Re: How to get into Scientific Programming

William wrote:
> "Baruch Vainas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote,

> > [snip tiresome repetition of a description of an extremely miserable
> > academic activity in the USA, real or imaginary]
>  
> Interesting tactic - if you can't beat 'em, whine about their arguments.
> (Feel free to snip, but lose the attitude, please; it undermines your
> own position whatever your fan club thinks about it. This isn't FOX
> News.)

You are erroneously presupposing that I am *whining* about your 
arguments. I just think that your arguments are not good enough to be 
heard so many times. You are free to restore them here, of course. As 
to, supposedly, "underming my own position", my position will neither 
gain nor lose by replying yet again to your, speculations regarding, 
what you describe, as a very miserable academic survival, in the USA.
BTW, I have no idea what you mean by, what you call, my *fan club*. I 
also don't know the relevance of FOX news to this discussion. I do not 
live in the USA and I find the UK TV much more interesting to watch than 
the USA TV.

> > I am not too familiar with US based research grants. However it seems
> > to me that you are taking minority of cases and making a rule out of
> > them.

> I'm not sure "minority" is the right word - by law, all U.S. gov.
> research grants would come with restrictions placed there for various
> reasons - purely political (i.e. vote harvesting) reasons in many cases.

You are making vague claims about restrictions (*for various reasons*) 
and their causes (political ???). Please tell me why I should take these 
claims seriously? They look quite speculative to me.

> > Now, THAT would be a wrong thing to do. I am familiar quite well
> > with two research grant organizations. One of them, a bi-national.
> > None of them makes restriction on possible subjects that can be
> > submitted for proposals, and none makes ANY restriction on
> > publications other than making it known how the work been
> > supported. So, here we are, you experience against mine.
>
>
> Just a guess, but I'd be willing to bet that the number of grants provided
> by the U.S. gov. and varous corporations probably outnumbers the
> grants provided by those two organizations. You're extrapolating from
> a small sample without properly weighting the values.

Sure US grants outnumber the Israeli based ones. Do you claim to be very 
familiar with all USA grants, 10 of them, 2 of them? We don't have too 
many grants in Israel, so my extrapolation isn't very extended.
> > [...]
> > Well if you insist, look at my real (overloaded with malware, but
> > still functional) address: il = Israel
>
>
> So there are no special interest groups channeling taxes away from
> the purely general welfare in Israel? The Knesset meetings must be
> awfully quiet.

Yeh, I expected that one. Knesset meetings are terribly noisy. Still, 
Israel can't afford disrupting social fabric by paying supporters too 
much. Our overcrowded hospitals admit lefties, righties, (not)religious, 
poor, and not so poor. Significant privileges would disrupt social 
stability, which can be a direct danger to our very survival (we have an 
obligatory army service). All our governments know it. In short, we 
can't afford turning into a banana republic.
So while fairness, by itself, doesn't win elections (as you rightly say 
below) majority of voters eliminate (as much as they can) parties that 
are clearly biased towards specific group interests. Differences 
between big, and usually more responsible parties are mostly about 
defense and foreign policies, which aren't backed up by certain, well 
defined, social groups. We are far from having an ideal system (we all 
heard about some donations) but our judicial system is very strong. As I 
wrote a few posts back, our judges have tenure for life, they don't need 
to worry about their positions and salaries.
I think it is quite enough for talking about politics. I will not 
continue discussing this, clearly off topic subject, on sp.

> "Fair" doesn't win elections, appealing to specific voting blocks while
> not ticking off the entire voting population too much wins elections.
> (Politicians in Israel don't try to garner support from various
> organizations and groups? Seems like they do when viewed from this
> side of the pond.) -Wm
-- Baruch