drail
Just a guy, bout to get my PhD in experimental particle physics. I like hockey, basketball, DND, science, and audio equipment.
Go Nuggets! Go Avs!
Migrated here due to ongoing issues on kbin:
kbin.social account page
My goal for the summer was to finish my PhD. I defended on Friday and am now Dr. Drail, so I actually accomplished my summer task for once. I sacrificed all my sleep and sanity to do so, as I was told at the 11th hour to redo a major analysis that made up 1/4 of my dissertation, but I fucking got it done.
Everything should just be in eV. Particle physics natural units are the best.
I gave my PhD dissertation defense on Friday, so I am looking forward to not having anything specific to look forward to.
I haven’t played a video game for any length of time since Elden Ring first came out, so I might play Shadow of the Erdtree. Or maybe BG3. Or maybe I will just do some dnd planning. I want to get some home repairs done, so some of that. Maybe just go chill with some friends. All the little things that I haven’t had the time/energy/bandwidth to do for so long.
I want to enjoy not being consantly anxious about my research and not just be distracting myself from said anxiety, but to truly relax, just for a week or two before I move and have to start job hunting.
I have both ADHD and minor hearing loss that started when I was a teenager (wear earplugs if you frequent concerts and play in live bands, turn the music down on your headphones from max volume). It is a rough combo that led to plenty of awkward situations as an awkward teen.
The worst was when I was on a first date at a SixFlags and my date didn’t tell me she was terrified of rollercoasters. I felt bad, but only went on a few rides without her and spent the remaining time trying to win a stuffy at a carnival game for her, trying to have a good time anyway. She was really really quiet and I was having a hard time with all the stimulus and crowd noise understanding her. Eventually, it got to the point where I was asking her to repeat everything more than once, so I started to autopilot. While we were waiting in line for something, she muttered something and I responded, my brain playing fill in the blanks, “Uh-huh.”
Turns out, when I heard her say “Mumble mumble ride mumble bring mumble with you mumble.” she was not saying, “I really wish I could go on a ride, but I am happy you wanted to bring me with you anyway!”
She was, instead, saying something along the lines of, “It must be so annoying that I haven’t gone on a single ride, I bet you regret bringing me here with you at all today.”
Needless to say, there was no 2nd date. She told me later it was shitty of me to respond like that, and I couldn’t convince her that I just misheard her. Since then, if I can’t understand someone after two tries, I just explain that I have bad hearing and need them to speak up. Asking someone to repeat themselves will always be less awkward than driving her home after that.
I am a physicist. I am good at math, okay at programming, and not the best at using programming to accomplish the math. Using AI to help turn the math in my brain into functional code is a godsend in terms of speed, as it will usually save me a ton of time even if the code it returns isn’t 100% correct on the first attempt. I can usually take it the rest of the way after the basis is created. It is also great when used to check spelling/punctuation/grammar (so using it like the glorified spellcheck it is) and formatting markup languages like LaTeX.
I just wish everyone would use it to make their lives easier, not make other people’s lives harder, which seems to be the way it is heading.
Cividis. Perceptually uniform gradient colormaps are fun for the whole family
Former chain of vegan subs out of SoCal named Subvegan had some of the best sandwhiches I have ever tasted, vegan or otherwise. Vegan deli meat and vegan cheese quality vary, but this place had the hookup for the best of both. A 9in sub was $12, loaded so fat it barely closed and was two meals worth for any normal person.
Their italian sub, the Godfather, had (vegan) turkey, ham, salami, provalone, cheddar, pepperoncini peppers, tomato, arugula, olives, onions, mayo, and italian dressing. The bread was always the perfect ratio of crunch to fluffy, their sauce portion was always on point, and their veggies were fresh as fuck. I salivate even just typing it out.
My fiancee and I would order in advance to have a sub waiting for us whenever we visited her family in Anaheim. It was the best. We started making plans in June to move out there so she could live near her parents and they closed their doors in July. Good vegan subs are a rarity, let alone vegan subs that stand out in quality against their non-veg counterparts. I am still in mourning.
Not to dunk on word, if I need slightly more flexibility than a native .txt reader, it will do in a pinch. That being said:
Word: Oh, you want a table? Good luck getting your excel sheet to cary everything over properly, and god forbid you change a formula. You want to write it natively in word? Lol no.
Latex: tabularx goes brrrr
Word: Equations? Have fun properly tracking equation numbers and manually formatting your text to center justified every time.
Latex: $ $, \( \), and \begin{equation} go brrrr.
Word: Figures? Hope you anchored everything properly, it would be a shame if your entire document layout got shifted…
Latex: What the fuck is an anchor? top, here, bottom, those are your options. Add an exclamation mark if you’re feeling spicy.
