirit</a> – which in and of itself is generally good for business and global
competition. In Texas, that spirit of capitalism is overlaid by a widely-held
belief that Texas universities are not very good at technology
commercialization and by a <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/08/innovation-drought-in-texas.html">fundamental
distrust</a> fanned by the <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/">Texas Public
Policy Foundation</a> of Texas public universities, their faculties, and their
administrators. It’s the Texas two-step where one puts forward a bogeyman in
order to accomplish the real goal of setting up a system ripe for the picking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let’s be clear
about this! The UT System routinely scores in the top ten and often the top
five every year against other university powerhouses in all the principal
metrics used to measure technology commercialization. I know. I produced such
reports. Furthermore, Texas universities have been and continue to be world
leaders in every phase of the research discovery to commercial product
enterprise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And that brings
us to the second concern: the performance of CPRIT management under the
umbrella of “politics as usual” in Texas. Some have postulated that the current
troubles at CPRIT grew out of the rapid buildup and roll out of the program as
well as a vague definition of commercialization and its role at CPRIT. While both
are true, they don’t tell the real or the whole story. Here are some of the
facts as I know them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Technology
commercialization experts from Texas universities met with CPRIT management and
board members explaining to them how the Bayh-Dole Act and the large, complex,
commercialization system actually worked. Documents were provided. They didn’t
listen. Instead they devised different definitions and rules of engagement that
forced universities to create a separate processing track for CPRIT grants, thereby
needlessly increasing the workload at universities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">On numerous
occasions, CPRIT management was encouraged to meet with the California stem
cell initiative – a similar, large-scale, state-funded grants program known as
the <a href="http://www.cirm.ca.gov/">California Institute for Regenerative
Medicine</a> (CIRM) – and profit from their ramp-up mistakes. CPRIT management
appeared not to listen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">CPRIT
demanded a cradle-to-grave IT accounting system that would track progress from
grant through discovery to patent to licensing deal to commercial product or
start-up company. That’s a worthy data management system that all would like to
have available, but such an IT system doesn’t exist. CPRIT didn’t listen when
informed of that fact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">CPRIT
demanded in its grant contracts that “discoveries” be immediately filed at
CPRIT along with a market plan. So when does a “discovery” become a discovery,
not to mention the rights of the inventor or the rights provided by Bayh-Dole
when research is co-funded by the federal government as it often is? And does
one really know from the outset how a discovery will ultimately become
commercialized? It’s a game that changes with the time of day. CPRIT didn’t
listen to this death by a thousand reporting slices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And here is
my favorite CPRIT demand: they required CPRIT approval for all terms and
conditions of a license agreement made by a grantee institution, including
changes made during the process of deal making. They guaranteed a five-day
turnaround every time a change was made. Talk about killing a deal! And yes,
they didn’t listen!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So let me be
clear once again. There were and continue to be plenty of quality research
administrators and technology commercialization experts in Texas who could have
helped CPRIT get up and running in the beginning and who could help out today.
But someone has to listen!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">To be fair to
the management at CPRIT, they had a tough job, especially as regards
commercialization. As I was told several times behind closed doors and to
paraphrase: “We have to satisfy the commercialization leadership on the CPRIT
board.” That same leadership in Texas often pushes for “<a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/07/universities-and-innovation-marketplace.html">one-stop
shopping</a>” from a single, central, state agency that would manage all
licensing of research discoveries from Texas public universities. They have
also pushed for rapid deal-making by using a “<a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/08/search-for-elusive-universal-licensing.html">one-size-fits-all</a>”
licensing contract. I promise you that both of these strategies are a
prescription for sure disaster. Deal-making is a contact sport between people
who want different things and there is no such instrument as a single deal
structure that will satisfy both the biotechnology and IT sectors. Only a fool
who knows nothing about technology commercialization would push for such
measures as the sole means for operating the Texas technology commercialization
enterprise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">CPRIT is too
important to the future of Texas to be dismantled or reborn by the Legislature
as yet another variant of its former self or the TETF. In that regard, I have a
number of recommendations to make.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Texas Legislature should make sure
that a cross-section of research administrators and technology
commercialization experts from Texas universities are heard from and listened
to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Texas Legislature should call upon
the management of CIRM and officials at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cancer_Institute">National Cancer
Institute</a> for their expertise and a formal review of CPRIT.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everyone must recognize that the
expertise and criteria needed to review research grants versus
commercialization grants are different, although the review process in both
cases must be transparent. That factor must be built into any CPRIT processes
and not be understood as part and parcel of the old saw about “researchers
versus entrepreneurs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">CPRIT and the Texas Legislature must come
to terms with what they mean by “commercialization” at CPRIT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I strongly recommend that CPRIT funds not
be used to invest in start-up companies, but if such is the case, then a
rigorous program for conflict of interest must be in place to separate cronyism
from legitimate investment in a company. Quite frankly, that will be hard to do
given the “atmospherics” related to commercialization by powerbrokers in Texas.
Furthermore, we already have the TETF to invest in start-ups!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I strongly recommend that CPRIT create a
“proof of concept” program similar to the former <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/04/do-you-believe-in-magic-texas-ignition.html">Texas
Ignition Fund</a> (TIF) at UT System as its principal commercialization vehicle.
With an investment of $2 million in 45 grants, TIF helped to create 33 startup
companies as of 2010. CPRIT should follow the NSF model and use such funding as
a supplemental grant to fund the transformation of a research discovery into a
viable “commercial concept.” Such funding is almost never available but is a
proven method for greatly accelerating and enhancing technology
commercialization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">CPRIT should get out of the business of
being an <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/10/whos-in-charge.html">Office
of Technology Commercialization</a> and leave it to its grantee institutions to
perform that function. Given the ridiculously low overhead funding (cost
recovery) associated with CPRIT grants, I would encourage the Texas Legislature
and CPRIT to include overhead funding in its grants specifically targeted for
commercialization activities at its grantee institutions. It’s much better to
build up infrastructure for the long term at grantee institutions than to run a
poor substitute at CPRIT.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">CPRIT contracts and contract language
should conform to both common and best practices as used in federal grant
administration including application of the Bayh-Dole Act and appropriate
flow-down language. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">With respect to CPRIT funding of <a href="http://goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com/2011/08/to-be-or-not-to-be-university.html">incubators</a>
or business accelerators, I have mixed feelings. I probably would not fund such
activities generically since they amount to economic development as opposed to
commercialization, but would use again some form of supplemental funding tied
to a specific research grant or else I would increase the overhead dollars to
grantee institutions with an explicit provision that the funds be used for such
commercialization purposes. In any case, if such funding becomes the norm, then
CPRIT and the Texas Legislature should lay out a clear rationale for funding
incubators and a pathway for all worthy incubator applicants to apply for such
funding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The CPRIT story
is not over but I’ve had my say, even though it pains me to dredge up what
should be forgotten history. Hopefully others will speak out against the
silliness that often pervades the technology commercialization discussion in
Texas. Certainly, <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/business/cancer-fund-creating-a-capitol-size-hangover/nTWTN/">Laylan
Copelin</a> and other reporters at the Austin American-Statesman and competing
newspapers will continue to follow the leads and inform us as to the future of
CPRIT. I believe that that story will ultimately be a bright one filled with
major developments in the war on cancer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-2442484517157540392012-12-20T06:55:00.000-08:002012-12-20T06:55:18.617-08:00Naughty, but Nice!<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8McuPaEYgkOOGJbkfGZvxEFRiAmvLoI-xE6kaGXFdHaIJrI9-r5EzuXG84rwajsPj6Z4ZMbcHezX82JyNAHtEOeWWuzle-EEGEBvkeFt8w3gB7XJCMKKX7Opj8Sj3bN3MYfko9puwgSI/s1600/NaughtyButNicePic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8McuPaEYgkOOGJbkfGZvxEFRiAmvLoI-xE6kaGXFdHaIJrI9-r5EzuXG84rwajsPj6Z4ZMbcHezX82JyNAHtEOeWWuzle-EEGEBvkeFt8w3gB7XJCMKKX7Opj8Sj3bN3MYfko9puwgSI/s1600/NaughtyButNicePic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of us
are easily amused. Take, for example, the identification of the Grand Old Party
with the color red, as in “Red State.” Hasn’t anyone bothered to inform
conservatives – the right wing in particular –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that the color “red” was historically associated in the
Twentieth Century<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with communism –
as in “Red China,” the longstanding demagogic name for Maoist China? How
quickly we forget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’ll let
you in on a secret, if you promise not to tell. This branding of the GOP is
actually a left-wing plot foisted on us by the liberal media brandishing a
secret sense of humor. Aw shucks! If only that were really true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But be
that as it may with respect to one’s “redness,” the year 2012 witnessed the
trumping of a dialogue on innovation per se by the presidential campaign and
the continuing effect of a dysfunctional Congress on the U.S. economy. It was a
year full of political theatre peppered by amusing and sometimes tragic
sidebars. And not to be outdone by others, I close out this year of personal
opining with my own “naughty, but nice” list of quotes and comments about those
events that changed how we think about ourselves as individuals and as a
nation. My list of awards runs the gamut from A to Z. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Awkward
Advice Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you
have to from your parents, start a business.” Mitt Romney, 27 April<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Busy
Bee Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“I have a job to do. … If you think right now I give a damn about presidential
politics, then you don’t know me.” Gov. Christie, 30 October.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Cheap
Deal Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“Buy one, get any two free.” Joseph A. Bank commercial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Déjà vu
Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">: “You
hit a reset button for the fall campaign; everything changes. It’s almost like
an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”
Eric Fehrnstrom, 21 March.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Entitlement
Envy Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn’t devised to
be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career.
… So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed,
maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation
adjustments have to be revised. But in general, entitlements have to be slowed
down and contained.” Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, 19
November.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Freshman
Football Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
And the winner of the Heisman Trophy is: “Johnny Football” Manziel, quarterback
of the Texas A&M Aggies. My sons, both Aggies, forced me to include this
one. Gig ‘em Aggies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Golden
Fleece Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Boehner and the House GOP on their
budget plan that takes from the 99% and gives to the 1%.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Hapless
House Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“I’m just tired of talking about it. I’d rather talk about golf.” Rep. Mack
Mulvaney, South Carolina Republican, 19 December.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Instant
Inspiration Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“It’s halftime in America.” Chrysler Super Bowl commercial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Jumping
Jehoshaphat Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“I hope he fails.” Rush Limbaugh on President Obama, January 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>King
Karl Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“I think this is premature.” Karl Rove’s comment on Fox News calling Ohio for
Obama on Election Night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Lots of
Love Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
Mitt Romney’s claims of reviewing “binders full of women” as a governor seeking
to diversify his Massachusetts administration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Mixed
Message Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of – against the Second Amendment
before he was for the Second Amendment: Was it – was before – he was before the
social programs from the standpoint of – he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade
before he was against first …” Rick Perry, the gift that keeps on giving. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Not
Again Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“Simply scaling back the cliff and extending the political brinksmanship over
the debt ceiling would doom the economy to at best slow growth and possibly
another recession if policymakers take it down to the wire as they did in
summer 2011.” Mark Zandi, Moody Analytics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Oblivious
Oops Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“I would do it again.” Rick Perry commenting on failed presidential campaign,
18 December.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Piddling
Prediction Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“If the world doesn’t end on December 21<sup>st</sup>, 2012, I have a feeling
there will be a lot of babies born on September 20<sup>th</sup>, 2013.”
Anonymous<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Quotable
Quote Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to
manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money,
or is that somehow a little bit of a flawed system? … I do draw a distinction
between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken
neighborhoods, and leaving behind a factory that should be there.” Newt
Gingrich, 9 January.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Richie
Rich Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter
what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are
victims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>… These are people who
pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll
never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for
their lives.” Mitt Romney.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Serial
Sequel Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.” David
Petraeus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Trust
Me Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“I’m an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability.” Jill Kelley, 11
November.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Under
Review Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell filibustering a vote that he had
called for himself. Instant replay officials confirm the call on the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Vox
Vehicular Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
Lindsay Lohan proves again that driving while sexting is dangerous to one’s
image.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Window
Washing Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
Tablets shouldn’t bear the Windows name according to Jeffrey Clarke of Dell
Computers who suggested that extending the Windows name to tablets was a bridge
too far. Did Microsoft purposely confuse consumers into believing that Surface
was a PC? Text “A” for yes and” B” for no to Microsoft.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>X-Factor
Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“The president’s campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big
gift. He made a big effort on small things.” Mitt Romney, 14 November.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Y
Chromosome Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long
term.” Senator Lindsay Graham, August.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Zany
Zinger Award</b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">:
“Under no circumstances am I going to willingly talk to the police in this
country. You can say I’m paranoid about it, but they will kill me, there is no
question.” John McAfee on security.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[The image
of Santa was copied from the <a href="http://www.ldvfd.org/">Laytonsville
District Volunteer Fire Department</a>.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-89037979818422096122012-12-13T07:25:00.000-08:002012-12-13T07:25:13.269-08:00Secastration<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6w_uMwTTeWjE6FW7kA6T2oY7jyNYk7CLwWgxFx_Q80Fftt9fgUsMuDcOz8f6JyleUIbxpI8MXA59plrxMRb-fK6Vn3HxsLyieIYNj33Syp3KmJf9w3ohP2IVT4xhLWQDL2e7I2smEtY/s1600/SecastrationPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6w_uMwTTeWjE6FW7kA6T2oY7jyNYk7CLwWgxFx_Q80Fftt9fgUsMuDcOz8f6JyleUIbxpI8MXA59plrxMRb-fK6Vn3HxsLyieIYNj33Syp3KmJf9w3ohP2IVT4xhLWQDL2e7I2smEtY/s320/SecastrationPic.jpg" width="144" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I confess! I’m
guilty! Of what, I’m not exactly sure, but plenty of other people are in the
same boat with me. And it’s the same old and now tiring story of a Congress
that doesn’t know how to get anything done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it comes with a new twist: it’s a story from the 1980s
and it presages the completely dysfunctional Congress we now have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The story begins
with the Congressional budgeting process. Doesn’t that language have a familiar
“once upon a time” ring to it? In the 1980s, Congress actually managed to pass
a yearly budget, but there was a problem. It was rarely done in a timely manner
and typically involved so-called “continuing resolutions” that invoked the
previous year’s budget in order to get past the beginning of the Federal fiscal
year on the first of October.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Important program elements were often not “technically” funded until the
early spring of the next calendar year. But therein arose the problem. Program
officers at Federal agencies expected work to begin on the first of October for
the program elements that they assumed would be funded for that fiscal year,
even though the funding wasn’t “technically” appropriated by Congress as of the
first of October.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">What would you
have done if you were a manager like me in the 1980s at Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL), especially if you knew that “technically” it was “illegal”
for you to expend funds from one program account on another program? Of course,
program schedules had to be maintained since research cannot be done on the
quick time, agency program managers had to be satisfied with progress, and
salaries had to be paid. It would have made no sense whatsoever to put
employees to work only on the funded programs “technically” rolled over from
the previous fiscal year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I can tell you
what all the managers did at LANL and across the spectrum of national
laboratories. We ignored the “technicalities” and simply moved forward with our
programmatic efforts while hoping to balance the books in the end and avoid a
bed and jail cell at the Leavenworth prison. Whatever one’s scruples might be
about the ethically and morally right choice when faced with such a situation,
it was really the only choice available to management. Fortunately, national
laboratories did not keep time cards like most of the defense industry
contractors, so I suppose that we were “technically” legal in what we did. But
it was a helluva way to run things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fast forward to
the present day and guess what? Nothing has changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, it’s even worst. Now we are faced with
“sequestration” as part of the fiscal cliff debate. What the heck is that, you
ask? Here’s how the dictionary defines the verb “sequester.” It is an action to
“remove, set apart, segregate, take possession of, confiscate, or cause to withdraw
into seclusion.” Hmm, does seclusion mean that defense dollars will be taken
“off budget” and hidden by smoke and mirrors from the public? Inquiring minds
want to know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Seriously folks,
what “sequestration” actually means to the man on the street including those
poor managers at the national laboratories is that members of Congress want to
take back that which they’ve already “technically” granted or built into the
current and future fiscal budgets. Yikes, I’m glad I’m now retired and no
longer eligible for a bed at Leavenworth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
“sequestration” doesn’t just affect national laboratories or defense
contractors. It affects the entire innovation ecosystem of America including a
severe hit on basic research at our universities, the wellspring from which
innovations emerge. Think of it in terms of the following metaphor. Basic
discoveries are like sperm. They float around in search of an egg to fertilize.
Only a few achieve successful conception of the embryo of an idea that grows
into an innovation that is born as a commercial product in the marketplace. If
one neuters the process, you get nothing in return. With sequestration, we turn
America into a eunuch state unable to display leadership in the global
Innovation Race. It’s a form of “self castration” or better said,
“secastration” – to invent a new and more appropriate word to describe what’s
going on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Secastration,
like all forms of self-indulgence, is almost certain to make one blind to its
outcomes. And how about all those mythical warts that one gets from such
activities?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But let’s turn
to the hard numbers behind the rhetoric. The 2011 Budget Control Act is the
vehicle through which sequestration will occur without a resolution of the
fiscal cliff. According to an email that I received from the American Physical
Society, “the Department of Energy Office of Science would lose $400 million;
NSF $586 million; NASA Science $417 million; and NIH, $2.52 billion. It would
mean staff furloughs, a significant reduction in operating time for user facilities,
and a reduction in new NSF grants by as much as one-third.” I can tell you that
researchers will spend an inordinate amount of time writing grants in the hope
of keeping their operations alive. Some argue that progress in innovation will
be set back by over a decade. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And what’s even
more troubling is that “sequestration” will occur on top of the positive impact
of stimulus funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of
2009 – funding that was temporary and is scheduled to disappear. Although data
related to ARRA funding is hard to extract at this early stage – there is
always a several year delay in processing such data, we know that universities
spent $54.9 billion on R&D in 2009 and $65.1 billion in 2011, up 6.3% from
2010. These significant increases reflect the slug of one-time ARRA stimulus
funding that is currently being spent. What will happen when that goes away
over the next year or two when added to sequestration?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Steve Fuller in
an important report entitled <i><a href="http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/Fuller_II_Final_Report.pdf">The
Economic Impact of the Budget Control Act of 2011 on DOD & non-DOD Agencies</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> projects that sequestration will result
in the direct loss of 31,000 jobs out of the 1,082,370 STEM workforce in
America. Based on the ARRA impact and my own understanding of the situation, I
suspect the real number will be larger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s
“secastration,” plain and simple. It’s cutting off and emasculating America’s
ability to innovate by reducing funding in our R&D sector. It’s “balancing
the budget” of a much poorer America in the future. And it’s self-inflicted. I
choose procreation over castration. How about you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Note: The image
of the castration tool was copied from <a href="http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30e0795f-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5">valleyvet.com</a>
and is a product of Syrvet Inc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-74054454768921117492012-12-06T07:31:00.000-08:002012-12-06T07:31:26.471-08:00Shake, Rattle, and Roll<!--StartFragment-->
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZz-Wq2CsGeUoQJuGR_R0l94bhQkkykgmghfSa4DXYkNg2drcV5bMLQsyd_nFGWCKgrc26VyqdoPG7W1TJTghNL7e_I-C30uN71yzgFE3Y_l0747O4immTYiJMlPKsL7M-vZkBj-GFti8/s1600/ShakeRattleRollPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZz-Wq2CsGeUoQJuGR_R0l94bhQkkykgmghfSa4DXYkNg2drcV5bMLQsyd_nFGWCKgrc26VyqdoPG7W1TJTghNL7e_I-C30uN71yzgFE3Y_l0747O4immTYiJMlPKsL7M-vZkBj-GFti8/s1600/ShakeRattleRollPic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“What it was,
was an earthquake,” to paraphrase a famous 1950s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_It_Was,_Was_Football">comedy routine</a>
about football by the incomparable Andy Griffith. But there was nothing comedic
about “the big one” that <a href="http://www.inquisitr.com/372741/italian-earthquake-trial-scientists-convicted-of-manslaughter-for-failing-to-predict-earthquake/">occurred</a>
on 6 April 2009 in L’Aquila, Italy that killed over 300 people. Sadly, the
aftershocks of such a major earthquake are never pretty, whether it’s the
massive destruction wrought on the infrastructure – the Fukushima nuclear power
plant debacle from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami">2011
Tohoku quake</a> in Japan being the most notable, the death of innocent people,
or the privations of the survivors. But who would have thought that scientists
would be in danger from the aftershocks of an earthquake? Yet, such was the
case in Italy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">On 22 October
2012 in an Italian courtroom, seven scientists and experts were convicted of
manslaughter for providing “inexact, incomplete, and contradictory information”
prior to the L’Aquila earthquake. The stunning decision was <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2012/1022/Earthquake-predictions-and-a-triumph-of-scientific-illiteracy-in-an-Italian-court-video">described
by Dan Murphy</a> in The Christian Science Monitor as “a triumph of scientific
illiteracy.” Indeed! If not for the truly tragic dimensions of the L’Aquila
earthquake, the soap opera in that Italian courtroom would be comparable to the
1633 Catholic inquisition in Rome against Galileo Galilei. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Have we as a
world society learned nothing from the advance of knowledge through rational
and scientific reasoning? Is civilization doomed to make decisions based on
religious dogma, mythology, personal whims, demagoguery, and counterfactual
ideas? I suppose one should take solace in the fact that such nonsensical
behavior is not limited to America as proven in that Italian courtroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, what are the
facts when it comes to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_prediction">earthquake prediction</a>?
It’s simple. No one can predict the precise time and location of an earthquake!
Yes, we’ve learned a great deal about what causes earthquakes and their
behavior. We know how to build structures that can withstand an earthquake, but
prediction? Emphatically, no!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In fact, there
are many scientists who believe that we will never be able to “predict” the
occurrence of an earthquake. And it all begins with the difference between
“predicting” and “forecasting.” Do you remember those old jokes about your
weatherman? “If there is a 50-50 chance that a forecast will go wrong, 9 times
out of 10 it will.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The story of
modeling the weather goes back to the 1960s when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Norton_Lorenz">Dr. Edward Lorentz</a>
introduced “chaos theory” to the world in 1963 and later “the butterfly effect”
in 1969. Sensitivity to initial conditions, as “the butterfly effect” is known
to scientists, states that a butterfly deciding to flap its wings in China
could subsequently lead to a tornado in Kansas. In other words, incredibly
small changes at the beginning of a process can lead to radically different end
results. Thus, as a practical matter, one cannot precisely predict the time and
location of a weather event. The same is true for earthquakes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But whether it’s
the severity of weather events or the magnitude of earthquakes, scientists have
developed and are continuing to improve mathematical models that describe the
distribution of such events and thereby our ability to “forecast.” What does
forecast mean? It means that if we take a long enough span of time that
includes a significant sample size of “events,” then we know that those events
will fall on the established probability distribution. Thus, we can “forecast”
that there is a 10% probability (or whatever the actual percentage is) that an
earthquake of magnitude 7.0 will occur in Los Angeles in this century, but
cannot “predict” exactly when and where it will occur. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Folks, that’s
the truth of the matter. And convicting scientists for their inability to
“predict” an earthquake or meteorological event is dumb and dumber – or better
said: scientific illiteracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But the story
doesn’t end with natural events driven by Mother Nature. How about the economy
and financial systems? Yep, scientists, mathematicians, and economists have
been at work in that sphere as well. Believe it or not, there is a field of
study known as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econophysics">econophysics</a>”
or the “physics of finance.” The <a href="http://phys.uh.edu/research/econophysics/index.php">University of Houston
Department of Physics</a> even has a subdivision devoted to such work. Quoting
from their webpage, econophysics is “the study of dynamical behavior of
financial and economic markets” using the “vast amount of market data” that
“has become available allowing empirical studies of market behavior to be
performed.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And exactly what
have econophysicists learned? Probably the most important fact is that we now
have a very clear picture of the probability distribution for excursions or fluctuations
in markets. Technically, it’s known as a “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat-tailed_distribution">fat tail</a>”
distribution where the probability for a large fluctuation decays as the fourth
power of the size of the fluctuation. In simple terms, large fluctuations are
much more probable than one might have thought. Does anyone remember 2009?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Evidence suggests
that one can improve incrementally the market performance of a portfolio by
making use of our enhanced understanding of markets as a nonlinear dynamical
system. Talk about the possibility for innovation and entrepreneurship! Perhaps
you should call your broker or financial planner and see if they are
up-to-speed on “fat tail” distributions and econophysics. It’s for certain that
Congress is not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And that brings
us to the “fiscal cliff” debate and the truly ridiculous behavior of many in
Congress to ignore some basic elements of truth from economic data analysis –
especially those who hold to the tea party platform. Like many people, I
obtained a copy of <i><a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf">Taxes
and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, the report from the Congressional
Research Service by Thomas L. Hungerford dated 14 September 2012. Here is what
Hungerford said in his concluding remarks:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The
results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top
marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated
with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be
uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax
rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.
However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the
increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Obama is right;
the GOP is wrong! Taxing the top 2% will help reduce the deficit but not hurt
the recovery. Do we as a nation really want to follow in the footsteps of those
jurists in Italy who practiced scientific illiteracy – or in our case, economic
illiteracy? As Paul Krugman pointed out in an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/opinion/krugman-the-big-budget-mumble.html">opinion
piece</a> in support of Obama’s position, it’s simple economic math. The cuts
in spending laid out by the GOP such as raising the Medicare age don’t add up.
And as to closing tax loopholes, do we really want to eliminate mortgage and
charitable deductions, two of the largest components of our tax deduction
system? For those who sincerely want to understand fully the dimensions of the
economic mess we are in and what to do about it, read the book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Outrage-Expanded-economy-democracy/dp/0345804376/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354805302&sr=1-1&keywords=beyond+outrage+robert+reich">Beyond
Outrage</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Robert
Reich.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And don’t
forget, the “fiscal cliff” is not just about raising again the tax rate for
those making more than $250,000. It’s about budget sequestration and the
evisceration of scientific research in America. It’s about killing the goose
that lays the golden egg of innovation, our passport to global competition and
economic prosperity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As a nation, we
must govern ourselves in a balanced manner consistent with our Constitution
using sensible rules of engagement and a decision process based on verifiable
and known information. We cannot tolerate any other approach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">It’s time to shake, rattle, and roll the
members of Congress and tell them to get on with the business of governing
America. </span><!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-15180480038679815202012-11-27T13:49:00.000-08:002012-11-27T13:49:12.660-08:00TwinkieGate<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaQ_TLutKOUUN6O9VQHEIyOeAftwdXqvZrQbQRyoYZOpTv4XsrcgCkVTD8qLur1uOUV1Ut7N7hhJ3NJaVr5gft0AQwFHyk8hmMOlJSrCBQh6m2qW1yfCWsE92gCDKBYX1DTLsZhWvAoS4/s1600/TwinkieGatePic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaQ_TLutKOUUN6O9VQHEIyOeAftwdXqvZrQbQRyoYZOpTv4XsrcgCkVTD8qLur1uOUV1Ut7N7hhJ3NJaVr5gft0AQwFHyk8hmMOlJSrCBQh6m2qW1yfCWsE92gCDKBYX1DTLsZhWvAoS4/s1600/TwinkieGatePic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Keith McDowell</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tell me it isn’t so! How can Washington let this happen? I
demand a new Congressional select committee to investigate TwinkieGate – the
conspiracy to deprive all right thinking Americans of their soul food. Imagine,
if you can, a world in which the “Archie Bunker’s” among us no longer pop the
“golden sponge cake with cream filling” into their mouths. It’s a stunning
prospect that’s driving a Pavlovian run on sugary junk food and emptying the
shelves at the 7-eleven.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And not surprisingly, true conspiracy theorists are
whispering that TwinkieGate is actually a communist plot hatched by liberals
and unions to sober up the GOP right wing by removing their principal
sustenance from the marketplace. How else can one explain the “Twinkie Defense”
of the <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/11/georgia-senate-gets-52-minute-briefing-united-nations-takeover">Georgia
legislators</a> who believe that the Obama Administration is exerting mind
control over them?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Sadly, “I’m a recovering junk food addict!” is a statement
for our times as many of us continue the battle of the bulge on our waistlines.
But here’s the good news! Innovation runs rampant as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/24/fad-diets-150-years-and-still-no-quick-fix-_n_813288.html">new
diets</a>, therapies, and scientifically engineered exercise equipment command
our attention through clever and enhanced commercials and infomercials. I
particularly like the regimes where you continue to eat, lose weight, and
develop the body of Adonis, all for only a few dollars for menus and food. Sign
me up! The exercise equipment sounds more like “no pain, no gain.” I probably
wouldn’t stick with that, but, wow, the innovation and creativity involved with
each new generation of equipment. Who says America can’t compete! But can we
really lose weight by walking on the <a href="http://www.treadclimber.com/bowflex-treadclimber-us/homepage.jsp?adID=DOSG2TSL21&pid=search&gclid=CITlqMmJ8LMCFWGnPAodXkMAaQ">Bowflex
TreadClimber</a> three times a week for only thirty minutes a session?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
I grew up in the post World War II era of the late 1940s
and early 1950s. Junk food was mostly used to satisfy my sweet tooth – my
favorite being <a href="http://www.krispykreme.com/home">Krispy Kreme donuts</a>
– and liquid refreshments mostly quenched my thirst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But how can I ever forget those “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_Chocolate_Drink">Brownie</a>”
bottled drinks that I used as a small child to wash down the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_(confectionery)"> licorice</a>
that blackened my teeth? Or how about the traditional <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RC_Cola">RC Cola</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_pie">Moon pie</a>? And for the true
male redneck experience, how about Planters salted <a href="http://energyforthegoodlife.org/?p=2619">peanuts dumped into the top of a
Coca-Cola bottle</a>? Oh, and don’t forget the <a href="http://www.cheerwine.com/">Cheerwine</a> experience for those special
moments. If only my dentist knew why I have a mouth full of crowns!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Today, junk food loads the calorie count for those who pay
attention and carbonated drinks are the bane of the waistline and healthy
teeth. Extreme sports are the order of the day, mountain hiking being my own
particular brand. Candy has morphed into energy bars that are tough and chewy
when cold and are an acquired taste (politically correct for they taste really
bad). Liquid refreshments are now energy drinks that restore electrolytes and
give one the power to continue past the bounds of common sense, ergo extreme
sports. One of the latest crazes is power drinks that are “lite” or low on
calories – <a href="http://www.soap.com/p/guru-lite-energy-drink-100-natural-24-pk-303867">Guru
Lite</a> being an example. While an oxymoron, it certainly rates as an
innovation and it sells.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Whether diet drinks, microwave meals, or poptarts,
innovations in the food industry truly play a major role in the American economy.
But do we pay a price for that success? Is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-hour_Energy">5-hour ENERGY</a> drink <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/energy-drink-deaths-fda_n_2134197.html">a
killer</a> as some allege, especially for young children? And how about the
tragic acceleration of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States">obesity in
America</a>? Did you know that obesity in the populace has grown from 13% in
1962 to 35.7% in 2010? Let’s all give a loud <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Hos">Ho Hos</a> shout out for those <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Dong">Ding Dongs</a> who believe that
the consumption of 500 million Twinkies per year is the principal cause of obesity
and the alarming projection of an impending diabetes epidemic. Junk food
doesn’t make people obese. Poor eating habits and life style are the real
culprits.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
And that brings us back to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_Brands">Hostess Brands</a>, the
manufacturer of Twinkies. Exactly why is it that 15,000 workers received pink
slips at Thanksgiving and 3,500 more will be laid off in the coming months?
George Will in an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-digesting-the-twinkies-lessons/2012/11/23/bbd63dd4-3416-11e2-9cfa-e41bac906cc9_story.html">opinion
piece</a> claims that it’s all about market forces having their way and the
Twinkiestalgia of baby boomers. You might be surprised but I agree with Will …
but not for the details that he posits. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Market forces include the necessity to pay the going rate
for salaries of the workers. And guess what, unions must have the right to
negotiate for those rates, even if there were 372 distinct collective
bargaining agreements at Hostess Brands. No one ever said it had to be easy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
I agree with George that the Teamsters position of using
different trucks to haul different products seems silly on the surface. But how
about the $1.3 billion in debts that corporate management ran up or the raises
of 35% to 80% they paid themselves last year while driving the company into
financial ruin? Should they receive a huge benefits package upon bankruptcy of
the company or is this all just extractionist capitalism as discussed on the Ed
Schultz Show of 20 November 2012?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
And how about innovation as a factor in the Hostess Brands’
story? Did the corporate management sit on their thumbs, ignore the changing
marketplace, and fail to innovate with new products and business models? If <a href="http://www.sodastreamusa.com/store.aspx?gclid=CIjbhtuB7bMCFUeRPAodmSoAGw">SodaStream</a>
can come up with a way for people to make their favorite carbonated drink right
on their kitchen counter, Hostess Brands could have innovated.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Ultimately, the debacle at Hostess Brands will become
grist for a business school case study and fodder for theorists debunking
supply-side economics or right-wing pundits who don’t like the working middle
class. For certain, junk food and obesity are not going away any time soon. For
me, I got the broken sprocket on my Schwinn AirDyne exercise bike replaced
today. I love that bike. There’s no better way to watch the noise on the
television than riding on that bike.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Oh, and would you please pass the donuts!<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5141527794784785527.post-30000981141838390692012-11-13T07:48:00.000-08:002012-11-13T07:48:11.766-08:00I'm An Angry, White, Old, Southern Male!<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7I_X4vkFIsuEkXq5GVzSzPgUCQX9YzmcUP5wqXBSfygp-SixYhY-2eeaPE2tLYC30019bpLCwttBPTsdfWPyG-TFtYfCkDVW1AAHKO9T3wbm7mtSdgYvCS4rXZulAbeTtoGa01TQC4fo/s1600/0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7I_X4vkFIsuEkXq5GVzSzPgUCQX9YzmcUP5wqXBSfygp-SixYhY-2eeaPE2tLYC30019bpLCwttBPTsdfWPyG-TFtYfCkDVW1AAHKO9T3wbm7mtSdgYvCS4rXZulAbeTtoGa01TQC4fo/s1600/0003.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Keith
McDowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">That’s right!
I’m beyond PO-ed! I’m fuming. I’ve had enough. And I’ve once again taken out my
marching shoes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The reason?
Fifty years after James Meredith became the first African-American to enroll at
the University of Mississippi on the first of October 1962, and fifty years
after I enrolled as a freshman at Wake Forest University in September of 1962,
nearly <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/11/07/ole_miss_students_start_racist_protest_after_election_result/">400
students at Ole Miss</a> erupted in a race riot following the election of
President Obama on Tuesday night. Yes, it was a race riot despite some
protestations to the contrary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Twitters have
tweeted the most disgusting of racial and gay-bashing invective. And not to be
outdone, right-wing pundits have evoked the image of a “traditional America,”
typically using the 1950s as a benchmark. Are they nuts? Well yes, they are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let’s talk about
the good ole times of the 1950s and early 1960s. Let’s talk about my time as a
sixteen-year-old usher at the <a href="http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/24141">Paramount Theatre</a> in High
Point, North Carolina, 313 South Wrenn Street. It was a good part-time job for
a teenager and my first job. Of course, we snookered the public into believing
that the popcorn was freshly popped, but actually it came in large metal cans
that we surreptitiously poured into the popcorn machine when no one was
looking. I lived on that free popcorn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And then there
came the day that the local civil rights movement decided to assert their
rights at the Paramount. The theatre had two well-lit entrances on both sides
of the ticket booth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inside the
glass doors were the lobby and a concession stand with the infamous faux
popcorn machine backed by the theatre itself and a balcony. But that wasn’t
all. There was a second balcony reached by a dimly-lit outside door down the
street from the ticket booth. [See image at the end.] It was the “separate, but
equal” facility for blacks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I got the job of
standing outside the glass door and telling each black person with a ticket in
their hand as they cycled past that they could not enter, but must take the
back stairs to the second balcony. It was a helluva thing for a teenager to
experience. I resigned soon thereafter and have never forgotten the pain I felt
at treating my fellow human beings like that. It defied everything that I had
come to believe in from my Christian upbringing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I wish I could
tell you that the Paramount experience was a singular event. Not even close!
There was the effigy of a person hanging from a tree at the entrance to my high
school as I got off the bus on the day that we were integrated. There was the
day that my father took me to some office in Archdale, North Carolina, for me
to register to vote for the first time. I was required to answer several of
those “questions” designed to suppress the black vote. It didn’t matter that I
was white. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then there was
the evening that I went to hear Martin Luther King speak in the Wake Forest
University Chapel under the threat of violence to any white who dared to show
up. And how about the regular and unrelenting use of the N-word by many people
in my youth, much like the modern use of the F-word? Even one of my own
grandmothers thought and told me that blacks should not be allowed to swim at
the municipal pool because they would turn the water brown. Or how about some
of my relatives who were offended in 1975 because blacks attended my wedding?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of the most
transformative events in my life occurred in 1963. The pastor of the Green
Street Baptist Church, a good friend of mine, invited me to present the Sunday
night “sermon” in his absence. I worked for a week on that speech and on Friday
evening, caught the bus from Winston-Salem to High Point with the intention of
walking home from the bus terminal. To my surprise, there was a civil rights
group marching down Main Street past an angry mob of whites. Some tomatoes and
eggs were being thrown from those in the crowd with no effort being made by the
police to stop them. And yes, front and center were members of my church.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was furious. I
went home, wrote a new speech, and gave it that Sunday night to a stunned
congregation. As I reread my old copy of that speech today, it’s a pretty
straightforward speech and not inflammatory by modern standards. Some church
members praised what I said, but I also got some hate mail. Hate mail was
serious business in 1963. Three civil rights workers were gunned down and
killed in High Point only a mile or so from my parents’ home during that time
period. Furthermore, the Ku Klux Klan rode around with guns hidden in their
cars just in case they happened to meet a N-lover.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But let’s change
the topic and talk about bus terminals. I spent a lot of time in them as a
college student waiting to catch a bus. I never had the money to buy a car. And
guess what? Yep. I was approached several times by gay men – pejoratively known
as “queers” in those days – trying to hustle me. Why else would a young man
like me be sitting in a bus terminal? It was disgusting to me and, in
retrospect, probably the same for them. I must confess that several decades
passed before I learned to accept that being gay could be an alternative
lifestyle for anyone. It took friendships with several gay couples to make that
transition. Now it seems perfectly natural to me. Being gay, or being a
transvestite, or being a “whatever” is not the same as engaging in harassment
or being a predator, a pedophile, or a rapist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, in case you
haven’t gotten my message, let me spell it out for you. Hate speech and rape
are crimes, not some accidental act or the will of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Racism in all its many forms is an
odious abomination, not to be tolerated by a progressive modern society. And
“traditional America” really wasn’t all that nice a time and place unless, of
course, you were a member of the privileged few. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">My story is no
different from that of anyone else who grew up in the 1950s and reflects the
real “traditional America” that the right wing and their pundits want us to
return to. Don’t believe a word of their dissembling rationalization or their
mouthing of the word “values” as something that they own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s underpinnings represent the worst
of America, not the best. And I’m damned angry about that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I refuse to
remain silent. I refuse to allow those who spew hate speech to get away with it
unchallenged. I refuse to put another 16-year in front of an American citizen
telling them that they can’t enjoy the full rights and privileges of being a
citizen, whether it’s civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, or simply the
right to be Happy as guaranteed by our founding fathers. I refuse to allow
bigots and political con artists to co-opt true conservatism with the trash
talk polluting our airwaves. Their appeal to and their version of what the
Constitution is about is total crap. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Folks, this is
not about being a conservative or a liberal. It’s not about being a Christian
or a member of any other religion. And it’s not about traditional values,
however one interprets them. It’s about stupidity and the use of code words by
hucksters and political hacks to stir up the extreme right wing and to drag or
bully those of a more normal conservative persuasion into their cauldron of
hate while fleecing their wallets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Don’t believe
the poisonous rhetoric! Join with me! Speak out against this nuttiness. Boycott
companies who support Rush Limbaugh and his venom. Tune out Fox News. Get out
the vote in our next election. Do your part. Redefine what it means to be a
conservative if that’s your persuasion. If you don’t, you’re going to deserve
what you get when we return to the “traditional America” of the 1950s. I know
what that really means. I’ve already been there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Theatre Images<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The photograph
of the Paramount Theatre presented at the beginning can be found at the website
<a href="http://historichighpointnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post.html">Historic
High Point</a>. Also available at the same website is a photograph for the old
Broadhurst Theatre located at 309 North Main Street in High Point showing the
same architecture as the Paramount Theatre. Note to the right the sign above a
door with the message “Entrance, Colored Balcony. “ The same arrangement was
present at the Paramount, but is not clearly visible in the old photograph.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgayEBDWT-KLSKqlpCheZH05QpOEsAO6WrjcAUOjS6RP33vBSpXiotQ97aXW3x0DdrrFfCCuzv8WKLo8mCRJ5X5oYfbLbKgPsqeIapfN1p-rKKsA1lyxxNSUJNeqch4gDpkkisJyH18jhg/s1600/Broadhurst+Theatre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgayEBDWT-KLSKqlpCheZH05QpOEsAO6WrjcAUOjS6RP33vBSpXiotQ97aXW3x0DdrrFfCCuzv8WKLo8mCRJ5X5oYfbLbKgPsqeIapfN1p-rKKsA1lyxxNSUJNeqch4gDpkkisJyH18jhg/s1600/Broadhurst+Theatre.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Note to my blog readers</span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Innovation,
technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, and university research are
extremely important to America’s future in the world of global competition and
they are topics that I intend to continue to discuss in my weekly articles. But
these issues are currently trumped by the important ongoing debate as to what
America is, or was, or will be. If we don’t get that part right, the rest won’t
matter. I don’t apologize for taking a stand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Keith McDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06045414229319754854noreply@blogger.com1