Over Christmas break I spent some time talking to my Dad's boss Harvard - all in all a cool guy. I wanted to see what he thought about distributed systems among other things. I asked him why Kansas State University didn't use their lab and library computers to participate in projects like Folding@Home, his response floored me. Harvard said that they didn't run systems like this because of the liability involved. Of course, I didn't see running a system like this as a liability so I asked him to explain, which he did. Apparently, because the machines where purchased with state funds they can only be used to support state-funded projects. Nice. Projects like Folding@Home may open many doors to our understanding of the human body and future medicines, but politics takes precedence. Then I got to thinking that most state run universities probably have these restrictions, and that this is a major road block to the development of GRID computing environments. How can you build an cooperative computing environments if all of the participants are only allowed to run projects that are sponsored by their home institutions, or perhaps it doesn't matter so long as the machines being used were purchased for the explicit purpose of building a GRID (which I hope is the case).
In news related to the title of this page: I'm depressed again. I'm not feeling like doing anything, though I managed to finish a painting today. I guess I don't consider painting a productive activity. I enjoy it for the sensation of the process not because I'm especially good at it, I'm not. I have a relatively good command of color and composition, but I'm limited by my elementary command of perspective when working with a brush. Everything looks a little cartoonish or flat. I can say definitively that I have aspired to mediocrity in this arena, and while I enjoy the process, I'll never be a master. Perhaps this fact is what I most enjoy about the process - that I'm not really trying to master it, or to improve at all. That I'm simple when I paint. And that I don't think too much while I'm painting. It is a way for me to reconnect with the physical world instead of living my life in the space between my ears.
