Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Budget Crunch spreads to Federal Research Labs...

This is very bad news. Very, very bad news. How can they not look long-term at (alternative) energy research? Instead they waste all that money on oil.

And TFF's response:

TFF says:
come back to SG!
tk says:
haha. Why do so many of you want to go back to sg?
TFF says:
cos this is where i am born
tk says:
u are like the x-th girl to say that to me. Guess A*star will raid US labs for scientists soon.
tk says:
like what GIC and temasek holdings are doing to US banks
TFF says:
yep

7 comments:

L'oiseau rebelle said...

For what it's worth, from what I understand, NREL (National Renewable Energy Labs, in Golden) has been expanding and hiring.

takchek said...

I know. They came down to my campus last fall to recruit. But I am just saying this *news* will have an impact on some of the labs I am targeting.

CK said...

Most Sinkee women love to return. I suspect it's not really a matter of being born here, but more because there are not many places in the world where shopping is everywhere. Ask them to do mandatory NS and you will see them all dropping Sinkiepore like a hot potato.

Of course many don't have to do housework either...

testtube said...

Most of the cuts fell on high energy physics (Fermilab and SLAC) and nuclear fusion research (ITER). I haven't read news that other labs are significantly affected. The article mentions budget crunches at Argonne and Arecibo but there's no indication that these crunches have the same source as the ones that have befallen HEP.

L'oiseau rebelle said...

ck: I've been thinking of the shopping phenomenon, and I think it's more than just self-indulgence. There's really very little else to do in urban areas like Singapore or Denver or San Francisco or NYC (when I went to NYC and SF shopping and eating was pretty much all I did - didn't help that I was with very conditioned Singaporeans. This year's SF trip, I'm trying to get my friends who live there to bring us hiking). Shopping becomes not just a leisure activity but also a comfort zone, and it's hard to break out of comfort zones, Singaporean or not. (Lack of imagination certainly doesn't help.)

I can say the same thing about Singaporean males: there are not many places in the world where internet cafes are everywhere. (And those at my alma mater actually figured out how to organize counterstrike sessions in one of the university computer areas.)

That said, the nice thing about Denver is that the mountains are 30 miles away, and major ski slopes about 80. But there are also people who make a sport of shopping for the most expensive and latest skis and ski jackets.

general comment: I also understand that some of the major national labs are undergoing privatization. I wonder if it's a function of budget crunch or...?

Anonymous said...

L'oiseau rebelle & CK无聊,无聊,知道自己不是这样就好了,没必要争啦!童话。

-ben said...

here's really very little else to do in urban areas like. . . San Francisco . . ..

???!!!???!!!