IEEE Spectrum has an article about the reduction in federal funding for computer science research. In 2005, the hit rate for NSF proposals was only about one in five:
... the National Science Foundation... While in years past, the directorate supported 30 to 35 percent of the proposals it received, by 2004 the funding rate had been halved, to 16 percent, while in 2005 it was 21 percent.
I continue to be interested in open standards (primarily RFC 2445) for calendaring. You can listen to a fairly technical talk (one of the topics is CalDAV) or check out the CalConnect.org page.
It shouldn't be surprising that folks like Chertoff and Rumsfield don't do email: there's less to be subpoenaed. It reminded me of Tiffany Shlain's coffee klatch at Fresno State yesterday where she talked about DWID (Don't Write It Down). That is, assume everything you send in email will be public. In the corporate world, some of the "concern" about email is because of the Sarbanes-Oxley act.
