The list of this years MacArthur award winners is out. The MacArthur awards are half-million dollar no strings attached awards for “creativity, orginality, and potential.” I will brag that Berkeley ended up with three awards this year. OK, that’s enough bragging. At times like this, I think it is important to revisit this classical article from the Onion:
MacArthur Genius Grant Goes Right Up Recipient’s Nose
October 15, 2003 | Issue 39•40
ALBANY, NY—According to friends, the $500,000, five-year, no-strings-attached MacArthur Fellowship awarded to Jim Yong Kim earlier this month went right up the 43-year-old scientist’s nose. “Kim’s efforts to eradicate drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis in Russian prisons and Peruvian ghettos amazed everyone—as did his appetite for top-grade cocaine,” Marisa Amir said Monday. “As soon as that first check arrived, Kim was on the phone with his dealer, and two hours later, he was in a hot tub full of strippers.” His first installment of money gone, the scientist then returned to the task of developing a whole-cell cholera toxin recombinant B subunit vaccine.
If it really is unrestricted, I wonder if you can take the money and put it all on the number 13 in roulette?
Well, less taxes, why not?
I’m more interested in my boss’ talk about a group retreat in the Dominican Republic over winter break…
Well, speaking as someone who is partial to roulette, I have looked into this issue and found that although the MacArthur foundation won’t stop you, your sponsored research office will.
ps. Did I ever tell you I once saw a guy lose 315,000.00 (yes, 10^[5.5]) Euros on a single spin of the wheel in Monte Carlo?
So clearly this means that it is best to be unaffiliated with an academic institution when you win the award 😉
Do you think cocaine could help in getting original ideas in physics? Opium certainly helped guys like Baudelaire and Rimbaud!
Man, I just hate when I lose 400 grand in one spin of a roulette wheel.
I remember that Onion classic…. takes me back to the good old days when you could tell that their political articles were a parody…
Now I wonder if that guy just got the MacArthur. Or maybe it was Greg…?
It can be hard to find direct sources of government grants, let alone a source that would actually consider your appplication. Recently I found a few websites that lay it all out for you, all the sources, websites and telephone numbers you need to apply to numerous agencies that offer any type of grants. I also found a great resource that takes you by the hand and tells you how to write the perfect grant application. You can check it out here:
http://www.governmentgrantsinc.com
LOL seems like the guy is really ‘paying through the nose’.
You would of thought he could secure a cheap supply spending time in Peru.