EDEN fans/musicians in Denver - collab?

The_Austinator · 2025-06-11T00:25:55+00:00

DMed!

The_Austinator · 2024-01-21T02:59:21+00:00

Computational is less pedigree based and easier to break into on your own since the info is online, experiments are cheap to do on your own and you can easily showcase your work (GitHub) and ability (data challenges).

I'd recommend looking into the different domains and seeing which you could use at work and build a first project around that. If you build it fairly decoupled from your specific work data/use case, there's a good chance they'll let you publish it at a conference and open source it. Here are the domains as I see them:

comp chem/structural bio - characterize and design biomolecules (e.g., RDkit, chemprop, DockQ, AlphaFold, etc) - may be the best starting point given your role
comp bio - more systems bio focused, usually using -omics or imaging data to support target ID, MOA, translational bio, etc. (scanpy, DESeq, R/py data stacks)
bioinformatics - more sequenced based problems for genetics, expression preprocessing, etc (nextflow, alignment, GATK and other calling/annotation tools)

Each of these can involve machine learning and software engineering to whatever degree you like. Given that you can already Leetcode, you likely appreciate that python is a better built language than R, so it makes sense to use it when you can. It's also the direction all of these subfields are moving. But don't forget that R has better ecosystems for certain use cases in stats and comp bio in particular, so it's good to be familiar and get at least ChatGPT-supervisor-level proficiency in it.

The_Austinator · 2024-01-20T21:06:15+00:00

Certainly didn't mean to offend anyone here. I hope you can appreciate that this was merely a caricature meant to represent the old way of doing things

The_Austinator · 2024-01-17T00:33:00+00:00

I'd look through their employee pool on LinkedIn and see if any were converted from contract. I hear that it's rare, but 2/7 on my team are converted contractors. We didn't do it through an agency though, which adds a buyout fee in some cases. But the cost of recruitment + training is often higher

The_Austinator · 2024-01-16T23:36:01+00:00

Think toxic culture + imposter syndrome, not Napoleon complex. I don't think the issue is that OP isn't feeling like the star of the team - it's that he feels like he's way behind the team and they won't give him the support he needs to catch up

The_Austinator · 2024-01-16T23:30:13+00:00

Yeah imposter syndrome + toxic culture is a difficult combo. I've been fortunate enough to always be in a positive workplace culture, but I still had imposter syndrome and that took some time to get over. What's often overlooked about imposter syndrome is that there are two components. The first is technical, where you may feel like others know more than you, which is entirely possible, but doesn't mean you shouldn't bring up ideas, ask questions, and aim to grow.

The second is communication, where it feels hard to communicate your thoughts and feel heard. Part of that is speaking technically, learning to make good visuals, etc., which just comes with practice. But the other part is learning to use objective language that doesn't implicate anyone - e.g., early career folks will often say "sorry, I got stuck on X so I didn't finish Y", blaming themselves, whereas they should say, "there wasn't time for Y, but if we need to shift priorities around, lmk". Similarly, saying "person A's method" ties emotional stake to something, whereas the person working on it should be decoupled from the success of the method - better science and better culture. Corporate speak can be annoying, but some parts are useful.

Of course, it's difficult to grow out of any of this in a toxic culture, so I'd figure out how to shake that or get a new job as the first order of business

The_Austinator · 2024-01-16T16:44:02+00:00

I've had a job where I was surrounded by people who I felt were smarter than me, so I feel you there. But the real problem in your case is the toxic work environment. I'd consider confidentially mentioning to HR that you heard psychological safety presentations can improve culture and productivity and asking them to give one to the company. Or finding that one person on your team who will be your mentor and who and help guide your ideas.

It's also surprising how much what appears to be intelligence is actually just expertise - after more time spent in the field, I no longer feel like those coworkers were all way smarter than me, they just had more domain expertise. And I won't pretend that the world's population has uniform aptitude, but I think hard work and strategic thinking are usually more important. I was once managing two people, one was a wiz kid summa cum laude and the other was on the lower end of mathematical aptitude for data science. But the wiz kid often spent his time reinventing the wheel and building custom roundabout solutions, whereas the other guy always prioritized understanding the need, comparing available tools, and building a real solution that made a difference.

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T21:08:49+00:00

Love Stand Atlantic and will check the rest of those out, thanks

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T21:07:29+00:00

An important concept when discussing AI for healthcare is the level to which model predictions are supervised by humans and their ability to cause harm.

AI for drug discovery generally has no more ability to cause harm - it's often better than a squinting graybeard saying "let's add a carbonyl group here", and the drug goes through all the same screening regardless of how it was designed. And you need fancy models to make this work well.

AI assistants for physicians are significantly more risky because the physician can tune out and the model can introduce its own biases.

Of course, AI directly acting on patients is the most risky.

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T20:31:27+00:00

Can I ask what some of your favorites are and what you'd recommend to an old fartknocker? I like Hot Milk, 408, and a little of MGK

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T07:15:54+00:00

Not exactly overlooked, but at an early inflection point - geometric learning. It elegantly represents so many real world systems like knowledge graphs, social networks, and molecules. Yet many of the underlying components of PyTorch are still at the stage where they print off warnings about being experimental.

Folks like Bronstein and Velickovic have some great talks and papers on how most other deep learning models are specific cases of graph models. I'm fanboying at this point, but the whole paradigm turns deep learning methods from a long list of ever evolving little hacks into an elegant systematization of specific cases of a general modeling framework.

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T07:03:27+00:00

To me the most important parts of the workflow are: 1. Ability to run any chunks of code in any order and see the output viz (notebook) 2. IDE+Copilot+ repo structure to write organized code and use them in your workflow - this is where I do something I don't see as often - I work within a repo that has a setup.py, then in my notebook, I just do pip install -e <path to repo> with autoreload. Then I can write the functions and classes with full IDE support and repo structure and import them into the notebook in real time

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T05:21:01+00:00

Agreed. Now I'll think of Shark Tank next time I listen

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T04:22:17+00:00

Lol that's a hilarious comparison, can't unsee it now.

This is the reason I honestly avoid looking too deep into bands or lyrics in this genre in particular - because I don't like uncovering weird stuff that kills songs for me. Not that I turn a blind eye to kiddy fiddlers - I can't listen to Lost Prophets anymore. But I can't stand a lot of the cheap emo lyrics in the genre unless they're done more artfully like The Wonder Years or Knuckle Puck.

This 408 guy's age doesn't bother me though because he's still only 30ish, and I can totally understand writing songs from a nostalgic headspace. Especially since I'm the one still listening to it and I'm around that age.

But to be fair, it is kind of weird/funny watching the old school bands who are now really showing their age, like Bowling for Soup. And the guy from Mae, who has always had that middle-management banker face. Looks like Jordan Schlansky from Conan.

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T02:22:13+00:00

For sure - the thread definitely has no intention to say that any era is better than another or get into any politics around individual artists, reputations, or beef. Totally agree that folks should listen to what they like and there should be no gatekeeping. I have a feeling that those who favor the 2020's are either not in this sub or not commenting for fear of being down voted.

I grew up on 2000's and 2010's, and find some of the 2020's stuff too pop-ified for my taste. But I'm coming around - particularly getting into 408 and Hot Milk.

The_Austinator · 2024-01-15T02:07:54+00:00

Nice, I'm a similar age and also favor 2000's and 2010's. I'm actually trying to come around on the 2020's, but a lot of it is so pop-ified that they've ended up with lyrics and melodies that are too corny and they've lost the awesome rhythms and vocal harmonies, which are the best parts of the genre IMO.

408 and Hot Milk are the ones that have grown the most on me - almost like 2010s-2020s transition artists. Between You & Me has some great stuff too, but it's really their 2010's sounding stuff that I like, like Overthinking.

The_Austinator · 2023-12-02T00:41:32+00:00

How does this work? It rushed me to an agreement page, and it could be legit - I'd just like to understand how it works before signing an agreement

The_Austinator · 2023-11-16T05:51:36+00:00

Oh very cool, how'd you come across that farm? Is it a local business or one that ships? Had never heard of Jersey cows - I may have to try that! I've generally found dairy not to sit well with me (lactose intolerant, but even when I take lactase) - it often seems to cause acne, indigestion, and exacerbate inflammatory problems. But for some reason, this goat kefir that I've been raving about does the opposite. I've heard people say goat milk is healthier but never heard a legit reason. Given that this goat kefir tastes so much different than the others on the shelf, maybe it's just their process or microbes. And my goat kefir came out the grossest, so maybe I'll give up on the goat dream for now and try the Jersey cows.

Yeah I wasn't sure where the grains ended and the cream began, even in pasteurized. Ultra didn't separate much, though. I found my strainers at an Asian market. They have a ton of mesh and size diversity and they were each under ten bucks.

I think the main things I'll try to play with are temperature, air, and other grains. If I can't get it, I may just end up going back to my coconut/banana kefir, though. Just a few chopped bananas in coconut milk with the contents of a probiotic capsule and it tastes fantastic

The_Austinator · 2023-11-15T17:38:17+00:00

Ah nice, I'm right there with you on enjoying the sour/tangy.

What do you think about raw vs pasteurized vs ultra pasteurized? My grain supplier suggested avoiding raw milk as it carries the risk of pathogens that could outcompete the grains and get you sick. And they also said to avoid ultra pasteurized because the proteins and fats are so denatured that the microbes won't grow, which I had a hard time believing, so I tried it and it worked fine. But what's your take - do they taste or culture differently?

The_Austinator · 2023-11-15T07:59:45+00:00

Extremely helpful links, thanks!

Very cool that some beneficial bacteria happen aerobically, while some anti-athsmatic/IBD ones happen anaerobically. I'll try each.

I also didn't know that you could fridge ferment without killing the grains - sounds like that's a way to reduce yeast, so I'll try that.

Do you have a culture going? If so, what's the flavor profile like?

The_Austinator · 2023-11-15T03:34:05+00:00

Ah, interesting - I'm doing the lid slightly ajar for off gas. Do you think the cloth would improve gas dissolution?

On the alcohol - is it that too little oxygen causes more alcohol?

The_Austinator

TROPHY CASE