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Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Rumor has it...
New rumor. UC and U Texas may team up for a joint bid and it will be non-profit bid
20 comments:
Anonymous
said...
My dream team would be an LLC owned by UC, Univ of Texas, Battelle and Honeywell.
Basically locking up all the potential "value added" research partners that Bechtel might want to team with on a bid. I throw Honeywell in as the token industrial partner to "run" nuclear facilities, also for the link to Sandia and the Test Site.
Why would UT need UC? That would saddle them from the outset with all the legacy problems. And why would NNSA want UT to come packaged with the current crop of UC managers, who have already proven their incompetence?
New APS American Physical Society fellows have been announced for 2017.
LLNL 3 including Bill Goldstein
Sandia 3
LANL 7
So LANL is still doing well in terms of fellows. LLNL however can at least claim that its Director is an APS fellow. McMillan, Anastasio, Kuckuck and Nanos have not been fellows. All the previous Directors Brown, Hecker, Agnew and so on have been fellows. Basically all the people in the cold war have been highly accomplished scientists, Since the cold war not so much, kinda of sad. It also shows that since we have non-scientits leading the lab things have gone downhill. This could be a hint about how to change things for the better.
Why would UT need UC? That would saddle them from the outset with all the legacy problems. And why would NNSA want UT to come packaged with the current crop of UC managers, who have already proven their incompetence?
October 12, 2017 at 10:55 AM
I think UC will claim it can bring in top quality people and has more access to such people than U Texas. This implies that they would be getting new people. In any case I agree that if UC puts something in they have to change most of the current managers. These managers have simply been in the LANS system to long and have come to see LANL as nothing more than a money hustle, I simply cannot see them suddenly turning around and singing a different tune at this point even if they wanted to. Many of gone through extreme mental contortions to justify what they have become what they have done to the labs and it has done permanent changes to their psyche so to speak.
This is simply my opinion so I would love to hear someone say it is wrong or that they disagree.
"I think UC will claim it can bring in top quality people and has more access to such people than U Texas. This implies that they would be getting new people."
That would certainly be an interesting claim to make. Because of course such a claim immediately invites a question:
And if you say you can bring in top quality people, what prevented you from doing so at any time during the last 11 years?
The APS, like the Nobel committee, ACS, ASME/IEEE is a political interest group that pushes it's political agenda.
October 13, 2017 at 9:10 AM
Really? Now I understand , all this LIGO research was purely done to further the political agenda of the Nobel Prize committee.
I can already hear you grasping for air and talking about the Nobel Peace Prize. So, I just give you an answer before you spend time on the keyboard; yes that award has a political component; it is trying to send a message and you probably do not like that message. But that is not the same as IEEE, APS, all the other organizations and the science Nobel Prizes.
It seems to me that you are somewhat bitter, and probably still waiting for a call from Stockholm or an email from the APS
APS fellowships are entirely political, above some competence bar that is not high. That's certainly true for LANL and LLNL, probably everywhere. They are pushed by the labs to give more external credibility to favored managers, or others they wish to hold up for their own benefit. Look the list of APS fellows and you'll see it clearly - many great scientists are missing, and in their place are many mediocre scientists. Surprising that Bill was not already a fellow, but the fact that he gets a fellowship now, many years after having done anything of scientific significance, supports the reality that it is a political process.
UT graduates are so-so. I remember when UT “bought” Steven Weinberg to improve their image.
October 14, 2017 at 4:12 PM
I know people keep making remarks about the quality of UT and UNM students but ask yourself this question: do you really need top people at the labs? During the cold war I would understand that we would need the best people possible but now that safety and security are the mission it would seem that second or third rate people are just fine. I do not mean to be harsh but just look at who they have been hiring lately. Another issue is that the higher quality people usually still want to do some science and will complain when they see that something is wrong. The new crop will not complain and will do whatever to them it is jus a job and not a hard job and a pretty easy job since a big criteria is not falling down the stairs. If this is really the situation than I do not understand why we need people from top schools, hell under the current system why do we even have postdocs? Just a thought.
?APS fellowships are entirely political, above some competence bar that is not high. That's certainly true for LANL and LLNL, probably everywhere. They are pushed by the labs to give more external credibility to favored managers, or others they wish to hold up for their own benefit. Look the list of APS fellows and you'll see it clearly - many great scientists are missing, and in their place are many mediocre scientists. Surprising that Bill was not already a fellow, but the fact that he gets a fellowship now, many years after having done anything of scientific significance, supports the reality that it is a political process.
October 14, 2017 at 10:02 PM"
The choice of APS fellows is not political. I just don't buy your argument. In fact if you look at the APSs fellows at LANL, Sandia and LLNL, over the years which is easy to check on the APS website almost all are very well deserved. I have not seen cases of obvious people missing either. Now to be clear some good people are not fellows since there research is not covered by the APS but they would be fellows in their own societies, like SPIE, optics and so on. Also do you know how fellows are even picked? The nominations are sent to a committee simply being nominated does not mean anything the committee choses the final outcome and generally consist of 12 or more people, so it would be very hard to game such a system.
Here is the link to access the fellows, it has an option to highlight specific institutions. From that please point out all these so called mediocre scientists from the NNSA labs from the say the last 10 years and can check to see if you claim is correct.
^^^Must be Mr. Prove It, for whom everyone has an agenda.
October 16, 2017 at 6:15 AM
If you make some crazy assertion like "all APS fellows from LLNL and LANL are political" you should at least try and provide some evidence. Someone just handed you all he information you need to attempt to back up your claim. You decided not to do that and attack someone for asking for evidence. I thinly we can safely assume that you in fact cannot find evidence for your claim which probably means your claim is junk.
This is story or Goldstein and his ilk at LLNL. Star Wars (SDI) starts in the early 80’s. The lab hires tons of guys like Goldstein to do atomic physics or some esoteric stuff for the X-ray laser program. SDI shuts down in the early 90’s and the lab is stuck with a bunch of guys they don’t know what to do with. Solution: make them managers. The entire management class at all the labs comes from this history. I’ve worked for this kind of manager my entire career. Can’t wait for them to retire.
20 comments:
My dream team would be an LLC owned by UC, Univ of Texas, Battelle and Honeywell.
Basically locking up all the potential "value added" research partners that Bechtel might want to team with on a bid. I throw Honeywell in as the token industrial partner to "run" nuclear facilities, also for the link to Sandia and the Test Site.
Why would UT need UC? That would saddle them from the outset with all the legacy problems. And why would NNSA want UT to come packaged with the current crop of UC managers, who have already proven their incompetence?
McMillian is having an all hands on Oct 19th. It may be about the contract being extended by at least a year. NNSA is falling behind.
New APS American Physical Society fellows have been announced for 2017.
LLNL 3 including Bill Goldstein
Sandia 3
LANL 7
So LANL is still doing well in terms of fellows. LLNL however can at least claim that its Director is an APS fellow. McMillan, Anastasio, Kuckuck and Nanos have not been fellows. All the previous Directors Brown, Hecker, Agnew and so on have been fellows. Basically all the people in the cold war have been highly accomplished scientists, Since the cold war not so much, kinda of sad. It also shows that since we have non-scientits leading the lab things have gone downhill. This could be a hint about how to change things for the better.
Why would UT need UC? That would saddle them from the outset with all the legacy problems. And why would NNSA want UT to come packaged with the current crop of UC managers, who have already proven their incompetence?
October 12, 2017 at 10:55 AM
I think UC will claim it can bring in top quality people and has more access to such people than U Texas. This implies that they would be getting new people. In any case I agree that if UC puts something in they have to change most of the current managers. These managers have simply been in the LANS system to long and have come to see LANL as nothing more than a money hustle, I simply cannot see them suddenly turning around and singing a different tune at this point even if they wanted to. Many of gone through extreme mental contortions to justify what they have become what they have done to the labs and it has done permanent changes to their psyche so to speak.
This is simply my opinion so I would love to hear someone say it is wrong or that they disagree.
"I think UC will claim it can bring in top quality people and has more access to such people than U Texas. This implies that they would be getting new people."
That would certainly be an interesting claim to make. Because of course such a claim immediately invites a question:
And if you say you can bring in top quality people, what prevented you from doing so at any time during the last 11 years?
The APS, like the Nobel committee, ACS, ASME/IEEE is a political interest group that pushes it's political agenda.
Each rewards with accolades those who serve it's purposes. Just like your mother's this can motivate or manipulate.
All praise is best considered in this light. Who profits?
Rumor? Where did this rumor come from?
"The APS, like the Nobel committee, ACS, ASME/IEEE is a political interest group that pushes it's political agenda.
Each rewards with accolades those who serve it's purposes. Just like your mother's this can motivate or manipulate.
All praise is best considered in this light. Who profits?"
You seem rather unfamiliar with how APS fellows are chosen it is rather non political in my experience.
The APS, like the Nobel committee, ACS, ASME/IEEE is a political interest group that pushes it's political agenda.
October 13, 2017 at 9:10 AM
Really?
Now I understand , all this LIGO research was purely done to further the political agenda of the Nobel Prize committee.
I can already hear you grasping for air and talking about the Nobel Peace Prize. So, I just give you an answer before you spend time on the keyboard; yes that award has a political component; it is trying to send a message and you probably do not like that message.
But that is not the same as IEEE, APS, all the other organizations and the science Nobel Prizes.
It seems to me that you are somewhat bitter, and probably still waiting for a call from Stockholm or an email from the APS
UT graduates are so-so. I remember when UT “bought” Steven Weinberg to improve their image.
UT and UC together to run the labs? How many shots of Scotch did that take?
APS fellowships are entirely political, above some competence bar that is not high. That's certainly true for LANL and LLNL, probably everywhere. They are pushed by the labs to give more external credibility to favored managers, or others they wish to hold up for their own benefit. Look the list of APS fellows and you'll see it clearly - many great scientists are missing, and in their place are many mediocre scientists. Surprising that Bill was not already a fellow, but the fact that he gets a fellowship now, many years after having done anything of scientific significance, supports the reality that it is a political process.
UT graduates are so-so. I remember when UT “bought” Steven Weinberg to improve their image.
October 14, 2017 at 4:12 PM
I know people keep making remarks about the quality of UT and UNM students but ask yourself this question: do you really need top people at the labs? During the cold war I would understand that we would need the best people possible but now that safety and security are the mission it would seem that second or third rate people are just fine. I do not mean to be harsh but just look at who they have been hiring lately. Another issue is that the higher quality people usually still want to do some science and will complain when they see that something is wrong. The new crop will not complain and will do whatever to them it is jus a job and not a hard job and a pretty easy job since a big criteria is not falling down the stairs. If this is really the situation than I do not understand why we need people from top schools, hell under the current system why do we even have postdocs? Just a thought.
?APS fellowships are entirely political, above some competence bar that is not high. That's certainly true for LANL and LLNL, probably everywhere. They are pushed by the labs to give more external credibility to favored managers, or others they wish to hold up for their own benefit. Look the list of APS fellows and you'll see it clearly - many great scientists are missing, and in their place are many mediocre scientists. Surprising that Bill was not already a fellow, but the fact that he gets a fellowship now, many years after having done anything of scientific significance, supports the reality that it is a political process.
October 14, 2017 at 10:02 PM"
The choice of APS fellows is not political. I just don't buy your argument. In fact if you look at the APSs fellows at LANL, Sandia and LLNL, over the years which is easy to check on the APS website almost all are very well deserved. I have not seen cases of obvious people missing either. Now to be clear some good people are not fellows since there research is not covered by the APS but they would be fellows in their own societies, like SPIE, optics and so on. Also do you know how fellows are even picked? The nominations are sent to a committee simply being nominated does not mean anything the committee choses
the final outcome and generally consist of 12 or more people, so it would be very hard to game such a system.
Here is the link to access the fellows, it has an option to highlight specific institutions. From that please point out all these
so called mediocre scientists from the NNSA labs from the say the last 10 years and can check to see if you claim is correct.
https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/
By the way what is your agenda?
^^^Must be Mr. Prove It, for whom everyone has an agenda.
^^^Must be Mr. Prove It, for whom everyone has an agenda.
October 16, 2017 at 6:15 AM
If you make some crazy assertion like "all APS fellows from LLNL and LANL are political" you should at least try and provide some evidence. Someone just handed you all he information you need to attempt to back up your claim. You decided not to do that and attack someone for asking for evidence. I thinly we can safely assume that you in fact cannot find evidence for your claim which probably means your claim is junk.
This is story or Goldstein and his ilk at LLNL. Star Wars (SDI) starts in the early 80’s. The lab hires tons of guys like Goldstein to do atomic physics or some esoteric stuff for the X-ray laser program. SDI shuts down in the early 90’s and the lab is stuck with a bunch of guys they don’t know what to do with. Solution: make them managers. The entire management class at all the labs comes from this history. I’ve worked for this kind of manager my entire career. Can’t wait for them to retire.
4:01 nailed it. There is A LOT of dead wood in the DOE with SDI tattooed on it.
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