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A new style of scientific research called convergence holds great promise in biomedicine, but adequate funding and some changes in how science is organized will be required for the new approach to prosper, says a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled at a AAAS-hosted forum.
The MIT white paper says the emerging field of convergence—which brings together the life sciences, the physical sciences, and engineering—should create a "third revolution" in biomedical research. It would follow the revolution that started with the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 and the subsequent genomics revolution, begun in the 1980s, that led to mapping of the human genetic blueprint.
While convergence may lead to advances in many sectors, including energy, food, climate and water, the authors of the MIT report focus on health research because, as they write, "we believe that this field is ripe for new discoveries and can powerfully demonstrate the benefits of convergence."
Engineering techniques have long been applied to health research—the birth of the X-ray in 1895 led to a revolution in how doctors imaged the body— but the new excitement goes beyond simply transferring tools from one science to another.
Phillip Sharp
As the MIT report notes, convergence establishes a two-way street in which "fundamentally different conceptual approaches from physical science and engineering are imported into biological research, while life science's understanding of complex evolutionary systems is reciprocally influencing physical science and engineering."
"We see convergence as part of an activity that will expand the economy in the country as well as create new jobs," said Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp, one of the report's authors and an MIT Institute Professor. He noted that about a third of MIT's engineering faculty has begun to take some aspect of the life sciences into their research programs over the past decade.
While the collaborations across disciplines are encouraging, some speakers predicted that the new world of convergence is likely to shake up traditional ways of doing things in funding agencies and research institutions.
Alan I. Leshner
Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS and executive publisher of Science, told the 4 January forum that the new model "raises an array of very serious issues for the infrastructure of science and engineering because it, in fact, challenges the traditional disciplinary structures that we all are so comfortable with." Convergence could signal "the demise of disciplinary science," Leshner said.
Sharp said convergence will require adequate funding from the federal government and elsewhere in order to thrive. The report calls for consistent funding levels that meet or beat inflation in order for the National Institutes of Health "to plan and incorporate a more promising and diversified-risk research portfolio." Sharp said the peer review process also must be reformed in order to support interdisciplinary grants and nurture the expertise to evaluate the impact of novel research approaches.
Leshner predicted that the increasing integration of research disciplines is going to threaten traditional academic institutions and their organizational structures. Funding agencies "are really no better off," he said. Both the academic institutions and the funding agencies will need to think ahead, Leshner said, on how best to evaluate and reward those who participate in team research efforts rather than the more traditional laboratories presided over by a single principal investigator.
Speakers at the AAAS forum cited MIT's new Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research as an example of how to incorporate convergence into the infrastructure of science. Biologists, engineers, and others in the physical sciences work together in a new building and on the same floors.
Tyler Jacks
yler Jacks, director of the institute, cited several examples of the work being pursued, including engineering of nanoparticles into homing devices that improve drug delivery by targeting only cancerous cells and development of sensors that can be implanted into the body to monitor the state of disease and the response to therapies in real time.
Jacks noted the benefits of having young engineers talk to young geneticists and materials scientists talk to cell biologists, teaching each other different languages of science and different approaches while also learning new approaches collectively. It will be important, Jacks said, to foster cross-disciplinary training programs "to prepare the next generation of investigators to carry out the type of work that, frankly, their mentors are only partially prepared to do."
Paula Hammond
Paula Hammond, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT, described other examples of convergence, including a device called the CTC chip (for circulating tumor cells) that was created by a team of Boston-area scientists led by Mehmet Toner of Massachusetts General Hospital. The small chip is covered with 78,000 microposts, each coated with antibodies that bind to specific markers that are found on tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream. Such cells are thought to be the root of incurable metastatic cancers. The chip has detected circulating tumor cells with more than 99 % accuracy and is now in clinical trials through a partnership with Johnson & Johnson.
Margaret Hamburg
Whether such products of convergence benefit patients in a timely fashion will require some advances in regulatory science as well, according to Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Hamburg, who spoke at the forum, expressed her enthusiasm for the future of convergence. But at a time of enormous advances in biomedical research, she said, there needs to be corresponding improvement in regulatory science so FDA will have the expertise to properly assess the safety and efficacy of new approaches.
"We need to marry the opportunities in science with the ability to really assess important issues for successful products for patients," Hamburg said. Otherwise, she said, promising therapies may be discarded during development because regulators lack the tools to recognize their potential. Similarly, better tools might help eliminate ineffective products and therapies earlier in the pipeline, Hamburg said.
Alan Guttmacher
Alan Guttmacher, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, told the forum that he and other officials at the National Institutes of Health also are coming to grips with the new world of convergence.
"NIH is acutely aware of the fact we need to work more creatively, more collaboratively across institutes" as well as with other federal agencies, Guttmacher said.
Despite the very tight funding climate, he said, "this is not a time for us to retreat, or for us to say we are just going to hunker down and keep doing what we are doing." The fiscal environment demands that "we need to rethink the fundamental ways in which we are carrying out research," Guttmacher said, and look for new models to do research more effectively. He called convergence "a perfect example of the type of things that we should be doing."
Others who spoke at the forum included Tom Kalil, deputy director for policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT; and Keith Yamamoto, professor and executive dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Read "The Third Revolution: the Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering."
Watch a video of the MIT forum hosted by AAAS.


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Defense Rests Case In Sandusky TrialResume
BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- Jerry Sandusky's lawyers finished putting on their case Wednesday without calling the former Penn State assistant football coach to the stand to rebut child sex abuse allegations that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.
The sudden end to the defense's presentation came on the seventh day of the trial, during which the jury heard from eight men - now 18 to 28 - who said the former coach sexually assaulted them after they met him through the charity he founded.
Sandusky is charged with 51 criminal counts for alleged abuse of 10 boys over 15 years. He has denied the allegations but acknowledged in interviews following his arrest that he had showered with boys.
The accusers described for jurors a range of sexual abuse as his hands, from allegations of grooming and fondling to oral sex and forced anal sex that one young man said left him injured. The identities of two other people prosecutors say were victims are unknown to investigators.
The defense has suggested the accusers have financial motivations for their claims and were improperly influenced by investigators. They also put on character witnesses who spoke of Sandusky's sound reputation and his wife, who said her husband didn't do anything inappropriate.
The defense rested after an approximately 40-minute closed-door meeting involving attorneys, Sandusky and the judge overseeing the case. Under Pennsylvania law, a defendant must waive his right to testify on his own behalf, but it doesn't have to happen in open court.
The next step in the trial is closing arguments, set for Thursday morning.
Earlier Wednesday, the defense sought to undercut testimony from a former graduate assistant who told jurors he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a boy inside a football facility shower.
Dr. Jonathan Dranov, a family friend of Mike McQueary, said he spoke to McQueary the night McQueary claimed to have seen Sandusky engaging in a sex act with a boy of about 10.
Dranov testified that McQueary described hearing "sexual sounds" and seeing a boy in the shower and an arm reach around him and pull him out of view. McQueary said he made eye-contact with the boy and Sandusky later emerged from the showers, Dranov said.
That account differs from what McQueary told a grand jury that investigated Sandusky and what he told jurors last week.
McQueary testified he saw Sandusky pressing a boy up against the wall inside the shower, and that he had no doubt he was witnessing anal sex. McQueary's report to his superiors - and Penn State officials' failure to go to outside law enforcement - is what ultimately led to the firing of longtime coach Joe Paterno.
Dranov told the jury that McQueary didn't provide him with a graphic description of what he saw, but described hearing sounds he considered sexual in nature.
"It just seemed to make him upset so I backed off that," Dranov said.
When prosecutors asked Dranov to describe McQueary's demeanor, he said the former Penn State starting quarterback was clearly upset.
"His voice was trembling. His hands were shaking. He was visibly shaken," Dranov said.
McQueary had testified earlier that he wasn't "over-descriptive" in his conversation with Dranov, saying he told the doctor that what he saw was sexual, wrong and perverse.
The morning also featured testimony from more defense character witnesses, including a couple of participants in Sandusky's youth charity, The Second Mile. Prosecutors allege that Sandusky met his alleged victims through The Second Mile, which once was lauded for its efforts to help at-risk children.
One of the former Second Mile participants, David Hilton, said he felt like investigators were trying to coach him into accusing Sandusky.
"When it got to the second or third time I felt like they wanted me to say something that isn't true," he said.
The defense has sought to portray investigators as planting the seeds for accusations against Sandusky by sharing details of other alleged victims' claims.
Before the start of testimony Wednesday, a female juror was excused for an illness and replaced by an alternate, also a woman.
- Michael Sisak, reporter for the Citizens Voice
This segment aired on June 20, 2012.

subset: commoncrawl


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More Positivity Please!
No matter how much you might enjoy playing the game, if you're active in social networks where a large number of players are present or if you're active in the bloggosphere then you're constantly surrounded by negativity towards the game. Even when you're having a blast playing it, there's so much negativity surrounding it that it's almost hard to still enjoy it. You almost have to escape into the game to get away from all the negativity being directed at it. It's a bit ridiculous, honestly.
This touched a nerve with me as it's a subject that I've been meaning to write about for a few days: the woes of being a SWTOR fan. (First world problems, I know.) People like to moan about the many ways in which the game supposedly fails, but really, the only thing that's actually inhibiting my fun every now and then are generally people who don't even play the game.
I have to admit that this is something that WoW never prepared me for. Sure, you can find plenty of people who like to moan about WoW too, but for every negative voice like that there are plenty more positive ones, and more importantly, it doesn't really matter. Blizzard is pretty much beyond criticism these days. People will write thousands of ranty words about all the things the company supposedly does wrong, and then admit in the same breath that they bought WoW's annual pass and have been playing Diablo 3 non-stop for the past two months. Actions speak louder than words, and nothing can even remotely threaten WoW's status these days considering that even the people who claim to not like it keep coming back for more (not to mention the millions of people that do genuinely love it).
SWTOR plays in a very different league here. It's still quite a big game, but it's not unreasonable to suspect that EA might have expected it to perform better than it currently does. The game will have to work hard to both keep attracting new players and retain current ones, and people bashing it left and right is not going to help with that.
This is where some smart arse usually chimes in that nobody cares what some dude says on the internet, but put enough dudes together and it will affect public opinion. Don't tell me that you've never become curious about something that lots of people praised or were turned off trying something that a lot of people declared a waste of time. So people continuously bashing SWTOR affects me negatively because it contributes to actually putting the continued existence of the game in its current state at risk (Psynister has a few words to say about that as well).
I'm also continuously baffled by how much hatred people have for a game that they didn't even play for very long. I've always had at least a bit of sympathy for WoW curmudgeons because most of the time their bitterness is based on the fact that the game has changed over the years. If they liked it one way, played for years, and Blizzard took that away from them... well, they really did lose something in a way. Even if I don't agree with the particulars, I can at least see how that would make someone grumpy. Many of the TOR haters on the other hand openly admit that they only played for a couple of days/levels... and yet still seethe with more hatred for the game than even the most evil Sith Lord, even though they realised that it wasn't what they wanted almost from the start. Why they can't just move on to something else I don't know.
Then of course we have the ones who always sound very intellectual somehow and know exactly why the game sucks without even having touched it. They tend to remind me of my dear old mother when she says that internet people aren't real, and there's about as much point in arguing the point. I actually stop myself from commenting on certain blogs nowadays purely because if I mention SWTOR in any positive context at all I know that I'll just have my intelligence questioned by the author or other commenters there.
Maybe it's my own fault for hanging out in the wrong circles. I did "come over" from a mostly WoW-centric blogosphere after all. I suppose I need to search harder to find more blogs that are TOR-positive, focus on reading those and it will all be better.
Unfortunately from what I've seen, even some fan sites aren't unaffected by all the negativity, starting off many an article with lines like...
"I still love TOR but..." [insert countless reasons why this is bound to only be a temporary state]
Can you imagine many happy conversations that start with telling someone that you "still love them but..."? Me neither.
Or how about:
"We can all agree that TOR has many problems..."
Yes, because the first thing that always comes to my mind when I want to talk about something I love are the many ways in which it sucks! It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This isn't meant to be a jab at fan sites. I wouldn't be surprised if I had started a post myself that way, somewhere, at some point. Neither is it supposed to mean that we shouldn't criticise the game as fans.
However, I think that we should focus on the things we enjoy, and just say what we have to say without sounding like we're constantly apologising for liking the game (or even for not liking certain aspects of the game), as if we expect nasty anti-TOR trolls to jump out of the woodwork even in the comment section of a tiny fan blog. We can't change minds that have already been made up, but we can try to be a good example for those who might not know much about the game and show them the many ways in which it rocks.
(And yes, I realise there is a certain irony in writing an angry rant about how people should be more positive. Normal and more positive business will resume shortly.)
22 comments :
- Anonymous21 July 2012 at 06:15
It's annoying that so many people hate Bioware with the wrath of a million blazing stars when to my mind they are still putting out really good games that I enjoy playing. I don't think you should have to justify playing a fun game and it's miserable that so many people seem so gleeful if there's bad news about it -- for no real reason.ReplyDelete
(With the WoW blogs, even though Cataclysm has been a disaster (sic) and Blizzard haven't put out any new content in a year, for some reason people are really defensive about how much fun they are all having, which I don't entirely believe but there you go.)Replies
It's really strange how Bioware has got such a bad rep so quickly and over very little. People will defend Blizzard where they condemn Bioware for the exact same thing, or praise other MMOs for features that they complained about in TOR (very interesting to see in some of the recent TSW coverage).Delete
I don't think WoW bloggers should have to defend themselves either if they are enjoying the game. I can believe that it still covers certain areas of content well even with no updates in months. But yeah, it does tie in with the whole company bias thing.
Eh, I think Bioware's current bad rep is ... understandable. They've released three games in a row which had issues or were weaker than normal: DA2, SWTOR, ME3.Delete
You can say one weak game is an aberration, but 3 in a row just looks bad.
As opposed to, say, Blizzard's last couple of releases, which met and surpassed all expectations?Delete
- Anonymous26 July 2012 at 14:28
So, you think Blizzard hasn't been getting a lot of negativity also?Delete
It does, but not in the same way. I covered that in the fourth paragraph of the main post.Delete
- Anonymous21 July 2012 at 08:31
It's an Internet thing in general I guess. I'm certainly guilty of moaning about games, but I do generally try and keep my blog positive, which is one reason why I post a lot on the game sessions I have. SWTOR is a lot of fun to play but I think the meta-discussion is suffering from all the negativity.ReplyDelete
Tera strikes me as an even more extreme example of the points you made here; sure there are issues with the game, but the only thing you generally find online are scathing commentaries on design features. Very few actual blogs about gaming sessions, it must be very disheartening for the people who enjoy playing it! The types of critic that you highlight are in evidence in large quantities for that game as well.Replies
Everyone likes a good moan every now and then, it's the more pervasive negativity that really bothers me. Where people make throwaway comments about how X or Y obviously sucks, it's not even a matter of discussion anymore.Delete
Good point about Tera. I remember being quite surprised when I actually ran into a fan blog for it the other day, though I have heard a fair bit of praise for its combat system. I think it's generally been a bit more low key though, so while it's received little praise, it's also gotten fewer really scathing comments.
It's like the dude who keeps talking about his ex. If she's really that bad, why do you want to keep wasting your time talking about her? Don't like SWTOR? Don't play it. Geesh.ReplyDelete
What also annoys me is the CONSTANT speculation that the game is just BLEEDING fans and money and it's going to be shut down ANY DAY NOW. That just impedes my fun right there. I don't need the stress that suddenly I'll be out in the cold and deprived of a game I really like and put a lot of effort into (guild etc).Replies
Hah, I know. This is why I used words like "might" and "suspect" when talking about that subject in this post, because we don't really know what's happening behind the game's scenes. However, if people keep repeating the same negative rumours as if they were fact and from all sides, it can really get to you after a while.Delete
Ha. The other day, this exact subject came up in gen chat at Tatooine. (I had a companion's quest to take care of, and I was unaware of a neutral method of getting to the place, so I took my lumps and ran through an Imperial base. 'Dying through' is probably a better term, tho.)ReplyDelete
The discussion centered on how friendly an MMO community is, because some Republic player had been helped out of a jam by an Imperial player. Several people mentioned that it reminded them of Star Wars: Galaxies, but others said LOTRO. The one community that people agreed that it wasn't, however, was WoW. "The L2Play people came, saw, and moved on," one person quipped. "Good riddance."
One thing that does bother me about WoW isn't how big it is, but that we don't know where the subs are from. There have been days that I swear that most of the players on a server are gold farmers, which gets me to wondering just how many subs are there to actually play the game and how many are there to farm for gold sellers. Since Blizz never releases those numbers by geographical region, we don't know who the subs really are. Blizz certainly doesn't care, because they're making money with every sub, but still....Replies
I totally agree. To some extent I think SWTOR is a victim of its own hype -- a lot of people for years said it would be the "next big MMO", and it hit at arguably an all-time low point in WoW's popularity. Mind you, that's no excuse for the weird vitriol I've seen about the game and Bioware.ReplyDelete
I'm going to be really interested to see in six months or so if people are disappointed in the hype around GW2 and have the same response.Replies
It's weird to me because I didn't actually see any of the pre-launch SWTOR hype, probably because I was still too focused on WoW at the time.Delete
GW2 is the most hyped up game I've personally seen, and yeah, at the moment I can't really see how it would live up to everything people expect of it, regardless of how good it turns out to be. But at least GW2 fans won't have to worry about subscription numbers or any bad press associated with them after launch.
- depizan22 July 2012 at 02:40
I'm baffled by the negativity. Most of the complaints I've heard are things that are true of every MMO I've played (including WoW) or made so little sense that I don't remember them. I don't get it.ReplyDelete
I particularly don't get it since it's by far the best MMO I've played. At least from the standpoint of my having fun. I don't know what people were expecting and every time someone says it was a "weak" offering by Bioware, I've got to wonder what their non-weak offerings look like. (Though, since their single player games all sound way too grimdark for me, I'll never know. Ah well.)
THANK YOU! The constant bitching about this game starts to really get to me. I am one of the people who were really disappointed by ME3 and a lot of the people I got to know through that game really want to see SWTOR die because BIOWARE/EA are EVIL. It got to the point where I have stopped talking to the most extreme of these people because whenever I dared to say that I like SWTOR I either get branded a traitor (lolwhut?) or get my intelligence questioned.ReplyDelete
What gets me is that all this news is discordant with reality. Every piece of data I can find suggests SWTOR has a healthy population relative to other MMOs. But good luck telling that to Chicken Little. From the interwebs, you'd figure Hello Kitty Island Adventure had more players.ReplyDelete
On the other hand, I have to confess that I love criticism of SWTOR. Not kvetching, or whining, or funsuckering. But a real analysis of the weak points of a design. I could actually do with more of that.
- Hunaiam23 July 2012 at 18:37
I remember when I first stumbled across your blog in the early days of SWTOR. After google searches and links from other blogs, all of them seeming to say how much the game sucked, even though I was having a blast playing it, I came across yours. It was upbeat, and it showed through that you also loved playing the game. You actually had links to other sites that were also pro SWTOR. So I would just like to say thanks, because your blogs and others like them will keep the perspective needed in our community.ReplyDeleteReplies
Thanks, that's quite a compliment. :) I think I do say when something about the game bothers me (like the way they initially handled the server transfers), but on the whole I'm really too busy enjoying all the good stuff to moan much about the little niggles I have here and there.Delete
- Anonymous26 July 2012 at 20:47
THANK YOU! I just found your blog today and will spend more time catching up. I am so sick of reading nothing but negative views/press on this game. I love it! After 6 years of raiding in WoW, I needed a place to relax and have fun. I found it in SWTOR. I have taken my time enjoying all the classes (only 2 at 50, 6 in their 40's) and the story lines. I just completed my first Op this weekend and it felt just as epic as any other raid. BW is improving the game every patch and I have been really happy since the server mergers. I just wish all the haters would move on to something else and we can hear some fair dialog again. Thank you again and stay positive!ReplyDelete
Negativity is unavoidable, expecially on big games. The problem is that people often turn to writing to express their problems with something. That's actually human nature: when you're angry, when you need to vent, you do it. Notice how many times you read articles on a good marriage or on being healthy and not having any disease and so on? From just reading blogs on Internet one could think love is the most terrible thing to have occurred on earth. But that's just being human for you, happiness is something you truly realise you had only when its gone, and the same applies to gaming too.ReplyDelete
When Vanilla WoW was around, you didn't hear many people asking for Vanilla to be like, well, Vanilla. People complained it was too hard. People said they couldn't see all the content. And when Blizzard made the game less hardcore, another part of the community started saying "It's too easy now", "Why nerfing the boss encounters so that everyone can see them now?" and so on. Notice how the group involved here are different, this basically boils down to the old "you can't please everyone" saying.
Then you get some more crazy stuff, like people saying "this game is so shit, I can't believe how shit it is", expecially after a patch that nerfed one ability / unit / aspect of the game. And those are the same people that have invested hundred of hours in the game, and that are still playing the game. Fanboys are just like that, in every single aspect of life. A lot of sport fans praise their team when they win, and then they say it's the worst team ever when the team loses.
The key here is to understand the proportion of who's writing what compared to the silent majority thinking. Most online communities, even those related to online only games, are made by a minority of players. Actually what we take as a standard way of playing a game, is often a way experienced only by a small fraction of players. Raiding is something that's often discussed in WoW forums, but there are TONS of people out there that have never set foot in a raid, not even a LFR raid. In Starcraft 2 you get all kind of comments when a unit gets tweaked, but most people never played the game online against a human being. Most balance post are related to 1v1 balance, and that's even less played than the sum of other online modes. But what compose the playing majority is very different from what it compose the vocal majority.
Speaking of SWTOR, the vocal majority is influenced by two big basic problems: 1) Bioware and EA are currently hated by most gamers due to recent and long time blunders respectively and 2) SWTOR was just overhyped as the WoW killer for too much time, raising the expectation bar to a level no game could have reached on release. Add to that a very big admission price and (my impression) a release timing that was chosen to try to save the financial situation more than "we're releasing this when it's ready" and you get the perfect formula for bad rep going all over the place all the time. Expecially cause people playing it are easily labelled as corporate fanboys, while detractors are the resistance against EA telling you the truth, making this kinda an uneven fight.
Share your opinion! Everyone is welcome, as long as things stay polite. I also read comments on older posts, so don't be shy. :)


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Butler/Wilson 5K 2015 - 09/26/2015
Congratulations to all the runners! Here you can find photographs from the race. Simply click on the downwards arrow button on the lower right of a photo to download an image.
If you choose to use the photos on social media or in any other context, I would appreciate it if you linked to my website or my Facebook page. Many thanks!


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Research, Scholarship and Professional Growth Committee
General Funding Criteria
The proposal must demonstrate the significance of the problem or issue.
The proposal must provide a brief review of the relevant literature and/or other back ground issues.
The proposal must identify the intended outcomes of the project.
The procedures must be stated clearly.
The proposal must demonstrate project feasibility in terms of cost, procedures, personnel, time and available resources.
The proposal must explain and justify budget items.
The proposal must be written clearly and simply.
Checklist - A "no" answer to any of these questions will result in your proposal being excluded from consideration. Lack of "no" answers will not guarantee funding.
- Is the proposal presented in the RSPG Committee's standard "Application for Funding" format?
- Is the proposal signed by the investigator's department chair and by all deans, chairs and program directors who might by responsible for committing funds to the project?
- If the project involves human subjects and/or animals, have you obtained signature(s) from the chair(s) of the Institutional Review Board (Human Subjects) and/or the Animal Use Committee?
- Is the budget clearly itemized on the budget page and explained in a budget narrative appendix?
- If you are requesting reassigned time or a stipend, is there a letter from your chair stating that the project is above and beyond basic faculty duties?
- Are personnel costs properly justified and calculated?
- Does the body of the proposal occupy no more than three typewritten, single-spaced pages?
- Have you submitted final project reports (or annual update reports, if appropriate) on all projects previously funded by RSPG or the Hemingway Trust? Submit Hemingway Faculty Vitality reports to both the Provost and RSPG Chair.
Funding Guidelines
Passed by the RSPG Committee Spring 2003
I. Eligible Expenses
Reassigned time or stipends for full-time faculty or professional staff acting as project director(s), or for payment to off-campus consultants may be eligible. Funds are not intended to compensate faculty for performance of customary professional responsibilities.
Due to limited funds, RSPG will not fund more than three credit hours of reassigned time per person per project; nor will we fund a stipend worth more than three credit hours per person per project. In order to be eligible for release time or a stipend the department chair must write a letter of support indicating:
- What is normally expected of faculty or staff in his or her area of instruction at WSU?
- What specifically sets this project above and beyond what is done by other faculty or staff in the department or program without release time or a stipend?
- If the proposal requests release time, the letter should also detail what the normal base teaching load is and should also identify any other reassigned time the faculty member will receive during the academic year. Finally, the chair should identify any overload teaching done during the academic year.
Activities suitable for reassigned time or stipends include, but are not limited to:
- Course Development beyond basic faculty responsibility and expectations of the discipline. In order to be eligible for funding, the proposal must be accompanied by a letter from the department chair justifying the need for release time or stipend.
- Scholarly activities beyond basic faculty responsibility and expectations of the discipline. In order to be eligible for funding, the proposal must be accompanied by a letter from the department chair justifying the need for release time or stipend.
- Hourly wage/student assistants may be eligible. Departments are encouraged, however, to assume secretarial support, unless the magnitude of the project demands additional help.
- Travel to attend meetings or professional societies may be eligible if the applicant is presenting a paper, chairing a symposium, or acting as a symposium discussant. Conferences sponsored by professional societies or focused on a narrow topic may be given first priority. Justify why the conference you are attending is relevant to your scholarship. Please submit proof of acceptance.
- Travel for data collection or related scholarly activities may be eligible.
- Equipment and materials may be eligible if the research cannot by completed without them. Alternative means of equipment acquisition, such as lease or rental, should be considered. Materials (such as office supplies) in excess of what a department can provide and materials unique to a project (such as software) may be funded.
II. Ineligible Expenses
- Projects primarily intended as commercial products rather than for scholarly dissemination.
- Research undertaken as part of a program leading to a Master's or Doctoral degree.
- Travel simply to attend meetings of professional societies.
- Literature searches per se.
- Retroactive requests for funding.
- Licensing fees and costs of certification examinations.
- Memberships in professional societies and journal subscriptions.
- Computer expenses.
- Direct student expenses such as travel to conferences, meals, books, etc.
Proposals should contain a budget appendix which provides rationale for all items listed in the budget.


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Learn About the Law
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After Leong Chong, a Singapore resident, was accidentally killed in that country while performing repair work on a ship owned by one of the respondents, a subsidiary of the other respondent, his widow, petitioner Chick Kam Choo (hereafter petitioner), also a Singapore resident, brought suit in Federal District Court alleging various causes of action, including claims under the general federal maritime law and the Texas Wrongful Death Statute. In 1980, the court granted respondents summary judgment on the maritime law claim, concluding that applicable choice-of-law principles required that Singapore law, and not the maritime law of the United States, should apply. The court also dismissed the rest of the case on federal forum non conveniens grounds, provided that respondents submit to the Singapore courts' jurisdiction. Petitioner then filed suit in the Texas state courts under the Texas statutes and Singapore law, but the Federal District Court enjoined petitioner from prosecuting any claims relating to her husband's death in the state courts. The Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting petitioner's contention that the injunction violated the Anti-Injunction Act (Act), which generally bars federal courts from enjoining state court proceedings. The court ruled that the injunction fell within the Act's "relitigation" exception, which permits a federal court to issue an injunction "to protect or effectuate its judgments."
Because the District Court's injunction barring the state court proceedings is broader than is necessary "to protect or effectuate" that court's 1980 judgment dismissing petitioner's lawsuit from federal court, this case must be remanded for the entry of a more narrowly tailored order. Pp. 145-151.
O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. WHITE, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 151.
Benton Musslewhite, pro se, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Joseph C. Blanks, pro se, Joel I. Klein, and David Boyd.
James Patrick Cooney argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents. *
[ Footnote * ] Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for Crowley Maritime Corp. by Ernest N. Reddick III; for the International Association of Drilling Contractors et al. by Eugene J. Silva; for the International Chamber of Shipping by John R. Geraghty; for the Maritime Law Association of the United States by John C. McHose, Richard W. Palmer, and Michael [486 U.S. 140, 142] Marks Cohen; and for McClelland Engineers, Inc., et al. by Harold A. Stone, Steven M. Perl, Graydon S. Staring, and Elliot L. Bien. Burt Ballanfant filed a brief for Shell Oil Co. as amicus curiae. [486 U.S. 140, 142]
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the propriety of an injunction entered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The injunction prohibited specified parties from litigating a certain matter in the Texas state courts. We must determine whether this injunction is permissible under the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. 2283, which generally bars federal courts from granting injunctions to stay proceedings in state courts.
In 1977 Leong Chong, a resident of the Republic of Singapore, was accidentally killed in that country while performing repair work on a ship owned by respondent Esso Tankers, Inc., a subsidiary of respondent Exxon Corporation. Petitioner Chick Kam Choo, also a resident of Singapore, is Chong's widow.Fn In 1978 she brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, presenting claims under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. 688, the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U.S.C. 761, the general maritime law of the United States, App. 4, and the Texas Wrongful Death Statute, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. 71.001-71.031 (1986).
Respondents moved for summary judgment on the Jones Act and DOHSA claims, arguing that Chong was not a seaman, which rendered the Jones Act inapplicable, and that Chong had not died on the "high seas" but while the ship was in port, which rendered the DOHSA inapplicable. App. 9-10. Respondents also moved for summary judgment on the claim involving the general maritime law of the United [486 U.S. 140, 143] States, arguing that due to the lack of substantial contacts with the United States, the maritime law of Singapore, not that of the United States, governed. Id., at 10 (citing Lauritzen v. Larsen, 345 U.S. 571 (1953); Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S. 354 (1959)). In addition to seeking summary judgment, respondents moved for dismissal under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, arguing that under the criteria identified in Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501 (1947), the District Court was not a convenient forum.
In 1980, the District Court, adopting the memorandum and recommendations of a Magistrate, granted respondents' motion for summary judgment on the Jones Act and DOHSA claims. The court agreed with respondents that those statutes were inapplicable. App. 29-31, 34. With respect to the general maritime law claim, the District Court applied factors identified in Lauritzen and Hellenic Lines Ltd. v. Rhoditis, 398 U.S. 306 (1970), to the choice-of-law question and concluded that the "statutory and maritime law of the United States should not be applied." App. 32. This conclusion led the court to grant summary judgment on petitioner's general maritime law claim, as well as to consider whether dismissal of the rest of the case was warranted under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. After reviewing the various factors set out in Gilbert, the court concluded that dismissal was appropriate and accordingly granted respondents' motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds, provided respondents submit to the jurisdiction of the Singapore courts. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp., 699 F.2d 693, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 826 (1983).
Rather than commence litigation in Singapore, however, petitioner filed suit in the Texas state courts. Although the state complaint initially included all the claims in the federal complaint, as well as a claim based on Singapore law, petitioner later voluntarily dismissed the federal claims. This [486 U.S. 140, 144] left only the Texas state law claim and the Singapore law claim. See Brief for Petitioners 4, n. 4. Respondents briefly succeeded in removing the case to the District Court on the basis of diversity of citizenship, but the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ultimately held that complete diversity did not exist and the case was returned to the District Court with instructions to remand it to state court. 764 F.2d 1148 (1985).
Respondents then initiated a new action in federal court requesting an injunction to prevent petitioner and her attorneys, Benton Musslewhite and Joseph C. Blanks, "from seeking to relitigate in any state forum the issues finally decided" in the federal court's 1980 dismissal. App. 93. Petitioner moved to dismiss, arguing that the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. 2283, prohibited the issuance of such an injunction. App. 96-98. Respondents, in turn, moved for summary judgment and a final injunction. Id., at 104-108. The District Court granted respondents' motion and permanently enjoined petitioner and her attorneys "from prosecuting or commencing any causes of action or claims against [respondents] in the courts of the State of Texas or any other state . . . arising out of or related to the alleged wrongful death of Leong Chong." Id., at 119.
Petitioner appealed, reiterating her contention that the injunction violated the Anti-Injunction Act. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected this argument. The panel majority concluded that the injunction here fell within the "relitigation" exception to the Act, which permits a federal court to issue an injunction "to protect or effectuate its judgments." The majority reasoned that an injunction was necessary to prevent relitigation of the forum non conveniens issue because petitioner pointed to no additional factor that made the "Texas court in Houston a more convenient forum for this litigation than a United States District Court in Houston." 817 F.2d 307, 312 (1987). The majority acknowledged that due to an "open courts" provision in [486 U.S. 140, 145] the Texas Constitution, Art. I, 13, which is reflected in the Texas Wrongful Death Statute, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. 71.031 (1986), the state courts may not apply the same, or indeed, any forum non conveniens analysis to petitioner's case. Rather, as the Court of Appeals noted, it is possible that "Texas has constituted itself the world's forum of final resort, where suit for personal injury or death may always be filed if nowhere else." 817 F.2d, at 314 (footnote omitted). In this maritime context, however, the Court of Appeals majority concluded that the so-called "reverse-Erie" uniformity doctrine, see, e. g., Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207, 222 -223 (1986), required that federal forum non conveniens determinations pre-empt state law. Because the Court of Appeals found any independent state forum non conveniens inquiry to be pre-empted, it held that the injunction was permissible. Chief Judge Clark wrote separately but joined this conclusion. 817 F.2d, at 325. Judge Reavley dissented, maintaining that the Texas courts should be allowed to apply their own open courts forum non conveniens standard. The dissent also criticized the majority's "bold new rule of preemption" which had the effect of "nullify[ing] the Texas open forum law for admiralty cases." Ibid.
The Court of Appeals' ruling conflicted with a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Zipfel v. Halliburton Co., 832 F.2d 1477 (1988), cert. pending sub nom. Crowley Maritime Corp. v. Zipfel, No. 87-1122, which held that the Anti-Injunction Act precluded an injunction in similar circumstances. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 484 U.S. 952 (1987), and now reverse and remand.
The Anti-Injunction Act generally prohibits the federal courts from interfering with proceedings in the state courts:
Congress, however, has permitted injunctions in certain, specific circumstances, namely, when expressly authorized by statute, necessary in aid of the court's jurisdiction, or necessary to protect or effectuate the court's judgment. These exceptions are designed to ensure the effectiveness and supremacy of federal law. But as the Court has recognized, the exceptions are narrow and are "not [to] be enlarged by loose statutory construction." Ibid. See also Clothing Workers v. Richman Brothers Co., 348 U.S. 511, 514 (1955). Because an injunction staying state proceedings is proper only if it falls within one of the statutory exceptions, Atlantic Coast Line, supra, at 286-287, and because the last of the three exceptions is the only one even arguably applicable [486 U.S. 140, 147] here, the central question in this case is whether the District Court's injunction was necessary "to protect or effectuate" the District Court's 1980 judgment dismissing petitioner's lawsuit from federal court.
The relitigation exception was designed to permit a federal court to prevent state litigation of an issue that previously was presented to and decided by the federal court. It is founded in the well-recognized concepts of res judicata and collateral estoppel. The proper scope of the exception is perhaps best illustrated by this Court's decision in Atlantic Coast Line, supra.
That case arose out of a union's decision to picket a railroad. The railroad immediately sought an injunction from a Federal District Court to prevent the picketing. The court refused to enjoin the union, issuing an order in 1967 that concluded, in part, that the unions were "free to engage in self-help." Id., at 289. The railroad then went to state court, where an injunction was granted. Two years later this Court held that the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. 151 et seq., prohibited state court injunctions such as the one the railroad had obtained. Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369 (1969). This decision prompted the union to move in state court to dissolve the injunction, but the state court declined to do so. Rather than appeal, however, the union returned to federal court and obtained an injunction against the enforcement of the state court injunction. The District Court read its 1967 order as deciding not just that federal law did not authorize an injunction, but that federal law pre-empted the State from interfering with the union's right of self-help by issuing an injunction. Accordingly, the court concluded that an injunction was necessary to protect that judgment.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, but this Court reversed, holding that the federal court injunction was improper even assuming that the state court's refusal to dissolve its injunction was erroneous. 398 U.S., at 291 , n. 5. After carefully [486 U.S. 140, 148] reviewing the arguments actually presented to the District Court in the original 1967 litigation and the precise language of the District Court's order, we rejected the District Court's later conclusion that its 1967 order had addressed the propriety of an injunction issued by a state court:
First, petitioner asserts a claim under Singapore law. App. 40. The District Court did not resolve the merits of this claim in its 1980 order. Rather, the only issue decided by the District Court was that petitioner's claims should be dismissed under the federal forum non conveniens doctrine. Federal forum non conveniens principles simply cannot determine whether Texas courts, which operate under a broad "open-courts" mandate, would consider themselves an appropriate forum for petitioner's lawsuit. See Tex. Const., Art. I, 13; Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. 71.031 (1986). Cf. Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 11 -12 (1987). Respondents' arguments to the District Court in 1980 reflected [486 U.S. 140, 149] this distinction, citing federal cases almost exclusively and discussing only federal forum non conveniens principles. See App. 10-12, 17-26. Moreover, the Court of Appeals expressly recognized that the Texas courts would apply a significantly different forum non conveniens analysis. 817 F.2d, at 314. Thus, whether the Texas state courts are an appropriate forum for petitioner's Singapore law claims has not yet been litigated, and an injunction to foreclose consideration of that issue is not within the relitigation exception.
Respondents seek to avoid this problem by arguing that any separate state law determination is pre-empted under the "reverse-Erie" principle of federal maritime law. See generally Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S., at 222 -223; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U.S. 149 (1920); Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205 (1917). Under this view, which was shared by the Court of Appeals, the only permissible forum non conveniens determination in this maritime context is the one made by the District Court, and an injunction may properly issue to prevent the state courts from undertaking any different approach.
The contention that an independent state forum non conveniens determination is pre-empted by federal maritime law, however, does little to help respondents unless that pre-emption question was itself actually litigated and decided by the District Court. Since respondents concede that it was not, Tr. of Oral Arg. 32, the relitigation exception cannot apply. As we have previously recognized, "a federal court does not have inherent power to ignore the limitations of 2283 and to enjoin state court proceedings merely because those proceedings interfere with a protected federal right or invade an area pre-empted by federal law, even when the interference is unmistakably clear." Atlantic Coast Line, 398 U.S., at 294 . See also Clothing Workers v. Richman Brothers Co., 348 U.S. 511 (1955). Rather, when a state proceeding presents a federal issue, even a pre-emption [486 U.S. 140, 150] issue, the proper course is to seek resolution of that issue by the state court.
This is the course respondents must follow with respect to the Singapore law claim. It may be that respondents' reading of the pre-emptive force of federal maritime forum non conveniens determinations is correct. This is a question we need not reach and on which we express no opinion. We simply hold that respondents must present their pre-emption argument to the Texas state courts, which are presumed competent to resolve federal issues. Cf. Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., supra, at 15-16; Clothing Workers, supra, at 518. Accordingly, insofar as the District Court enjoined the state courts from considering petitioner's Singapore law claim, the injunction exceeded the restrictions of the Anti-Injunction Act.
Finally, petitioner asserts a claim under Texas state law. In contrast to the Singapore law claim, the validity of this claim was adjudicated in the original federal action. Respondents argued to the District Court in 1980 that under applicable choice-of-law principles, the law of Singapore must control petitioner's suit. See App. 10. The District Court expressly agreed, noting that only two of the eight relevant factors "point toward American law," and concluding that the "statutory and maritime law of the United States should not be applied." Id., at 32. Petitioner seeks to relitigate this issue in state court by arguing that "there are substantial and/or significant contacts" with the United States such that "the application of American and Texas law is mandated." Id., at 39. Because in its 1980 decision the District Court decided that Singapore law must control petitioner's lawsuit, a decision that necessarily precludes the application of Texas law, an injunction preventing relitigation of that issue in state court is within the scope of the relitigation exception to the Anti-Injunction Act. Accordingly, insofar as the District Court enjoined the state courts from considering petitioner's [486 U.S. 140, 151] claim under the substantive law of Texas, the injunction was permissible.
Because the injunction actually entered by the District Court, id., at 118-119, was broader than the limited injunction we find acceptable, we must reverse the judgment approving a broad injunction and remand for entry of a more narrowly tailored order. Of course, the fact that an injunction may issue under the Anti-Injunction Act does not mean that it must issue. On remand the District Court should decide whether it is appropriate to enter an injunction.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
JUSTICE WHITE, concurring.
I agree with the Court that, as a general matter, "[f]ederal forum non conveniens principles simply cannot determine whether [state] courts, which operate under a broad `open-courts' mandate, [will] consider themselves an appropriate forum" for a federal litigant's lawsuit. Ante, at 148. Consequently, in diversity cases - for example - a district court's dismissal on forum non conveniens grounds cannot serve as a basis for a later injunction if the plaintiff subsequently brings the same action in a state court.
But, as the Court recognizes, this case involves the special area of federal maritime law. Ante, at 149. In this field, the federal interest in uniformity is so substantial that a determination that federal law requires that a case be heard in a foreign forum could possibly pre-empt any contrary determination by a state court applying state forum non conveniens law. The Court acknowledges that our precedents may ultimately support such a conclusion in this case. Ante, at 149-150.
Had the District Court made such a finding here when it dismissed petitioner's case - holding that federal maritime law required that this case be heard in Singapore - then I believe [486 U.S. 140, 152] that the relitigation exception found in 28 U.S.C. 2283 would permit the injunction that the District Court later issued. Contra, Zipfel v. Halliburton Co., 832 F.2d 1477, 1488 (CA9 1988), cert. pending sub nom. Crowley Maritime Corp. v. Zipfel, No. 87-1122. This is true whether or not a finding of such pre-emption would have been correct: petitioner's remedy for an erroneous pre-emption decision would have been an appeal of the District Court's dismissal, and not relitigation of the issue in state court. However, the District Court's terse dismissal order in this case lacks any express ruling on uniformity or pre-emption. See App. 34-35. Absent such a holding, the District Court had no "judgment" on this question which it needed to "protect or effectuate" by enjoining the subsequent state court litigation. Cf. 28 U.S.C. 2283.
Consequently, I agree with the Court that the relitigation exception to 2283 cannot be invoked here, ante, at 150, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming the District Court's injunction must be reversed in pertinent part. [486 U.S. 140, 153]
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Apple launched the iPad four years ago, igniting a tablet frenzy that altered personal computing at home and at work, but Microsoft has yet to release an Office version for touchscreen devices.
Much is made about the absence of full, native versions of Office for iPads and Android tablets, but Microsoft hasn't even readied one yet for its own touch-optimized Windows 8 OS, released in October 2012, thus depriving its own Surface tablets of a great sales incentive.
As the clock ticks and users wait, rivals continue shipping new mobile productivity apps and perfecting existing ones that for many people provide functionality that is acceptable and, in the absence of Office, does the trick.
So with each passing day, Office's risk of irrelevance increases as a tablet productivity software suite, which in turn endangers the growth and future of one of Microsoft's most important businesses.
No straight answers
Compounding the delay is the reticence of Microsoft officials to speak clearly regarding the company's plans and timetables. In September and October, former CEO Steve Ballmer said on a couple of occasions that Office versions for iPad and Android tablets were in the works, and would ship after the "touch-first" version for Windows 8.
However, marketing chief Tami Reller was much less clear about the plans during a public appearance last week. Asked for comment about a touchscreen version of Office, a Microsoft spokesman said via email this week that "we don't have any specifics to share" but reiterated Ballmer's statements that the company is working "on touch-first enabled versions of our core Office applications—including Word, Excel and PowerPoint."
"We can tell you that people's needs are always changing when it comes to productivity applications and Office continues to change with them, whether that means enhancing existing applications, shifting to cloud services, extending Office to mobile devices or adding entirely new applications to the Office suite," the spokesman said.
Has the train left the station?
At this point, the timing of these products may be a moot point. They're late.
"It's taken way too long. Work on an interface for touch-based Office should have started shortly after the iPad was released, at the latest," said Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst.
Critics have theorized that Microsoft deliberately dragged its feet on prepping a version of Office for the iPad out of fear it would hurt Windows and help iOS. It's also understood that adapting Office for touchscreens is a tall order.
Whatever the reasons, time is of the essence, according to IDC analyst Melissa Webster.
"It's critical. Without a touch version of Office, Microsoft will become a dinosaur," she said via email. "There's a whole generation that thinks touch first."
"Certainly, we still have a long way to go in terms of the optimum user interface for touch. For those of us who can touch type, touch screens can be frustrating still. But make no mistake, touch is the future, whether assisted with voice, or something else," she added.
For more than 20 years, Microsoft pursued the goal of making Office as feature rich as possible, and this was the right strategy because the suite lived in PCs, which were people's only computing device, ruled by a keyboard and mouse. However, PCs now share the workload with tablets and smartphones, so that the creation, assembling, editing and fine-tuning of a document may be done at different stages on all three types of devices.
So what should enterprise IT leaders do? Guy Creese, a Gartner analyst, said it would be best for them to assume Office for the iPad will not ship and instead focus on asking their users what they're currently using for office productivity on tablets and why. "Support a varied set of productivity suites based on that feedback," he said via email. "IT has waited long enough for Microsoft to deliver Office on a wildly popular device."
Rethinking Office
Yes, Office runs on Windows 8 PCs and tablets, but with its traditional interface designed for use with keyboard and mouse. For tablets, the Office interface needs to be deeply reimagined.
"The streamlined interface of tablets built for fingertip control is the exact opposite of the feature-rich interface of legacy Office designed for fine-grained mouse control—and right clicks," Creese said.
The work to adapt Office for touchscreens is no cakewalk. There's a lot of functionality and capabilities that need to be translated into a touch environment, and it's not clear what will work and what won't.
"There's no playbook or road map for that," said TJ Keitt, a Forrester Research analyst. "How do you touch-enable the creation of an Excel pivot table? How does that look like? It's not a matter of making the cursor your finger and having drop-down menus. It's more complicated."
Ultimately, the goal for Microsoft and for other providers of productivity software should be to make their products available to people in all scenarios. "They have to ensure they're on all devices and providing contextually appropriate services for the computing experience people have over the course of their day, week and month," Keitt said.
Because Office is such an established product, Microsoft has to get this touch version right from the start, which puts the company at a disadvantage compared to products with lower expectations and may be adding to the delay.
"Microsoft has to ship something that is rock solid and will be well received. They don't have the luxury of putting out something that's imperfect and promising to improve it later, due to the criticality of Office for Microsoft and the criticism of their previous moves and all the close attention being paid to this," said Phil Karcher, a Forrester Research analyst.
Mobile missteps
Microsoft released a version of Office for iPhones called Office Mobile but it hasn't generated a lot of enthusiasm. Smartphone screens are too small, and the feature set of this suite is limited, so there's only so much that can be accomplished with it. Plus, it requires a pricey subscription to Office 365, the cloud-hosted version of the suite.
Microsoft has also designed the Office Online browser-based version of the suite to work better in iPads specifically. But Office Online doesn't have all the apps and functionality of the full Office suite, and it requires an Internet connection.
"I think people would be pretty disappointed in a touch-based Office that looked like Office [Online]. Making icons larger and spacing them out is a band-aid. Microsoft needs to take this as an opportunity to do something innovative," Silver said via email.
"If you were designing a touch-based productivity product from scratch, you would never come up with something that looks like Office," Silver added. "You would try to understand the functions people really want to use without a keyboard and design a finger-friendly application for them."
One more face in the crowd
In a recent Gartner survey of 500 users, respondents listed more than 30 different products they use for office productivity tasks on tablets.
Rivals include Apple's iWork apps for iOS like Pages, Numbers and Keynote; Google's QuickOffice and Drive/Docs; Evernote; Documents To Go; and many others.
Microsoft has released iPad and Android tablet versions for some of its Office apps, including OneNote, Lync and OneDrive, the cloud storage service known until recently as SkyDrive, but Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other suite apps haven't been ported.
For Silver, a touch edition of Office should have been out a year or two ago.
"It's understandable that Microsoft is cautious, but the longer they wait to ship iPad and Android versions, the less relevant they are. Over time, people will get used to inexpensive 'good enough' products," he said. "With the Office franchise already at risk, they need to make some decisive moves."


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(The Internet has made TV criticism more prominent, but the kinds of shows TV critics write about—serialized dramas and single-camera comedies—are rarely the kinds of shows that become popular with a mass audience. Every week, TV Club is going to drop in on one of the top-rated programs in the nation, one that we don't normally cover. What makes these shows popular? Should we be covering them more often? Are our preconceived notions about quality not necessarily following popularity justified, or are we jumping to conclusions? This week, Todd VanDerWerff watches the first new episode of Two And A Half Men since February and the first to star Ashton Kutcher.)
Jaime Weinman, who's one of my favorite TV critics, has always maintained that one of the big reasons Two And A Half Men grew so popular was because the storylines had actual stakes. Where other sitcoms told stories about minor domestic disputes that got blown out of proportion, Two And A Half Men told stories about rampant debauchery, depression, and families falling apart. Compared to something like Modern Family—a very popular show in its own right—the series is dealing in life and death territory. I don't know if Weinman is right—I suspect if he is, most viewers don't even realize this fact, preferring the show for those reasons subconsciously—but I do think he (and his theorized viewers) might have had a field day with "Nice To Meet You, Walden Schmidt," a veritable cornucopia of death, depression, and domestic trauma.
As just about everybody's known for ages, Charlie Sheen's departing character, Charlie Harper, was written off via the oldest trick in the book: getting killed offscreen in such a fashion that his demolished corpse required a closed casket. Rather than being shot down into the Sea of Japan, however, Charlie fell—or was shoved—in front of a speeding train in Paris, causing him to explode like a "balloon full of meat." Ha ha. Anyway, after the funeral all of the characters attend at the beginning, the character is cremated, solely so his remains can be accidentally scattered across the floor of his house, as you knew they must. In the meantime, his mother tries to sell his beach house, with prospective buyers including John Stamos (who once had a one-night fling with Charlie, a threesome that turned into a twosome) and Dharma and Greg. (I suppose I should say "Jenna Elfman and Thomas Gibson," but, no, the two were actually playing Dharma and Greg, so that's just easier.) Then after the closest thing the episode has to sentiment in Jon Cryer's Alan addressing the urn containing his brother, Ashton Kutcher's Walden Schmidt turns up, drenched, after trying to drown himself in the ocean and finding it too cold. Alan decides that Walden needs a pick-me-up and takes him out drinking, Walden hooks up with two hot chicks, and we're in for another season of crazy, wacky times.
Outside of a couple of things—like the fact that Walden's depressed because his wife Bridget (who will eventually be played by—sigh—Judy Greer) left him, despite him being an Internet billionaire—that story is pretty much all that happens in the episode. Granted, plot has never been important to Two And A Half Men, which mostly just comes up with wacky ideas for scenes, then strings dirty one-liners through those scenes, in the grand tradition of Chuck Lorre sitcoms since time immemorial. Lorre, who's probably done more to give the multi-camera sitcom a bad name among the Internet generation, thanks to his avoidance of anything resembling a well-constructed plot and a love of lowest common denominator smut, has never been one to let bygones be bygones, and, thusly, he and his writers turned this season premiere—what could possibly be the most watched episode of Two And A Half Men ever—into a dismal way to lob spitballs at the departed Sheen, a chance to drag his character (and by extension, Sheen himself, who was heavily associated with the character) through the mud.
Can this sort of thing be funny? Of course. The South Park guys got a lot of great material out of Isaac Hayes' departure, turning the last days of Chef in the titular town into a weird, weird way to work out grudges against both Hayes and the Church of Scientology. But that episode of television, unlike this one, was actually funny, a scathing attack on an incident that had hurt the feelings of two guys with a widely watched television show. You can feel Lorre and the other producers (including co-creator Lee Aronsohn, who's another of four writers credited on the script) straining to achieve this kind of wildly pissed off but still hilarious tone, but they never get there, which makes the whole thing feel that much more strained. It becomes a vicious circle, and the Charlie bashing goes on forever. First, there's a lengthy funeral sequence, with lots of Charlie's old girlfriends (and Martin Mull!) dropping by to hurl witty insults that aren't horribly witty (mostly just kicking the guy's corpse for fun and profit). Then there's a scene where the regular cast members sit around the house Charlie and Alan lived in and take even more of a dump on Charlie. It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for Sheen.
In fact, you know all of that stuff I said up above about how Lorre's poor reputation on the Internet stems from his failure to construct good plots and his love of lowest-common-denominator smut? Yeah, forget I said that. Because, really, that extends only to this show. Lorre's best works—from the second season of The Big Bang Theory to some of the earlier seasons of his '90s shows—are all shows where the snark and anger is undercut by a leavening sweetness. Some creators can work dark; Lorre has a tendency to chase himself even further into the cave when that's the case. Of course, Lorre, who's worked with Roseanne, Brett Butler, Cybill Shepherd, and now Sheen, has a unique talent for getting involved with stars who are going to push his buttons (and vice versa). This, again, feeds into the vicious circle, where shows get more and more mean-spirited, more and more vituperative, harder and harder to take. (There's a reason Dharma and Greg popped by tonight: Until Big Bang Theory, the show those two starred on was Lorre's most successful that wasn't also plagued by battles between the star and the producer.)
Again, Two And A Half Men is a dark, dirty, smutty show. It thrives on horrible jokes that are in poor taste and leave you laughing in shock, amazed that the show would go there. (Weinman has also called it the dirtiest show on network television, and he's almost certainly right.) I can't call myself a fan of this show, but I've seen enough of it over the years to realize that when it nails a punchline, it can really nail a punchline. They may be few and far between, but the cast knows a good line when it hears one, and the writers have pared this down to an efficient one-liner delivery system. Everybody's a lowest-common-denominator type—Angus T. Jones' Jake (the "half man," for those of you keeping track at home) spends much of the post-funeral scene farting tonight—but the show pursues those types aggressively and relentlessly. It gets its teeth into this material and won't let go until that material is bloodied and shredded.
All of this is to say that Ashton Kutcher is going to be a horrible fit on this show.
I mean, yes, I'm basing this on one episode. And the series could, conceivably, come up with a way to use him that's better than what feels like a randier riff on his Kelso character from That '70s Show. But the problem is that television—particularly comedic television—often reduces people to a thing they can do, then asks them to do that thing over and over again. This episode asks Kutcher to play three different ideas all at once, and not a one of them registers. He's not horribly believable as a sad sack. (He looks like Ashton Kutcher and he's got over a billion dollars? C'mon. No way he could be that sad.) He does better as kind of a dumb guy who doesn't realize how attractive he is, but, again, that's a Kelso riff. And he's also pretty bad at playing the second coming of Charlie, a guy who stumbles ass-backward into being a playboy. Oh, also, he apparently has a huge penis, something that gets joke after joke tossed in its direction. (His testicles also get jokes.)
The problem here is that Lorre and company seem to be trying to retroactively fit a sweeter temperament into the middle of his most successful show in its ninth season, even though that show became famous for its aggressively cynical material. Walden isn't the playboy guy; he's the guy who's sad his wife left him, even though he's got enough money to land any woman in the world. It's sort of weird to have him pop up in the middle of this show, as if he's always been there (even though he hasn't). Will he be allowing Jake and Alan to stay on? Presumably so, and he'll presumably develop relationships with the other characters as well, but there's no good indication of just what he brings to the show in this episode, other than a chance to take a break from "Ha, ha, Charlie Sheen's an asshole and let's piss on his grave" jokes in favor of "Ashton Kutcher: Big Penis" jokes.
It's always tricky to replace a character on a long-running sitcom, particularly a lead character. To my mind, only Cheers has managed the trick, and that was a show with such a strong ensemble that it could get by with the writers taking a little time to figure out just who Rebecca Howe was and just what Kirstie Alley could play the most humorously. (Plus, it was only a show in its sixth season. That's old for a TV show, but it's no season nine, as Men has entered.) Cheers managed the trick by keeping Diane's basic function—the love interest who stays just out of reach—and replacing it with a whole new character. The problem is that Charlie Harper's function was never horribly well defined. He was just a guy who sat around and tossed out horrible one-liners. So that means that Walden Schmidt feels a little desperate, a little too much like a show that prided itself on pushing people away as much as possible—a show that started with a funeral chorus of the theme song guys singing "Men" to the tune of the funeral march, for God's sake—trying its darnedest to get people to like it. God willing, it's not going to work out.