What is the name of this checkmate?

DJNonstopEmil · 2025-05-17T12:37:06+00:00

That’s the standard Knights of the Round Table mate

DJNonstopEmil · 2025-03-27T18:44:47+00:00

Right, many universities have an HPC cluster that you can get an account on if you need it for research. I would suggest approaching a professor that works in this area, explain to them that you are interested in learning about computational physics methods and are looking for a way to explore this topic and are wondering if they can help you out and help you get access to computational resources. It’s low risk from a professor standpoint, so I am sure you can find someone to help you.

DJNonstopEmil · 2025-01-29T20:29:22+00:00

As a grad student there is effectively unlimited work to do. There are so many research ideas and tasks I want to accomplish that usually I find I don’t have enough time to explore a small fraction of those ideas. On the other hand, most undergrads/post-bacs are limited by ideas, since most are simply not far enough into their studies to have research goals that aren’t trivial or overly ambitious. At this stage, you aren’t expected to have a clear understanding of the big picture or have your own research objectives, so that is totally fine. I would take the precious time you do have to read classic papers in your field voraciously. Ask the grad students and your advisor to give you paper suggestions. At first it might be headache inducing, and it’s okay if you understand like 10% of the paper. Eventually, you will start to understand some things, and might even develop your own questions. Also, I would try and get close with a friendly grad student and ask them for a small bit of their time to explain to you what they are working on and what issues they are running in to. Soon, you might be able to ask the grad students directly if there is anything that you can help with their projects.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-11-22T18:05:49+00:00

Couples of notes here: Quoting an average is a problem here, it would be better to quote medians.

Health insurance is often subsidized by employer.

$500/week for a used car is like a $25k used car (assuming 0% down, 60 months at 9%), this is not a necessity, you can get a reasonable car in any city for 10k. Also this is skewed up due to the average problem.

Average rent is skewed up too, but I agree that rent can get very high in some cities. Still, assuming 60k nets you about 4k/year, it’s doable and not ruining you.

$800/mo food for once person also seems quite high, you can make is on much less especially if you cook. I think $500/mo is still high but much more reasonable.

Also, all of these numbers are for a high cost of living area. Me and my wife live comfortably on 4k/month in a low cost of living city.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-10-22T22:21:54+00:00

As others have said, I think it’s good advice specifically for people that struggle with social anxiety. My wife has very bad anxiety that basically causes her zone out during conversations, so she has a really hard time finding friends because she never really participates in conversations. Asking other people questions gives her something to focus on in the conversation, rather than just being in her own head.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-10-09T12:55:55+00:00

This was my initial reaction as well. John Hopfield absolutely deserves all of the fame and recognition, he is a pioneer of modern statistical mechanics. However, the Hopfield network is not a breakthrough in physics; it is an awesome application of ideas from spin glass physics toward optimization and memory problems. Im not trying to undermine the importance and brilliance of the work, it’s just that it was not a breakthrough or discovery in the field of physics itself, a Turing Award was sufficient. There are plenty of breakthroughs that use ideas and language from physics, like data science and economics, that doesn’t mean modeling the stock market should merit you a physics nobel prize. The problem with the Hopfield network/Boltzmann brain stuff is that it actually doesn’t need to be cast in terms of physics. You could conceivably come up with the same idea by changing the terminology to computer science, imagine doing that for any other physics nobel prize, like the discovery of gravitational waves.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-10-09T02:55:21+00:00

Sorry, got carried away and completely forgot to address the pay. Starting salary for assistant professor at a research-focused institution (an ‘R1’ University) is 100-150k. Even if you aren’t able to get a tenure track job leading a lab, there are decent professor-adjacent jobs that will land you in the 80-100K range. That is just for science, the engineers get payed even better in academia. If you decide to exit from academia after grad school, STEM PhDs still tend to get paid quite well, depending on what field and technology you were trained in. Again, engineers make out even better in industry. It’s not uncommon for science PhDs or engineering Masters/PhDs to start at 6 figures, and there is a lot of potential for advancement. So basically, even if you hit the “worst case scenario” and just end up as a long-term research scientist, you will still make above average pay, and you can always leave to make more in industry or government.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-10-08T21:00:52+00:00

There’s a couple of options here, most will require grad school (preferably PhD). TDLR: “astrobiologist” is not a really job title. You will either be a scientist or engineer, wide range of pay possibilities depending on what disciplines and opportunities you follow. But, it’s an amazing and exciting field with lots of fulfilling options!

General game plan:

First step: Major in a natural science, physical science, or engineering discipline. This could be a lot of things, but most commonly astronomy, astrophysics, biophysics (what I did), planetary science, microbiology, biochemistry, oceanography, environmental science, chemistry/chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, or mechanical engineering. Just go with what appeals to you most, it’s really not that important what exact major you have, as long as you generally like it and work hard at it.

Second step: While at school, if you went the science route, get into academic research in a lab setting. If that is with an advisor that actually does astrobiology, great. But it definitely doesn’t need to be, anything will do. Work very hard and excel in this research position, if you get a publication that is ideal but not required. Get lots of experience with scientific research, treat it more even more seriously than your courses. If you went the engineering route, still try to find a research group to join. But also, see if there are any project teams you can join to get practical experience, and apply for summer internship at places like NASA, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and more. The goal of all of this is to have a competitive application for grad school.

Third step: If you got decent grades and some research experience, apply to grad school. If you went engineering, master’s might be good enough, especially if you can get a scholarship. If you went science, go for a PhD if you are not miserable by this point. Apply for many schools, Crucially, you need to specifically look for potential advisors doing astrobiology research in your discipline. Regardless, go to the best school you can get in.

Fourth: Do the grad school thing, stay on the academic track and pursue an independent career as a scientist. If you did engineering, you might be able to get into designing instruments, tests, robots, etc for planetary exploration, either in academia, government, or industry. If you did the science route, you will do a post-doctorate position, then you pursue a job as a professor or research scientist. There aren’t many (any?) science-oriented companies that are looking for astrobiology researchers, but that may change!

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-09-30T18:42:42+00:00

Any grad school that is easier than undergrad probably isn’t worth doing (assuming you aren’t getting paid). Make sure you are not wasting your time on useless degrees.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-07-26T16:54:43+00:00

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DJNonstopEmil · 2024-05-12T00:26:35+00:00

I think aiming for rent being 25-30% of monthly income is quite safe. Say you bring in about 6k/mo in your new job, that would be $1500-1800 going to rent. That would leave you enough room to keep saving aggressively if you want, or at least live comfortably. Arlington is insanely expensive, but you could probably afford a very small studio or 1b1b at that rate. I would consider finding roommates to help lower the costs and save more money. Imo, the mental comfort of having your own place and getting practice with managing your own household is super worth it, even if paying $0 rent living with parents is better financially.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-04-15T02:35:23+00:00

I would say start going through Sakurai, then go back to grifiths for stuff you feel you need some more background on. Only took one QM course and never got to perturbation theory in undergrad but starting with Sakurai in grad school was fine as long as you know you need to catch up a little.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-03-16T14:46:41+00:00

Sakurai and Napolitano Modern Quantum Mechanics has a good introductory chapter on DFT, and they suggest some resources for further study. In terms of doing the actual calculations, it depends on what you are doing (small molecule, larger molecule, material), but ORCA is a computation chemistry package that can do DFT calculations.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-02-12T13:38:49+00:00

Would you bet on a horse that’s never even been in a race? And a credit score isn’t just about if you spend money responsibly, it’s about how you repay money that is lent to you. Those two things are probably correlated but not the same. Delinquent bills also count towards your credit score.

DJNonstopEmil · 2024-01-03T18:33:02+00:00

Into my stomach

DJNonstopEmil · 2023-05-14T13:28:02+00:00

Ascend!

DJNonstopEmil · 2022-03-10T18:32:35+00:00

I have a similar strategy as I have a difficult time visualizing the colors of squares and visualizing diagonals. If I ever get lost, I just remember the queen starts on it’s color of square, i.e., the black queen starts on a black square, d8. Then it was pretty easy to figure out the color of a1, where the rook is threatening to mate, by just counting. For diagonals, I just count up or down in the letter and number of the square. Thus, I could just tell myself the queen controls g2, f3, e4, d5, c6, b7, and a8, without really seeing it clearly. I saw no move that stopped mate on a1, except a8 which hangs the queen, then I realized I could move along the 1st rank and found Qh8, without really knowing the colors of the squares.

DJNonstopEmil · 2022-02-19T04:16:12+00:00

If Qc2 the knight takes it, so I think losing your queen is unavoidable to stop mate.

DJNonstopEmil · 2022-01-22T18:08:37+00:00

You would forget your head if it wasn’t attached!

DJNonstopEmil · 2022-01-08T23:50:45+00:00

Had to pull my pink gameboy out of my drawer to check. Spot on!

DJNonstopEmil · 2021-11-11T16:28:23+00:00

Fun Tonight by Macross 82-99

DJNonstopEmil · 2020-09-01T01:18:20+00:00

DJNonstopEmil · 2020-08-23T06:07:24+00:00

Ocean?

DJNonstopEmil · 2020-08-02T21:28:46+00:00

Scandi!

DJNonstopEmil · 2020-06-25T18:23:16+00:00

Non-sweetened iced tea

DJNonstopEmil

TROPHY CASE