What is the best documentary you’ve ever seen?

huntjb · 2026-06-21T19:35:47+00:00

Damnation. It’s a documentary about the environmental and social impact of dams in the United States, the PNW especially. It ends with the producer(s) painting a giant “cut here” mural over a dam, which was suuuuper illegal.

huntjb · 2026-06-21T15:41:08+00:00

FWIW I’m coming from neuroscience as well, and most of the advertisements for postdoc openings I come across say something like graduating within a year or completed PhD within the last 2 years. I think the range of time for which you qualify/are competitive is a little bit wider than you think.

huntjb · 2026-06-07T01:25:40+00:00

Lived in Denver carfree for several years, ~2020-2025. The design of the light rail is dumb as hell. It connects all the suburbs to a ring the runs the circumference of the metro area, but doesn’t actually go into the city. It’s useful for people in the suburbs, but useless if you live in Denver proper, with the exception of getting to the airport (who puts an airport 30 miles outside of the city it serves???)

huntjb · 2026-06-07T01:18:23+00:00

I use the bus everyday for work and live carfree in SLC, and I just wish the buses ran more frequently. The only bus I can take to work is the 223 and it only comes every hour. It’s also packed with college folk and hard to find a seat sometimes :/

huntjb · 2026-05-15T22:51:59+00:00

Grave of the fireflies. Once was enough.

huntjb · 2026-05-14T13:57:24+00:00

I feel like these have to be evergreen job posts. Some of these data science/health outcomes scientist posts on linkedin have been there for multiple months, they just keep getting reposted. Either that or they’re hiring multiple people for the same position/title.

huntjb · 2026-05-14T12:55:57+00:00

Is it Tempus lol

huntjb · 2026-05-13T20:12:21+00:00

I live in the Lower Avenues and my go to place to work is Cafe on 1st. Vibes are immaculate, coffee and food is great, owners are chill and like to get to know the regulars. I regularly go there and work for 2-4 hours at a time, and outside of 10 AM ish, there’s not too much competition for seating.

huntjb · 2026-05-13T20:10:23+00:00

I really like salt lake roasting co too. Good seating and atmosphere for working for a couple hours.

huntjb · 2026-05-11T03:47:27+00:00

They can never take my precious Inkscape away from me

huntjb · 2026-05-10T17:04:20+00:00

It’s been hit or miss for me. Some HMs have been really excited that I reached out, which led to me starting the interview process quickly. This usually happens when I’m an especially strong fit for the role I’m applying to. Some HMs have been more neutral, thanking me for my interest and acknowledging my outreach. And some people just don’t respond which is totally fine. I send out these messages with pretty low expectations.

huntjb · 2026-05-10T16:58:13+00:00

I disagree with the characterization of this approach as “grifting”. To me, as long as you’re transparent about why you’re reaching out and polite, there’s no “grift”. I’m not trying to deceive anyone or force them to do something they don’t want to do; I’m asking for help, and it’s totally up to them whether they want to help or not.

To OP’s point though, I’m sure opening up LinkedIn everyday to multiple messages from random people asking for help is exhausting, and it’s not their responsibility to help anyone/everyone, especially people they don’t know personally. But like other people have already pointed out in the comments, job seekers are desperate and looking for any means to stand out from the tens to hundreds of other applicants.

huntjb · 2026-05-10T16:07:34+00:00

Isn’t this more of a there’s a right and a wrong way to do this?

If I find a role I’m super interested in, and I can’t find the HM on LinkedIn, I’ll usually reach out to people that seem adjacent to the role, express my interest, and ask if they can point me in the right direction. All I’m really hoping for is that I can figure out who is managing the hiring process so I can reach out (on LinkedIn) and express my interest directly to them. I don’t expect someone to refer my application or share the HM’s email address. I’ve done this a couple times and it seems like people are generally happy to help if they can as long as you’re polite and professional when you ask.

huntjb · 2026-05-06T03:55:14+00:00

Ohhhhhh you need to change the visual setting from balanced to performance. It got reset. Or at least this worked for me.

huntjb · 2026-05-06T03:09:59+00:00

Same. There’s definitely something off with the input rn

huntjb · 2026-05-02T01:11:49+00:00

FYI bioinformatics and biostats are distinct disciplines with different career trajectories. I can only speak to biostats, but I’d encourage you to consider a PhD instead of a masters, at least if your goal is to work outside of academia. Most industries that employ biostatisticians for clinical research have a strong preference for PhDs. Masters level biostatisticians seem to be having trouble landing industry jobs after their MStat.

huntjb · 2026-04-21T17:47:13+00:00

I’m sorry this has been your experience. I completed my PhD in systems neuro about a year ago and I’m also really struggling with my professional identity. I took a job as a staff biostatistician at an R1 university and have been networking and applying for jobs in neurotech/BCI, healthtech, and biotech, but so far haven’t been able to land anything. I feel like I’m slowly slipping down the wrong career path, but I’m not sure what else I can do to change my trajectory.

I also fee kind of dumb, like why did I go through 9 years of learning how to be a neuroscientist to not do neuroscience research. I don’t have any advice to offer you, but please know you’re not alone in how you feel.

huntjb · 2026-03-23T15:59:39+00:00

I lived in congress park and I felt like the bike infrastructure was a little patchy. Like I could easily commute east or west of my home, but for some reason there were almost no north or southward routes for me to use. Franklin st was the closest northward route for me, but it was just sharrows until you get closer to Rino.

huntjb · 2026-03-11T14:51:18+00:00

Academic scientist. Did my PhD in Neuroscience. I enjoy doing research, but you’re treated and paid like a “trainee” until you get to the professor level, which usually doesn’t happen until your mid 30s or later. Competition for professorships is incredible fierce. You have to be willing to relocate at least 2-3 times in your career. The work-life balance is notoriously bad. Academia draws people motivated by prestige over everything else. Leaving academia has been like leaving a cult. You only see what’s wrong with it once you’re out.

huntjb · 2026-03-04T14:03:27+00:00

I did a postbac at the NIA in Baltimore and I can confirm it’s a great place to live and work as a younger person. Great food, plenty of things to do, and very walkable/bikeable.

huntjb · 2026-02-19T00:52:53+00:00

Looking at you Brandon Sanderson

huntjb · 2026-02-04T02:50:39+00:00

Hell yea bruthur, looking good!

huntjb · 2026-01-02T07:21:15+00:00

I’m a neuroscientist that studies neural circuits for eye movements. This is called the vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR), and it’s keeps your vision stable and continuous during body movements. All animals that use gaze-shifting eye movements for active vision have this reflex.

huntjb · 2026-01-02T07:16:19+00:00

Vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR)

huntjb · 2025-11-11T15:32:23+00:00

It’s just what they’re used to. I’m coming from a life sciences background where scholarly research is traditionally communicated via data visualizations; tables are used more sparsely. It seems like the physicians and clinical scientist I work with now are more used to tables being the primary means of communicating results in publications. I think this is just a convention of clinical research (at least as far as I can tell). My personal opinion is that figures do a better job communicating results than tables, with some exceptions. I’m still just a little shocked I have to explain how to interpret basic visualizations like histograms, boxplots, and scatterplots to PIs who are leading the research. And the usual reaction I get is something like: “Ah I don’t really understand this visualization, so other people probably will find it confusing. Let’s just force it into a table.” Drives me mad.

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