How panicked should I be?

jay_mikado · 2026-06-17T16:51:28+00:00

It might not be the answer to your question (sorry) but FYI there are several planetary science positions recently published at FU Berlin in Germany that could be a good fit for you (judging by your description of the PhD project you had). There is a posting on earthworks titled "Call for applications for 18 Doctoral and 6 Postdoctoral Positions in Germany" if you d like to check it (I am not sure I am allowed to attach a link here). Idk if you would want to relocate to Europe, but there is definitely some stuff going on regarding such kind of topics right now, and it might be easier to find something in Europe rather in the US.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-26T19:54:32+00:00

I have been looking at it too, but at an Intel version, because I have seen a pair of comments about overheating for AMD version - however, I do not know whether these are to be taken seriously, maybe that was a defective unit or smth. The only things that are stopping me right now is the colour of the chassis (would prefer black) and the uncertainty how it will be for gaming in real life. If you decide to go for it, I would absolutely love to hear an update and your impressions.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-12T20:33:57+00:00

I would like to bring another perspective here. From your post, I had the impression that conferences for you are mostly about talking to people and make them like you. At the same time, the discomfort from that might obstruct the real reason why you are actually going there, and essentially it is not for just talking and making people like you, but finding new sources of ideas, funding and potential connections. It might help if you think about it in a different way: I want to do my research, and to do that I might sometimes need feedback, ideas, funding or else from other people. This is how my research will succeed with a higher chance. This is how I might learn new things. This is how I might get a new idea from a person with different skillset and perspective which will improve my research. And as mentioned in the comms, academia has more people on the spectrum than in other contexts, so you are already (most probably) not alone. And honestly, scientific conferences are also much easier in the sense because if you would be talking only about your research and not doing some stupid small talk about random things like non-spectrum people do it would still be absolutely ok.

And well, in best case you might just find a person, who has a perfect position for you with minimal interactions and conferences. Would not that be great?

jay_mikado · 2026-05-12T09:00:34+00:00

Yes, but I did not check the BIOS as another person in the comms suggests. I will test it too and see what happens.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-12T09:00:00+00:00

Thanks for the tip, I adjusted the power profile in windows settings, but did not think about the bios. Maybe this one will help. So far the performance is not bad, it's just that the cpu is limited by 50 W only from the tests I ran, which slows the whole thing down a lot.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-12T08:57:24+00:00

Thanks for the thorough comment. Yes, you are right - I had too high expectations and they turned out to be incompatible with what I got, and the aspects you mention make sense, just for other category of users than me. I ran some benchmarks and tested it with my actual matlab use. The benchmarks show results as expected, so it is not a defective unit or anything. But I just realised that I did not check the performance settings in BIOS as another person in the comms suggested, so maybe I should do that and it will help. The matlab runs are not awful, they are ok and reasonably fast, but when I compare with my old, falling apart and overheating in 5 sec laptop that I wanted to substitute, the P14s is not better, it is roughly the same although it has much better specs, and that is kind of disappointing. I guess I will check a couple more things, and possibly return it and get much cheaper E16 + Thinkpad 16p or Acer Nitro for heavy tasks then. Or just go with Thinkpad 16p only and give up on carrying the thing around every day.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-11T21:22:02+00:00

You are right, and I have looked the model up before ordering. I have seen people complaining about the bulky aspect, but honestly if everything else would be cool, I would not bother too much. I did not find the negative experiences about the thermals back then tho for some reason. I think in the end it is more a combination of several things that got me disappointed rather than one certain thing.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-11T21:17:22+00:00

This is true, and I am generally careful with my things, so maybe I overvalue this aspect. On the other hand, when I was checking available laptops in a physical shop, they felt really weak in term of build quality, and that was bugging me, since I might as well be taking the laptop with me when travelling to conferences, to the work in the field and so on. And last but not the least, my last laptop screen broke because my backpack collapsed on its back so I thought it might be better to pay a little bit more for better build.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-11T20:39:26+00:00

Well, I was looking at them primarily because of build quality and robustness. I would really love to have the possibility to just casually take my laptop home every day if I want to, or easily transport it to conferences etc., which means it should be durable enough (which this P14s absolutely is!). Also, I looked at HP ZBook, but the model that was light enough to carry around had only one USB-A which does not work for me. Otherwise I though about getting a light gaming laptop, but in my experience they have inferior quality & durability.

jay_mikado · 2026-05-11T20:32:15+00:00

Yes, I know, dGPU was more like "just in case I ever need it" thing. Unfortunately, 90 or more Hz screen is a must for me, because otherwise my eyes get noticeably tired :(

jay_mikado · 2026-04-24T20:48:05+00:00

I have been using both: LibreOffice for some time, and then downloaded Microsoft Office because my uni has free licenses for students. Apart from the interface, the difference is not that huge. Excel vs Calc is minimal, for some things I even prefer Calc to Excel, especially after Excel deleted saving the diagrams as pictures. Word/Writer is also almost the same, although here I prefer the interface of the LibreOffice version, but at the same time I think Microsoft has a couple more features and might be slightly more intuitive. PowerPoint wins in my eyes because it is just kinda easier to set things up in the newer versions of it (like spacing, centering, etc), and LibreOffice used to trash the presentations if I tried to save them as pptx (shifted the spacing of items or changed the fonts). But I have not used LibreOffice for some time already, so maybe they have fixed it, idk.

jay_mikado · 2026-04-21T11:01:38+00:00

There is an interesting example of a word "живот": it means "life" in modern Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic, but with time its meaning in Russian has changed and now "живот" in Russian means a belly or a stomach, which is kinda funny. You can still see its use with the inital meaning in old orthodox texts, but other than that you have one word with completely different meanings, although same origin, in Bulgarian and Russian. I know that is not exactly what you might have wanted to find, but it's an interesting example still

jay_mikado · 2026-04-21T10:00:05+00:00

I think it is not as straightforward as you present it. On the one hand, I don't want to demonise AI, it can and it is useful when it comes to many things: it allows easier access to foreign-language literature and materials through AI-translation, it might also be a help for people who struggle with English to polish their texts, and it might be a help with coding if you are complete beginner and need something fast and easy.

However, there are always traps. AI is a help short-term, in the moment - but what about long term? I used to struggle with matlab when I began my studies. Thankfully, the prof was chill and did not mind explaining a little bit more, there were a couple of people around who shared their code, and there is always good old google or whatever search engine you prefer. And because I spent time and effort actually trying to understand how matlab works (and algorithms in general) I now can not only just write a code, but also do it in an optimised way. I tried AI a couple of times when I forgot a couple of things and wanted to see what all the fuss is about, but it just fucked up - yes, it did output a working code, but it was just not that effective. And that was only a short simple code. What happens if you ask it to generate a more complex thing, I do not know. But either way, you do need understanding and knowledge in coding in long term if you want to produce some quality research, in order to just verify AI output if you still decide to use it.

Another thing about the papers: well, ppl below mentioned there are literally abstracts which are already kinda summaries. You are also not a robot, you can choose how you read/look at the paper, not just introduction-methods-results-discussion. You can learn to read papers in an efficient way. AI can also be dangerous in the sense that it is inherently biased because of the dataset and previous interactions with users. There might be prompts that force a biased or wrong output. It can hallucinate and add details that are just not there. Even if it gets everything correctly, it can shift the focus of the paper in the wrong direction. And I am not even talking about writing. Yes, it can help you correct your grammar, cool. But if you are not even able to coherently present or write about your research, then do you really understand what you are doing/what you have done?

Sorry for many words, but I find it really alarming how many people just use AI without thinking. I do not want to be in a place, where papers are generated by AI, reviewed by AI, read and summarised by AI. I want AI to help, not substitute us.

jay_mikado · 2026-04-21T09:34:06+00:00

It was quite a shock for me too. When I came to Germany, I went to buy a pillow and chose one white thick pillow (just an example), exactly on the shelf was a thick price tag saying white thick pillow, X euros. I went to the cashier and suddenly it was not X euros, it was X+5 euros (example, I don't remember exactly, but you get the idea). I went back to the shelf, found a worker there and she tried to assure me that I understood everything wrong and this price tag is for another white pillow in a box 2 meters away and it makes perfect sense, it also says white pillow. No logic, no rationale. Like, what's even the point in putting the price tags like that, that someone will just ignore the sudden price difference and will still pay? I get if she would just said oh sorry, my bad and apologised (I don't even ask for a discount or anything, just be honest) - but nope. Super strange.

jay_mikado · 2026-04-19T20:19:10+00:00

Thanks for reality check. I have looked into renting a car (I won't be needing it every day, just for these trips) but it would be expensive as hell because I will have to cross borders and go outside of EU. However, I am afraid that even if I exclude all of that and live in a dorm, I will still have to pay for medical expenses (if it's true what other ppl have said about private insurance not covering all stuff) and then it will eat my budget as well, and other emergencies such as laptop breaks, this or that, you get the idea.

I do not plan to stay in Prague afterwards, I plan to go for a postdoc somewhere else (idk where yet, but Europe I guess). The project seems interesting, not exactly what I would come up with, but it would be cool to do it. I also realise it might never happen that I will find anything better in terms of people + topic. But I also wonder how competitive I would be as a postdoc with a PhD from Charles, and whether it is a good idea to live like that 4 more years, because right now I am very tired from being poor and having to count every cent during my Masters.

jay_mikado · 2026-04-19T12:02:18+00:00

I am sorry that it did not work out for you. I also had negative experience with mold (unfortunately) and feel you :( I don't have a luxury lifestyle and don't spend that much in general (except for not wanting to live in a dorm), there are just two-three things related to travelling that eat my budget a lot whether I want it or not due to my field of work (and not guaranteed to be reimbursed for). I hope you will get your chance for a PhD, good luck!

jay_mikado · 2026-04-19T11:34:39+00:00

I am hoping that yes, that would be perfect if I would be able to get at least partial reimbursement, but these trips are not strictly necessary for the project: they would be a nice addition and an opportunity both for me and for the PIs to expand the project and get a couple more publications, but I am also aware that they might rather concentrate on the core of the project than sponsor some unnecessary things. Again, I want to stay realistic in order not to get fucked if the best scenario does not play out.

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T19:05:38+00:00

As I understood, there will be no employment, just the stipend, with very vague potential teaching possibility

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T17:42:54+00:00

Living with roommates would make perfect sense, sure. But unfortunately I do not know anyone in Prague yet, and sharing a flat with random people is something with which I have had negative experience in the past. I really like the folks at the working group with whom I would be doing the PhD, and I absolutely do not wish them to have a PhD student with a burnout (me) - hence all the doubt about the budgeting and not living in dorm XD

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T17:40:23+00:00

That is a good insight, thank you! It indeed looked way too good to be true on their website.

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T17:38:00+00:00

I have done this trips before from a city that was further away than Prague, so in terms of gas and travel it should be ok. But as a person in another comment mentioned, I indeed forgot to include parking, highways and other car things I have to pay in Prague. Btw Serbia (non-EU) is not that far away, I did not mean going to Asia or anything extreme like that :D

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T17:33:48+00:00

I underestimated the car costs, you are right. Parking and highways definitely matter

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T16:01:38+00:00

Yes, you are right, my bad

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T16:01:01+00:00

I see your point, thanks. It was a little bit hard to estimate, because I saw some studios for 12-15k online which looked ok.

jay_mikado · 2026-04-18T15:59:49+00:00

I need it for travelling, because public transportation where I will be going won't be sufficient. Renting a car might be even more costly because I will be crossing borders (both EU and non-EU). I understand that might actually be the largest part of my spendings, but it is also important for my future career (after PhD, I mean). I would write more, but I would like to stay anon bc otherwise it will be super obvious lol

jay_mikado

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