I defended my phd late in June.

Got the patent process rollin', so now the waiting game begins.

Dunno what to do with the rest of my life, but I'm taking the rest of the year off if possible. From mental health to just plain figuring stuff out, it'll be a good thing to do.

After almost no driving since getting a license, I've completed five runs to the border. Full load both ways, carrying food and supplies my brother organized one way and people back. Three, aunt and her daughters, will be staying with us for the time being. Well, 'aunt'; we settled on it because even if there is a name for "great-grandfather's sister's granddaughter," nobody cares. Bro hired one of them already to accelerate what little paperwork they might need later on, but they're already on the social services. The rest I brought had other families to take them. It's our drop in the sea.

It's not well there, obviously. Already I've seen too many idiot nationalists protesting against 'immigration,' concentrating near areas for refugees. Provoking, assaulting, others exploiting. Human thrash, all of them. Because I have no idea what news comes your way, just don't let it distract you from who the real dirtbags are or what a simultaneous humanitarian catastrophe and effort are happening. Yes, I know, most of you are much savvier in politics than I am, but same most of you have repeatedly proven themselves at obsessing with whatever topic du jour mildly turned your head. And if you think this is insulting or exaggerating, hold onto your pants -- three years ago, if someone tweeted Trump wipes with his left, you could bet there'd be a thread about whether or not he pets the #whiterabbit with it. Don't lose perspective. Don't let it become some blasé gossip shit in a month.

I'll be going into other topics now. In part because of exhaustion, both physical and topical. When time is dense with events, it's gonna be either major themes only or a flood of information, and nobody's in the mood for the latter. Made me appreciate truckers even more, though.

Also, because the car is a 20-year-old piece of shit VW Golf I bought in December for $200 to learn car repairs/maintenance, it's short of a miracle it hadn't died a single time.

Also also, it's a good thing that at my current job, you can excuse any work delays with "yeah, so the maths got more complex than expected, will have to derive it algebraically instead." In my experience, it can buy up to three weeks.

I did my postdoc interview during a refueling break. It probably went poorly, though the interviewers seemed impressed when I corrected their article misquote from memory and answered both versions of the question. Them nagging me about why we didn't reschedule visibly pissed me off, and if this will cost me the job, good riddance. What the fuck do you think would be different apart from smart-casual attire?

Once driving became routine, the monotony of it settled. Played a D&D game by phone twice, which was crazy, but it was a boost of energy that couldn't have come at a better time. One of the TBA characters from the last time is a rogue, who is such an over-the-top gothy edgelord he'd make Tim Burton cream his laced-up pantaloons in a blink. The ranger player had to postpone again, but she's working for the Ministry of the Interior, and it's hard for a better excuse.

I don't know if I have it in me to do this more than once. The car isn't taking it well, and I sure as hell can't keep going like that more than a week. There's desire to help, and there's practicality. Instead, I'm seriously considering volunteering to IT security groups our gov organizes, but between dual citizenship and police record, I suspect my prospective clearance level is somewhere between LOL and "don't bother."

Now I'm going back to sleeping it off. Leaving you with this fun chess puzzle for all levels and ages.

White moves, checkmate in two.

It's been a week since my procedure, and I already noticed an improvement: I don't get dizzy when I stand up.

I recently recalled this:

and in the prolonged absence of mk's data (sorry if this sounds like I'm passing blame, it's not that; I know everyone's busy and dealing with lots of things), started working on an explanation. It's a surprisingly tricky problem on both classical mechanics and the theory of elasticity, at least to someone who usually deals with electrons doing their thing. I don't yet know if/when it'll be ready to share with you, but I'm having heaps of fun and, oddly, get a lot of satisfaction from designing my own experiment to measure both mechanical properties of grapes and test their limits without a centrifuge.

I need to correct myself and point out that the values I got were wrong.

Formulae:

  t = sqrt(x²/c² + 2x/g) - time measured on Earth
  t' = (c / g) * asinh(gt/c) - time measured by ship's crew

Numerical values:

  c = 3.00E8 m/s
  g = 9.81 m/s²
  x = 4.3 ly = 4.07E16 m

Time from the perspective of people on Earth (t): 1.63E8 seconds = 5.18 years.

Time from the perspective of people on the ship (t'): 7.27E7 seconds = 2.31 years.

Derivation was OK, had four other people check it for me and can show the work. It's not a new result anyway. Regardless, sorry for the mistake.

am_Unition, ButterflyEffect, nil - you also shared that post, so I'm shouting out just in case it has any relevance for you guys.

So, the final formula is:

  Power = (p ^ m) * F * (c / λ) * π * r²

where:

p - Pogson's ratio [] (dimensionless)

m - magnitude [] (dimensionless)

F - flux [J / (s * cm² * Hz)]

c - speed of light [cm / s]

λ - wavelength [cm]

r - Earth's radius [cm]

π - pi [] (dimensionless)

Checking units:

  Power = ([] ^ []) * [J / (s * cm² * Hz)] * [cm / s] * [1 / cm] * [] * [cm²]
  Power = [J / (s * cm² * Hz)] * [1 / s] * [cm²]
  Power = [J / (s * cm² * Hz)] * [Hz] * [cm²]
  Power = [J / s] * [(Hz * cm²) / (Hz * cm²)]
  Power = [J / s] = [W]

No problems here.

Using our values:

p = 2.512

m = 4

F = 3.64E-27 [J / (cm² * Hz * s)]

c = 3E10 [cm / s]

λ = 5.5E-5 [cm]

r = 6E8 [cm]

pi = 3.14

we obtain:

  Power = (2.512 ^ 4) * 3.64E-27 * (3E10 / 5.5E-5) * 3.14 * (6E8)²
  Power = 8.94E7 [W]

So… pretty close and the difference comes down mainly to rounding. Other than that, under your assumptions, I see no problems with reasoning or method. Sorry for taking so long to respond, though.

Hey, what're you up to just after January 28th of 2024? Asking for a friend.

You need to double it, that's when Centaurs would get your message.

As of about an hour ago, I'm no longer a student. BSc² -> MSc², yo.

PhD application process in progress.

Badges received from others and the badges you earned by persisted posts and comments are in different counters. One does not influence the other.

It's like a gift to put on your mantle piece, man. You don't just give your recognition away. ;)

I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those posts of mine that will ruffle some feathers. Let's make one thing clear: I've tried to put aside my own bias, pretty much failed at it but I am leaving it to show where I'm coming from. I'm only interested in the answer. That's it. It's not intended to be personal. Cool? Thanks.

He came into the program as a multi-dimensional, highly skilled and multi-talented human being. I can't take any credit.

and this thing from IRC on the 20th November 2016:

22:32 < lilski> I said earlier that I teach computer science students - but I basically teach them how to be human beings

What does it actually mean? Sorry for being peevish about it, but as someone who is focused on hard sciences and getting patronising treatment from most humanities-oriented people around me ever since I can remember, I can't help but resent some of this attitude (don't blame me, blame multiple people who told me verbatim that I must lack a soul to not appreciate some poem or picture :/). I've read a lot of your posts, many of the ones you've posted before I found Hubski and ones posted since then, but I'm at loss about what you actually do in class. What is the thing that your students lack and how does acquiring it make them into 'human beings'? What's about your students that your aim is to make them into those 'multidimensional human beings'? Sorry, but I simply loathe when in my own life the, supposedly, attuned to humanity people just throw me into some easy 'cog-head' category and go forth with their pre-existing assumption. I'm not angry or resentful specifically toward you, lil, but I'm asking because so far you have proven that you will not just dismiss my questions outright with something along the lines of "you will not understand, untermensh".

Aside from that, I agree with Odder. I had only one such interview so far and it was just… baffling. The guy who was interviewing me seemed to be thrown out of the loop when I didn't answer with some cliche line from a tutorial on interviews. Suffices to say that I ended up working in a bookstore as a clerk afterwards.

I have stopped reading right about here:

And yet a new school of thinking is challenging these received ways and arguing that straying from the path, even engaging in hedonistic behaviour, might be the surest way to success.

so I will only conclude that author has learned some lesson. Better late than never. But since I know how the narrative in pieces like this goes, I went straight for the ending and got:

That he ever thought he could achieve perfection, without setbacks, without respites, Franklin admitted, was his gravest error. He had been naïve. And prideful.

See? I was right. Good for him!

So, have some shit that I've learned from my father so far:

- In all likelihood you have only this one life, so try to be happy.

- Moderate yourself as much and long as you are comfortable (and I don't have to bail you out).

- Don't obsess over minor failings. Every problem is bigger that it really is on first glance. Look at it when you'll get over it.

- You probably don't know what you want.

- Don't be a dick. Or at least try to not be one and treat others as they deserve.

- Hard work or not, you are not entitled to anything in life. There's likely someone much better anyway.

- As with toilets, try to leave the place in at least the state you found it yourself.

- Fear is the mind-killer, but not everything requires higher mental faculties.

- You can strive for true perfection but you can never achieve it. It also applies to this list.

And I didn't even need to quote philosophers.

📰🇷🇺🏆, 😨👊

I was given an opportunity to start high school at thirteen, pretty uncommon in my country. Despite what my family was telling me, that I should stay where I am, I went with it. It took me almost two weeks to get all the pros and cons straight, but it was my most adult decision pretty much up to this point in life.

It was hard. To be honest, it is still hard. People often assume that such a small difference in age should not affect anyone or go to the other end of the spectrum; assume that this is just a kid who does not know any better. Despite the fact that I was lacking a lot in cynical aspects of my decision back then, I would still do it the same if I was given some time travel way to do it all again.

Another aspect is the fact that I am pretty much financially independent and my eighteenth birthday is about two months from now. I get my scholarship, my parents still send me some money but I have never gone above my own 'earnings'. It's a bit of a buffer, but I would consider it as my failing if I were to ever use their resources. That makes my expenses very tight, but I don't mind it. I'm on my own due to two or three decisions that resulted from the first one. It's "unfair" in the way that I can count on them backing me up (and considering my expenses vs what they send me, I could probably live for next three semesters just on that), but even in such case; Some of the students I'm attending classes with call me kid despite having their parents cash in their wallets and eating food that they did not make themselves. It's hard, but I do consider my current state as both lucky and one that I can call a point of pride.

I hope that you will get kick-ass foster family soon :D. Keep your chin up and think of Hubski as… Delad glädje är dubbel glädje och delad sorg är halv sorg ;).