b_emery

Thanks for sharing this, it's one of the most interesting, funny and enjoyable things I've read in weeks.

Like a big, very simple clock basically.

If you read nothing else in this excellent post, read the conclusion:

> A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system. Not only did the U.S. fund researchers in universities by paying the cost of their salaries, the U.S. gave universities money for the researchers facilities and administration. This was the secret sauce that allowed U.S. universities to build world-class labs for cutting-edge research that were the envy of the world. Scientists flocked to the U.S. causing other countries to complain of a “brain drain.”

and:

> Today, China’s leadership has spent the last three decades investing heavily to surpass the U.S. in science and technology.

In my field (a type of radar related research) in which I've worked for almost 30 yrs, papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher. The Biden administration seemed to recognize this issue and put a lot of money toward this field. All that money and more is going away. I'm hoping to stay funded through the midterms on other projects (and that there are midterms), and hoping that the US can get back on track (the one that actually made it 'great', at least by the metrics in the post.

Similarly, I regularly see lots of HPC support job openings at universities in the US. These pay much less than similar jobs in the real world and they are not particularly well advertised -- you have to go looking for them. Could keep the op in the black until something better is found.

There are several conflated ideas in conflict here. First lets be clear and define 10x work as work on something very impactful, say a business idea, an important piece of art, or a scientific breakthrough. My model here could be Richard Feynman for example. If you 'stumble' on one of these ideas (e.g. after potentially years of routine, hard work training you to have a) the skills required to act on it and b) the knowledge to notice it) the by all means, drop the routine and let the excitement take you. Any project such as this will have such a phase. Note however that the routine 'grind' (hate that word) was required to get there, and at some point, the proof of concept will be done, and the routine will be required again to keep it going and get it fully out into the world.

I used to hate routine by my kids showed me how necessary it is. Maintenance is essential to life. Routines get the maintenance done, and free up your brain to have ideas and energy for the hard work. An observation: Where I work there is a Nobel laureate who takes walks at almost the same time every day (past my window). I would think he knows about '10x work', and also about the utility of routine.

... or by marrying into it. Or, by owning things that increase in value.

> partly because once you have the skill you find it's surprisingly useful.

A statement I find to be true in general.

I think the best reference for this, where I picked it up at least, is The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. He investigates all sorts of things like alien encounters, goes into the history, etc. I think this is the book that made it all finally click for me, but it has been some time.

"“I’m not saying this will be the solution, but I think everybody has to work toward every possible solution,” said Dr. Szapudi, the astronomer who proposed tethering a sunshade to an asteroid."

Fully agree with this. We need solutions, long term and short term. It's time to consider and fund climate engineering.

It seems to me, having observed other's retirements, that you still need to have a purpose, and a community of people to be with. This can mean many different things but having a compelling 'why' for what your are doing is the root of motivation. Ideally the community of people are also in a similar situation and working toward the same purpose. It often takes people a while to find such a thing.

It seems that you already know this but perhaps spelling it out is helpful.

Can you speak to their data source? They're using other people's data:

"For the years leading up to 1850 we use PAGES2k Consortium reconstruction data. It is based on models where temperatures are reconstructed from proxies. Proxy analysis has higher uncertainty, and we display the smoothed set to highlight the longer-term fluctuations."