The Truth About Grad School

PhD Comics current series on the dramatization of science is damn near perfect. It starts here and is currently ongoing.

Whenever I see someone doing research on TV, either in a movie or often in a documentary, they're sitting in shiny modernist offices or laboratories full of gleaming chrome and fluorescent lighting. In my experience the fluorescent lighting is about all they get right. My lab in college was largely held together by epoxy and duct tape. Anything metal was probably the worse for wear and the windows hadn't been cleaned. Ever. The greatest part is the repurposed lab equipment and old experimental gear which almost never clutters the corners of movie shots. At one point my lab was using an optical table as a desk. This was a precisely drilled and mounted slab of steel that weighed and cost more than an SUV. It's so heavy and unwieldy that after the experiments using it were completed eons ago, nobody had the desire to move it. The lab just grew up around it. It's probably still an incredibly expensive workdesk in Spencer Lab to this day.

The comic about making the graduate student wear a labcoat and look important? False. The only time I ever saw a professor in the lab was when photos were being taken. At which point they were the ones dressed up and looking official while making intelligent looking adjustments to the coolest piece of equipment in the lab.

But the bit about not being able to explain your research is true and classic. I worked on composite manufacturing using RTM, VARTM, and SCRIMP. Just Google them. Most of my work was modeling fluid flow through porous media using Darcy's Law. I tried explaining this to Amy once. About all she got was "you suck glue through tiny tubes." Yes, yes, that's what I do alright.

Sam Colt Made Them Equal

An international feminist group is advocating for disarmament in order to protect women.

Look, here's the deal. Men are bigger than women. Even when we're the same weight, men are stronger because women have more body fat and higher skeletal mass. Even when all things are equal, women are at a distinct disadvantage in a fight. And things are rarely equal if an attacker can help it.

How do you level the playing field? Give women a weapon that doesn't rely on physical size or strength. Something that cashes in on women's excellent fine motor skills. I don't know, maybe we could power it with small cartridges of powerful chemicals instead of a person's arm or leg strength. Make it ranged so the man's extra reach won't matter so much. Hey that sounds great! Where could we get such a device?

Guns have historically been great equalizers. The hand cannon leveled the social classes, it gave the peasant the ability to bring down the rich noble in his suit of armor. When you're talking about violence between men and women, they can do the same thing there as well. Which is why I take my female friends out to the range whenever they ask.

Oh and not everything those women want is stupid. I have no problem with making it hard for violent sex offenders to get guns. But a lot of their advocacy seems to be dedicated to the sort of gun buy back programs that the left loves, but which really don't work.

Headlights

I just replaced my driver's side headlight again. I've changed it 3 times now. The passenger side is still factory original. Every time the bulb has blown, I've used a standard Sylvania replacement from Walmart or an auto-parts store. I think I've figured out what false economy feels like now.

Famous Last Words

While not quite General John Sedgwick's "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance," SaysUncle points out that "What are you going to do?" certainly ought to make the list.

Fitness for on the Cheap

For those of you who have already tossed out your WiiFits, Instapundit linked to a site that all about working out on the cheap.

Life Sized Gundam

In construction. Now finished. How the first link classified the Gundam as "green," I'll never know. Maybe they made it out of recycled Sapporo cans.

David Eddings Dies

He was 77. Eddings' wife and coauthor Leigh died in 2007. Chris Byrne was also a fan.

Lego Aircraft Carrier

Just Awesome. My inner ten-year old thinks that is the coolest thing evar.

Via Tam.

Playing Catchup

Well I'm still alive. The month of May was pretty crazy for me. I spent two of my four work-weeks in either training or a symposium (more on that later). My workload was much heavier than usual and I only had half as much time finish them. So I dug deep and finished everything by their suspense dates. And now June is here and it looks like I might be able to catch my breath at work and have energy left when I get home to write something for everyone here.

Hopefully you'll see more blogging here in the coming days. Some of it might actually be on current topics as a clean out my queue of old posts I never quite had time to finish.

The New Trek

Saw it last night while Amy was in class. Good and very pretty, but it has a pretty bad case of the stupids in spots.

A few examples? The villian's ship has a bad case of flame factory. The interior has huge open spaces and lots of platforms with no railings that forebode future plummeting. The Enterprise wasn't any better. Several scenes in the engineering spaces made me wonder when Scotty was going to have to work his way through the Chompers. And Jim Kirk went from being a bad ass to being the galaxy's punching bag. I don't think he wins a fight in the whole movie. And when did Chekov become competent?

I felt similar to when I first watched Deadwood. Deadwood was every cliched Western I'd ever seen, but with more dirt, profanity, and general immorality of screen. Star Trek was every sci-fi cliche I'd ever seen, but shined up until everything glowed.

But boy was it pretty.

Not Stimulated Enough

I had my meeting to price out a new central air unit. It's going to hurt, but I'm going to do it anyway. The new unit will be 40% more efficient and will be probably be under parts and labor warranty for as long as I'm likely to own this house. It will also have humidity control which the current unit lacks and, in my mind, is practically mandatory for any sort of forced air unit.

Oh and the tax breaks and stimulus money? Yeah he told me not to expect any. In order to qualify for federal dollars I'd need an insane SERE rating. State money is limited by funded and the money is almost always spent by now. About all I can expect is a tax deduction come next April.

Color Me Stimulated

Whether you like it or not...

My AC went out this weekend. The local service people came by to check it out today. It's screwed. The cooling coil in my house's forced air loop has a leak. That means it's shot and will need to be replaced to the tune of $900 just for parts. I'm looking at two grand with install, recharging the now empty system with R22, servicing everything that needs it, etc. Ouch.

It's enough money that the service guys suggested pricing out a completely new unit. Why a new unit? Because the government is phasing out R22 due to environmental concerns. This process starts in January. The refrigerant replacing it in most applications (like household air conditioners) is R410a. Except that R410a is not backwards compatible with R22 equipment. If I'm lucky I'll be able to keep the lines that run between the two halves of my split unit. But the compressor and air handler are not compatible and would have to go. I'll find out what that would cost on Friday. That sounds like it's going to be a great way to spend my Friday off.

Not that any of this can really be laid at Obama's feet. I'm fairly sure the changeover is tied to agreements signed in the 1980s and was decided on at least two years ago. But I still want to gripe.

The Great Books

Physics Geek Jesus Freak mentioned Bill Bennett's list of books every high school student should read before graduation. He mentions that the Great Gatsby, which I haven't read, is overrated. Ditto Catcher in the Rye. Never read Gatsby, but I have to second him on Catcher. Holden Caulfield whines through 100 pages, the end.

The list reminds me that I still need to read 1984. We never covered it in school for some odd reason. When I had the chance to pick it up on my own, I read A Brave New World instead. It was the 90s. I thought that controlling people through their excesses was a far more timely topic than socialist totalitarian rule. But the world has kept turning and I find that I have to rectify the missing bits of my education.

Ammo Prices

Tam gives a thorough explanation of why ammo costs so much right now and why prices will have to come down eventually. I'm shooting a lot of .22 right now because of this. I have at least 4000 rounds of it left in the case I bought so I should be good for a while. On the other hand the last time I bought 5.56, I paid $13 for 20 rounds. Compare that to $6 per box when I built my AR a few years ago.

She also makes the point that if you're carrying a semi-automatic handgun, you ought to carry a spare magazine. It doesn't matter if the pistol mag carries a million rounds. You aren't carrying the extra mag for the capacity, you're carrying it as a reliability measure. If the magazine isn't the heart of the pistol, it's at least its stomach. If your one mag goes bad, then you have a very expensive and cumbersome breach-loader. Even if you can thumb a round into the chamber, that's a great way to break an extractor hook on some pistol models. Then you'll have a gun that can't feed or extract and you're doubly screwed. Carry a spare mag. It's cheap, it's easy, and it could save your life.

Oh, and how about that Ninth Circus? Broken clocks and all.

Tax Day Tea Party

A number of Tea Parties are being held today even in the tiny state of Delaware. The one of most interest to me will be at the Shipyard Shops in Wilmington from 4:30 to 6pm. I don't think I'll actually be able to get there because it's too early and too far away from work, but good luck to anyone who can.

West Pointers Make a Good Impression

Amy and I caught this part of the ACM awards and were impressed:



Thanks to the reminder on Chris Byrne's site, I just picked up the audio and video off of iTunes. Might as well put that gift card to good use and the proceeds go directly to the Wounded Warrior Fund.

Very Fitting

I just heard that the last book of Jordan's Wheel of Time will be so large, they're going to split it up into 3 separate volumes. That's a fitting tribute to both the Wheel of Time's incredible length and Jordan's long-winded and repetitive writing style.

More likely though it's just proof that most of the books in the middle of the series (the entire drought/weather arc) should have been greatly abbreviated. He could have gotten on with it and still had plenty of pages left for the endgame.

These Colors Don't Run

Or even walk much. Hilarious. But wait, there's more.

I'm somewhat active in the gun rights and self-defense communities. I'm not a competitive shooter or instructor, but I'm at least aware of what is going on. It always amazes me when self-proclaimed serious self-defense enthusiasts are fifty or more pounds overweight. Some of them smoke like chimneys. Now I'm no pro athlete, but I try to keep myself somewhat healthy. Why? Because the first skill you want to have down for self defense is running away. Hotfoot your ass out of trouble. I can do that. My knees will be sore the next day, but the alternative is even less appealing.

Movement is the foundation of any serious self-defense system, both in defense and attack. You need to be able to get yourself physically away from trouble if you find yourself outmatched. You need to move explosively to properly employ cover and limit exposure in offense or defense. This is important. Plan your self defense training around it.

Self-defense is not about owning or carrying a weapon. The biggest part is mindset. Looking for threats and react to them before they get to you. Train so that you can properly use your defensive tools. Maintain basic physical health so you can handle the stress you will be under in these situations. I'll be the first to admit that I don't have all of these down, but that doesn't make any of them less important.

Google Chrome

My home computer is an old HP celeron box I bought fiveish years ago when my Dell laptop died its last death. Lately browsing on this machine has been horribly slow. Especially with multiple tabs open and extra-specially if any sort of flash is involved. I was handling this by blocking flash ads and praying a lot when queueing multiple YouTube feeds at the same time. Eventually the whole computer grinds to a halt and the only thing I can do is kill the browser and start over.

I've recently come to realize it's not completely my computer's fault. For whatever reason, Firefox 3.0 is just really slow and seems to develop memory leaks over time. So I installed Google Chrome this morning. It is noticeably faster now but it's a little early to say how it will hold up after extended browsing. Especially when flash will eat up processor cycles on any machine and there isn't a flash-blocker plugin for Chrome.

I definitely wish I had Firefox's skinning option though. Chrome puts its tabs on the title bar above the address and tool bars. I suppose this is an efficient use of screen space. Perhaps it has the Mac throw-the-mouse-at-the-top-of-the-screen logic as well. But it seems clunky to me. I'd much rather have my tabs near the display window where every other browser puts them.

Hope These Aren't Horribly Broken in 4th Ed

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