I worked at two National Laboratories, Argonne and Idaho, on NSF funded internship grants. The second one turned into a full time job, again on an NSF grant.
The first one was on supercomputing, writing proof of concept code for a new supercomputing operating system (ZeptoOS). The second was on the automated stitching of imagery from UAVs for military applications (at a time when this was not commoditized at all, we were building UAVs in a garage and I was writing code derived from research papers).
Seeing all the programs that launched my career get dismantled like this is really saddening. There are/were thousands and thousands of college students getting exposed to cutting edge research via these humble programs, and I assume that is all now over. It didn't even cost much money. I got paid a pretty low stipend, which was nonetheless plenty to sustain my 20 year old self just fine. I think the whole program may have cost the government maybe $10k total.
$10k to build knowledge of cutting edge science that filters into industry. $10k to help give needed manpower to research projects that need it. $10k to give people who otherwise didn't have a road into science, exactly what they need to get their foot in the door.
I don't know how to describe what's happening here, but it's really, really stupid.
The first one was on supercomputing, writing proof of concept code for a new supercomputing operating system (ZeptoOS). The second was on the automated stitching of imagery from UAVs for military applications (at a time when this was not commoditized at all, we were building UAVs in a garage and I was writing code derived from research papers).
Seeing all the programs that launched my career get dismantled like this is really saddening. There are/were thousands and thousands of college students getting exposed to cutting edge research via these humble programs, and I assume that is all now over. It didn't even cost much money. I got paid a pretty low stipend, which was nonetheless plenty to sustain my 20 year old self just fine. I think the whole program may have cost the government maybe $10k total.
$10k to build knowledge of cutting edge science that filters into industry. $10k to help give needed manpower to research projects that need it. $10k to give people who otherwise didn't have a road into science, exactly what they need to get their foot in the door.
I don't know how to describe what's happening here, but it's really, really stupid.