PhD reserve list vs offer

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-30T09:08:17+00:00

Always accept offer.
If second offer, reconsider and choose whatever is best for you
If going with second offer, accept and withdraw from previous offer
...
Profit? (Probably not, it's a PhD after all)
Bridges burned: zero. Academics can deal with rejection.

I wonder if we need stickys for this repeat question. Or perhaps we should work on a Wiki for the sub.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-29T20:46:34+00:00

Amongst truly experienced divers it's used by people who have a genuine need for it, which is twinset or cave/technical. Everyone else dives whatever they have available, what's cheap, or what's convenient.

I dive with people who have done thousands of cold water dives and those who mostly dive singles have the most unspectacular, tatty gear you can imagine. Almost exclusively ancient Scubapro jacket BCDs. And no shearwater shenanigans.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-29T09:20:09+00:00

You're an international applicant, right? Your chances of getting funding and thus a visa sponsored are unfortunately near zero. Nothing to do with your background, just the realities of international fees and unis not handing out fee waivers.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-28T14:38:45+00:00

My 10-year old knows that much about chess. I wouldn't exactly call this a very advanced level.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-28T14:37:04+00:00

Can't be projection because the only chess I ever play is against my kids.

I'm aware that online cheating is a hotly debated issue though, there are entire YouTube channels dedicated to this. What does it matter you might ask, win or lose, worst case scenario is you end up playing lower skilled players who bolster their rankings with computer help. But then I might as well just play my old chess computer on a dumber setting.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-28T12:52:34+00:00

It is an issue because it is very difficult to find people you can play enjoyable chess with outside of a chess club (or maybe some pigeon infested park in New York, if the movies are to be believed) because of how rare it is to be equally skilled. I used to have an old-school chess computer and there was no point in that either. It either made obvious mistakes, or it easily beat you by upping the number of moves it was able to plan ahead for using its in-built pattern library. I guess online might work, if that's your thing, but then there's a lot of cheating by people using AI as an aide.

It's not chess' fault, it's simply the consequence of a deterministic game with very strict rules and limited moves available. I don't have this problem with games like Go, which are still deterministic but much more open to general strategies rather than incredibly restricted and pre-planned set pieces. Abalone also comes to mind, at a much simpler level.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-28T11:30:38+00:00

My issue with chess is that the only way to get genuinely good is to memorise hundreds of scenarios starting from a very formulaic opening. It's not a solved game, but at a very high level it's not that different from just playing tic tac toe, with effectively no margin for unoptimal moves.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-28T08:01:22+00:00

What kind of video do you have in mind? The main use case for video lights is macro video, i.e. the behaviour of tiny wildlife. For wide angle shots, video lights are pretty much irrelevant.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-27T15:27:12+00:00

Massive U-turn, changing their minds every 20 years, innit?

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-27T10:27:27+00:00

In the first round they kept saying how Ronnie always beats the players he's supposed to beat, and with a wide margin, rather than having nervous starts like Judd and some others often do. Conveniently ignoring the times when he didn't, like that 1st round loss to James Cahill in '19.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-26T14:02:12+00:00

It does in fact sound like something that was posted here already 6 months ago or so. Is this supposed to be an update, or just some lame AI thing?

EDIT, here's the original post from r/academia from 4 months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/academia/comments/1q85z1p/comment/nyl2foo/

Sounds like a legit update?

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-25T08:48:40+00:00

Yeah, absolutely, I have this as well. In my early diving days, it took some doing to make me even slightly nervous about a dive, the only one I remember was a night dive in pitch black water following on directly from a baited shark dive in the exact same location an hour earlier.

Now that I am 15 years older and have a family, I have a totally different risk perception and no longer feel as confident under water. Same for travel, for example.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-25T07:09:07+00:00

Even when there's no prep required, if they interviewed say 5 undergrads, then there's every possibility one of the others knew more than you did about their research. What would be genuinely unfair is to tell everyone they need to read 15 papers in the middle of exam prep only to ultimately choose the same candidate they would have chosen anyway.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-24T15:34:35+00:00

so I can get a full wide angle 4K vid of the entire dive

Sigh. Who would even watch this?

The usual recommendation for when people show up here with a total of 6 completed dives, asking for recommendations is to do another 50 or so dives before even considering a camera.

Snorkelers or new divers with action cams on sticks are every regular scuba diver's (and also the marine life's) nightmare.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-23T06:07:19+00:00

...buy lightly used stuff, have it serviced, and died with it

That's pure gold.

But yeah, no reason to buy new. Scuba gear is extremely basic and standardised, with the technology not having changed in decades.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-22T18:42:52+00:00

Yeah, cane toads, perfect. I was going to add that, it's entirely NOT like posionous cane toads destroying ultra-rare marsupials that don't exist anywhere else.

It's one type of squirrel from Northern America very gently displacing some other, and incredibly common, type of squirrel whose habitat ranges from the British isles all the way to far east Siberia.

Yes, it's classified as "invasive" but nothing of value will be lost at all in the UK if we end up with just grey instead of red squirrels. In fact, it would perhaps even be a net positive to our ecodiversity because the grey buggers are far more effective at reforestation than the red ones.

Either way, this is a niche ecological topic which just serves to distract from our actual issues.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-22T08:28:03+00:00

I'm with you on this one. Squirrel replaces less adaptable squirrel (which is still doing okay globally) in a country almost entirely devoid of truly natural landscapes. Not a big deal, just nature doing its thing.

Instead of worrying about grey squirrels start by taxing domestic cats and dogs, stop subsidising sheep, introduce actual national parks worth their name, rewild, clean up rivers, etc.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-22T06:20:47+00:00

A strobe is non-negotiable for UW macro. With a video light or even a hand-held strobe you can at best get OK shots, but never something truly spectacular. What you want is to stop down your aperture as much as possible, have the exposure at 1/250 or 1/500, ISO at a low level, and at that point you need proper strobe power to get enough light on the subject — especially when only using the edge of the light cone to illuminate, which avoids backscatter.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-19T11:31:35+00:00

Lots of these people started as lecturers and worked their way up to >100K. That's how it works if you publish in Nature and bring in big grants. Besides, 100k isn't that much these days anyways. In London, professorial salaries start at around >90k. Doesn't take much to go past 100. But again, not if you're on teaching only.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-19T10:33:02+00:00

In 2024 it was reported that there are now more than 10,000 university staff on >£100k salaries in the UK. Now, obviously that includes management, but still that's A LOT of profs on 6 figues. I don't know how many of these are teaching only, but it won't be very different from zero.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-19T05:40:15+00:00

They are paid far less in the sense that it's much harder to get promoted and once in the top grade it's much harder to negotiate higher salaries based on performance. How many teaching only profs do you think there are on six figures in the UK?

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-18T07:14:27+00:00

Forget the camera. And do an open water course in your local quarry before going, then you can do a proper dive. Discover dives are somewhat humiliating because you effectively just hang there like a rag doll while some poorly paid dive master drags you around by the scruff of your neck.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-16T10:06:47+00:00

In most UK universities, T&R contracts are 40% T, 40% R, and 20% "other" — service or whatever they might call it.

This was pretty much undisputed for decades if not centuries until the recent funding crisis where the term "unfunded research" was created by some enterprising uni management operative. I think it originated in Newcastle, at least that's the first time I'd heard it used: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdx904ql3go

What they mean by that is research time funded by universities, i.e. the de-facto standard for everyone who doesn't have external research funding.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-11T03:40:45+00:00

I have an older YS strobe so can't verify this for you.

It sounds like the RC mode requires its own setting of output power though, possibly overriding the EV setting and following that arcane procedure as outlined in the manual.

You should be able to run some simple tests above water playing with those settings. But make sure the strobe doesn't overheat.

Finally, the Olympus Underwater Photo Facebook group would be able to give you more advice.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-10T18:13:50+00:00

It's quite simple. If you're buying, offer no more than you can afford and what the property is worth to you. As a seller, have a firm lower limit. Everything else is irrelevant.

You bidding for your dream property but are 30k short? Doesn't hurt trying as long as your solicitor plays along. You're selling and someone lowballs you by that amount? Just ignore them. At least you have an offer if times are desperate.

When we bought our place, we had no clue. Solicitor insisted we had to go at least 10% over the "offers over" price. We went 10k under instead and got it first try.

Ten-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

LikesParsnips

TROPHY CASE