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This is normal behavior for Grants.gov and may or may not be related to BIP and BTOP, the two major broadband programs; for earlier examples of Grants.gov problems, see this post and its references to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on Grants.gov problems, as well as "From the Department of "No Kidding:" Grants.gov Warns of Outages at High Service Period."

Sometimes Grants.gov problems result in an extension, and sometimes they don't, as detailed further at the links.

This is normal behavior for Grants.gov and may or may not be related to BIP and BTOP, the two major broadband programs; for earlier examples of Grants.gov problems, see this post and its references to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on Grants.gov problems, as well as "From the Department of "No Kidding:" Grants.gov Warns of Outages at High Service Period."

Sometimes Grants.gov problems result in an extension, and sometimes they don't, as detailed further at the links.

Do you have any evidence to support that claim? I ask because although there are plenty of problems with the current processes federal agencies use to review proposal submissions, corruption is seldom one. Most agencies use either staffers, who have little incentive towards the kinds of corruption you imply are rampant, or peer reviewers, who often have to be wrangled into the work.

In any event, if you actually display some knowledge about how the current system of funding distribution works, I would love to read it. If not, you might find reading my blog, Grant Writing Confidential, of interest.

The upshot is that too many agencies have too much money to cover regulation reviews, RFP development, technical support once RFPs have been issued, reviewers once RFPs have been received, and program officers to oversee awards once they've been made. These problems have been fairly well-known among nonprofits and grant writers for some time; that they're now making it to /. can't help but warm my heart, especially since I think we're writing a BTOP and BIP.

The upshot is that too many agencies have too much money to cover regulation reviews, RFP development, technical support once RFPs have been issued, reviewers once RFPs have been received, and program officers to oversee awards once they've been made. These problems have been fairly well-known among nonprofits and grant writers for some time; that they're now making it to /. can't help but warm my heart, especially since I think we're writing a BTOP and BIP.

We have been advised by the building engineering team that they anticipate restoring power to the Plaza East building in plus or minus 4 hours. We sincerely hope this is an accurate number and, if not, we will let you know as soon as we receive new information from the engineers.

Imagine my surprise at learning that the problem is big enough to make /.. Actually, what's even more surprising is the unplanned outage in the first place: I don't recall Adhost ever going down for this long, especially in the middle of the day.

We have been advised by the building engineering team that they anticipate restoring power to the Plaza East building in plus or minus 4 hours. We sincerely hope this is an accurate number and, if not, we will let you know as soon as we receive new information from the engineers.

Imagine my surprise at learning that the problem is big enough to make /.. Actually, what's even more surprising is the unplanned outage in the first place: I don't recall Adhost ever going down for this long, especially in the middle of the day.

I hate to break it to you, but the WSJ article implies that you can make money blogging. My article on Grant Writing Confidential argues otherwise. You may want to read the articles on which you're commenting with more care.

(Cue jokes in 3... 2... 1...)

Indeed, and that's the point of the second half of the original post: you're not going to make money through selling ads, or whatever. Rather, anything you might make is indirect through signaling your expertise in a way that's exceedingly difficult if not effectively impossible to fake.

Actually, come to think of it, that's a better description of blogs and money making than any other I think I've read.

FYI--the link to the Aeron page is broken; it should be here. Apologies!

Atmosphere or equipment. In my case, I like a quiet spot, an Aeron, and a Model M keyboard. Ridiculous? Maybe, even probably. But they help me get in the zone to work much more than, say, music, which I mostly find irritating.

No it isn't. Modern Fiction Studies is a technical (English) journal; the WSJ is a general newspaper written to the 10th -12th grade reading level. Its news stories don't require esoteric knowledge or deep background to comprehend; their stories are designed to be self-contained. Take a look at two of today's page one stories: Detroit's Troubles Lure World of Bidders and U.S., Europe Are an Ocean Apart on Human Toll of Joblessness.

Neither is particularly technical. Both summarize their main contents towards the beginning of the story ("Foreign bidders are lining up to pick off parts of General Motors Corp. as the contraction of the U.S. auto industry sets the stage for a global reshuffling.").

What is unique about the WSJ is that a) it doesn't use wire service copy and b) writes "deeper" stories that eschew "fire department pulls cat from tree" headlines for "an in-depth look at changes in the firehouse surrounding the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program" or something like it. People pay for the WSJ because they can't get its stories anywhere else, but that doesn't mean it's a technical journal.

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.

You're not the first one to express such sentiments regarding recent actions either. See our post Looking at the Stimulus Bill from a Grant Writer's Perspective:

Since last I wrote about the Stimulus Bill in Brush the Dirt Off Your Shoulders: What to Do While Waiting, the House has passed its version and the bill is staggering through the Senate. It's amusing to watch various senators say, like Captain Renault in my favorite movie, Casablanca, that they are "shocked, shocked to find pork in the Stimulus Bill." Just as there is likely to be gambling at Rick's Café Américain, one is likely to find more than a few curious items in the largest spending bill ever considered by Congress.

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.

You're not the first one to express such sentiments regarding recent actions either. See our post Looking at the Stimulus Bill from a Grant Writer's Perspective:

Since last I wrote about the Stimulus Bill in Brush the Dirt Off Your Shoulders: What to Do While Waiting, the House has passed its version and the bill is staggering through the Senate. It's amusing to watch various senators say, like Captain Renault in my favorite movie, Casablanca, that they are "shocked, shocked to find pork in the Stimulus Bill." Just as there is likely to be gambling at Rick's Café Américain, one is likely to find more than a few curious items in the largest spending bill ever considered by Congress.

If that's not enough, check out a post that has the intentionally long and obtuse title, A Primer on False Notes, Close Reading, and The Economic Development Administration's (EDA) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Program, or, How to Seize the Money in 42 Easy Steps, which explains recent EDA announcements and why some are merely announcements of announcements, as if one is inviting someone to receive an invitation.

These kinds of shenanigans and incompetence aren't unusual, but most people don't notice them most of the time. More occur throughout Grant Writing Confidential, which you can find at the links. The stimulus hoopla just makes these kinds of issues more prominent than they usually are, because who's going to read the Federal Register and use Grants.gov often enough to understand the problems and publicize them? No one, unless you're getting paid to do it.

Low transparency is the norm, not the exception.

If that's not enough, check out a post that has the intentionally long and obtuse title, A Primer on False Notes, Close Reading, and The Economic Development Administration's (EDA) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Program, or, How to Seize the Money in 42 Easy Steps, which explains recent EDA announcements and why some are merely announcements of announcements, as if one is inviting someone to receive an invitation.

These kinds of shenanigans and incompetence aren't unusual, but most people don't notice them most of the time. More occur throughout Grant Writing Confidential, which you can find at the links. The stimulus hoopla just makes these kinds of issues more prominent than they usually are, because who's going to read the Federal Register and use Grants.gov often enough to understand the problems and publicize them? No one, unless you're getting paid to do it.

Low transparency is the norm, not the exception.

Create a fast drawing program
Build a real-time spell checker with wavy red underlines
Warn users that they are going to lose their work if they hit the close box of the browser
Update a small part of the display based on a change that the user makes without a full roundtrip to the server
Create a fast keyboard-driven interface that doesn't require the mouse
Let people continue working when they are not connected to the Internet

These are not all big issues. Some of them will be solved very soon by witty Javascript developers. Two new web applications, Gmail and Oddpost, both email apps, do a really decent job of working around or completely solving some of these issues. And users don't seem to care about the little UI glitches and slowness of web interfaces. Almost all the normal people I know are perfectly happy with web-based email, for some reason, no matter how much I try to convince them that the rich client is, uh, richer.

And these issues shrink all the time. I agree with Joel regarding rich clients--I use Mail.app for e-mail, but virtually no one else I know does. Photoshop and Final Cut Pro aren't moving to the web anytime in the short to medium term, but other apps will, and it's hard to see this guy's ideas mattering. Sure, they might be true, but the web is still more convenient. For me, it's become a central repository for book and other commentary in the form of The Story's Story and write about grant writing at Grant Writing Confidential. Yeah, I write my posts in Textmate, but most people don't--and most people aren't going to buy and install Textmate.

And if you actually read the article, you'll discover that it has a number of cautions about translating what works in one country and culture to another. Unions appear to be part, but by no means all, of the current education problem in the U.S.

We discuss the article here.

This system has drawbacks for late-bloomers and others who are mis-tracked, but it makes schools look a hell of a lot better than the U.S. approach. The problem with comparing educational systems is that one first has to establish what you're comparing. If there were a panacea like your post implies ("Finish kids are not treated like babies"), it would've already been implemented, and the battles would be over.

We discuss some of the issues around education in Grant Writing Confidential, though the top posts are about other things at the moment.

Although it's about a unit of state rather than federal government, you could look at the story directly below this one concerning a Massachusetts man who was fired for (not) downloading porn on his computer. Given how well government tends to work -- more examples of it working (or not, once again) are available here, at GWC -- I'm not surprised that many free-thinking and brilliant people wouldn't be inclined to work for it.

I also write grants for nonprofit and public agencies, and the third item in this blog post involves some of the research into computers as educational devices. It isn't positive. That doesn't mean someone won't find a way to make computers useful in a statistically significant way, or that the next great hacker with a world changing idea won't get their first computing experience via OLPC or Intel's version or whatever, but it's harder to justify computers en masse without more solid evidence behind it.

It's ThousandStars, the original submitter here. Note that you can also get a reborn Apple Extended II keyboard called the Matias Tactile Pro 2.0; I also reviewed it, but unfavorably, and it suffers from a number of deficiencies the Customizer doesn't. Even Mac users (I am one) are better off with the Customizer.

More recently I began a business blog called Grant Writing Confidential with my Dad, and I had Wordpress install by our ISP because I was already familiar with it, in addition to all the advantages listed by the GP. By then, Wordpress had impressed me sufficiently that Movable type wasn't even in the running because I hadn't found any limitations or major irritations in Wordpress.

The big knock on Wordpress is that so many of the themes make it obvious that you're using a Wordpress blog. This has some validity and is true for my blogs, although a little bit less so for the second. Still, I think the reason so many blogs use a two- or three-column style is because it's logical way to organize a blog. Few people criticize books because they (mostly) have a spine and two covers and a table of contents and what not, while all that varies between them is art. I suspect we're entering that general phase of blogging, which also makes it easier to read blogs because you only have to figure out where the common elements are, rather than a whole new system for each blog.

In other words, Wordpress/Blogger motifs are creating a common user interface, making the presentation less important and the content more important. Sounds like my conception of what "Web 2.0" should be doing: making this easier on us. I'm not the first person to have thought along these lines, but it's still worth noticing. For that matter, /. could do worse than use the web-based posting window of Wordpress, with its "visual" and "code" views (he mutters to himself as he checks all his paragraph tags).

Can I see this for Joe with the private account, but not where it really counts.

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Plug for an example of a consulting website that won't use whitelists: Seliger + Associates