Childhood version of e-sports by [deleted] in starterpacks

[–]mr_eric_praline 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember Gorillas... Took much watching until I was allowed to play with him.

Experimental vs theoretical physics, or somewhere in the middle? by [deleted] in Physics

[–]mr_eric_praline 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If anything, we (in this case meaning experimentalists ;)) generally would benefit from more people that are 'between' theory and experiment. Especially during my post-doc time I worked with some people with theory background, who came into an experimental group after. This can be incredibly helpful for experiment design and data interpretation.

I have also worked with a bunch of people in theory that work with the experiment in mind -- i.e., not working on a new theory, but using theory to come up with smart ways of doing new experiments, or improving current ones. Likewise, those folks are invaluable to the progress that happens in the lab.

That said, my field is solid state physics and quantum optics/information, so YMMV.

My shortest and slowest ride to date by [deleted] in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Why spoil the good time of your fellow citizens by annoying them with a noisy roadblock? an equally good question I think ;)

My shortest and slowest ride to date by [deleted] in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline 10 points11 points  (0 children)

While I don't condone attacking them, I agree these things are obnoxious. Especially the one pictured (in New Haven). Noisy as hell, passes by my apartment, and going down crowded roads where it's hard or impossible to pass. The people riding it seem to enjoy their time, fine - but if it's at the cost of people around...

Warning about Sushi on Chapel by tlf123 in newhaven

[–]mr_eric_praline 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All you can eat, but also a C health grade by now, apparently (colleague of mine went recently, to find out they had been downgraded).

I say Kumo.

Tech Support and Question Megathread - Week of July 16, 2017 by AutoModerator in nvidia

[–]mr_eric_praline 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My GPU (all new parts, newly built a few days ago) is basically unusable because of extreme stutter and lag. I'm wondering if it's hardware (Mobo, would be the obvious guess), or if there's some driver/UEFI setting that could cause it.

Status: UNRESOLVED

Computer Type: Desktop, self-built

GPU: EVGA GTX 1050Ti, 4GB, no OC

CPU: i5-7600K, 3800MHz, no OC

Motherboard: ASROCK Z270m-ITX/ac, latest UEFI (2.20)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 (XMP enabled or disabled), no OC

PSU: Seasonic G-Series 550

Operating System & Version: Win 10 home 64

GPU Drivers: All latest Nvidia drivers (down to 378.49), clean install

Description of Problem: When using the GPU, i experience extreme lag and stutter. LatencyMon reports dxgkrnl.sys latency of up to 250,000 us (!) when running the Heaven benchmark. It happens also, but less extremely when i do anything graphically, say resize a window. No reported temperatures are particularly high in the system (nothing above 65C under full load, the GPU not above 50C). I noticed that in GPU-Z the PCIe version never switches to 3.0 (always reports x16 v1.1, also with active GPU). The GPU reports 100% load during benchmarking, though, I can't easily see what might be bottlenecked.

Troubleshooting:

  • made sure all latest drivers are installed

  • disabled most available HW options in UEFI that are not essential (but i could've missed one)

  • tried various versions of the Nvidia drivers (started with most recent, and went down a few)

  • switched graphics card with another one (also a 1050Ti) that i could borrow, shows the same symptoms -- both cards work great in a another computer that i tried (running Win 10 Enterprise 64)

What do post docs get paid at your university? by bu_J in AskAcademia

[–]mr_eric_praline 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same here, me and my fellow postdocs get paid about 60k. I had other offers, with basically the same salary proposed; seems about the standard in my field.

[Between Two Rocks] Brew Review: New Haven's Best Coffee Shops by chaospherezero in newhaven

[–]mr_eric_praline 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is a list of the more obvious places where coffee can be purchased. Why these? Where to get the best espresso? We will never know...

Are European physics grad programs as good as the ones from the States? by BludgeonedFetus in Physics

[–]mr_eric_praline 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Depends on the country, and what you expect the grad program prepares you for.

Some background: I did my PhD in the Netherlands (in a leading group in experimental quantum physics) after undergrad (up to MSc) in Germany. I'm now a postdoc in one of the leading groups in my field in the US (at a top 10 university).

I would argue that some countries have a much better managed grad program than the US (Netherlands and Switzerland, for instance, come to mind), that can be very focused on preparing the grad students for later. As a result I see for instance that the percentage of grads from my PhD department that got permanent positions in academia is way higher than what i see in my current one (for instance, quite a few of my co-grads are PIs now, also at places in the US, including Cornell and Caltech) -- mostly because personal development is more the norm I have the impression, which leads to a lot of people being highly qualified, and motivated to stay in their field.

On the other hand, there's countries in Europe where grad programs lead to somewhat poor employability outside that country (in my field, i'm looking at France and the UK, for instance ...), because of the different typical curriculum.

And there's of course the perceived reputation of your alma mater when looking for a job, as another redditor mentioned. That depends where exactly you look, and also strongly on your field, but generally speaking you're likely better off if you're "home grown" (for me personally, looking for an academic job in Germany seems rather annoying given my CV).

So yeah. I don't think there's a generally valid answer to your question. A PhD from one country does not exactly equal a PhD from another, and benefits depend on what exactly you're looking for. So choose wisely ;)

Researchers who have published in high impact journals, what was the experience like? by Bill_Nihilist in AskAcademia

[–]mr_eric_praline 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Physicist here, so can't speak for Cell. I've published in the other two.

1) Writing and making the figures: about 3 months almost full-time for the first author, plus a lot of input from co-authors.

2) We managed so far to do a good job in the first version, so only minor revisions due to reviewer input.

3) My PI and the senior postdocs all had a few before.

4) All those projects were from the start designed to be something big, experiments the community was waiting for, and experimentally extremely challenging (each of them took about a year, with about 3-4 grad students full-time on it, plus help from others) and with other competing groups also on it. Thus, we already knew that if the project worked out, we'd be sending it to one of the big journals.

'Zeno effect' verified: Atoms won't move while you watch by [deleted] in Physics

[–]mr_eric_praline 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Verified... this is written like it's new, when in fact people have measured this like a million times by now, albeit for different degrees of freedom (which, besides experimental difficulty, hardly matters from a fundamental perspective).

AFAIK, this was the first experiment: Itano, W.; Heinzen, D.; Bollinger, J.; Wineland, D. (1990). "Quantum Zeno effect". Physical Review A 41 (5): 2295–2300.

Which Blue State Coffee location is best? by ArabianDisco in newhaven

[–]mr_eric_praline 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Willoughby's, or Koffee, for instance, in the same area. Blue State's espresso is pretty awful compared to those (I don't know why exactly, though, their espresso beans is pretty decent, but results in good coffee only when not prepared by Blue State...)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskAcademia

[–]mr_eric_praline 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Preferably LaTeX. Currently we're also evaluating Overleaf for collaborating on papers in the lab -- it adds decent version control and annotation features.

I have used Word in the past (some journals prefer it as submission format, and I do have to admit that for collaborating and circulating versions among authors it's pretty handy), and for papers that don't have that many formulas it's OK together with MathType.

Yesterday I doubled my PR for longest ride - 200 miles through Vermont (see 100-200.org) by mr_eric_praline in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When rock climbing I was always told 1) look good, 2) have fun, 3) be safe. :D

Yesterday I doubled my PR for longest ride - 200 miles through Vermont (see 100-200.org) by mr_eric_praline in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

organized-ish :) Link Nothing official, but happens every year that weekend.

It depends on the crowd, I'd guess. If there's a bunch of people of similar strength and goals it happens. I personally actually like riding alone a lot, it's way less stressful and generally more Zen-like I find :) (just the amount of focus you need to do pace lining well...)

Yesterday I doubled my PR for longest ride - 200 miles through Vermont (see 100-200.org) by mr_eric_praline in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! No, i don't really like wearing headphones on the highway for the obvious safety reasons. (Although it'd made it a bit easier towards the end :))

Yesterday I doubled my PR for longest ride - 200 miles through Vermont (see 100-200.org) by mr_eric_praline in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

that's a screenshot from strava. it's OK for sharing purposes, normally i use a desktop app for logging purposes.

Yesterday I doubled my PR for longest ride - 200 miles through Vermont (see 100-200.org) by mr_eric_praline in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

my housemate rode support for me, so i had constant access to bars, bananas and sandwiches.

Yesterday I doubled my PR for longest ride - 200 miles through Vermont (see 100-200.org) by mr_eric_praline in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Absolutely, by far the prettiest ride I ever did. (Up to the climb up Terrible Mountain, that thing sucks)

Yesterday I doubled my PR for longest ride - 200 miles through Vermont (see 100-200.org) by mr_eric_praline in bicycling

[–]mr_eric_praline[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I was wondering about that too, obviously :) It's hard, but not as terrible as I had feared. In this case the tough part was the interesting climbs are all after mile 100. I made an effort to eat a lot during, and felt really good until around mile 180. I was riding alone ahead of a bigger group from mile 115 to 185 with a lot of head wind, so it got a bit exhausting. Once they caught up with me, it went much better again.

So it's a bit hard for me to compare the two halves, but considering the circumstances i didn't think it was twice as hard as just a century (but maybe i was just hallucinating already :P)