Ok, I'm just about to graduate undergrad (ack! in less than a month) and have been working in research labs since I was 15. I started out as basically bumblefuck the summer intern doing weird self-taught interface stuff... stayed in that lab all through high school (did lots of weird and cool stuff - this was MIT Media, so weird is an understatment). Since 2005, I've been an undergrad researcher (UROP) in a lab at BU's Med Campus... and I'll be an RA in a month and a half (at Vandy).
So, basic wisdom, gleaned from years of being a lab denizen:
1. You have to sit training and you will be bored shitless. Sign the sheet, try not to fall asleep and drool on your shirt.
2. When you first come in, you are the lowest thing on the totem pole - you will get any/all scut work that anyone thinks you can handle. If you worked for me, that would mean you're doing the annoying electronics crap that I've long since gotten bored with.
3. People don't mind questions - they do mind when you don't learn. Basically, ignorance is curable (and we don't mind curing it), but willful stupidity is fatal.
4. Ask PIs and everyone else in the lab for reading material - what should you know that everyone else will assume that you do. Also, ask which mailing lists you should get on (everything is email these days, so it isn't as though this costs money).
5. If you break something, own up immediately (same thing goes if you relocate something) - if you go off and relocate a component of my testing arena or the subject records, your life will become interesting in ways which you will not enjoy.
6. Try to get along with people. If you need to bitch about something - fine, we're human too. After you're done, go and get it done [your work, that is]. If all you do is bitch, the lab will hate you. And talk about you years after the fact.
7. If, in a few years, you wind up writing papers, try to do it with people who are around regularly (trying to collaborate with your boss who fucks off to random places and is really bad about email on a good day is not fun [yes, i'm speaking from personal experience here]). Along this same vein, pull journal requirements early.
8. Email voice rarely corresponds to normal voice - certain people are much more offensive over lab email. Try not to take too much offence.
9. The non-research bureaucrats are a perpetual bane. Basically, try not to deal with them as much as you can (you'll be saner). However, make good friends with your lab admin (if you have one) - he/she has a crapload of power and can generally get stuff sorted out much more easily.
10. If you do human or animal work, DO NOT annoy your IRB or IACUC. The penalties, both immediate and long term for you and your lab are immense. Basically, treat them like the high priests of a cthonic deity - you really don't want to get eaten, do you?
That's it for now
Gah. Can we file this under really bad summary - this is basically an expansion of work that has been underway for a few years now (just read a paper on a similar concept from 05). What we're really seeing is a pattern-matching algorithm - train it using fMRI data from visual cortices and, with a limited subset, it's pretty accurate. Honestly, as a vision researcher, the more interesting bit isn't the so-called "mind reading" bit, although it is a good trick - it's the fact that it works across subjects with a respectable amount of accuracy (which indicates that activation in V1/V2/V3 is not overly dissimiliar between subjects).
Cool work though...
Gah! I learned to program as a sophomore in HS (TrueBASIC) and have then taught myself C++ and JAVA. Most of my current job (as a sophomore in university and a lab technician) is creating custom drivers for custom built research devices.
Kids don't program my ass.
I started taking programming courses in high school... took a course in TrueBASIC (nice to learn, if rather limited). Taught myself a modicum of Java (and developed a real dislike for it - yes, yes, I know there are people out there who like it and make their livings off of it - I am not one of them). I then taught myself C++ piecemeal... and am now decent at it.
I generally suggest the BASIC varients as a beginning step - the advantage at that level is that one can read one's own code without getting one hell of a headache. Also, there are very fun things one can do with BASIC-programmable PICs... a fun way to do electronics and see what your code does [and usually how it fails]. After that (and hopefully a good grounding in programming basics), I'd reccommend going on to C++ (which is admittedly an utter mess of a language, but to quote Stephenson, "Sometimes its fun to have a tank [when a car would do the job]". I swear by the O'reilly books when it comes to dead-tree references... but one can find an astonishing amount of material on Google. I still need to get a C++ reference, and a good half of my job as a lab technician is coding in the language for custom controlling applications!
So, in short, Google is your friend, BASIC is a good beginning step and C++ can be fun (but you'd better lay in a supply of asprin first).
No, they exist because they can sell sugared swill to those who will pay for it.
I mean, they are going over to SuperAutos to make their espresso... not even a real bloody machine!
I'd say its aimed at people like me: learning C for personal gain (and scientific use) who love to have good reference books floating around. I'll take a look.
I'd suggest, assuming you're in a major metropolitan area, find someone doing research in a field that interests you (where I am, and considering you're posting to/., I'd look at the MIT Media Lab) and ask a PI or a Professor to take you on for the summer. I did that all through highschool, got a published paper out of it and am now spending my first collgiate summer working as a lab tech at BUMC.
The worst that can happen is that you get turned down. The best is that you spend 2+ months working hard and learning tons.
Generally, if the order was processed after the release announcement, apple will either give you a copy OR will make you pay $20 for it rather than $130...
usually the latter
Ok, so this developer violated his NDA and released a Tiger build via bittorrent... the question is, how badly did Apple Legal squeeze him. He's a student, so was this a slap-on-the-wrist (i.e x$1000). I'd kinda like to know.
I also would expect that he's lost his Apple Developer status, but that's just me.
It is possible (if you want to spend a small fortune) to cram a G5 tower with 8x2GB DDR3200 sticks. Not exactly a cheap proposition, but it can do the trick.
OS X can address that much, the applications themselves are either limited to 2GB or 4GB, I don't recall which.
I'm a freshman at BU and on a floor of 45 students, there is ONE landline (owned by a non-US student), everyone has computers - and a few of us have more than one.
There is roughly a 5:1 windows to Mac ratio... although it's a little squewed because a couple of us have desktops and powerbooks.
Everyone, unless they're non-US residents, has cell phones. Over 50% of us have iPods, use iTunes and share music.
Yeah, we're hardware-laden students... and I love it!
Good Lord, this is easy to circumvent
Take any app that records any/all system audio to disc (on mac, this would be Audio Hijack or Wiretap) and just splice the resultant AIFF file.
Technology rendered moot by preexisting code.
Take that, you RIAA bastards
I've got an HP cp1700 - $500 uberInkjet printer (although they go on ebay for $200) - pure CMYK system with easily replacable individual cartridges and printheads - so when I'm printing tons and tons of B&W photos... I just replace the black cart.
Beware, it does eat nearly a meter of desk space... it's huge.
I've got a Sharp Zaurus 5500 running OZ 3.2 and a dLink wifi card... works very well and if you want to transfer files, there is always SSH. There are a few OSS projects out there for iCal/address book compatability, but I haven't used them much.
If you can swing it, get a 5600... slightly more money for 2x the processor.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I'm just about to graduate undergrad (ack! in less than a month) and have been working in research labs since I was 15. I started out as basically bumblefuck the summer intern doing weird self-taught interface stuff... stayed in that lab all through high school (did lots of weird and cool stuff - this was MIT Media, so weird is an understatment). Since 2005, I've been an undergrad researcher (UROP) in a lab at BU's Med Campus... and I'll be an RA in a month and a half (at Vandy). So, basic wisdom, gleaned from years of being a lab denizen: 1. You have to sit training and you will be bored shitless. Sign the sheet, try not to fall asleep and drool on your shirt. 2. When you first come in, you are the lowest thing on the totem pole - you will get any/all scut work that anyone thinks you can handle. If you worked for me, that would mean you're doing the annoying electronics crap that I've long since gotten bored with. 3. People don't mind questions - they do mind when you don't learn. Basically, ignorance is curable (and we don't mind curing it), but willful stupidity is fatal. 4. Ask PIs and everyone else in the lab for reading material - what should you know that everyone else will assume that you do. Also, ask which mailing lists you should get on (everything is email these days, so it isn't as though this costs money). 5. If you break something, own up immediately (same thing goes if you relocate something) - if you go off and relocate a component of my testing arena or the subject records, your life will become interesting in ways which you will not enjoy. 6. Try to get along with people. If you need to bitch about something - fine, we're human too. After you're done, go and get it done [your work, that is]. If all you do is bitch, the lab will hate you. And talk about you years after the fact. 7. If, in a few years, you wind up writing papers, try to do it with people who are around regularly (trying to collaborate with your boss who fucks off to random places and is really bad about email on a good day is not fun [yes, i'm speaking from personal experience here]). Along this same vein, pull journal requirements early. 8. Email voice rarely corresponds to normal voice - certain people are much more offensive over lab email. Try not to take too much offence. 9. The non-research bureaucrats are a perpetual bane. Basically, try not to deal with them as much as you can (you'll be saner). However, make good friends with your lab admin (if you have one) - he/she has a crapload of power and can generally get stuff sorted out much more easily. 10. If you do human or animal work, DO NOT annoy your IRB or IACUC. The penalties, both immediate and long term for you and your lab are immense. Basically, treat them like the high priests of a cthonic deity - you really don't want to get eaten, do you? That's it for now
Clarke's works were what generally got me into science fiction that is worth reading as literature. Fare thee well, Mr. Clarke
Gah. Can we file this under really bad summary - this is basically an expansion of work that has been underway for a few years now (just read a paper on a similar concept from 05). What we're really seeing is a pattern-matching algorithm - train it using fMRI data from visual cortices and, with a limited subset, it's pretty accurate. Honestly, as a vision researcher, the more interesting bit isn't the so-called "mind reading" bit, although it is a good trick - it's the fact that it works across subjects with a respectable amount of accuracy (which indicates that activation in V1/V2/V3 is not overly dissimiliar between subjects). Cool work though...
Gah! I learned to program as a sophomore in HS (TrueBASIC) and have then taught myself C++ and JAVA. Most of my current job (as a sophomore in university and a lab technician) is creating custom drivers for custom built research devices. Kids don't program my ass.
I started taking programming courses in high school... took a course in TrueBASIC (nice to learn, if rather limited). Taught myself a modicum of Java (and developed a real dislike for it - yes, yes, I know there are people out there who like it and make their livings off of it - I am not one of them). I then taught myself C++ piecemeal... and am now decent at it.
I generally suggest the BASIC varients as a beginning step - the advantage at that level is that one can read one's own code without getting one hell of a headache. Also, there are very fun things one can do with BASIC-programmable PICs... a fun way to do electronics and see what your code does [and usually how it fails]. After that (and hopefully a good grounding in programming basics), I'd reccommend going on to C++ (which is admittedly an utter mess of a language, but to quote Stephenson, "Sometimes its fun to have a tank [when a car would do the job]". I swear by the O'reilly books when it comes to dead-tree references... but one can find an astonishing amount of material on Google. I still need to get a C++ reference, and a good half of my job as a lab technician is coding in the language for custom controlling applications!
So, in short, Google is your friend, BASIC is a good beginning step and C++ can be fun (but you'd better lay in a supply of asprin first).
Otherwise known as the Epson model? 14ml = $14
No, they exist because they can sell sugared swill to those who will pay for it. I mean, they are going over to SuperAutos to make their espresso... not even a real bloody machine!
I'd say its aimed at people like me: learning C for personal gain (and scientific use) who love to have good reference books floating around. I'll take a look.
I'd suggest, assuming you're in a major metropolitan area, find someone doing research in a field that interests you (where I am, and considering you're posting to /., I'd look at the MIT Media Lab) and ask a PI or a Professor to take you on for the summer. I did that all through highschool, got a published paper out of it and am now spending my first collgiate summer working as a lab tech at BUMC.
The worst that can happen is that you get turned down. The best is that you spend 2+ months working hard and learning tons.
Generally, if the order was processed after the release announcement, apple will either give you a copy OR will make you pay $20 for it rather than $130... usually the latter
Your geek license has been revoked! Charge: working for a non-licensed user of the trade term "Geek"
Ok, so this developer violated his NDA and released a Tiger build via bittorrent... the question is, how badly did Apple Legal squeeze him. He's a student, so was this a slap-on-the-wrist (i.e x$1000). I'd kinda like to know. I also would expect that he's lost his Apple Developer status, but that's just me.
It is possible (if you want to spend a small fortune) to cram a G5 tower with 8x2GB DDR3200 sticks. Not exactly a cheap proposition, but it can do the trick. OS X can address that much, the applications themselves are either limited to 2GB or 4GB, I don't recall which.
I'm a freshman at BU and on a floor of 45 students, there is ONE landline (owned by a non-US student), everyone has computers - and a few of us have more than one. There is roughly a 5:1 windows to Mac ratio... although it's a little squewed because a couple of us have desktops and powerbooks. Everyone, unless they're non-US residents, has cell phones. Over 50% of us have iPods, use iTunes and share music. Yeah, we're hardware-laden students... and I love it!
I would have to say that the punishment for rape/child molestation should be very, very simple: Castration. Without anesthetic.
Fool. Just BUY a PS2-USB adaptor and cease your whining!
Good Lord, this is easy to circumvent Take any app that records any/all system audio to disc (on mac, this would be Audio Hijack or Wiretap) and just splice the resultant AIFF file. Technology rendered moot by preexisting code. Take that, you RIAA bastards
I'd say the OP is entitled to his view... considering his previous habit... so STFU
Limited read/write cycles and slower access speed.
Heavy duty back pack. $45. +neoprene sleeve
I've got an HP cp1700 - $500 uberInkjet printer (although they go on ebay for $200) - pure CMYK system with easily replacable individual cartridges and printheads - so when I'm printing tons and tons of B&W photos... I just replace the black cart. Beware, it does eat nearly a meter of desk space... it's huge.
I've got a Sharp Zaurus 5500 running OZ 3.2 and a dLink wifi card... works very well and if you want to transfer files, there is always SSH. There are a few OSS projects out there for iCal/address book compatability, but I haven't used them much. If you can swing it, get a 5600... slightly more money for 2x the processor.
Have we been reading a lot of Stephenson lately? The Dimond Age anyone?
Yeah, for that kind of money for a PDA I'd go for a Zaurus 6000
You win /.'s good neighbour award today. A very nice thing to do.