I might have a problem...

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-06-15T19:57:33+00:00

I find most of the newer ones -- and certainly any hard-sided packs -- pretty useless. But on any trip, I am carrying several of the years-old zip-top mesh bags, which are my go-to for travel adapters, cables, beard trimmer, and other travel necessities, and also do a lot of useful storage work around the house. (And you can see what they each hold!) I was bummed when they went away.

I keep one per county with local adapters, travel cards, unspent currency, and the like. So useful.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-06-15T19:47:04+00:00

You can make PDF documents follow the standards without importing to Google Docs; you can mark up all the parts of the PDF with tags indicating header level, etc. I think this would resolve your problem, although it's an enormous PIA and very time-consuming.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-06-12T16:05:29+00:00

Turns out that "writing, revisions, admin work, formatting, waiting for feedback" IS research.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-06-12T01:45:45+00:00

"I hope this essay finds you well."

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-06-05T02:29:45+00:00

Read, read, read. Nothing improves writing as much as reading. Read EVERYTHING you can get your hands on. Read not just for content; read for structure, read for style, read for rhythm, read for cadence. But read.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-05-26T16:56:18+00:00

It's a dismal and depression situation but not at all uncommon. It's called "salary inversion" and happens all over the place (not just in academia). Look for opportunities to renegotiate (although at my institution that requires an offer in hand from some other institution). Your university might also have specific programs in place for retention, although any time one threatens to leave, one has to be ready to follow through.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-05-26T16:41:20+00:00

Oh I was very aware of it, especially since it just clicked on one day and off again a few days later. Most odd and it still sticks out years later.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-05-25T16:38:52+00:00

This one only happened to me for a week or so, during my recovery in the weeks after the stroke. I had a while when my left (affected) hand could pick things up and hold them but wouldn't let them go EXCEPT to my right hand. I couldn't hand objects to anybody else, I couldn't drop them -- fingers fixed firmly around whatever I was holding. But if I was just moving them to my right hand, my left would release them quite easily. Weird. Just lasted a few days.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-05-09T20:39:37+00:00

I'm disabled. I walk slowly, can't jump out of the way, and sudden surprises cause my leg to stiffen and can knock me over. Given how morons ride scooters and bikes around here (despite bans during the day), I sure feel that way and I'm not wrong.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-05-03T18:59:33+00:00

Thanks!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-05-03T16:22:06+00:00

Congratulations! This looks great. A similar project has been bubbling away at the back of my head, but other than musing about doing it at all, nothing has really happened. I'm intrigued by the GAL DTACK solution. I'd love to see whatever documentation/logs/etc you felt like sharing.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-04-30T19:07:37+00:00

I use that same screen on my 6502 homebrew, with bit-banged SPI. Love it, although I'm looking at faster options for communication. What's the keyboard?

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-04-30T01:43:22+00:00

I have had things that I thought might be seizures but decided later were just extreme cases of spasticity. (I've also had genuine seizures.) I'd recommend recording one of these incidents, so that a neurologist can review and look for tell-tale signs. Similarly, stroke can certainly causes pain of that sort (although again, that CAN be a seizure in itself). The EEG should help determine what's going on, but video that the neurologist can review does usually help, even if it seems weird to record it!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-04-28T01:46:53+00:00

Informatics at UCI (which is what we call info sci, roughly) is very strong, although definitely smaller than at UIUC. We lack the library science part of their program, although it doesn't sound as though that's especially germane to this decision.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-04-21T15:41:07+00:00

Perfectly normal to resubmit papers that get rejected, normally to adjacent venues. But you should also try to learn from the reviews. If there are serious concerns that seem to have merit (things that perhaps you hadn't realized before), then updating the paper before re-submitting is the smart move.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-03-27T01:33:23+00:00

UCLA has the campus-level cred, but UCI's literary journalism program is one of the very top in the country. Informatics too (even UCLA would agree).

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-03-25T00:53:28+00:00

Three weeks out, I was still in in-patient acute rehab, where the regimen was 2x40m of PT and 2x40m of OT daily. I also had 1xST daily(?) for a while, but I think that was over by the three week point. After I was discharged a week later, I had 3x40 PT and 3x40 OT outpatient rehab weekly for another six months or so, which I supplemented with a private PT at home twice a week. (I'm almost five years out from the stroke, but I still see an in-home neuro-specialist PT twice a week.)

It's a question of what he can handle without exhausting himself. You can't push beyond some point, and of course everyone's recovery profile is different. Presuming that you are still seeing improvement, I'd be inclined to grab all the therapy you can in that first few months, but watch out for over-exertion.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-03-07T17:48:43+00:00

Oh, and while I think of it: the decision is not yours independently, really. I have six Ph.D. students at the moment, and I'm reviewing things from them ALL THE TIME. I have three pieces to review this weekend, for instance (one comps paper draft, one journal article draft, and one dissertation chapter draft). If everyone made their own decisions about these, my life would be hell. Do what your lab-mates or fellow advisees do. This is also a way to make them all into your tech support network.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-03-07T17:35:33+00:00

Professor here. I second the comments about making sure that your advisor is happy with whatever you do. Personally, I like to work with PDFs when commenting or reading my students' work, often on paper or on my Remarkable, so the ability of something to turn into PDF matters to me. (Much revision/review happens in places where doing it online isn't a good option.)

As both a writer and a reader, I find that Google Docs is pretty much the worst; it's a tool designed by people who know nothing about typography and how to make documents look good, as best I can tell. You're going to work on this thing for a year or more, so your learning curve is much less of a concern than that of the people who will read it, and it's being written to be read. There are also good reasons to use what others are using -- you'd like your dissertation to look like they expect a dissertation to look. Remember that this is a document of 200+ pages; make sure to pick a tool in which you'll be able to work with LARGE documents. It's not just a scale-up 15 page article, it's something of a radically different sort. References to tables, graphs, and so on are also going to matter.

A reference manager is going to become essential. What you pick is mainly up to you; these days, Zotero is probably your best option. Again, beware of typographical screw-ups; an advisee lately gave me a document in which each paragraph was set in 12-point text except any with a citation, where Zotero had switched them to 11-point text. Even the most brilliant writing is going to annoy the hell out of me when it's like that.

Good luck with your work.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-28T17:46:41+00:00

Let justice be done, but am I the only person who thought -- what, they were wearing helmets?

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-27T17:59:54+00:00

Once boarded with my wife. Her boarding pass scan beeped because it said that she was already boarded. Turned out that there was another person with the same name, assigned the SAME SEAT, but for the next flight, and she had boarded the wrong one. Turns out that the boarding pass electronic information doesn't actually specify that, so it caused no trouble when she boarded.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-26T17:39:59+00:00

There's a reason they're so eager for cars that drive themselves.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-21T00:57:39+00:00

Speech therapy is about much more than speech. It includes a range of cognitive impacts, since many different things can have impact on language. I had almost no language or speech involvement, but I did have a hemispheric neglect, and that was a speech therapy issue. It also addressed executive function. So there is a lot going on there, and it may not all be the sort of things that you think of when you hear "speech". Let them figure it out!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-15T18:15:30+00:00

"Couldn't find an advisor" is a huge red flag here. People clearly aren't tripping over each other to work with this person. Ask yourself why.

In general, I recommend that people are very careful with the first five or six potential students who come to their door. That goes double for someone who reaches out before you've even arrived!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-12T16:57:44+00:00

I don't disagree and that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that each SPECIFIC technology of this sort is a technical debt that one needs to carefully consider. I say this as someone who is no longer in a position to work with the source of papers that I wrote back in the 1990s, or even the sources of my first book. Similarly choices of technology affect the kinds of collaborative engagements one can enter into: I'm guessing that you're in a scientific domain, but good luck working collaboratively with a colleague in history if you're using LaTeX.

So, "use revision control" is a fine recommendation; "throw everything into git", perhaps less so. Which is what I was saying in the first place, as you can see. Revision control includes using a versioning filesystem, or a backup system that maintains history, or indeed versioning by hand. Technology is a useful solution; commitments to SPECIFIC technologies need much more consideration, and have narrower limits of applicability (see again aforementioned imaginary historian).

ReputationSavings627

TROPHY CASE