You ever think of throwing it all away?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Being a scientist's codemonkey

Ha ha.

Now I remember why I only learned to program once I got to grad school and it was unavoidable.

[Zevico]

I know what you mean - went through the same thing. You know you should give a **** but Civ and the internet is just more interesting.

What assignments are you avoiding?

Yeah...I really should feel guilty. In fact I thought I did at one point but it turned out it was just a bit of indigestion. No joke. I've got a History assignment overdue for my Arts course, a Journalism presentation I -have- to get ready for Thursday (well, there's only 1 time to present it...) and a Plea in Mitigation for Crminal Law. Things are looking up, eh? Still it's only 1st year uni. Could be worse

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Ha ha.

Now I remember why I only learned to program once I got to grad school and it was unavoidable.

I'm not a codemonkey! I'm a labmonkey!

http://dir.nhlbi.nih.gov/dir/labs/lmi/index.asp

[KrazyHorse]

Life sciences = boring

Sorry, Jag. You lose.

[Jaguar]

It's even worse than being a codemonkey?

[KrazyHorse]

Depends what you're actually doing. If you're pipetting etc. then Kuci's job is better.

If you're designing/building/repairing experimental equipment then your dick is 18 inches long and you win.

[KrazyHorse]

Once you get to be a graduate student you can stop being a mere codemonkey and start being a codemonkey who knows basic calculus. Conversation in which I was allowed to apply my leet math skills from a month ago:

"So, we should minimize this function of seven parameters. I suggest [insert numerical minimization scheme here]. It will be computationally intense [we're minimizing at millions of different points] but that's life..."

"Errr...isn't the function quadratic in that subset of 5 parameters?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Uh...because then we just have to solve a set of 5 coupled linear equations for those parameters, and only have to numerically minimize in a 2-d space"

"Oh, yeah"

[Jaguar]

I start on the 5th. We'll see how it is pretty soon.

I do know basic calculus, unless "basic" to you is more than the AP calc BC curriculum, which is fairly tame.

[KrazyHorse]

Read my example.

Basic calculus = knowing that if a function is positive quadratic in a set of x variables then the minimum can be found by solving an associated set of x linear equations.

I was laughing about the fact that 90% of the time spent on research doesn't involve any thinking at all.

[Jaguar]

90% of the time spent on almost any job doesn't involve any thinking at all.

[KrazyHorse]

Untrue. 99.999% of the time spent on most jobs doesn't involve any thinking at all.

100% for some jobs (businessman, Senator etc)

[Lars-E]

I suggest reading Bukowski or seeing a Bukowski-movie. I saw Factotum yesterday (and today). Don't think it's showing in the us. If I'm correct Bukowski is more popular in europe - not so well liked in the us...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Ha ha.

Now I remember why I only learned to program once I got to grad school and it was unavoidable.

To be fair, though, I learn a lot from the programming. Last year I had to write a program to do RBS analysis.

[Kuciwalker]

(Though on that I had a lot of help from the other scientists with the math, and was just left to myself doing the GUI and other non-science-intense parts.)

[Ben Kenobi]

The blind leading the blind, anyone?

Eh, deaf maybe but not blind.

The advice I think is still good.