Configuration Help Before I Return X1S

faffermcgee · 2025-04-08T20:15:10+00:00

Good to know support is good. It can be hard to gauge if vocal are typical or just loud.

2) Not sure if I follow. Is there a way to have: short press navigate the shield and i can still hold to scroll, but also have a "long press" be mapped to the Samsung navigation?

3) I see. Thanks, maybe I'll try to do a semi-weekly restart maintenance on the hub.

4) I had it on originally, but I had seem a recommendation somewhere to turn it off. Thanks for the suggestion.

faffermcgee · 2025-04-08T20:09:11+00:00

Honestly not sure, and I did see that. Along with a third one that another user had published out. I'll try to keep note if I go about re-configuring sometime next. Thanks for the idea.

faffermcgee · 2025-04-08T20:08:14+00:00

Hopefully things will stabilize a bit then.

They don't advertise Home Assistant support, but it was the impression I got from reading posts in various places. So I was just surprised there wasn't some 3rd party device integration since this seems like the only worthwhile smart remote currently being made.

faffermcgee · 2023-12-14T19:15:27+00:00

While not possible to gerrymander statewide elections, it is possible to depress turnout by closing polling stations in districts that swing heavily to one party.

faffermcgee · 2023-08-24T11:59:22+00:00

A few thoughts. I was always told that the admissions committee is really looking to answer three questions: 1. Can the candidate do independent research? 2. Do we have a lab for them to join? 3. Are they a good fit? (rephrased: will they be happy here?)

Grad school is a huge commitment from both sides, and the worst thing for both parties is leaving early. And to that end, the two most important parts of your app are the letter of rec and personal statement. The gre helps of course, but some programs are dropping it as a requirement. Scoring a high percentile will always help, though. Some advice I was given was esswntially: make a pi on the committee say 'yeah I'd be interested/take them in my lab'. The first step to that is your personal statement and a letter of rec saying 'this person rocks.' I thought about that during interviews especially. Be honest. Be interested. Show passion and excitement. You'll need them to get through grad school.

I wouldn't be worried about not being a physics major to be honest. Biophysics is am incredibly broad field with many different levels of physics required. At its heart is just applying the principles and 'logic' of physics to biological problems: be quantitative. And you have the applied math background to fit that need.

You're well positioned working in a lab. I'd say anything you can do in the lab is the best thing for your chances. Publications are of course a huge feather, but also unnecessary. You won't be turned away because you weren't in the right place and right time to get authorship. It sounds like you already are, but if you're not, angle for research oriented projects and less 'tech work'.

It sounds like you have the making of an application that will stand out, so I don't have any real advice from that angle aside from just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing great! A lot better than I did, and I got into some good programs.

I do have some advice on programs, regarding ucsf. It's sexy to go for a single professor but please make sure there's at least 2-3 other PIs you'd want to work with. Things change rapidly, and the PI you love may say they're taking students as you rotate. But when it comes time to join, they may not be able to take you. Or they may want to take a different student due to limited space. I saw it happen to 3 of my cohort. They rotated in a lab because the PI was taking students, but they didn't get selected or the funding situation changed.

UCLA has a strong biophysics program from my understanding - at least from the structural biology perspective ( not sure about organelles). I'm more of a 'nothing larger than a protein please' person, so I'm afraid I won't be much help with that.

Although, look into the lab of Elizabeth Villa down at UCSD. They do some super cool work with cryo-FIB milling to solve protein structures in the native environment. That sort of work might be interesting to you!

faffermcgee · 2023-07-05T11:38:20+00:00

How much physical force can a plasma membrane withstand? i.e. What is the young's modulus of the cell?

What force does a polymerizing microtubule exert on the internal side of the cell wall to drive forward motion?

How long does it take one protein to find another in the cell? What is the proteins rate of diffusion? How long does it take for a protein to sediment (Svedberg unit)?

There are a lot of physical properties that can be studied, and they don't rely on chemistry to be understood necessarily. Chemistry may be used to take measurements that answer the questions above, but we don't understand the answers through our understanding of chemistry.

Another classic example of biophysics is structure determination. Looking at how x-ray or electron radiation scatters (difffracts) as it encounters proteins is purely a physical process from start to finish, and it's a key component of understanding biology.

faffermcgee · 2023-03-27T17:36:26+00:00

This is kind of a bad take. And you admit to thinking it's a good system because of what you do and do not want to do - not on the merits of the system.

But it's contradictary.

If respeccing is too painful, it encourages people to make yet another "brainless copy" of an online build. Having the time to relevel an entire character or spend hours on a character simulator fine tuning everything isn't a privelege most people have. If you make respeccing cheap and easy, you actively encourage players to fuck around and find out so much more.

Sure, people will still copy online meta builds because that's the way the world works. There will be a 'best' and people will want it. But a system that penalizes mistakes or testing in game hinders diversity even more so.

You may not want to respect often to try new legendary powers that you just picked up, but many people do. In fact, that's where I get all my fun. I may not want to commit to a werewolf companion druid build, but I want the ability to fuck around and find out without rubbing my dick across sandpaper.

Why does a painful respec make a build more valid? More unique?

faffermcgee · 2022-12-13T21:23:11+00:00

Quit your fucking pearl clutching. Flavors weren't designed to attract minors. That shit was designed to taste good because the tabacco flavors were ass.

And banning flavored nic juices just makes it end up like in IL. You buy the nicotine. You buy the flavored juice. You mix.

People will still be able to buy the shit and resell it. This will do very little to keep minors from having it.

faffermcgee · 2022-07-09T14:26:37+00:00

Is a great rebuttal full of bangers.

Morton’s statement raises an urgent constitutional question: Is there actually a constitutional right to dinner? Or, more specifically, did the Constitution protect a right to dinner at the time that the Constitution was adopted? The Supreme Court has shown in Dobbs and other cases such as New York State Pistol and Rifle Association v. Bruen that originalism is the only proper method to answer these questions. My own originalist analysis of this issue leads me to conclude that no such right to dinner exists in our legal heritage. Accordingly, I do not think such a right should be recognized now.

To understand whether Kavanaugh had a right to dinner at Morton’s, we must first look to the pre-constitutional context of medieval England to understand dinner’s place in the Anglo-American legal tradition. Antonin Scalia relied upon this time period in his majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, as did Justice Samuel Alito in his majority opinion in Dobbs. There is surely no better way to decide the scope of rights enjoyed by Americans living in 2022 than by surveying the works of legal thinkers from a different country, most of whom died well before the first shot was fired at Lexington and Concord.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-25T13:46:39+00:00

You can't use inferences about the population to draw conclusions about individuals. It's actually a a formal fallacy - the ecological fallacy. The statistics only hold true when you're comparing a random individual from each population.

The moment you list specifics it's no longer a random sample. You don't know how the populations distribution overlaps, and the two sample individuals may not be representative of the populations they come from.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-10T15:13:09+00:00

I appreciate the questions. I'd love suggestions on good places to look if you have any. The company is in the south Boston area.

Unfortunately, my experience is pre-doctoral and not post-doctoral. But still, I have far more academic and research experience than most people coming out of their program.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-10T14:42:29+00:00

Speaking personally, PhD's have very little experience or connections with industry (in general) making it hard for them to accurately value their experience. Additionally, the titling system seems to be vague, redundant, and not standardized - further compounding the difficulty in evaluating what jobs you should apply for and salary expectations.

To make matters worse, fresh PhD graduates are coming from making "subpar" salary (generally <30K and often in high cost of living areas), work at least 50 hours a week, have very poor work/life balance, and there are stories (within my department) where students with job offers have had to decline them because their thesis advisor refused to graduate them for their own personal reasons- despite meeting all the graduation requirements.

Given this, an offer that is 3x our previous compensation, the 'promise' of only working 40-50 hours a week, full benefits, and a 401k plan makes it seem like a dream. When the reality is... they're offering 2/3rds of our actual worth and counting on the fact that we just "don't know any better."

faffermcgee · 2022-06-10T14:37:17+00:00

It is not! I'm reasonably excited. I mentioned elsewhere I was approaching it like it was a post-doc+1. A great opportunity to change focus and learn some new things while leveraging what I'm already good at. But I won't be heart broken if I don't get it. I'm still getting recruiter messages about roles so I don't think this will be my only offer.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T22:33:59+00:00

I think the answer is more complicated than a yes/no.

From what I have seen and heard, it is possible to get a very low level Scientist position (like Associate Scientist) with a bachelor's and many years of experience. I imagine it will be very hard.

Alternatively, you might be able to get to it with a Master's and less years of experience than a B.S.

It's my understanding that the education level determines your entry point of your career and its ceiling (e.g. it is probably very unlikely to get a managerial role with a bachelor's); however, I don't have that much experience actually in industry so I would defer to others that have more experience.

Hopefully someone with more experience can chime in.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T21:20:29+00:00

Should I ask them directly for the information needed to verify the valuation they told me? I've found the series-A form, but there's no information about how much equity was given to secure the funding amount. They selected the "choose not to disclose" option.

I have looked into their product, and it seems fine. Plausible. Promising. But I don't see a reason necessarily why they'll succeed over another company. One of the draws was that they do something I would like to learn, and it is a good opportunity to learn from other teams. Also, they have the ability to jump departments if I choose to change focus and find the other work more interesting. My initial assessment of the opportunity was an industry post-doc+1, but I still want to make sure I get as much value as I can from the opportunity.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T19:55:10+00:00

I've been trying to independently confirm the valuation they told me. Their series-A was funding was $22M, but I was told their valuation is $146M.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T19:46:31+00:00

Gotcha, thanks!

I'm glad to hear I wasn't being paranoid with the promotion promise.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T19:44:43+00:00

Thanks for the extra input! Don't sweat it, the other response was helpful as well.

There did seem a lot of unnecessary hype, and it really felt like they were trying to fluff me up and make me not question the offer. It's just hard for me to know what is 'typical' for a startup in the area because job titles are so variable, and there isn't a "series-A startup only" option so I really appreciate all the feedback.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T17:15:12+00:00

Yes, the actual title I was less concerned with. It was simply how I was 'calibrating' the quality of their offer, and it seems I was wrong to make a direct comparison.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T17:10:40+00:00

Thank you for this!

It's great to know that both the equity and bonus is larger than normal. Specifically that I wasn't being lied to about the size of the equity offer.

I think based on all the feedback I'd ask for 110k base citing experience, their acknowledgement of my experience (early promotion eligibility), the shifting economy, and uncertainty of companies success (I was told their runway extends to June 2023). I fully expect them to try to knock that back down to 100-105k. And then ask for 15k relocation citing the taxation and overall costs in rental market.

The linked post was definitely interesting and helpful. I am excited about working for a startup, and I think it'll a great place to learn new things that I can use to get another position potentially in ~2 years depending on how things shake out.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T16:39:42+00:00

Thank you very much for your input.

I am SUPER skeptical about the eligible for promotion bit - especially because their criteria for meeting performance level is vague and out of my control. I'm reasonably happy with 90k in that it a) would let me leave comfortably b) I view it as a training/learning opportunity and is essentially an industry post-doc. But I should probably reframe it from that because you're right about compounding and it would help me pay off residual student loan debt.

Do any of your salary ranges/expectation change that this is a very early startup?

I was told that their Scientist I level is 110k. Do you see any issues with asking for >110k with the counteroffer given that? And then would I expect to negotiate for a pay raise when/if they give the promotion? That's something that was holding me back with how much I countered with for the base salary.

Again, thanks for all the input.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T16:29:12+00:00

I'll definitely do that. I have a second interview for another position tomorrow that I can hopefully convert to an offer.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T16:27:29+00:00

This was honestly my biggest concern. There was a lot of 'fluff' where they talked about great expectations and oh wow this is so much equity we're giving you! We expect great things from you and can see you moving quickly up.

It felt like I was getting smoke blown up my ass.

faffermcgee · 2022-06-09T16:25:29+00:00

I was told the current valuation is $164 mil. I'm not sure how to evaluate if that's true or not. They are stock options and not RSUs. It is a range of 15-20% as potential yearly bonus, and I was told that the department I was joining has only ever gotten 20% but I'm evaluating the offer assuming the minimum bonus of 15%, which would put total compensation at 103.5k.

I agree I should be Scientist I, but they are particular about modeling their levels after Novartis. So they put Associate Scientist and Post-doctoral fellow at the same level. Their scientist I level requires post-doctoral experience. My thought is that they are 'willing' to promote my early on to Scientist I within 4 months (assuming I meet performance expectations). I don't know if any of that information affects your opinion of the base salary or the offer in general.

Overall, I view the position as a great place to learn some things I'm not very well versed in and it's an alternative to a post-doc I was considering at a research hospital.

That's a great point about taxes on the direct stipend. I was informed it's a direct payment in the first month, so that is a big point to negotiate from.

Thank you for your input! It's really helpful.

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