Mailund on the Internet

Finch Talk has a nice post about draft and finished genomes, slightly related to my post from a few days ago.

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342-340=+2

I just got two research grant applications rejected this week.

Nothing wrong with that, really, the success rate where I applied is less than 10% so I couldn’t really expect to get the grants.  Still, it annoys me a little bit that the letter I got back is just boiler plate.  “We receive more applications than we can fund, and unfortunately we could not fund yours.”

That doesn’t tell me if I was close to getting funded or lightyears from it.  It certainly doesn’t help me improve on the application if I want to try again.

Some feedback on the applications would really be nice.  If not a full reviewer report, then at least a score or something…

Oh well, I still have one grant application under review, this one for the EU Research Council, and here at least I’ve already gotten a review report back, with scores and everything, and it looks really nice, so I have my fingers crossed…

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342-339=+3

Remember SpaceShipOne that won the X-prize in 2004?  Well, Virgin Galactic reviled SpaceShipTwo yesterday.

With SpaceShipTwo, 6 passengers can get a short trip into space, and the plan is to sell such trips.  I don’t know what the prize will be, but I guess it is safe to say that I won’t be able to get a trip any time soon.

Still, it is pretty cool, and if they get to go higher than sub-orbital flight with SpaceShipThree, we might be looking at the beginning of affordable space flight pretty soon.

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342-338=+4