Blogging for August

A commenter noted I haven't posted much to the blog for July. Happily, there's no dark secret underlying the slow pace of posting -- things are simply quieter (no students, faculty disappearing), and yet at the same time busier (research!), over the summer. There's plenty of stuff in the pipeline to eventually write about, but many things aren't quite ripe enough to post about yet. (Those of you reviewers sitting on my journal submissions and revisions, which it seems like you've had for a loooong time, please try to get through them, so I have one more thing to blog about...)

Indeed, this summer has, if anything, seemed busier with research than I remember from summers past. Like all faculty, I dread going through the explanations to neighbors/friends/relatives/people you meet at a barbeque who ask what you're doing during the off time in the summer, since summer is actually the time when, as I like to tell the undergraduates, the "real work get done." (I leave it to the students to decide how seriously to interpret the statement.) Summer is always filled with the opportunity to start new projects and learn new things, finish off journal versions that have languished too long, and tie up things in time for summer and early fall deadlines. This summer has been filled with all of the above; we'll see what interesting comes out of it all, hopefully soon.

So I'll start trying to work on producing more posts, but in the meantime, have a look at this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, which has yet more on the Gates affair, a commentary on the University of California cuts (well, focused on Chinese history, but still), and news about the BU students who just a judgment of $675,000 handed down against him for illegal music downloads. Or check out those NSF deadlines, medium grants for CISE cross-cutting programs, CNS, and CCF are all at the end of August! (Yikes! Grant proposals -- the other job of summer...)