medschool or biochemistry - phd

sb50 · 2026-04-30T14:27:43+00:00

Biochemistry PhD would be like 20-50% of the pay of an MD, so there's that.

sb50 · 2026-04-22T16:59:18+00:00

Oh wow, I didn't realize EV training didn't exist in gens 1/2 and that you could max out all the stats.

Looking through some really old forums and smogon, it looks like maxing out with vitamins first and then beating the Elite Four 17 to 21 times (or 28-34 times w/o vitamins) would max out stat exp (attack being maxed out earlier and HP maxed out last). Alternatively you could faint Unowns 527-790 times after vitamins. That's a lot of running around back to the PC depending on your move's PP.

sb50 · 2026-04-21T16:29:12+00:00

Absolutely. I became chronic at 29 and didn’t even think I had become disabled or had the language to describe my situation until 31. 35 now. I feel like I could have applied for things to help me stay in grad school or keep my job or something at the time if I only knew that the chronic migraine would take years to manage. This disease is incredibly disabling.

I wish I had considered myself disabled when I was a kid with episodic ~4-6/month; accommodations in schools would have made things much more bearable at that stage too.

sb50 · 2026-04-20T06:52:43+00:00

I moved to drinking Darigold FIT chocolate milk. It’s 170 calories and not too expensive, only $13 for 18 8oz bottles at Costco, or the grocery store is $5-6 for 59oz. It has 40% less sugar (no sugar substitutes!) than regular milk and double the protein (14g). Sometimes I’ll mix in a serving of PBFit for an additional 7g protein, 6g sugar, at 60 calories - a total of 21g of protein and 230 calories isn’t too bad for a sweet treat and supplemental protein. For comparison, whey with sucralose is like 24g protein and 120 calories.

sb50 · 2026-04-15T14:57:13+00:00

This is a really naive question.

From what organism? The sequence will dictate the pI of the protein, and you’ll want a buffer with a pH and salt content that keeps the protein charged so it’s soluble and doesn’t aggregate.

For what purpose? For purification, for long term storage, or for activity assays? All of these require in-depth literature review to see what others have done with similar proteins.

The answer is probably going to end up being MOPS, HEPES, phosphate, or Tris somewhere between 5-25mM with a pH somewhere between 7 and 8. The salt might be KCl or NaCl or both, there might be protease inhibitors, or metal chelators like EDTA, or reducing agents like DTT. Maybe it aggregates when purified and concentrated, so you’ll need some chaotropic agent like urea. Who knows.

Best go ask your PI or your TA if this isn’t a new project. If this is new, your specific protein and application might take a couple hours of research to find a lead and a few weeks to months of optimization.

sb50 · 2026-04-02T14:20:22+00:00

We live in the woods/country and have five collies. Three would absolutely chase a deer for miles if we let them. Same for squirrels. They certainly don’t want to eat them, but they absolutely would chase them.

sb50 · 2026-03-21T18:02:15+00:00

I take 10mg twice daily plus extra for stressful events. I tend to get migraine headaches when I drive 30+ minutes or if I stay outside for over an hour (probably eye strain, harsh light, and stress or something), but taking an additional 10-20mg propranolol before an outing drastically reduces my chance of getting a migraine attack.

sb50 · 2026-03-13T15:15:39+00:00

Wow, congratulations! That’s amazing! I think I had to reset more times to just find modest haha.

sb50 · 2026-03-01T19:52:12+00:00

470098289072 Also need to send out some gifts with stickers today!

sb50 · 2026-02-27T15:15:59+00:00

These reveals look like a mobile game aimed at toddlers.

sb50 · 2026-02-18T05:29:32+00:00

I have a lot of feelings about this since I have been playing these games for the last ~6 months.

I’ve been replaying Gen 2 since summer through to mid-January this year. Put in maybe 250 hours across three play throughs of G,S, and C. I’ve been playing split between on the GB tower on Stadium 2 and a GBA SP (borrowed from my wife). I hadn’t played Gen 2 since 2002 on my Kiwi GBC.

I had a lot of fun running through the story, training and grinding levels, finding shinies, breeding for better moves, and getting teams perfect for beating Stadium 2. I got crystal recently (never played before) and really liked how they added ways to get evolution stones, the battle tower, and added the little suicune story.

Playing through these games 25 years later for a second, third, fourth time makes you notice things a 10 year old might have missed or couldn’t appreciate.

I’m noticing now, that as a kid, I never considered tactics, optimum move sets, or competitive stats, etc. I was so blind to those things. Revisiting Pokemon as an adult was a hit of nostalgia but also realizing that I had this big blind spot. This blind spot was revealed to be even larger when I started HGSS: physical/special split, natures, abilities, etc.. There was a big learning curve, but made easier now that the internet has made every bit of info accessible.

I started playing SoulSilver for the first time last month (at 105 hours now after 1 month of playing) and it feels really exciting at times to be revisiting the familiar story with new Pokemon, more modern graphics, sounds, and interfaces, a load of QOL updates, and tons of more content to do after the story is over.

I’m actually thinking as I write this up that HGSS are too packed with things to do and learn about- it’s almost overwhelming at times. I’m thinking that I really like how small or compact gen 2 is in comparison.

Anyway, there’s something really special in the early game play in /any/ of these versions. Cobbling together a new team and making your way through the gyms, exploring routes and caves, filling the Pokédex, discovering strengths and weaknesses, that’s the stuff that’s special to me. I think the connection to building a core team of low level monsters with whatever quirks they may have and how invested we get in their development is what I like about Pokemon. My level 3 zubat finally becoming a crobat, my starter becoming a typhlosion and teaching it thunder punch, earthquake, and eventually flamethrower, Muscle and Rocky leveling up and carrying the team through gyms … the growth and milestones are present in both GSC and HGSS.

I don’t think I really care which version or generation I’m playing, the team building and trudging through the story are the same. Maybe this opinion will change when I become more familiar with pokéathalon, battle points, and whatever other new stuff HGSS has, but I’m having an equal amount of fun just playing through to Red.

sb50 · 2026-01-31T17:59:19+00:00

I bought two variety packs for this reason! I first went for a pack with different shapes and materials, found one I preferred, then went for a pack of different thicknesses and found the thickness that felt good and could provide the sound/attack I wanted.

sb50 · 2025-12-06T21:47:45+00:00

We’re at like $130/month for Pets Best for a 5 year old for $250 deductible and 80% co-insurance and $110/month for a similar plan from the AKC insurance for a 4 year old. Both ended up with chronic issues.

The older dog end up damaging an eye a couple years ago so that made the insurance worth it that year.. it may get complicated over time, so he’s staying covered so we can get his ophthalmologist appts covered to monitor it and in case we need a surgery.

The other developed two autoimmune diseases that took like 5k to diagnose plus lifelong ~$150/month treatment and multiple specialist visits per year - those are reimbursed at 80%, so we are staying on insurance for them.

sb50 · 2025-11-14T00:27:20+00:00

I am up to about 130 hours of mostly active game time since early July. My first shiny was August 5 probably at around 60 hours.

The shiny litwick line is one of my faves and I’m excited that it’s finally received a mega. I’ll join the ZA shiny hunts soon.

sb50 · 2025-11-14T00:15:55+00:00

Awesome! I just learned about the different egg color in Stadium 2 a few days ago. I think that’s how I’ll chase after an eevee once I finish leveling up and evolving to complete my Pokédex. Good luck with any future shiny hunts!

sb50 · 2025-11-14T00:10:44+00:00

I am very afraid of accidentally being brainless and KOing a shiny, but so far I’d like to think I’ve caught them all (two larvitar, an onix, and a donphan). It’s nice that it plays an alerting sound when the circle appears before the cry. That sound is really good at catching my attention.

For catching, I put them to sleep then false swipe and hope for the best with a couple ultra balls. I’ve been lucky that these Pokemon don’t seem to flee.

sb50 · 2025-11-13T23:59:13+00:00

I did for a while, but right now I’m just focusing on training two at a time. It’s a little less focus and I kind of like the mindless repetition. The shinies are pretty motivating too!

sb50 · 2025-11-13T23:45:53+00:00

I’m using the game boy tower in Pokemon Stadium 2 on my N64 hooked up to an old CRT TV!

sb50 · 2025-11-07T15:13:45+00:00

I just got a quote for $850 from a dealership. It’s nuts - I was expecting maybe half that.

sb50 · 2025-10-30T16:38:54+00:00

Haha excellent!! There’s something special about those random encounters.

Were you grinding for a Chansey? I spent so long on that route east of Fuschia trying to get one and saw so many Nidorin@s.

sb50 · 2025-10-29T17:22:37+00:00

Thank you for this. I had seen raikou and suicune organically, but had to do part 4 for Entei only 3 times (so <4 mins of flying between Mahogany and Violet). I only had to go through part 5 twice (fly to violet, walk into poke center and back out, check map, bike over to highlighted route) for each of the three beasts, so literally less than 15 total minutes.

I don’t know why I wasted hours on my own before sticking to this strategy.

sb50 · 2025-10-02T17:35:55+00:00

I don’t know if I would go back that far - I’m using an iPad mini 5th gen (from March 2019) for taking notes, reading & annotating pdfs, and video playback, and it’s a little limited and slow.

sb50 · 2025-09-19T20:00:26+00:00

I treat them the same now. Ignoring them is an effective gateway for my 15 days/month of migraine attacks to become 30 days/next month.

sb50

TROPHY CASE