- I go to https://pki1.doegrids.org/ca/ to get an OSG grid certificate.
- My browser encounters an unknown certificate problem while trying to access the site.
- This is a problem because it seems to me that a site that is trying to enforce security would probably not throw off some browser certificate error.
- I re-check the site address and go to it again. I get the same error.
- It takes me 20 minutes to decide whether to accept the unknown certificate in order to get my certificate.
- I finally decide to do it because I’m on a conference call with OSG VO folks and I don’t want to seem like I’m out of it. (At first when I describe the problem to the group, I feel like a real fool. But these folks are very gracious and understanding and want to create a good user experience so they patiently listen as I explain the problem. Thanks!)
- My browser encounters an unknown certificate problem while trying to access the site.
- I complete the application for the cert and then submit it. I have the advantage of directions and of knowing what my VO is and who my sponsor is.
- I receive an email that my first cert application has been canceled and I should make a new request.
- I receive an email that my first cert application has been approved
- I email someone who tells me that I do, indeed, have to request a new cert.
July 24, 2009
Greg’s OSG Certificate Experience
April 3, 2009
GPN2009 Planning Committee Mtg: 4/3/2009
1. Sponsorship:
- Randy sent list of potential sponsors to PC list.
- Juniper or Force10 contacts needed - Greg look up at I2 site about this and send to Randy.
- AT&T for connectivity.
- Invite vendors to the welcome reception.
- Request prizes from vendors for students.
2. Program:
- Submissions
- NSF Proposal Preparation Session: Engineering, SBE, CISE — Brown Bag Lunch or Major Presentation
- Bruce will send info about NSF workshop and presenters to all
3. Publicity
- Kate emails to GP list — feel free to forward
- Mention poster competition to students
- NSF workshop content
- Publicity from KU - email and print out, stick up on bulletin boards, mail out to departments.
4. Hotel
- Ready to register now.
February 25, 2009
Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Inventory
The Goal
As part of the GPN CI meeting, the need for an inventory of
- CI capability,
- significant projects,
- tools (e.g., middleware), and
- datasets and applications (e.g., BLAST)
from each GPN member was identified. The purpose is to facilitate more rapid response to RFPs from funding agencies that are best submitted by collaborations of individuals from multiple universities with complimentary expertise. (Even the faculty at your institution are not always completely aware of what is available to them, and this data-gathering should be of benefit in that case, as well.)
Please note: This is all publicly available information. It is published by NSF and is available in funding agency databases. this is just a more efficient means of gathering the information.
A Partial Solution
Every two years the National Science Foundation does a survey of research capability for many universities. Dr. Leslie Christovich of NSF provided a blank copy of the survey that was used in 2007. Several universities have completed that form and returned it in order to fulfill the CI capability portion of the inventory.
Dr. Christovich has offerred to send completed surveys to those who would like them as part of this effort and so that you do not have to complete it a second time. You may then forward the survey to me.
So far we have received several completed surveys from universities and the data has been posted at the GPN Wiki.
If you would like to receive a copy of your university’s completed survey, please let me know and I will forward Leslie’s email address to you.
If you would like to fill out the survey yourself and send it on, you can find a fillable pdf version at http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/images/1/1a/Nfs-survey.pdf. Note: You cannot save the completed form unless you are able to save it as a pdf.
Since this is all going to end up on a wiki, you can do that yourself at If you would like to fill out a wiki page, or cut and paste into a Word document, then the info is here http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/index.php/Ci-survery-blank.
February 24, 2009
Brown v Board of Education - Things I Learned
Today, representatives of the 5 cases that ultimately made up the Supreme Court case now known as Brown v Topeka Board of Education presented a living history event that engaged high school students from 8 schools in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. In one case, the event was attended by the entire senior high school class.
- There were 5 cases that made up the case that we now refer to as Brown v Topeka Board of Education. It was a collaboration of many individuals.
- The Topeka case was the one that tested the separate but equal doctrine because there were, in fact, separate schools for African-Americans, however they were equal in terms of the quality of education with excellent teachers, many with advanced degrees.
- A series of pictures demonstrating the difference among schools in North Carolina were presented, including the lack of indoor plumbing for the black schools.
- The Virginia case was actually a student-led effort, where students went on strike. This foreshadowed the student demonstrations and efforts that came later. It was referred to as a “Manhattan Project” of sorts, requiring a great deal of planning and thought on the part of the participants.
- The Delaware case was initiated on behalf of a student with a heart problem who had to go a long distance to attend Howard High School, the first black high school in the US and the only school for African-American students of high school age in Delaware.
- In Topeka, the schools were immediately integrated, but the African-American teachers were not allowed to continue teaching in the schools system. One panelist explained that he felt alienated in his new, integrated school because of the loss of the caring teachers he knew.
- In Delaware integration was an issue until at least 1979.
- In Topeka the Brown case was reopened several times and as late as the 1990s.
- Kansas only desegregated elementary schools in town of 15,000 or more population. That was three cities. (High schools in Kansas were already integrated.)
- Rather than being a negative thing for a city or state to be associated with the Brown v Board case, panelists felt that this was a real positive thing: As one panelist put it, “The nation finally got it.”
- Not one of the members of the five cases was invited to the inauguration.
- It was pointed out that Brown v Board not only paved the way for the US civil rights movement, it also paved the way for Title IX and participation of women in sports as well as other changes that contribute to a more just society.
More information at http://collaboration.greatplains.net/k20.
February 20, 2009
Change Blindness
Dr. Dan Simons from the University of Illinois’ Visual Cognition Lab (http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/) discussed what he has come to call change blindness. Dan’s work has been featured most recently in Scientific American, Newsweek, and a number of new shows. Change blindness is a phenomenon in visual perception in which very large changes occurring in full view in a visual scene are not noticed.
If you haven’t seen any of the relevant research, go to http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html for demos. Read http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/overviewCB.html for an overview.
I often think that people should see things that are right in front of them, but after listening to Dan, I realize that I’ve been a bit to hard on others. It turns out that there are HUGE gaps in what ultimately makes it into perceptual awareness much less memory of an event. Dan makes the point that we often hold others guilty for what they missed, when in fact it’s much more usual that people don’t remember HUGE CHANGES that happen right in front of them–because they are focusing on something else.
It makes me think about the current economic crisis–why didn’t people see it coming? (Why didn’t I see it coming?) Seems like that falls in the category of change blindness, as well. Check it out!
Anniversary of Darwin’s Birth: William Jennings Bryan & Evolution
As a child, I was always intrigued by the movie version of the play “Inherit the Wind.” It is about the Scopes Monkey Trial and the movie stars Frederick March and Spencer Tracey. The William Jennings Bryan character (known as Mathew Harrison Brady in the play), who opposed teaching evolution, is depicted as a buffoon. Later in life, I learned that the real William Jennings Bryan was quite a progressive individual. So, why did he oppose the teaching of a scientific theory?
In the book Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory (Modern Library Chronicles), Edward J. Larson explains that the concept of natural selection was used, early on, as a rationale for eugenics–including sterilization and selective breeding. The eugenics movement started much earlier, and the modern movement began in the 1860’s by Sir Francis Galton. It was a movement in search of a scientific raison d’etre. Natural selection became that scientific reason. And, apparently, this is what many early reformers like Bryan opposed–natural selection (thus, evolution) as a rationale for eugenics. In this context, it makes Bryan’s opinions more understandable.
SUN Microsystems and Campus Outreach
On Monday, February 9, I participated in a call with Cliff Smith, Tina Bhasin and Tzietzel Anselmo-Ramos of SUN Microsystems to discuss their Campus Ambassador Program. I learned quite a bit about SUN’s commitment to open source and signed up at their OSUM (pronounced “Awesome!”) web site (http://osum.sun.com) to see how they are engaging students around topics related to open source.
I have to applaud their efforts to get behind the open source initiative and provide resources to interested students.
February 3, 2009
The GPN blog is now updated to WordPress 2.7. Coming up next, Shibboleth extension for WordPress so your Shibboleth accounts will work.
January 5, 2009
GPN Collaborative CI Meeting Minutes for January 2, 2009
Discussion from January 2, 2009
- Rules of Engagement for funding – Rick McMullen
- Working group to draft – Rick will put together a drafting group and come up with some recommendations for the January 16 meeting
- Approval by RAB?
- Working group to draft – Rick will put together a drafting group and come up with some recommendations for the January 16 meeting
- Review of the CI Summit information –
- Carol may need to speak to the scribes of each working group to discuss core issues vs. strategies
- Greg will email Carol the names/groups/emails for each scribe
- Carol may need to speak to the scribes of each working group to discuss core issues vs. strategies
i. Infrastructure: Rebecca Ryan
ii. Applications : Bill Ashmore
iii. Tools: Denis Hancock
iv. Funding: Rick McMullen
- Document to influence re middleware, federations – Gordon Springer was to come up with a draft and circulate
- We do have KU working: Thanks to John Bellassai, Denis Hancock, and Kate Adams who got this going over break
- We do have KU working: Thanks to John Bellassai, Denis Hancock, and Kate Adams who got this going over break
i. Documentation is available at the wiki
-
- Discussion of
- Discussion of
i. Rick pointed out the potential benefit of this site if we can leverage it to our mutual benefit.
1. Adding services, adding storage – this should not be all left up to Gordon and his crew to manage on their own.
ii. How do we get entitlements to users at other campuses?
1. Greg mentioned the concept of one person at each campus who has administration privileges.
iii. How do we help influence Internet2 in terms of incorporating this into the larger framework?
- What are state by state costs estimates for networking needs from GPN region? John Connally is asking in terms of a future CI EPSCoR planning effort.
- GPN Clusters
- Bridge between local campus and OSG
- Bridge between local campus and terragrid
- Andy Fleming pointed out that we should take advantage of opportunistic computing (Condor) – and Henry Neeman’s expertise in this area.
- Rick discussed taking this to the level of sharing larger equipment across boundaries – take this beyond limited GPN resources to campus production resources.
- Perhaps we need a planning/working group? If you are interested, contact list.
- Bridge between local campus and OSG
- Note: We had a request to run NWCHEM on something larger than a 16-node cluster from a researcher at a GPN member institution. If you have any insight into this, please contact Greg or Kate. (greg or kate @ greatplains.net).
Greg
Happy New Year!
December 20, 2008
Minutes: GPN Collaborative Cyberinfrastructure Meeting: 12/19/2008
Attending from KSU: Dan Andresen,
- Diverse working groups identified that without a proper assessment of the current state of affairs (inventory of what is being done and what is available) it is difficult to set clear cut objectives for what can be done next.
- Organization, in the form of the inventory, is likely to seed new and creative ideas.
- The more complete that the information is, then the more valuable it will become.
- Corollary is that the value grows as we add to it
- Corollary is that the value grows as we add to it
- The inventory can lead to sharing expertise and equipment;
- The inventory can be leveraged for funding and proposals.
We discussed several additional ways to proceed to get the information:
- Direct survey – we are going to have to do the hard work of actually gathering the info
- Checking facility statements in submitted proposals
- Determining whether the research capability statements to NSF contain any info on CI
Action Item: Greg will find out name of survey from NSF on research capability and whether it has info on CI.
Action Item:
Action Item: In preparation for development of a robust social networking site, anyone willing to show and tell a system (e.g., MUSE, MERLOT) can schedule a time to do this and we will set up a gotomeeting event where everyone can just tune in. Volunteers needed.
Also, if you are a FACEBOOK devotee, there is now a Great Plains Network group that you can join.