zompist bboard

So, as somewhat expected, my grandfather ended up passing away on Sunday. Honestly, I don't know how I feel: it's a weird mix of emotions. This is the first death of a family member I was semi-close to that I've experienced (my grandmother passed away when I was 5-ish and I never knew my other grand...

EDIT: So, it turns out my grandfather was found breathing, but unresponsive rather than passed away. But, still, I don't think it's much longer...

Publication #4 (and my first first-author publication) just got approved. Will be some time before it goes live, but still feels quite nice to get the notification of acceptance.

This just went online.

I so happy.

Working on something non-conworld-related to wish everyone relevant an exceptionally Scientific Christmas. You all included.

Government reports on Gull itself show the problem: the focus (from a 2011 UKBA review) is on "strengthening the external CTA border, whilst preserving the right of free movement within it for those who are lawfully present." Crucially, after Brexit, there will no longer be a shared category of "th...

Whatever exactly you add to pop to get rock... if you add a lot more of that, you get hard rock. Louder, more banging drums, the singer sounds angrier, you can't play it for Mom at all. Add even more and you get metal, usually accompanied by raspy delivery and a whole lot of attitude. I have no ide...

Went to a Christmas market in Metz today. Was awesome, but, damn, it's really cold at this time of year... last year, it wasn't this "bad". (We even got snow on Thursday, which seems to be unusually early for Luxembourg...)

I'm probably moving to France in a few months. Great job over forthcoming, that is. Fingers crossed! Echoed! Where'll you be in France, if you don't mind me asking? That's both a good and bad thing. Hopefully the deadline for re-submission isn't too close... Luckily a resubmission deadline is somet...

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable referee round then, a bit of work but nothing out of the ordinary. Indeed, that's what other people are saying. And we do have three weeks (but sooner is better, naturally). After discussions with my boss, though, he wants more experiments, but they'll just take a...

I really don't understand that either. Maybe other people really go to restaurants for a nicely prepared cut of meat, but I prefer having a balanced meal... (in fact I'll very happily go without any meat, too). Same here, though I hate the use of meat substitutes or things that pretend to be meat. ...

hwhatting wrote:Why is the order of languages on the reverse different from that on the front side?

Laziness and forgetfulness. (Whoops.) Thanks for pointing that out!

Better version now:

I bored. Also realize I hadn't properly made an ID card for Telemor. So decided to whip one up.

Got stopped by the Geman Federal Police for an ID check when I was headed back from Trier tonight. Don't know why. Still feeling a bit uneasy after the whole thing...

Vent: As was previously mentioned, my dad filed for divorce from my mom about three weeks ago. Level of surprise is nonexistent. While I at least heard about this stuff from my brother/mother earlier, I didn't hear a word about it from my father until yesterday (despite intermittent contact in the i...

As awesome as that would be, the statue in real life does, unfortunately, have a head. (It's the statue of Vercingétorix in Clermont-Ferrand's Place de Jaude; I'm repurposing a picture I took of it as a statue of Pócog, the founder of the first unified Ilian state.)

Got bored. Made more money. Came out a lot pinker than I was expecting, but...

In the interests of accuracy, might it be worth either renaming this thread, or starting a new one? It could be called "The British Politics Thread" or similar. Sal's last post was certainly about *a* British Election, but there's little more to be said about *the* British Election... Well, it's st...

Got through my second CET ( comité d'encadrement du thèse ) meeting, which means I'm cleared to continue my Ph.D. for the next six months and I can breathe a definite sigh of relief. Also got some very good feedback for things to do and try, so I'm really looking forward to the next experiments and ...

If it makes you feel any better, my supervisor had a rejected manuscript from the 90's that he tried to sell me to complete. That never materialised and the thing still remains unpublished. Luckily you also get papers that have no trouble with the referees and seem to get through the publishing pro...

One of my back up hard drive's connectors broke, so now I need to find a way/person to fix it. Can you easily take the drive out from its case and buy it a new one, or perhaps connect it with a dock? Or is it one of those with an unserviceable designer case? Unserviceable designer case, it appears,...

Yay for high-ish stress week! – Thesis advisory committee meeting on Wednesday of next week, which is quite stressful to prepare for especially considering what happened last time. – Lots of work drama, with a lot of bubbling and fermenting tension between coworkers. – One of my back up hard drive's...

Submitted an article for (hopeful) publication in PNAS last Wednesday, got some experiments to surprisingly and unexpectedly work on Friday, and had a lot of fun at MTG pre-releases on both Saturday and Sunday. So a good last week in all, despite the looming specter of my thesis supervisory committe...

The shape of the cake is called a Bundt cake or a ring cake. The type of cake would appear to be marble, assuming it's partly white cake and partly chocolate cake. Echoed here. (Though I've never heard the shape be called a ring cake; it's always been a Bundt cake to me.) Also, in contradictory fee...

More redoing stuff. I'm happy-ish with how this one turned out.