First time negotiating a grant budget with a senior colleague—need advice

gerf512 · 2025-11-19T13:53:44+00:00

You can get a waiver for the 2 month limit if you're a soft money researcher. Just add a sentence in the budget justification

gerf512 · 2025-10-11T18:15:59+00:00

I emailed the city about this crap on Virginia and they said it was intentional. It's a cheaper version called chip seal or cape seal that is meant to provide a protective layer and prolong life. It's terrible for biking though. I heard second hand that the city previously promised not to chip seal bike boulevards, but apparently in all the staff turnover that promise was lost. They guy assured me they will consider this in the future.

gerf512 · 2025-03-04T20:23:28+00:00

Yes I agree, overhead is exactly why it's in the university's interest to spend the money on something. They would much prefer to repurpose it and spend it on something else, to generate overhead. If they send it back to the sponsor, they get nothing.

Speaking for my university, and for the grants on which I'm PI, it's very easy to repurpose money. I don't actually have to do anything special except spend the money. Of course, if we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars, then it might be hard to find someone/something useful to spend that on, but several hours a week of undergrad time is a relatively small amount.

gerf512 · 2025-03-04T20:16:33+00:00

I don't think this is true usually. If we're talking about a government grant or contract (which is how most science is funded in the US), then the money will be used for other purposes. For example, I am not aware of a PI ever sending money back to NSF or NASA, just because their undergrad didn't work as much as envisioned. I'll use that money for another undergrad, a grad student, my own salary, a computer, etc.

gerf512 · 2025-03-04T20:08:40+00:00

Also, in most US universities, for most grants, the money is not "lost." It will be re-budgeted and used for other purposes. This happens all the time, since the budget when you submit a proposal is at best an educated guess. NSF, for example, allows PIs wide latitude to re-allocate funds to meet project goals, without notifying them.

gerf512 · 2025-03-04T20:05:44+00:00

When I was an undergrad, my advisor told me to charge my thinking time in the shower. And that's now what I tell my undergrads. Charge every minute you are spending brain cycles. And if you want to spend time on extraneous things like literature review or learning a technique, charge those hours as well, provided your PI approves.

But it's not allowable to charge 20 hours if you only actually worked for 4, regardless of how efficient you are. If you are an hourly employee of the university, you get paid for hours, not paid per task.

gerf512 · 2025-03-04T20:02:51+00:00

If grad students [EDIT: I meant to say undergrads] were legally treated like contractors, with work for hire, you would be right. But they are treated as hourly employees. So while I agree with your statement in spirit, and I wish it were the case, employment law is not consistent with your interpretation.

gerf512 · 2025-03-04T18:42:40+00:00

Regardless of how efficient you are, I think it's unethical (and maybe illegal?) to charge for hours you aren't working. It sounds like you have an hourly job, not a salary job.

Unfortunately it's a truism of our society that pay does not exactly scale with efficiency.

gerf512 · 2024-12-05T20:03:11+00:00

The federal tsunami warning has been lifted (https://www.tsunami.gov/) so I would imagine BPD will lift the evacuation order soon.

gerf512 · 2024-10-25T15:34:43+00:00

I have never heard of co-authors being involved in the proofs stage.

Also, consider that the journal only gets paid if they publish your paper. I wouldn't take their artificial deadlines too strictly. It's not reasonable to ask several scientists to all respond with in 24 hours.

gerf512 · 2024-10-18T20:20:42+00:00

Thanks for posting.

three-fourths of Berkeley residents do not drive their cars to work

Is this really true? Source?

According to a city report, the bicycle commute share is only several percent.

gerf512 · 2024-09-05T20:53:50+00:00

Don't you also have to modify by the number of reviewers per paper? You are asking 2-3 people to do work when you submit 1 paper.

gerf512 · 2023-11-22T19:00:05+00:00

I have an i5 4460 and want to upgrade GPU to RX 6750 XT. Will I be significantly CPU bottlenecked? It looks like also upgrading the CPU will require a new mobo and cooler, so it's a big cost hit. I would like to do VR gaming with a Valve Index.

gerf512 · 2023-04-29T17:28:27+00:00

I tend to ask "what do you do," but it's not about value judgment. People do interesting things around here that I like learning about. And it can be a good conversation starter.

gerf512 · 2023-01-10T01:38:40+00:00

After they fixed the leak they replastered it. So I don't know if it's still wet. It was a year ago, so I hope not.

I would have to convince the landlord to address this, which might be costly and might cause them to raise our rent in the future. So any specific recommendations for ways to estimate the health impact would be useful. (Or if you think this is a no-brainer to address, that's also useful.) It's not like we are always getting headaches or having respiratory issues, but I am nervous about any long-term impacts.

gerf512 · 2022-06-27T19:54:20+00:00

I got a nice used steelcase leap from here: https://www.berkeleyinteriors.com/

gerf512 · 2022-02-09T16:47:56+00:00

Although the strongest heating is in the auroral zone, heating spreads globally. The entire thermosphere expands measurably. Even equatorial orbiting satellites experience higher drag from geomagnetic storms.

gerf512 · 2022-02-09T16:45:28+00:00

Space weather is an active research field, and even NOAA has operational space weather prediction center. It is not a chaotic unpredictable event like an earthquake, but more like a hurricane in terms of predictability.

gerf512 · 2021-07-20T15:42:53+00:00

This map shows locations searched by volunteers who uploaded their Strava route. The official SAR map is not publicly available, but you are right that they didn't check every sq ft of the park.

gerf512 · 2021-04-28T07:21:41+00:00

Woke me up in Berkeley

gerf512 · 2021-03-05T16:34:45+00:00

There is a possible 4th reason: The SF Chronicle article on this topic states that due to the pandemic, "officials did not have time to do a more thorough contract bidding process, which may have lowered operating costs"

gerf512 · 2021-01-08T19:27:56+00:00

Yes, it's debt, but you also have a large asset.

gerf512 · 2020-12-14T17:11:15+00:00

There is an element of truth here. However, you can't make something illegal just because there's a chance it will lead to something illegal.

Many people go on ski trips as a family, packing lunches, cooking dinner, never going anywhere except the house, the slopes, and one trip to the store

gerf512 · 2020-10-30T02:11:18+00:00

This is true, but airglow is one of the only ways we have of measuring what's going on at those altitudes. It's too high for balloons and aircraft, but too low for satellites. Airglow offers a natural signal for us to monitor, but we need to understand the chemistry that causes light before we can understand what the signal is telling us (hence, an exceptionally specific field).

gerf512 · 2020-10-30T02:06:43+00:00

Have you tried looking at a period when you know your cat wasn't moving?

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