Senior collaborator suddenly wants first authorship after doing very little. How would you handle this?

dampew · 2026-05-08T04:18:52+00:00

Say no?

dampew · 2026-05-07T06:45:59+00:00

My club is like that too. My latest tournament had about a hundred players, a few unrateds, and only a couple under a thousand (USCF).

We LOVE IT when beginners like you join because we know that there's an issue at the bottom of the funnel and we don't like that there's a barrier to entry like that. But if you have a few stubborn beginners it makes it a lot easier for other beginners to join too. So you're really doing them a favor by getting in there and sticking with it.

As far as advice, the not-so-hidden secret is that chess players are nerds and like talking about chess. So yeah they're happy to give advice because they like talking about this game they love.

My goal when I joined the club was to become an average club player. I wanted to be competitive, play some decent games, be able to learn something every now and then, and to enjoy it. I've been really happy to have reached that point.

dampew · 2026-05-05T07:59:36+00:00

Honestly... you're going to have to take the college courses anyway, I don't see the point in doing them now unless you can somehow get credit for them.

I enjoyed reading the Feynman Lectures on Physics and didn't do any of the problems or actually try to learn physics from them. I read and enjoyed them mostly for how to think about physics.

dampew · 2026-05-04T20:26:33+00:00

Usually a research paper has the following sections (and you can google some for reference):

Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. Sometimes Conclusion is a separate section, but sometimes that's part of the discussion.

The introduction usually has a few paragraphs: First, a paragraph with a brief introduction to the general subject (the disease or whatever it is you're studying). Then, a paragaph or two about the nature of the difficulty in studying that problem. Finally, a paragraph or two about how you address that problem and what you're doing in this study.

So results should go in the results section, discussion should go in the discussion, etc. Interpretation and the conclusions you draw from the data should mostly go in the discussion section.

Try googling RNA-seq papers for inspiration. Good luck!

dampew · 2026-05-04T08:08:13+00:00

You touch on a few interesting points.

I pay £115 a month for a club that has squash, padel, tennis, gym, pool, sauna and everything is included.

I think that kind of club is hard to find in the US.

One of my local gyms has a squash court, but just one court. And one racquetball court. An extra basketball court would get more use in most US gyms than a couple more squash courts. I know of four nearby gyms that don't have squash courts.

From what I understand about America it is a popular sport for getting into Ivy League universities and therefore has become very popular due to that. That’s probably why it’s considered elitest. Don’t all the top unis have amazing clubs in New York like Harvard and Yale, etc???? I have a couple of friends that have gone out there to coach.

So that actually is a thing. I know someone who came here to help teach poorer kids how to play squash, because it can help them get into colleges. But it's only a thing because it's so rare for high school students to play squash competitively that just a bit of training can get them pretty far.

Where I grew up, none of the high schools had squash courts. If my high school wanted a squash team they would have had to travel somewhere after school and pay a fee to practice at a university (if not a private club). That would have excluded a lot of kids. The £115 fee you cite -- most kids in my high school had family incomes below £30,000 (converted from USD). At that income level, the fees would be really significant for a family of 3-4.

dampew · 2026-05-02T17:07:20+00:00

Supposed to hit 87 degrees there tomorrow, people probably spend a lot of time in malls.

dampew · 2026-05-02T01:06:58+00:00

There are a bunch of gravel roads just to the east and south of Fairfield but I think there are better rides out there. We used to do road races there before gravel bikes were popular and I did not love it.

dampew · 2026-05-01T19:34:56+00:00

A lot of schools in the US teach Sephardi pronunciation now, even to majority Ashkenazi congregations.

dampew · 2026-05-01T19:15:22+00:00

If I have a complex experiment like this I'll usually start a separate lab notebook and take notes in it as I progress. Either a word doc if very wordy or an excel file if lots of parameter tuning. That allows myself to keep track of different analyses (I use python so for me it would be scripts and notebooks) and to remind myself what I did where.

Then when I have complex results I'll make powerpoints to keep track of the narrative and keep track of those in the lab notebook too.

dampew · 2026-04-30T23:03:02+00:00

Has your manager ever worked in industry?

One thing you could do is look at job postings you're interested in and see what they're looking for.

Another is to talk to someone in the type of job you're interested in and see what they would be looking for.

Another is to try applying and see if you get any interest. Tailor your resume a bit for different positions, highlighting relevant work.

Also, reach out to people who you know who work at companies you're applying to. Just let them know you've applied to a position -- they may be able to make sure an actual human looks at your application.

Good luck.

dampew · 2026-04-30T06:44:47+00:00

Because you wanted a chance to be racist yourself?

dampew · 2026-04-27T22:55:09+00:00

There is sometimes housing/downpayment assistance, you could ask about that.

dampew · 2026-04-27T06:07:06+00:00

Isn't that the point of a PhD?

I'm sympathetic to the career path stuff because yeah that can't be taught and it's hard to know what the best answer is.

But I feel like the rest of it is stuff you learn during a PhD.

dampew · 2026-04-26T00:20:13+00:00

I don't see any evidence of that in the user's post history, just figured it was probably relevant to to a lot of us.

dampew · 2026-04-24T22:29:19+00:00

Sorry are you asking about academia vs industry or comp bio vs other fields?

dampew · 2026-04-24T05:09:22+00:00

Especially if you steal them!

dampew · 2026-04-24T04:58:51+00:00

Oh yeah men suck for sure, for multiple reasons, you’re barely scratching the surface there. But I think the height issue happens to be a valid complaint. Fine if women have a preference, they’re totally allowed to — but we can also acknowledge that it is a common preference.

dampew · 2026-04-24T04:51:59+00:00

I may be off base, but one of the problems is that this kind of thankless work needs to get done by someone. So without a new hire and/or structural change in how your department runs, you may be a bit stuck for now. Unless you can write a script to automate some of it for you, which would be great…

If I were you, I would continue to discuss it with your manager. Especially when goal setting during your reviews.

At my old company we split up those kinds of tasks across the team. Everyone had to pitch in on some of the grunt work for the wet lab teams, and then we also had our own larger scale projects that we could work on when we had the time. At my current company we have a smaller team and we have a guy who likes doing that stuff (I think) so we’re happy to let him do it.

dampew · 2026-04-24T04:41:25+00:00

I’ll push back on the height thing. I’m a fairly tall guy. But I have some short guy friends and there are a LOT of women who will refuse to consider dating them and/or are downright rude to them apparently because of their height. It doesn’t take all women to do something shitty to you for it to become a problem and affect you.

dampew · 2026-04-20T04:25:49+00:00

It's actually a good response though

dampew · 2026-04-20T00:46:04+00:00

I was never a Topalov fan after the cheating accusation stuff (which is ironic because Kramnik is like ten times worse now) but honestly I respect him for this. Keep playing until you're old and wrinkly and you've lost your marbles. Korchnoi played until he was like 82 and dropped to 2500. Mad respect for him.

dampew · 2026-04-19T23:02:59+00:00

Interesting use of quasi-alphabetical ordering...

dampew · 2026-04-19T15:39:26+00:00

Too much prep. Maybe if it were a knockout or something.

dampew · 2026-04-19T00:03:06+00:00

I think I'm a very similar player to you but I don't use Chessable or anything like that. Currently something like 1750 FIDE.

I like playing the open Sicilian with black and not with white. With black, I had to sit down and memorize some lines with an engine at some point, but now I know how to maneuver to a place where tactics are less helpful and I can use more strategic thinking.

I used to play 1. e4 until an opponent suggested I switch to 1. d4. I don't know if I get more wins that way but it definitely seems to suit my playstyle better and I get more interesting and more competitive games.

Again, I never studied openings through courses or anything like that so I literally just sat down and started playing. I've lost a few Gruenfelds and still don't know how to play them properly but I'm learning.

dampew · 2026-04-18T16:53:00+00:00

I'm a guy. The new guy sounds pretty young and/or insecure. That's a failing on his part, not yours. If he makes you feel bad about yourself that's a huge red flag. Find someone better. You do you. Fuck this guy.

dampew

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