End of a PhD Candidate’s Day
Posted by Qrystal on September 2, 2008 at 19:52.
Category: Life. Tags: humour, phd, thesis.
Brilliant! Jorge Cham from PhD Comics did it again: he got inside my head, and made a comic of what life’s like as a grad student. It’s so nice to think that I’m not the only one going through this!
Buying a Used Guitar
Posted by Qrystal on August 31, 2008 at 16:46.
Category: Advice. Tags: guitar, shopping.
I was honoured today by being asked my advice about buying a guitar, by a friend of mine who I only get to see once a year at Summerfolk, a folk music festival in Owen Sound. I am quite proud of my response, so I decided I would post [...] Continue Reading…
Playful Cleverness, Applied
Posted by Qrystal on August 29, 2008 at 19:42.
Category: Concepts. Tags: fun.
While the word ‘hacker’ to refer to someone who enjoys playful cleverness is most often applied to computer programmers, it is sometimes used for people who apply the same attitude to other fields.
Hacker (free and open source software) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
OMG, this and a few of the [...] Continue Reading…
Sometimes haikus don’t make sense
Posted by Qrystal on August 27, 2008 at 13:50.
Category: Poetry. Tags: fun.
“Haikus are easy but…” Threadless T-Shirt – by Rolf Nelson
I wants it! My birthday’s only three months away… hmmmm… time to get a-hintin’! :D (If any generous strangers out there would like to send me a Girly Medium-size shirt, I can pick up packages at the Physics department [...] Continue Reading…
LOLprezdent
Posted by Qrystal on August 12, 2008 at 19:00.
Category: Miscellany. Tags: humour, politics.
I try to avoid politics, LOL cats, and the Olympic frenzy, but this mishmash of the three had me giggling. I think it’s the expressions on the wife and daughter’s faces that got me. See all nine in the collection here.
Thanks @philgs who retweeted @cascio who retweeted @cmpriest.
Relativistic World Line Animation
Posted by Qrystal on August 11, 2008 at 21:07.
Category: Concepts. Tags: physics, relativity.
I’m totally in awe of this image every time I come back to the Wikipedia article on Special Relativity.
This animation shows how events in spacetime (the background dots) at various distances (horizontal axis) appear at various times (vertical axis, ticking by at a constant rate) to the observer (whose [...] Continue Reading…
Time Estimates as Ranges of Possibilities
Posted by Qrystal on August 11, 2008 at 14:51.
Category: Tools. Tags: planning, thesis, time management.
I recently discovered LiquidPlanner, a project planner based on a unique concept: that plans are meant to be fluid, and that nothing can be planned with exact certainty.
With normal planning software, this fluidity causes the need to replan and tweak and fiddle… and in my case, my tendency towards [...] Continue Reading…
Minimize Commitments, but Still Fail
Posted by Qrystal on August 6, 2008 at 14:58.
Category: Concepts. Tags: fail, procrastination.
Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator…
I’m suspecting that this is part of [...] Continue Reading…
Thoughts on Dream Analysis
Posted by Qrystal on August 5, 2008 at 12:20.
Category: Life. Tags: dreams, myself, personality, thesis.
Some of the dreams I’ve been having lately seem to really be saying things that could be useful in my own personal development. I’ve been intrigued by dreams for many many years, and have even at various times attempted analyzing symbols in dreams in order to interpret their meanings. [...] Continue Reading…
Two More Years is Too Many…
Posted by Qrystal on August 4, 2008 at 23:40.
Category: Life. Tags: humour, thesis.
There comes a time in the life of every graduate student when she or he realizes that another two years of graduate school cannot be endured.
There also, surely, comes a time in the life of every graduate student when she or he searches the web for the real scoop [...] Continue Reading…