Thursday, August 21, 2008


  • Gizmodo:

  • Thoughts on the Olympics:

    • I thought I saw cheerleaders at the women's beach volleyball events. That was strange enough, but the announcing also seemed...a bit unconventional.
    • I'm not sure that the sprinter Bolt's performance overshadows that of Phelps, but certainly just winning 8 gold medals doesn't imply being the best Olympian. And Freakonomics make all this admiration graphical.

  • I've finally caught up on Backreaction:

    • I like that she complains about academia because certain physics blogs are way too cheery for my taste. However, when she says "I don't know anybody who was particularly happy during his PhD," I have to laugh. I was just saying the other day how stress-free my life was during grad school. No more so than once I was done with classes, and just researching. I suppose I've always been a bit of an underachieving, laid-back, slacker so perhaps I'm not the norm. It was only when I stumbled upon a tenure-track position that I got somewhat ambitious. Most of the stress in my life is fighting that ambition (or giving in to it, depending on how you look at it).
    • In the same post, she talks about the lack of availability of supervisors. Again, I play the contrarian. I pretty much sought to avoid mine. I always found it best to ask questions during social occasions, especially ones with alcohol present.
    • Sabine has broken a cardinal rule of physics blogging. Just as Stephen Colbert cannot see color, we cannot judge the attractiveness of colleagues. Luckily, she apologizes in the same breath which may hold off the hordes for a bit, when she says "who is really cute, sorry, but this has to be mentioned."

4 comments:

Sabine Hossenfelder said...

Aah... but he's not my colleague, I hardly know him.

Glad to hear you had a good PhD time. I'm always wondering how representative my experiences and those of my friends are, so good to hear about yours.

Thanks for the link,

B.

The Chemist said...

That's why chemistry blogging is the way to go. We're much more careless since no one really cares what we do, so long as we do it. :-P

Angry said...

Bee,

Thinking about it more, I think it may be "more normal" (whatever that means) that people enjoy grad school. Maybe that's just in the States, and certainly some enjoyed it too much and didn't finish.

CarlBrannen said...

I had a blast in grad school. I left without the PhD because I couldn't see how I could make a career in physics that would be more fun than working in industry.