Ponderings of a Scientist

So I just came from an “all hands” meeting and I
have another meeting at 10am so I
have a few minutes to kill and thought I would share with you the insights of
the federal government. Before that a legal disclaimer, “I’m a
contractor working for the U.S.
federal government, however all the opinions stated on this page are my own or
my readers and do not reflect those of my coworkers or those of the U.S.
government.” Okay, I think the covers it; I now can’t be sued.

So we are getting a new building (built from scratch – why use
a pre-existing structure when you can use up more resources (space, trees,
etc.) instead), which will be three times as large as our current building and
have all sorts of neat things in it like a fitness room, etc. Most people will have offices; Good bye “Office
Space” cubicle world.

In the Q & A section of the meeting a few people brought
up environmental issues. Turns out the
building was originally planned as a Green building, however the appropriation committee
decided that was too expensive!! Can you believe that, how short-sighted the
feds are! One guy very crassly mentioned
the cost effectiveness of alternative energy over say 5-10 years. He then asked about walking access out of our
industrial park into downtown, again something the feds don’t value. Man I’m glad the government is setting such a
good example of how we can curb our “addiction to oil” (insert sarcastic tone
here).

On another note we will have a training room, multiple
kitchens/lunch rooms, a fitness center, room for 260 cars, yet we can’t even
get windows that open! That would ruin
the heating/ac balance. Wouldn’t it save energy just to open the windows! I also didn’t hear any mention of daycare,
which if we truly do not discriminate against working parents you think a
building of 8000 square feet, set up for 250-300 employees might consider this!

This is totally inconsequential on its own, but hints at the deeper issue of Americans total lack of grammatical knowledge. I hate when people don’t put the grammatically appropriate two spaces after periods and colons! That’s it back to my busy day, just couldn’t let that little pet peeve fester.

“Young Americans are Geographically Illiterate”, National Georgraphic reports today. When tested, they did poorly on US geography and terribly on world geography. My question to you is: Is this their fault or the school systems’? I’ll admit that I’m a bit geographically illiterate myself, but I blame the fact that I didn’t have one geography class my whole life and I’m now playing catch up. In fact I can’t even remember covering geography in any class. When I was a teacher the 7th Grade “history” course was a whole year of geography, which is great, but I don’t think many schools have such a program.

No wonder our country has a big issue with childhood obesity, they no longer have to walk to the bus stop! I got stuck behind a school bus this morning (in Mass.) which literally stopped every 100 feet! Granted we were on the main road through town with little to no side walk in most places, but still these were middle school kids, they should be able to get to the neighbor’s house without getting hit by a car. What makes my experience particularly pertinent is that yesterday the State of Massachusetts decided to ban all sugary drinks from public schools in an attempt to fight the bulge, citing the lack of walking to the school bus stop as one reason for childhood pudge.

I’ve had a few topics on my mind the past few days that are
blog worthy. I don’t have much time so I
will touch on each briefly and follow up at a latter date if I see fit.

First and most important: Go Sox!! Thank you to Mirabelli and the rest of the
gang for kicking some Yankee BEE-hind.
Hopefully they won’t get rained out tonight.

Second, the “Day without Immigrants”, I feel I should
mention something about yesterday’s events for prosperity’s sake. I’m really not sure how I feel about the
immigrant issue. On the one hand,
immigrating illegally is a crime; on the other hand, there is something
seriously wrong with our immigration policy if the only way to live here (at
least for Hispanics) is illegally.
Fixing the policy for the future will be the easiest part, what to do
with the mistakes of the past is beyond me, and what about all the legal
immigrants who have been in the system for 10 + years and still aren’t citizens. Any thoughts?
I just can’t help thinking that we all have immigrants not too far back
in our genealogy (I’m 3^rd generation), we have no right being
righteous.

Third, I’m sick of lazy Americans trying to solve our
dependence on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources with quick fixes
(i.e. dump the federal gas tax of 18c per gallon during the summer driving
season). Boy can everyone talk the talk,
but when it comes down to it no one is willing to walk the walk and I mean that
literally!! I (besides my stupid commute)
make it a point to avoid the car as much as possible. However, I’m still going to re-evaluate my
car use and try to limit it further and I encourage all of you to do so as
well! The Diane Rehm Show yesterday had
a good discussion on oil policy if you are interested.

Last, I hate light pollution. How many of you (those that don’t leave in
apartment buildings) leave the outside light on all night? Why?
To scare away the bad guys; to act as a beacon to midnight guests?
While I think the porch light is unnecessary, I’m really bothered by
businesses (other than Store 24) that leave their lights on 24/7. I
understand the security concern, but wouldn’t motion sensored lights serve that
purpose. I don’t really understand the desire
to advertise 24/7; I don’t want to see your sign up in lights if you aren’t
open, I’ve actually been tricked before into thinking a store was open because
it had some many lights on after hours.
The same goes for the hallways in my apartment building, the place is ablaze
at night, couldn’t we do with every other light on, or perhaps less
wattage? Not only are unnecessary lights
wasteful (see #3 above), but that also disturb nature. You can barely see the stars because of the
light pollution of downtown Dover. A recent article in Science News outlined the
effects of light pollution from southern California
and Las Vegas on reptile and
amphibian species in national parks up to 300 miles away!! These nocturnal species
are going extinct because their feeding and mating behaviors are disturbed.

In summary, Go Sox, Go immigrants, WALK and SHUT OFF THE
LIGHTS!!