When I first saw this comment on last week's Direct Line to Washington post, I thought to myself, "This is the COW!" After thinking about it for a split second or two longer, however, I realized there is really not all that much left to say about conditions at LANL which has not already been blurted out here, repeatedly. Further, having watched the trend in blog commentary since 2004, I've noticed a distinct degradation in the overall literacy of comment contributions, meaning that repeated poorly written complaints about conditions at LANL will only have an accumulative negative impact.It should be noted that this "direct line to Washington" has been live since day one. Congressmen, Senators, DOE, NNSA, the news media, and all the involved corporate entities read the blog. They are familiar with all of the issues that are repeatedly discussed here. And yet the status remains quo. Therefore, by definition they collectively like things at LANL just the way they are. So, I still select this as comment of the week, but probably not for the reasons that the submitter had envisioned. Instead, I'd like to use this comment to illustrate that the "direct line to Washington" has had no effect whatsoever on how LANL is being managed. Nor will it, in all likelihood because those responsible for the new for-profit scheme for running LANL are quite happy with the result.
Our COW:
A *huge* thanks to PAD Rees for reminding us that we have this direct line to Washington available for our use. I suggest that we have a "Direct Line to Washington" message that our blog moderators select periodically and post To The Attention Of: Our DC Readership.
Perhaps this way we can raise the visibility of the damage that NNSA's "for-profit" national laboratory sell-off has caused.
Thanks for providing the germ of an excellent idea, Will! You are clearly a "big picture" person.
Perhaps this way we can raise the visibility of the damage that NNSA's "for-profit" national laboratory sell-off has caused.
Thanks for providing the germ of an excellent idea, Will! You are clearly a "big picture" person.
Another comment that just came in this morning deserves honorable mention:
Reading and writing from DC
Like much of this blog, these letters miss an essential point. It is not the guard force or the management that makes LANL such a sick institution. It's simply the billions of dollars of bad science that was enabled by Domenici, the misuse of secrecy and ineffective peer review. The evidence is clear and comes from an analysis of DOE Office of Science grants. These guys are competent and professional and they have given out the last of the Domenici monies. There is only a remnant of disgust now that the playing field has been leveled.
All LANL has to do now is re-enter the competition and somehow undo the effect of so many years of bad behavior.
Like much of this blog, these letters miss an essential point. It is not the guard force or the management that makes LANL such a sick institution. It's simply the billions of dollars of bad science that was enabled by Domenici, the misuse of secrecy and ineffective peer review. The evidence is clear and comes from an analysis of DOE Office of Science grants. These guys are competent and professional and they have given out the last of the Domenici monies. There is only a remnant of disgust now that the playing field has been leveled.
All LANL has to do now is re-enter the competition and somehow undo the effect of so many years of bad behavior.
I agree with our DC contributor that Dominici's paternal largess towards LANL over the years did indeed foster a LANL that was not required to be competitive. The money came in each year regardless. However, I disagree with his having downplayed the effects of ineffective management as a contributor to LANL's current state. Ineffective management will lead to an ineffective institution. Period. Mr. Reading and Writing from DC: your Kung Fu is not strong.
--Doug
65 comments:
Mr. "Reading and writing from DC" lost me when he described the DOE Office of Science as "competent". DOE is the government's own version of GM. Nobody stays there who is competent.
Hmmm, Doug, you lost me there too. How many R&D 100 awards have LANL scientists received in the last 15 years?
After Sig Hecker left, LANL grew its nonproliferation and international security work and reputation how? From the bottom up or the top down? Do you think Anastasio or Nanos can even spell the word (w-o-r-k, let alone nonproliferation)? Ever met Doug Beason?
Come on, the problem wasn't Domenici, not at all - that's totally screwed-up thinking. You can't blame LANL's situation on the Senator that sent funding, blame is to be placed squarely on the management that didn't use the funding effectively; the same management that drove the lab toward the unproductive, work-free safety zone we're in now.
Doug, you're really slipping - maybe you'd better get some shoes that GRIP! The problem was and is EXTREMELY weak NNSA and LANL management.
Woah, Hoss! Down, boy!
I'm agreeing with you. Read what I wrote again:
Ineffective management will lead to an ineffective institution. Period.
I've got a question about the R&D 100 awards. These do, after all, come from a throw-away advertiser. Lab management will ask you for at least $50K
to make an application, after they suggest that your work is worthy. Not every institution (if there are any) can afford such a cost. What is the record of success, by any measure, of the research projects that "win" the award?
After all, there are other measures that are accepted by the research community. There is election to a national academy, scientific society awards, patent license income, etc. It seems that these other indicators are out of favor at the lab. Please forgive my suspicions, but somethings smells.
Rees must be emulating Sarah Palin..... DUH
Let's put things in perspective here. I highly doubt LANS upper management cares much about DOE Office of Science funding at this lab. During Terry Wallace's late April All-Hands meeting, he put up an interesting vugraph that showed the following budget breakdown for LANL (09 Est.):
DOE Office of Science -- 3%
DOE Energy & Other Programs -- 4%
Together, those 2 figures make a whopping 7% of LANL's budget.
Do you really thing LANS gives a damn about this DOE funding? LANS executives works for the easy money that NNSA pours into LANL for weapons and facilities maintenance. That's why LANS repeatedly shows no real interest in lowering costs or increasing the scientific productivity.
If the Office of Science cuts back on funding, LANS will be more than happy to use it as an excuse to get rid of even more scientists from the work force. The future of diversified research at LANL looks bleak due to the combination of all 3 major players: LANS, NNSA and DOE.
The R&D 100 awards were announced last week. It was interesting to note that LANL received only 4 awards this year. LLNL had 8 and ORNL had 9.
Some thoughts for 4:53 PM.
1. I won an R&D 100 award. The total cost for doing the work and submitting the application was $34,000 (average cost at that time was $400,000). Sig Hecker was the Lab director. I completed most of the science before I became a LANL employee (thus the low cost). Sig and the Secretary of Energy sent me congratulatory letters. I was the first in my division to win such an award. My group leader, on the other hand, told me to never do such a thing again and to stick to completing an undefined project.
The award winning science solved a problem, high speed separation of DNA, that had been considered to be unsolvable. Thirty years of peer reviewed papers said that you could not do what we did. These papers were wrong. For a particular DNA size, the previous record for separation was 90 minutes. We had the same separation in 90 seconds.
So, on our project, and those of many others since then, the science was good and changed a field.
The science in many R&D winners seems solid. It is the follow up that is lacking. Often, the funds to take the science to commercialization do not exist.
Other measures of scientific success.
2. Election to the National Academy
On average, a member of the National Academy has worked on the same scientific problem for 15 years and has been supported by 5 or 6 postdocs, graduate students, and technicians every year. An average national academy member has had stable funding over this time. The problem that they have worked on has been considered to be very important by a broad scientific community, mostly in universities.
I have been told that, especially at weapons labs, few of these prerequisites for academy membership are possible.
So LANL has few NAS members except those who did their work in the 1970s (e.g. Stirling Colgate) or did it elsewhere and were later hired by LANL (e.g. Tom Meyers). The problem does not seem to be scientific talent at LANL but DOE's one year funding cycle, lack of funding for support staff, and the fact that scientists at LANL seldom can be funded for the same scientifically important project for fifteen years. With NSF and NIH, you can get stable funding for a scientifically important project. Under DOE such funding, required for accomplishing NAS level work, is much harder to come by.
3. Scientific society awards
The problem here appears to be a subset of # 2.
4. Patenting income
For many years, at LANL, patents were used as bullet points on PowerPoint presentations in DC. The object of the bullet points was to get more money for weapons work or to meet some goal in an appendix of an M&O contract, not to generate licensing income. Quality of the patent and income from the patent were not metrics that counted for anything.
A simple suggestion on patenting, which has been made for years now, is to reward the scientists with 10% of the patent income to LANL and to reward the key folk in tech transfer with 5% of this income. Then both the scientist and the transfer person have a strong incentive to maximize licensing fees. As far as I know at the moment, the licensing fees go into a general fund. So neither the inventor nor the transfer person are incentivized to maximize licensing fees. Thus, licensing fees are small.
As you suggested, people work toward the indicators that are incentivized and not towards those that are not incentivized. Other national labs, for instance, have different incentives. Sandia appears to reward inventions. Berkeley seems to reward basic science breakthroughs.
Secretary Chu's ARPA-E and other efforts seem to be an attempt to change some of the existing incentives and to create higher scores at LANL on the metrics that you list. We will see if he is successful.
So, to me, it is not that 'something smells' but that the metrics that you list are not incentivized.
Suggestions? Thoughts? Corrections?
Doug is correct regarding the quality of blog comments having degraded over the years. No doubt this is the result of some 3,000 or so staff having left LANL since the Nanos catastrophe, and from the replacement of other staff by younger, less literate replacements.
Face it, public schooling is not what it once was. The public education system now regularly pumps out high school graduates who are barely literate -- they can't tell the difference between "your" and "you're" as one prime example that is repeatedly demonstrated here. They sound ignorant because they *are* ignorant.
This whole "direct line to Washington" thing was a startling new concept back in 2004 when the first blog was started. It was unprecedented that a secret government lab could have its dirty laundry aired in public for everyone to see, and that there were people who were fed sufficiently fed up with UC's corruption that they were willing to repeatedly put LANL's dirty little secrets on the blog. Remember the attempted cover-up of the Americium-241 contamination?
It's different today. LANL's dirty sheets have been out there for everybody to see for years now, and basically nobody cares any more. Congress has patted itself on the back for getting rid of that troublesome University of California contractor. NNSA now has a LANL contractor whore who will do whatever they are told, so they're happy. Bechtel & its corporate buddies get $85 million of free money each year, so of course they're happy.
Who cares if Anastasio is worthless as a director -- most of the good staff left a long time ago; what's there to direct? Who cares if LANL has become mired in senseless bureaucratic red tape? There is little real work to do any more. The bottom line is that there just is not much left to save at LANL any longer, so why try?
Doug... "I've noticed a distinct degradation in the overall literacy of comment contributions."
I point this out purely for entertainment. I agree with the actual intent of your statement, but I have to take a moment to geek-snicker that your word choice (i.e. "degradation - meaning: humiliation, abasement")is not correct, in context. Which is, or course, too ironic a moment to pass up.
Deterioration or erosion might fit better (although, there's degradation enough to go around on this blog and at the Lab, too).
Yes, this is more or less irrelevant. Yes, I should probably be medicated. Yes, I will shut up now.
Thanks, Greg. I've always subscribed to the "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" philosophy, myself. I deserve heat for any of my own typos, given that one of my chief complaints about today's LANL blog is the lack of literacy frequently demonstrated by its contributors.
BTW, Greg --
I think I'll stick with my original usage of the noun "degradation", based on the definition of the verb transitive form, "degrade".
degrade
One entry found.
Main Entry:
de·grade Listen to the pronunciation of degrade
Pronunciation:
\di-ˈgrād, dē-\
Function:
verb
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French degrader, from Late Latin degradare, from Latin de- + gradus step, grade — more at grade
Date:
14th century
transitive verb1 a: to lower in grade, rank, or status : demote b: to strip of rank or honors c: to lower to an inferior or less effective level "degrade the image quality" d: to scale down in desirability or salability
AWESOME, Doug DOOD!
Your going to jack some of my buds around using big words like that, but WTF, yo?
Touche! I'll grant you that one as a good lesson between connotation and denotation. I yield, and reluctantly take back my geek-snicker!
The bottom line is that there just is not much left to save at LANL any longer, so why try?
7/27/09 8:11 AM
Unfortunately, this is an attitude that is spreading through what's left of the scientific work force at LANL. More and more staff are just giving up on LANL under LANS and NNSA. They see little hope that the current situation at the lab will ever improve.
All the official reports on the NNSA clearly document what has occurred, but no one in power is willing to fix what they know to be horribly broken.
It has taken three years, but people at LANL are finally coming to fully realize that when NNSA handed the LANL award to LANS, the fix was in. Congress supported the fix, so they sure aren't going to make themselves look stupid(er) now by acknowledging that handing the for-profit contract to LANS was a huge mistake.
All that this "open line to Washington" has done for us is to make the LANL staff look like a bunch of illiterate whiners, bitching in poorly worded, poorly spelled anonymous comments about inconsequential shit like bottled water and day care. Not to mention dragging love triangles gone awry into the limelight. Way to go, staff!
PAD Rees should be glad for this "open line", because compared to some of the pathetic anonymous comments you find here LANS management looks intelligent, by comparison.
7/27/09 8:11 AM You have it wrong. They aren't ignorant. They just don't have the time to waste editing a comment to a blog. It rally isn't that important. You're making a big deal over their laziness which, I think, is your personal hangup. You're the only one who takes the time to complain about it.
I personally don't think it's a degradation in the posts, I just think that more people are posting drunk. I'd like to see the posts from the "too drunk to type" crowd, I bet some of them have some interesting things to say.
And as for this comment:
"from the replacement of other staff by younger, less literate replacements."
You raised them, doesn't some of the responsibility fall upon you??
And as for 2:40 PM, I see you still haven't found that life yet. You need to take your hate-filled tirades elsewhere. I hear The Canyon is closed now, but I'm sure you can pick a fight with someone at the Hilltop House.
3:16,
8:11am here.
Re: posting drunk -- a lot of LANL staff seem to be drinking their breakfast & lunch, as well as their dinners...
Regarding kids -- don't have any.
Regarding 2:40: Hey, after a couple of beers I might have unloaded on that smug, lazy, arrogant little prick myself. I refer of course to 2:14 pm, Mr. "I'm far too important and busy to bother with little things like spelling and grammar when I post on a blog about LANL that is read in Washington, DC."
Oh, and I do my drinking off the Hill. I find it far too depressing up there these days.
Take it to a Republican political blog, 5:03pm. I recommend this one.
Since someone brought up the topic of "too drunk to post" today, I thought a few of you might be amused to know that it has started again (already) today. I'll save up a few of the real gems that fit the category and make a post of them some time.
Beer. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
BTW, anyone drunk by 5:30 PM wins!
Man, I screwed it up!
http://images.paraorkut.com/img/funnypics/images/h/homer_simpson_beer-12661.jpg
"comments about inconsequential shit like bottled water"
Taken by itself, the removal of bottled water is indeed inconsequential, however, when taken in the context of LANS cutting all possible services and support in a pathetic attempt to recover the obscene $200M dollars annually that LANS costs the LANL budget, it adds up to something not so inconsequential. What's next? Cutting maintenance? Oh wait, our restroom has been out of service for 6 months now.
LANL's deterioration under LANS management is just degrading.
Frank and "Grammar Boy," my two posts are posted elsewhere. Thanks cowards.
Once again I missed all the fun :(
7/27/09 7:33 PM,
I've encouraged you to add links to your comments. I don't remember rejecting any (Doug generally moderates comments on his own posts).
If you think that makes me a coward I don't really care. Your opinion is still welcome. I've given up on helping you state it effectively, though.
and what about today's totally moronic hands-on "cyber security" meetings that were mandatory before the password snafu starts Tuesday at noon?
More and more knee-jerk crap that achieves nothing.
I agree 10:12 PM. Why the moronic meetings about being aware of bad players and connections to external links when the latest mandatory Sexual Harrassment traning is via a live link to an outside company. Does not compute.
Hey, kids, today's NNSA is kwweeeelll!
-------------------------------
LANLToday - Monday, July 27, 2009
NNSA goes social
Taking a cue from the country’s Chief Twitterer, NNSA is now on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr
In keeping with President Obama’s commitment to more open, accessible government, the National Nuclear Security Administration now has a presence on today’s hottest social networking sites. To get the latest NNSA news, flip through photos, or watch original video footage, go to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.
“This online outreach is a way for us to make sure that we’re getting our nuclear security message out to interested parties across America and around the world,” said Jennifer Wagner of NNSA public affairs.
NNSA’s online program began earlier this summer. To date, it’s logged 168 Twitter followers and 308 Facebook fans.
Some examples of what you’ll find on the sites:
-Tweets-
NNSA Nuclear Security Sites to Meet, Share Ideas at LDRD Symposium Next Month
NM Biz Weekly: "LANL stimulus work saves and creates jobs" "Purer Water Made Possible By Sandia Advance"
-YouTube-
From Oak Ridge to the Moon
NNSA Removes Last Highly Enriched Uranium from Romania
NNSA Administrator Addresses the Next Generation of Nuclear Security Professionals
“We’re open to comments, and we want to make sure we promote all the good work that goes on across our nuclear security enterprise,” Wagner concluded.
It was the usual "fun" that you missed earlier, Frank. Some bozo got his undies in a twist because I rejected his off-topic anti-Obama right-wing "the commies are going to get us" rant earlier this evening. I've noticed that the right-wingers tend to foam at the mouth more than the left-wingers.
It was, as you might suspect, the usual garbage. I'm saving some of the better ones for a "The Best of Posting Drunk" feature, but today's rant only rated about a 2.5 on the ten scale, so it won't make the cut.
New LANL laptop that passes PurchaseIT specs... $7,000.
Crippling said laptop by LANL cyber-security to make it totally useless... $500.
Requiring all LANL laptops to have mandatory full disk encryption (FDE) installed during the height of the summer holidays... priceless!
I wish I wasn't so busy at the moment. We have some "Best of Posting Drunk" gold in the archives but I'd have to rummage around to find it.
Maybe the foam is beer. Do you notice wine stains on the ranting left wingers?
"More and more knee-jerk crap that achieves nothing."
The knee-jerking is in response to our management's inability to fire the handful of people who continue to compromise their computers through the same stupid ways over and over and over again.
I can see forgiving a person once, and possibly twice for getting their work computer jacked up after clicking on links they shouldn't be. But 4 or 5 or 6 times or more? Those are the idiots who are responsible for the nonsense training. They keep fucking up and we have to pay.
7/27/09 2:40 PM wow! I suppose this is an example of how a real professional should express them self: "Lazy sonofabitch (which isn't a single word by the way)"and "your shit". You sound like you were educated in some backwater Podunk.
"...the "direct line to Washington" has had no effect whatsoever on how LANL is being managed. Nor will it, in all likelihood because those responsible for the new for-profit scheme for running LANL are quite happy with the result." (Doug)
Doug, you are right, of course, but you're making it increasingly difficult for LANL's remaining employees to stay in a blissful state of denial. Bummer.
10:08,
I hear you; most inconsiderate of me. But have faith, the LANL community might surprise you.
Congratulations, 6:01! Your recent contribution made the first cut for our new, upcoming "Posting While Drunk" feature. You will be notified if your recent contribution makes it to the semi-finals.
For the rest of you, here's a teaser of our Anonymous contributor's latest opus:
"PPS: "The internet is the arena of free speech." (Norman Gorman, at http://pajamasmedia.com.) (I agree.)
Yes, this latest missive contained a script, a postscript, and a post postscript!
Stay tuned. Who said moderating a blog wasn't fun?
7/28/09 6:31 PM Ah yes... The post script guy. You figure he's drunk when he posts the postscripts?
Marginally. However, odds are 7 to 3 in favor of him being pretty much potted by the time he makes it to post postscripts
Do you mean I can't post whatever I want here?
But it's the internet!!!!!!
oh, i hope it's not a political rant! i want some drunk to post something about getting into mary's hot pants or something...not a political rant! those are no fun.
Way to go once again, people. This is going to look really good when they read it tomorrow in DC. I'm now thoroughly convinced that we deserve whatever we get here. We earned it.
PPPPPPPPPS. (I agree) with what the last guy said.
Well, there you go. More drunken posts. However did they slip by the censors?
Irrational doesn't necessarily equal drunken. Although, if you are being irrational, it's a waste of your time if you aren't drunk.
"Way to go once again, people. This is going to look really good when they read it tomorrow in DC. I'm now thoroughly convinced that we deserve whatever we get here. We earned it."
Settle down. You are taking yourself and this blog way too seriously! There isn't a prerequisite that you must work at LANL to post your garbage on here and you know that.
Doug,
Your conversations with phantom Obama-haters and drunks makes you seem to be a bit schitzophrenic.
Who said that?
;-}
7/28/09 7:01 PM I got a good laugh from this, thanks!
7/28/09 8:15 PM Now that was real funny. Well written. Thanks for posting.
"Hmmm, Doug, you lost me there too. How many R&D 100 awards have LANL scientists received in the last 15 years?"
Oh puleezz! Can we ever put our egos on check long enough to accept the fact that we're no longer the crown jewel of the DOE complex? Were we ever, really?
NNSA wants an annual 5% attrition rate at LANL to continue the lab's shrinkage but the poor economy has slowed down the staff exodus and the overhead costs at LANL remain very high. I sense problems ahead.
LLNL retirees have started a new blog involved with defending their threatened retiree benefits:
UCLRG Legal Defense Fund
Preserving University of California Livermore Retiree's Rights
http://llnlretiree.com/
11:12 AM - do you think this is why all of a sudden we have a budget issue at the end of the fiscal year?
Anyone using the phrase, "shoes that grip", should be automatically filtered...geeze!
I don't know who normally posts here, but here's the situation I see in my area at LANL: Most of us are so totally demoralized by the new management that we're just doing the bare minimum to finish out our time so we can lock in our pensions and leave.
Yes, we were the crown jewel of the DOE complex. The year was 1975.
Recently? Not the jewel.
I don't know who normally posts here, but here's the situation I see in my area at LANL: Most of us are so totally demoralized by the new management that we're just doing the bare minimum to finish out our time so we can lock in our pensions and leave.
7/30/09 7:13 AM
Ditto, 7:13 am. I see this same dismal feeling throughout the lab. Only a select few TSMs who are generously blessed by upper management seem to enjoy working here any longer, perhaps 2% of the TSM population. The other 98% are looking for some type of an exit strategy.
I arrived at LANL in about 1975 and, in terms of budget and the ability to accumulate equipment it was the golden age. I met many brilliant, able and accomplished scientists, too. If one looks back to the programs of that era, three of the biggest non-weapons programs come to mind. There was laser fusion, laser isotope separation and a CTR program. In retrospect, however, they were all misuses of research funding and today there is plenty of information that the programs would have spent less than a tenth of their budget if they had been subject to peer review.
I'd like to believe that I was employed in the golden age, too, but the reality is that an organization that can use secrecy as a funding tool will misuse the tool.
Well, if you are psrt of the profit profile and are getting your bread buttered, watching the influx of negative comments on the blog can only make you smile. Who is going to listen to such a petty mass of micreants?
Doug is correct regarding the quality of blog comments having degraded over the years. No doubt this is the result of some 3,000 or so staff having left LANL since the Nanos catastrophe, and from the replacement of other staff by younger, less literate replacements.
7/27 8:11 am
I totally disagree with you. Too many of the older scientist stayed on and tried to keep LANL from evolving with the rest of the world (while double dipping yourself)
Instead of leting the next generations come in and keep LANL on the leading edge you were part of the problem. Most of the young talent was quickly disgusted by your behavior and entitlement mentality.
Also, how dare you condem LANS, the group that came in with the personal profit scheme, they just pulled off a bigger faster one than you could have ever imagined. Now you are just mad because they outsmarted you, and your ride was over. For your type it was never about the science.
"Also, how dare you condem LANS, the group that came in with the personal profit scheme, they just pulled off a bigger faster one than you could have ever imagined. Now you are just mad because they outsmarted you, and your ride was over. For your type it was never about the science."
8/12/09 10:50 PM
Wow! Terry Wallace, is that you?
Wow! Terry Wallace, is that you?
8/14/09 12:40 PM
Clueless like usual. The comment was aimed to the general population of aged sacks, that have the criminal mentality that double dipping is ethically acceptable
We all know who you are. Take responsibility for your actions.
Age and cunning will ...
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