Moose on the loose

A moose decided to check out UAA's student union. Some suggested captions:

1. Hey buddy, aren't you a little young to be taking college classes?
2. More proof the university doesn't really care about the students: there's not even a sprig of willow in any of dining halls! You have to go off campus for some decent food!
3. UAA decides to hedge their bets against UAF next hockey season by recruiting a new netminder who can simply sit down in front of the goal.
4. Yes, UAA's admission standards have slipped a little bit. Still, he had an impressive list of extra curriculars.
5. Yes, I am a bit fuzzy from the lack of sleep. Why do you ask?
6. A moose looks for biologists to netgun and radio collar. 

This is what you get from me when I'm running caffeine and old episodes of Top Gear in the background while I scramble to get everything done in the next two weeks. What would you caption it with?

[Photo Credit]

Fairbanks is looking for a bioinformatics guru!

Here's an announcement that was recently sent out over evol-dir:

University of Alaska Fairbanks seeks a Unit Manager for the Life
Science Informatics/ Epidemiology Biostatistics cores. These cores
provide technical computing services, such as database development and
management, data dissemination services, optimization of technical
software, custom data analysis pipelining, maintenance of
computational clusters, and user training workshops to facilitate the
growth and maintenance of a diverse user group. This position is
jointly supported by campus-wide research groups, including the Center
for Alaska Native Health Research (CANHR), the IDeA Network of
Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), the IAB Spatial Ecology
Laboratory, and grants to individual researchers.

The position requires significant attention to both substance and
detail and a commitment to working collaboratively with faculty and
staff involved in the Institute of Arctic Biology, as well as at other
UA campuses. The Manager will interact with up to 150 researchers on a
regular basis, and oversee the work of programmers and system analysts
with an operational budget of approximately $750,000/yr.  Experience
with computer hardware including networks, clusters and servers, as
well as an understanding of programming and scripting are also
required. Capability in Red Hat or any Linux is required, while
familiarity with SQL, PHP and/or Perl are strong pluses.
Additionally, experiences in any field of bioinformatics are pluses.

Also desired are strong communication skills; human resource skills
for management of the work flow for a small highly skilled and
professional team, including direct supervision, budget authority and
planning responsibilities.
Typical education should include a graduate degree in bioinformatics,
biology, medical science or a related field with strong computational
aspects, or information technology/mathematics/statistics or related
field with demonstrated biology underpinnings.

To apply, go to UAKJOBS.COM.


More information about the supporting programs can be found here:

CANHR
INBRE
Life Science Informatics

University of Alaska Fairbanks is the flagship
university of Alaska with more than 10,000 students.  There are active
research programs in Biology as well as in
Chemistry and Biochemistry .  LSI also
provides the support to researchers in UA Anchorage
.

Additional information about Fairbanks, Alaska:
Fairbanks, Alaska is an exciting place for many people.  This job
offers a life-time opportunity for you to experience vibrant, diverse,
and adventurous life with the comfort of medium-sized city.  It is
conveniently located and the direct flight from Seattle WA takes only
3.5 hours.  It takes about 2 hours of driving to the magnificent
Denali National Park, which offers unparalleled wilderness experience.
For more adventurous, Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge or
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

can be easily accessed.  You can enjoy the midnight sun during the
summer.  Even in the winter, we have a lot of fun things to do.  The
shortest day is about 4 hours, but there are plenty of light before
the sun rise and after the sun set.  We generally do not have wind, so
it does not feel as cold as Chicago in the winter.   We have lots of
cultural activities such as active music community and arts, film and
music festivals, too (e.g., ).

A lot of us did not know how high the quality of life is in Fairbanks
until we moved here, and most of us fell in love with the "Last
Frontier" State.  I hope you'll take up this opportunity and join us.

What are you supposed to get out of college, anyhow?

The most excellent Dr. Palmer has written an interesting post on how she views many biology graduate students shoot themselves in the foot through focusing on the wrong skills in their tenure as students. While on whole I would agree with what she's written, especially the bits about non-transferable skills, I think the focus on `soft skills,` things such as lit reviews and public speaking, is slightly misguided.

While soft skills might help you get a job in the future (potentially one goal of a Ph.D. student), I'm not convinced they're the major determinant of your ability to get hired. You see, I've just suffered through a hiring committee - I wasn't actually on it, but everyone even tangentially affiliated with me was, which meant I might as well have been on it given how often I was caught up in conversations about it. While quite a few of the candidates were highly polished presenters, with style and panache, that didn't necessarily correlate with  getting into the final list of candidates.

What's more important, I would argue, is not the technical skills - those will vary over time. Learning R now is like learning SAS 15 years ago. Sure, it gives you a temporary window of relevance, but unless you're constantly chasing your tail picking up the latest technical skills, you'll quickly become irrelevant (Yes, I am arguing SAS is passé). But nor is it the soft skills - Billy Mayes would not be a top candidate in any academic job search, should he still be alive, no matter how much useless junk he can convince people to buy. The important things to get out of a Ph.D. education is an integrated worldview and conceptual framework upon which to hang your hat. It's raw knowledge.

Don't forget you're at an institute of higher learning. While there's just a bit more to a job search than being bright, in academia we tend to be awfully capitalistic in how we pick professors. Results matters, and to generate really good results, you either need to be a) lucky or b) good. Since you generally can't count on a lucky career path falling in your lap, it's better to focus on being good. And the most important aspect of conducting good research is not methodological prowess, or your ability to communicate your results to the public, but your ability to have the conceptual framework to conduct robust, appropriately nuanced research.

Here's a question I've found really reveals the strengths and weaknesses of any graduate, be it Ph.D. or B.S. Ask them, quite simply, "What do you think the big, unanswered questions in your field are?" If they start prattling on about P52 protein structure, it's clear they don't have the right conceptual framework, or they're hopelessly mired in the details. Likewise, if they feel there aren't any big parts of the map with "Here Be Dragons" written on it, they haven't thought critically about their field either.

A little bit of history on UAF campus

I had skied out to the outdoor rifle range on Rifle Range Road at UAF, as a group I'm with has been using it for some competitions. I'd asked one of them I was with what this blue building - decrepit, boarded and chained up, and littered with sheds and ATCOs.  It seemed like a strange building for the University to keep around.

After a while, I finally got around to asking some of the other people if they had any idea what it was, and one of the people who had been around Fairbanks a little longer said, "Oh, that's where they first heard Sputnik." Well, that's too interesting for me to just leave alone! I got what few details I could out of him at the time, and went home. After which, I did some digging around online. It turns out not only was Fairbanks the first place to hear Sputnik... but the first person to see it, to boot. And where and how did that person see them? Where else but on the outhouse:

As Davis reports in his book "Alaska Science Nuggets," Dexter Stegemeyer was the first Fairbanksan known to have seen Sputnik just clearing the western horizon, which was where it entered the view through his open outhouse doorway. Stegemeyer knew he'd seen something unusual, but only realized what it was after he heard a description of the satellite.)

That's from the GI's write up about hearing Sputnik, an Alaskan first. It's a great read, and barely tops a page. Definitely worth the read!

Dr Erich Follmann

Yesterday, at 8:30am, Dr. Erich Follmann passed on. Erich was a superior friend, colleague, teacher and scientist, and is already sorely missed. He was a warm, inherently likeable man, known for being level-headed and under-spoken. It is hard to find someone who would speak a word of ill against him, as he was not the sort to make enemies. I could learn so much about how he dealt with people.

Though sometimes he felt a bit like an anachronism, I soon found that it was because I failed to see the subtlety of his view of scientific topics. His understanding of wildlife diseases and epidemiology was impressively broad, and he helped greatly deepen our understanding of Rabies in the wild. He passed on so much knowledge to the newest generation of wildlife biologists through thoughtful, deliberative teaching process, both here at the university, and through outreach to the public at large. His knowledge of, and passion for Arctic Foxes was greater than any cliché could encompass.

It's not for his achievements as a scientist I will remember Erich, but as a fundamentally decent human being. I wish I could remember the first time I met Erich with any clarity, but from the beginning, I know I couldn't help but admire and respect the man. He had a warm personality, and was patient enough to always make time for people. More than once, Erich gave me invaluable advice that not only made me a better scientist, but I feel helped me realize what I need to do to become a better human. If I just knocked on his door (the one with the 'immunize your coyote' sticker on it, and the poster from his long time in Barrow), I knew that  he would make time for me. It's this I will maybe miss the most.

Erich, you were a great mentor and colleague. You are desperately missed.

Pictures

Not in the job description

I've been trying to figure out what I want to write about today that doesn't depress me so much it makes me want to hide under a blanket on my couch and never come out. Gulf Oil Spill? It's bad, getting worse. The Unimak caribou situation has turned into a political fight by both sides. I could comment on how I like the rain for putting out so many of the fires (I can breath!), but I'd be just stating the obvious.

Part of my lack of inspiration has come from the fact that usually, I have at least a little time to read over new papers and try to chew over them. But the last month I've been so busy with clearing out two research projects in advance of the fiscal year. "In advance of thewhowhatnow?" you might ask. That's about my reaction to it too. What's a fiscal year, and why the heck do they end at the end of June? And why do I have to clear out several grants before then?

Here's what they don't tell you in college: They spend all this time stuffing your head with bits of science and technique, and even bits of art and history on the side (since every degree has some general education requirements). Most people leave their undergrad with this feeling that at all you need to be a good scientist is the ability to do good science. This is a lie; it is a sin of omission. What you need is not the ability to do science, but to be an Accountant. In fact, the best academic scientist in the world must, by my reasoning, be a great accountant because so much of our time is lost in mindless accountancy. Balancing budgets, tracking cash flow, coding things to account, submitting logs with attached invoices, applying for new money, negotiating overhead, budget related expenditures, and god forbid if you're going to travel. I hope you kept your receipts from sneezing.

It's maddening. Pure madness. It's like you spend 50% of the time begging for money, 50% accounting for the money they gave you, and less than 0.1% of the time making science go forward. I exaggerate a little for effect, but there's a kernel of truth there.

And in all of the learning we do at university, not one day of our science courses is given to how to do any of this stuff. I envy the naturalists in the 1600s, where they were either people with life-long sponsors, or they were nobility. No reporting agencies, no paper trails. All you had to do was avoid getting strung up by angry peasants.

Scientists are getting old

Here's an interesting piece (sorry for the paywall) that argues what I've suspected - Science is getting older. And that's not a good thing.

That's the question behind a paper (abstract available here) released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper -- by Benjamin Jones, associate professor of management at Northwestern University -- argues that science has changed in key ways. Specifically, it argues that the age at which researchers are able to make breakthroughs has advanced, and that scientists are parts of increasingly larger teams, encouraging narrow specialization. Yet, he argues, science policy (or a lot of it) continues to assume the possibility if not desirability of breakthroughs by a lone young investigator.

Recently, I was telling a student considering making the jump into Math and Astronomy (from English) that they shouldn't worry about how old they are, as the average graduate student is now around 30 something. I forgot where I read that, but now I wish I could find it again. This mean most people start their professorial career (in academia) or move to commercial labs in their late 30s, if not 40s. The man who heads my research group at my last job typified this, having gone back to college when he was in his late 30s. Granted, a large chunk of his 20s was taken up by being in Vietnam.

Just to be contrarian (a healthy thing, in science) I'm not sure what the world needs is more collaborative research. Sure, it'll let us tackle bigger and bigger questions, but those big questions are increasingly narrow. Further, it feels like these massive collaborations are sort of the cludge solution to many of the problems. Instead of clever experimental design, we're substituting brute force.

Sometimes, I think the solution is to make people in both academia and industry to take a mandatory Patent Office period.

Grade Inflation meets Grade Deflation

A professor is booted from teaching a course because 90% of her class is getting low grads

"The class in question is an entry-level biology class for non-science majors, and, at mid-term, more than 90 percent of the students in Dr. Homberger's class were failing or had dropped the class. The extreme nature of the grading raised a concern, and we felt it was important to take some action to ensure that our students receive a rigorous, but fair, education. Professor Homberger is not being penalized in any way; her salary has not been decreased nor has any aspect of her appointment been changed."

But, as another professor pointed out,

Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor who is the founder of GradeInflation.com, a Web site that publishes research on grading, questioned whether LSU was really trying to help students. "How many times has Dean Carman removed a professor from a class who was giving more than 90 percent As?" he asked.

I've seen courses like that, where the instructor more-or-less phones it in, teaches little or nothing, and gives everyone high marks. One of the students here at UAF remarked that a lab portion of a class was "Hard because you have to do something each week." As opposed to what? Showing up and doing nothing?

In some countries, there is no notion of "extra-credit" Either you've master the material or you haven't. One instructor asked if it was very common here in the United States. He wanted to know if he should automatically dock a bit from each US student's grades (which is an suboptimal solution). There's parallels with public education, where some schools are scoring higher on tests mostly because they made the tests easier.

Socratic Soc. lecture on Richard Dawkins, Pt. 1

I went to the lecture at the UAF on Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion. I took pretty extensive notes, but note sadly the lecture was actually rather weak. The Q and A was actually pretty laid back for as sceptical as some were.  Here's my notes of what he said. They might or might not make sense.

---

Eduardo Wilner.
Philosophers dress like hobos. :)
Quotes Douglas Adams "People Will Be Offended."
Offensiveness comes from the Gut, not from reason.
Comment about Theology - Don't really need to address here.
Roadmap:

1. Arguments for God
2. Religion as a Phenomenon
3. Religion, Morality and Meaning.

"And then the Flying spaghetti monster ate Jesus."

The question shouldn't be "Do Science and Religion Clash" Obviously, they do. Question is, fundamentally should they?

Why don't we see icons of Darwin everywhere, but we do see Jesus on walls?

Scientific Thinking:

1. Find a phenomena
2. Come up with a model. Come up with a "experience feedback method."
3. Deduce a prediction
4. Make observation for the prediction.

Religious Thinking:

• Faith (of a supernatural nature) assenting to the divine truth through divine will
• Dogma - Divine revelation and some church authoritative teaching. 

NOMA: Non-Overlapping Mageseria
Gould says: Methedology should match subject matter.
Eduadro says not true. Apply both science and religion to origions, one gets "Eve", the other gets "Lucey." WEAK ARGUMENT
They have very overlapping magesterium .

Watch Vs. Rock - Find a watch, it must have a watchmaker.
     "Where is the damn watchmaker?"
     However, there is a hierarchy of the improbable.
Trying to invoke designing agent for life, universe, watches, invokes an infinite regression. Who designed the designer, etc. Designer is far more improbable than just the watch, without a naturalistic method for getting to the designer.

UAF: Harvard of the North. Everyone raises their hand saying they understand Natural Selection.


Religion as a phenomenon
Replicators don't need to be biological entities - can be thoughts/ideas.

Currently 2850 gods recorded.
Estimated 6 new gods per day in the world (!)
Religion formation is a regularly occurring phenomenon.

Religion as a byproduct of other brain traits

• Willingness to believe parents as a child.
• Vulnrable to viral ideas.
• Hyperactive Agent Detecting (We think the laptop/car/weather has a motive).

Gives humans preadapted niche for Religious memes.
      "Memes are creatures of the mind, but not our Creatures"

Religion and morality
Is there a objective moral truth without the divine?
"a) But is moral X right because god says so, or b) does god say so because it is right?"
     a) Arbitrary choice by a deity, so not objective.
     b) Objective morality even without deity.
God does not help philosophers prove there is an objective morality.

We cherrypick our morals
   "Sodom - Worse than New York!"
    "The X-Rated parts are left to mysterious ways."
    Use 10 Commandments (most of them) and ignore the bits about stoning and thread use and ritually murdering your kids.

Religion and Child Abuse?
    Can children be religious?
    Would we talk about "A Marxist kid?"

Indoctrination is NOT abuse.
    But training kids to ignore facts.
    A "Marxist Kid" can apply reason and reject Marxism as an adult.
    Religious Kid cannot, because Religion generally rejects objective reasoning.

Science and Meaning? "Think of us who die as lucky ... to have existed!"


Q&A:
Dave Klein strikes again: Separating people making up gods from people's religion. Different phenomena. Not necessarily linked.
Professor sounding guy: "I'm a little disturbed by your certainty." If you're wrong yesterday, who's to say you won't be wrong tomorrow?

---

I didn't take good notes in the Q&A section, and didn't write down his responses. On the whole, it was definitely worth a good think, even if I don't agree with many of the conclusions. I'm glad we can talk about this topic without people getting heated and nasty.
Does Gould's NOMA extend to philosophy? Philosophy tends to deal with un-knowables... e.g., this could all be a very vivid dream, and we can't prove it's not with science. I'm amazed by how Dave Klein can ask such pointed questions, even when it looks like he's not paying attention. We are lucky to still have him around. And finally, there was a very good crowd there. I wonder how many people show up to the next talk on Richard Dawkins' biology books. Those I'm infinitely more familiar with - The Selfish Gene is a must read for all graduate students.

Ice Sculpture outside Arctic Health

This one is outside Arctic Health building, and is composed of a moose wading through something, and two squirrels. It's nice, actually. I rather like it. Not as good as the wolf...

Sadly, right after I took this photo, the temp shot up and a lot of the sculptures got melty. So this is the last one I have for 2010.

Oranges

I'm taking a quick break from reading papers to marvel at the tropics that is my office. The University desperately needs a new building, and the legislature has been dragging its feet for years. Our building isn't equipped to do modern biology, is full of asbestos, and has two exterior walls that literally lack insulation. There are rooms that if you shut the door in the winter, the pipes will freeze. In fact, this building wasn't even finished when it was built. They paid to build half the building, but never found the money to build the other half.


My problem stems from the shoddy construction. See, each block of labs is on its own HVAC system, which cools or warms as needed. This is nominally controlled by a thermostat. The thermostat is in the building plans. The controller is looking for input from a theromstat. But a thermostat was never put in. So right now, my lab and office is heated more or less at random. Sometimes, it's bitterly cold inside here. Other times, like today, it's 30C, which is 87F for the metric impaired. I have a fan on in my office.

It is apparently so hot that I set down an orange on the counter. I inspected this orange this morning. I'm eating healthy these days, see. Fewer doughnuts, less coffee, more balanced lunches. Less salt in general. I read papers, skim over various and sundry things, before I realize 2 hours later that I should eat some atsaq with my kuuvviaq. I reach for my orange. It's rotten. It started rotting in just 2 hours of being in this microchasam of Brazil inside my office.

We really need that new life sciences building.

On a slightly sad note: Don't click on this link if you're sensitive, because it's dead albatross chicks. What did they die of? Islands of trash floating in the ocean, 2000 miles from the nearest continent. As most AKian can tell you, being far from villages or cities doesn't mean there isn't trash out there. And adult Albatros apparently mistake plastic for food, bring it back for the chicks to eat, who then die of starvation or choking.

This is a crime. And we have crime scene photos.

Ice Sculpture outside Signers Hall

 

Whereas the Museum has a confusing one, Signers Hall has a very boring ice sculpture. Very blasé idea. We already have 3 polar bears around campus!

Ice Sculptures outside Iriving

Not that I'm biased, but I think my department has the best ice sculptures this year, hands down. My photos don't do it justice. It's a wolf and an arctic fox.

Museum Sculpture 2010

It's kinda hard to tell, but it's a walrus on kemguuk. Definitely not my favourite. And with how fragile it is, a strong breeze or warm spell will destroy it.

Ahhh, winter break.

It's that time of year in the University, when the campus is a ghost town. Things are quiet, as students work on their finals, professors work on hiding from students, and Graduate Students try to slip out the back for a long vacation. You can hear a pin drop in the hall. Many of us choose to work at home if we can - I did yesterday, where I paradoxically got heaps more done than I ever do at work. There's no end of parking, which pleases me greatly, since I hate parking in Sri-flipping-Lanka.

As a side note, worrying about Parking is such a strange luxury. Just a hair over 100 years ago, some of my ancestors were worrying about starvation. Now, in 2009, I worry about having to walk 10 more minutes for parking.

This is one of the few times that a Academic job really shines. When people realize that working 50+ hour weeks for the previous 51 weeks has entitled them to slack off just a little bit. The rest of the year it seems like the onslaught is never ending: an endless parade of students, meetings, deadlines, expected overtime, proposals... It's almost bizarre, when you think about it, how much time goes to these alien tasks.

Some of us will take work home with us over the next week or so - I'm trying to limit myself to a book, "Genetics and the Extinction of Species." It seems potentially interesting, and I've been meaning to read it for a while. Maybe I'll blog it, if I'm feeling ambitious.

Gambling on your grades?

I got this link from Marginal Revolutions, an economics blog with multiple authors. There are markets in everything. Including, apparently, gambling on your grade:

While hanging out together one Sunday afternoon, I mentioned to my friend Steven Wolf that I had an exam the following day and that if I were to study I was sure to get an A. (At the time, I was a student at University of Pennsylvania.)  But I was enjoying my Sunday afternoon, and I told Steven that I had no intention of studying. That's when, in order to provide me with motivation, we made the following agreement: If I got an A on the exam, he would give me $100, and if I didn't get an A, I would give him $20. Steven and I quickly realized that lots of other students might like this kind of motivation.  To that end, we began developing what is now Ultrinsic Motivator Inc. - Jeremy Gelbart

 Ultrinsic.com is company that offers you a chance to buy class insurance, speculate on your grades, and other organized and legalized forms of gambling. I'm of mixed feelings on this. I do recognize that college education is a massive investment, and investments deserve insurance (Car, Home, Health...), so why not education? On the other hand, this makes me feel a bit uneasy. What do you all think? I'm curious to hear your two cents.

Sneak preview

It turns out I probably will present at the American Society of Mammalogists meeting. I submitted an abstract, so it'd be bad of me not to present. Lucky for you all, you can have an advanced peek at some of my slides (I know! So exciting!).
A slide of our sampling sites. We have to explain where Prince of Wales island is, since a good chunk of our crowd will be from outside...

Statistics. I know those get people's hearts going!

That's really what we talk about. Most presentations will be endless slides of stats interspersed with funny pictures to keep people awake for all 12 minutes. Many folks are challenged to put their whole presentation into such a short time, but it's to keep people who really like the sound of their voice from droning on.

Random thoughts

Can we make the Ducks-Wings series best of 15? Not because I want to give my boys in red and white more chance to win, but because there have been some great games. It's been genuinely enjoyable to watch.

Also, here's a poorly worded caption:

Bristol Palin on NBC's "Today Show" this morning with father Todd Palin and infant Tripp.

Uuuuuh. Ahem. Yeah. So!

So I'm drinking tea, and organizing my thoughts for the day. It's not been a great day, so far - I lost 3 hours of work this morning, when all the data I entered went ka-blammo before I even went into the office. I'm hoping things turn around before Avise swings by. Dr. Avise pretty much invented most of the scientific tools we use in my field, so I'm fairly humbled to have him visiting my few square metres of earth. And while I organize my notes, it occurs to me that people outside science don't really understand the importance of a lot of what we do.

No, I don't mean the math, and beaker, and measuring part of what we do. I think that's fairly understanble. But the social side - the meetings, seminars, symposia, poster sessions, and conferences... I'm not sure there's anything quite like it outside Science and Engineering. To someone else, it might look like I'm spending time getting ready to waste an hour with a big-wig, but to us, this is an important part of what we do. Ideas get exchanged, and you get feedback on where you're going. To scientists, ideas are king. Any idiot can count moose, but it takes ideas to turn that number into something useful, and productive.

And this is about where it dawned on me that I've got two feet in about three different cultures, here. The research world has its on social norms, its own language (That even scientists in other countries use), its own importent events... all it needs is its own foods, really.

Food for thought.

Authorship and other kudos.

In academic papers, there's two ways of thanking people. The first is to acknowledge their contributions by giving them some form of authorship. This is uncommon, and usually reserved for major contributions, because authorship implies they helped direct the research. Authorship is one of the things people look at when hiring, and again at tenure review.

The second way is a section called `Acknowledgements`. That section is for people who didn't do enough to deserve authorship, but made a contribution to the research none the less. Unless the field work was especially demanding, this is where people who do field work typically get stuck. Examples where field techs wouldn't be put there would be fossil/archaeological digs, studies that involved especially difficult sampling, very long-term work by an individual, and papers where the subject matter is field techniques (etc).

Now. A few years back I helped out some research with an unnamed PI. The work was difficult, but not exceptional. I figured in addition to the money I got for my aid, I'd get an acknowledgement out of it. Today, I saw the publication the research was for finally made it to press, and I open it up to see my name in print (something scientists love seeing).

But my name wasn't there. I scrolled the list - everyone else on my crew was there. Where's me? They didn't include my name anywhere.

I don't need it, but I would have liked to have seen it. And not including someone is one great way to kick a scientist in the face. At best, it means I've just been forgotten, and unappreciated. At worst, I've been outright snubbed. I hope it's the former, but either option isn't good.