Book Reviews
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Thursday, March 20, 2003
![[Item Permalink]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0112083/images/ur_bullet.gif){kind=small} -- Comment()
Scientists hunt for life: "A hunt for intelligent species who inhabit worlds orbiting alien suns was launched yesterday. [...] Scientists began to use the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to study around 150 spots identified as the source of possible signals from extraterrestrial civilisations by a sky survey conducted using the biggest "distributed computing" project on the planet. [...] The shortlist was drawn up after more than a million years of computation by 4.3 million computers worldwide using SETI @ home, a program disguised as a screensaver that pops up when a computer is idle and analyses data from the 1,000 ft telescope in search of intense or unusual signals." [Google Technology News]
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Bioterror Defense: Quick DNA Scan: "A new method for quickly identifying bioweapons that may have contaminated the food, water or air supply may soon make it into the hands of doctors and other nonspecialists. By Dermot McGrath." [Wired News]
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Strategic planning -- Comment()
In addition to making performance reviews, I'm currently involved in strategic planning by writing and editing a memo on scientific software. This memo was started a month ago, and will (I hope) be ready early next week. A lot of colleagues have commented and provided feedback, but there is still a lot of polishing to do. Some years ago editing a strategy memo would have been a huge and perhaps not so rewarding task. Nowadays I'm getting used to this kind of work. The process of thinking, writing, commenting, and editing can be enjoyable, even if the result is just another memo.
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