It is an excellent idea when you have to edit, move & store about large chunks (Gbs) of data between various mac, linux and windows computers.
It's more than a minor inconvenience having to make 4+ partitions on a drive because of windows. It's not a matter of being a good ideia (it is not!), but it is the only idea appart of carrying my own NAS in a backpack.
I belive it is a general missconception that people would buy all the stuff they download or borrow. It's just a way to inflate the perception of loss for the industry.
In servers, I couldn't care less about X or fun and games. I do care about hardware support and features.
I really wish the chasm between stable and testing was not that wide. It is stupid that debian stable net-installs with no problems in a pentium 200 Mhz with a 10baseT nic but fails to install in 1 year old computer because of hardware compatibility with the nic and/or scsi controler.
I've been using word for some years now. It's getting better regarding stability, but it's getting worse in usability. In a vanilla install, I spend just the same amount of time typing as fighting all the inteligent features that crept into new versions.
Remember that science as a whole is very poorly connected: Experiments can take years, they are done more or less in secrecy (fear off theft) and take a couple of months to become public (published). This means that you could be working for months on something someone else is close to publish. Going to congresses and seeing all pretence scientists avoiding discussion is depressing.
Besides, scientists and reviewers are also human beings that are not completely imparcial regarding what they do, read and aprove.
Do science only if you find it enjoyable. Most of the so called scientists will not find any interst in your work unless they can use it to show off (trash you) or to publish faster (i.e. is relevant to their work). Avoid trendy hot fields. They usualy attract a lot of people who do quick and dirty publishing, leaving a pile of confusion, paradoxical observations and hallucinating interpretations.
I was blessed with a good project and lab during my PhD, but I've been out of science for 2 years (to see how the real world works), so take all that I say above with cautious reserve.
I have a PhD in biological sciences* and I can tell you it depends on the lab and projects you choose.
Some labs are extremely flexible on how PhD students handle their projects. It is not uncommon to have PhD students come up with theire own subprojects and investigation lines. Of course, you are expected to follow more or less the lines in your PhD project nevertheless.
On the other hand, choosing a PhD that is mostly technical or in a lab where you are treated as a qualified technician on the PI's main project, leaves little margin for independence and thought.
If you find doing experiments time dull intlectually, I recomend that you look up Theoretical and/or Computational Biology. It is much more interdisciplinary than regular 'gene knock out biology' and intelectually more rewarding.
Believe it or not, you saw it first in slashdot: a PhD in theoretical biochemistry with careless spelling. This is really a wonderfull site.
Spelling is not subjective, so there is no excuse in the fact that english is not my birth language.
Truth is that I do not invest that much time in the quality control of my online posts. I already spend too much time reading slashdot these days, so I limit my proofreading to finding duplicate / missing words.
I have a PhD in theoretical biochemistry, which means that I spent 4 years working in front of a PC in a basement amid other 'beautifull' theoreticians with long beards and sandals... Thank god for slashdot!
In 4 years I only saw a girl there. She was a mathematitian who went for a PhD in microbiology. I guess we scarred her.
Here is my advice: don't go into theoretical/modelling stuff unless you enjoy a dilbertian life style with a felowship;)
I'm from Portugal and I'm used to very good coffee. The average cup of coffee in the USA is disapointingly uninteresting. When I am there I mostly drink tee.
My personal preferences, assuming always high quality coffee:
1. Freshly moed expresso using a high pressure expresso machine. High yeild of taste, caffeine and sugar.
2. Italian-style coffee pots. High temperature & pressure. Very good coffee with caffeine and taste depending on the coffee pot and on the amount of coffee you put inside. It will not explode with excess coffee if you buy one with a steam valve. The stongest coffee I ever had was with one of these babies.
3. Drip coffee / Frensh-style coffee pot. Quantity and quality of coffee are paramount! Get one where the the hot water is really hot and flows slowly, otherwise you end up with slightly brown water.
I never touch instant coffee. It tastes funny and watery.
I only buy hardware when I *really* need it. If I can wait for the next generation of components, then I really don't need an upgrade.
When I find that my CPU is underpowerd for my usage, I buy a new CPU, motherboard and memory and re-use as much of the older PC components as possible.
My 900Mhz Duron is doing q3a and ET just fine with it's 512 of PC133 and 3 hard drives (3+2+15 Gb) in lvm. The 3+2 Gb drive was recently replaced by an 80Gb drive (no lvm), because I *needed* the extra space for my data and I was no loger trusting the older drives.
I had never used anything besides unix. Once a brand new alpha 500 arrived for me to play with on my first week as a PhD student.
While trying to cope with stupid licence restrictions, the fact that $HOME for root is / and that rm is non interactive, I accidently deleted (I think) the kernel of the machine. The fact is thta it wouldn't boot!!!!
Sweating like a pig I tried to explain to my supervisor and unfriendly IT guro how after 3-4 hours of unpacking the most expensive computer in the lab was dead.
Slashdot Mirror
It is an excellent idea when you have to edit, move & store about large chunks (Gbs) of data between various mac, linux and windows computers.
It's more than a minor inconvenience having to make 4+ partitions on a drive because of windows. It's not a matter of being a good ideia (it is not!), but it is the only idea appart of carrying my own NAS in a backpack.
I belive it is a general missconception that people would buy all the stuff they download or borrow. It's just a way to inflate the perception of loss for the industry.
Why did you buy it if it is so crippled? Or was it offered?
http://www.abscindere.com/
It organizes bookmarks in concepts and allows you to make notes on them. It's very usefull once you get the hang on it.
I agree to some point.
In servers, I couldn't care less about X or fun and games. I do care about hardware support and features.
I really wish the chasm between stable and testing was not that wide. It is stupid that debian stable net-installs with no problems in a pentium 200 Mhz with a 10baseT nic but fails to install in 1 year old computer because of hardware compatibility with the nic and/or scsi controler.
Look at apple dual cpu systems: one for the gui special effects and the other for the actual work.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~apinkus/yacas.html
I never used it myself, but people have recommended it to me as a (small) substitute for mathematica symbolic calculations.
Turn off the FAM daemon (look for /etc/init.d/fam).
This should reduce some of the icon fliker in konq and desktop.
I've been using word for some years now. It's getting better regarding stability, but it's getting worse in usability. In a vanilla install, I spend just the same amount of time typing as fighting all the inteligent features that crept into new versions.
Remember that science as a whole is very poorly connected: Experiments can take years, they are done more or less in secrecy (fear off theft) and take a couple of months to become public (published). This means that you could be working for months on something someone else is close to publish. Going to congresses and seeing all pretence scientists avoiding discussion is depressing.
Besides, scientists and reviewers are also human beings that are not completely imparcial regarding what they do, read and aprove.
Do science only if you find it enjoyable. Most of the so called scientists will not find any interst in your work unless they can use it to show off (trash you) or to publish faster (i.e. is relevant to their work). Avoid trendy hot fields. They usualy attract a lot of people who do quick and dirty publishing, leaving a pile of confusion, paradoxical observations and hallucinating interpretations.
I was blessed with a good project and lab during my PhD, but I've been out of science for 2 years (to see how the real world works), so take all that I say above with cautious reserve.
Good luck
I have a PhD in biological sciences* and I can tell you it depends on the lab and projects you choose.
Some labs are extremely flexible on how PhD students handle their projects. It is not uncommon to have PhD students come up with theire own subprojects and investigation lines. Of course, you are expected to follow more or less the lines in your PhD project nevertheless.
On the other hand, choosing a PhD that is mostly technical or in a lab where you are treated as a qualified technician on the PI's main project, leaves little margin for independence and thought.
If you find doing experiments time dull intlectually, I recomend that you look up Theoretical and/or Computational Biology. It is much more interdisciplinary than regular 'gene knock out biology' and intelectually more rewarding.
Well, IMHO, bechmarking with the same gcc would give valuable information for the number cruncher in me.
I couldn't care less about the maximum CPU performance, but I do care a lot about how fast my programs run on each machine.
Since gcc comes with linux and macosx, in my view, it would be a very pertinent test.
Believe it or not, you saw it first in slashdot: a PhD in theoretical biochemistry with careless spelling. This is really a wonderfull site.
Spelling is not subjective, so there is no excuse in the fact that english is not my birth language.
Truth is that I do not invest that much time in the quality control of my online posts. I already spend too much time reading slashdot these days, so I limit my proofreading to finding duplicate / missing words.
Obviously, they will become plummers as well.
/me feels dizzy with depression
;)
I have a PhD in theoretical biochemistry, which means that I spent 4 years working in front of a PC in a basement amid other 'beautifull' theoreticians with long beards and sandals... Thank god for slashdot!
In 4 years I only saw a girl there. She was a mathematitian who went for a PhD in microbiology. I guess we scarred her.
Here is my advice: don't go into theoretical/modelling stuff unless you enjoy a dilbertian life style with a felowship
Instant coffee? That is horrible!
I'm from Portugal and I'm used to very good coffee. The average cup of coffee in the USA is disapointingly uninteresting. When I am there I mostly drink tee.
My personal preferences, assuming always high quality coffee:
1. Freshly moed expresso using a high pressure expresso machine. High yeild of taste, caffeine and sugar.
2. Italian-style coffee pots. High temperature & pressure. Very good coffee with caffeine and taste depending on the coffee pot and on the amount of coffee you put inside. It will not explode with excess coffee if you buy one with a steam valve. The stongest coffee I ever had was with one of these babies.
3. Drip coffee / Frensh-style coffee pot. Quantity and quality of coffee are paramount! Get one where the the hot water is really hot and flows slowly, otherwise you end up with slightly brown water.
I never touch instant coffee. It tastes funny and watery.
These are always a sure bet regarding best of the year films.
I only buy hardware when I *really* need it. If I can wait for the next generation of components, then I really don't need an upgrade.
When I find that my CPU is underpowerd for my usage, I buy a new CPU, motherboard and memory and re-use as much of the older PC components as possible.
My 900Mhz Duron is doing q3a and ET just fine with it's 512 of PC133 and 3 hard drives (3+2+15 Gb) in lvm. The 3+2 Gb drive was recently replaced by an 80Gb drive (no lvm), because I *needed* the extra space for my data and I was no loger trusting the older drives.
I had never used anything besides unix. Once a brand new alpha 500 arrived for me to play with on my first week as a PhD student.
While trying to cope with stupid licence restrictions, the fact that $HOME for root is / and that rm is non interactive, I accidently deleted (I think) the kernel of the machine. The fact is thta it wouldn't boot!!!!
Sweating like a pig I tried to explain to my supervisor and unfriendly IT guro how after 3-4 hours of unpacking the most expensive computer in the lab was dead.
It's shorthand for:C ontacts-managert op-Menu-Configuration
:o)
KDE-Desktop-Conqueror-browser
KDE-Desktop-
KDE-Desktop-PDF-viewer
KDE-Desk
KDE-Desktop-Control-center
etc...
Actully it's a handy way to sort the packages in a listing. The only odd packages that you need to remember are arts and qt.
In Portuguese (ranking #7 of the most spoken language), caca is a synonym for feces. Not a very fortunate name for a library I would say.
thankyou thankyou thankyou
Stupid jobs for messing this up.
Doesn't MS develop software for the mac?
I love knoppix!!!!
Instantly convertes any stupid pc into a complete workstation.
It's just that good.
What size of shoe is the reference for feet and how mucch is that in centimeters?