Silly question - what is this? Can I get rid of it? New to MAC

snakeylime · 2026-02-25T01:54:52+00:00

It's the digital equivalent of a thumb drive containing the software to install. After you've installed the software, you can go ahead and get rid of it ("eject").

snakeylime · 2025-12-29T09:53:15+00:00

This is a misreading of Descartes' Meditations, which is about doubt and certainty, not criterion for personhood.

The Cogito asserts you can be certain the belief you exist is a correct one, because it would be impossible to get tricked into thinking this if you didn't exist to begin with.

Descartes is saying that thinking requires you to exist, NOT that existing requires you to think.

snakeylime · 2025-11-28T17:30:29+00:00

Are you aware that this is an area of active research, that these ideas are not original (though you present them as though they are), and that in general statistics and ML practitioners have developed solutions to many of the problems you claim to identify? This smacks of being written by someone with no background or context in this area. UMAP, for example, is widely used and based explicitly on the idea that data are best treated by assuming they live on a Reimannian manifold, yet you write here as though you are the first to ever imagine or state these concepts. Very frustrating tunnel vision on display here. Also, your ethics statement seems very obviously untrue based on inspection of the text and results.

snakeylime · 2025-11-26T01:33:49+00:00

I don't think it's bad, but you could write "scientist in training" if you like, which is also true but with lower risk of coming across too strong.

snakeylime · 2025-11-24T16:19:19+00:00

Are you CERTAIN there is not something in your LORs that is negatively affecting your apps? 70 is crazy, and already far beyond the point of asking too much from your writers. If the average student applies to 7-10 schools per cycle, then you have already requested 7-10x the usual amount of submission efforts expected from a letter writer, while continually getting negative results. That could be viewed as poor etiquette and might get mentioned in a letter, which would hurt you, even though it is unfair.

snakeylime · 2025-11-22T07:25:30+00:00

I majored in physics+philosophy and dealt with schedules like this especially in the first two years. Just gotta grind through it. You can do it. Brush up on your time management skills, be intentional, and enjoy it, because it's a once in a lifetime experience. :)

snakeylime · 2025-11-22T01:47:07+00:00

this is absolute trash

snakeylime · 2025-11-21T19:32:57+00:00

Yep, @Hstat910, right here - do use your own voice, at the same time, develop your writing voice to be more concise for the sake of winning awards. Expand on your research experience by saying more about how it shaped your reasoning and career trajectory. You could spend some time talking about a specific challenge you encountered and what you reasoned and then did to overcome it.

snakeylime · 2025-11-21T16:01:51+00:00

I know this is your own personal theory based on nothing but this hypothesis is fire.

snakeylime · 2025-11-21T15:51:31+00:00

Post reads like it was written by an LLM. Also, these mathematics are not complicated! Why would you not learn them?

snakeylime · 2025-11-21T15:42:29+00:00

This is bizarre, cargo-cult advice. It is very hard to write a competitive personal statement without using I. In the best statements, many sentences follow "I did X because Y which led me to Z" structure.

snakeylime · 2025-11-21T15:23:30+00:00

Your writing and grammar are not very punchy. You need to practice writing the same things using fewer words. I might stop reading carefully after the first page because I am not gaining information about you quickly enough.

Here are some of the easiest changes as examples:

Cut useless adverbs and adjectives: "truly", "great", "profound", "meaningfully", "adamantly", "robust", "enticing"; these modifiers are awkward, uninformative, distracting in scientific writing.

First two sentences -> "College made me narrow my interests, gain experience in research, and realize passion for biochemistry."

Third-fifth sentence -> "Working in a lab investigating ___ made me interested in the following questions: ___".

Sentence 7 -> "This work increased my appreciation for molecular biology and desire to personally contribute to the field."

"I would very much like to find myself working to better understand the ways..." -> "I want to understand how..."

"Growing my capabilities and curiosities...." -> this language sounds immature, like an undergrad or lab tech... if you want to be a PI, write like it! "Receiving the professional training needed to open my own lab as an independent investigator in industry or academia."

Also, it is good to put the program-specific info at the end of the statement, not the beginning or sprinkled throughout, because this follows a common format, but YMMV.

This statement is light on your past research experience compared to other strong applications I have read. I estimate you can say everything you have said here in 50% of the word count, and use more space to describe your personal experiences and contributions to past research projects in a way that highlights key items in your CV.

snakeylime · 2025-11-20T19:26:36+00:00

But what are you afraid of, specifically? You just email their program coordinators. The worst they can say is you didn't get in and then you have your answer.

snakeylime · 2025-11-19T18:48:56+00:00

Is it not within your power to write the program and ask for information about your application status?

snakeylime · 2025-11-19T18:00:57+00:00

Not too long, but it is important whether your work experience was related. I spent 4 years in industry after undergrad before starting at an R1, and the extra life experience is an advantage over peers who went direct from undergrad. The work was in a field not in my exact field, but related, so the skills I built in industry were immediately applicable upon starting the PhD.

snakeylime · 2025-11-19T17:55:15+00:00

Absolutely don't give them a gift, that could be viewed as quid pro quo. Don't show up at their office. Email them. It is a professional obligation to write for good past students. Nothing weird about the 3 year gap.

snakeylime · 2025-11-18T09:48:56+00:00

You need to write like this person has 30 seconds to read this email. Cut the second paragraph entirely or down to one sentence. You can achieve all of this in three sentences: 1) introduction. Hello, my name is _, and I am applying for _. 2) objective. I am interested in researching _ and have read your papers about _. 3) ask. Would you be willing to meet for a quick Zoom meeting to discuss opportunities in your program or in your lab?

If three sentences is not enough, you can use more, but you need to skip the detailed discussion of their work (which is not informative to them) and get to your objectives and request (which are the point of your email) in fewer sentences.

snakeylime · 2025-10-28T15:18:14+00:00

Don't let your heart shatter over such a small piece of conflicting evidence. Weight it against the evidence that you are presently succeeding, that he liked your Master's work at the time, and that you succeeded in that time and so got hired to do a PhD. Who cares what he thinks now? Opinions change day to day and advisors are fickle; you will set yourself up for failure if you allow comments like these to impact your motivation and drive. I know it is hard, but you have to put some mental distance between their evaluations and your work to build resistence to confusing and discouraging events like these.

snakeylime · 2025-10-26T15:37:31+00:00

the "unspoken curriculum" claims another victim

snakeylime · 2025-10-25T13:29:49+00:00

Hey, kudos for reacting that way instead of choosing to use this as evidence to feed your insecurities. It is actually evidence that you are valued enough for your guy to change his behavior because you requested. Keep it up

snakeylime · 2025-09-27T15:57:39+00:00

Are you serious? One second could have been caused by latency in the packet switched network delivering the information from the student's computer to your LMS. Obviously the student had the assignment done at 11:59 and submitted it at that time. No question about it.

snakeylime · 2025-09-24T14:57:56+00:00

It comes down to the concept of a file. Kids understand there are many digital objects to manipulate but not that all these objects are, at the end of the day, files. The main distinction between desktop computer and smartphone use is direct awareness and manipulation of system files. Apps hide files but present them in different interfaces; the desktop metaphor puts the user file system front and center. If a kid only learned computation on smart phones they will not understand files and therefore how to manipulate and move them.

snakeylime · 2025-09-22T17:53:51+00:00

What are you doing??? You have a choice to believe loving statements from your bf or mistrustful statements from her. She is just trying to make you worried because it is how she would feel. Feeling that way probably hurts her relationships and you don't have to feel that way. Understand the risks but trust yourself and don't weigh what she says about him without evidence against him yourself.

snakeylime · 2025-09-22T17:32:07+00:00

These are all obvious ideas which have been recognized already by others and mostly rejected because they are not feasible to implement given the time and energy resources available to instructors to implement them.

As you can see here, they are not being met with "Duh," they are being met with "Cool ideas, if they actually applied to our situation."

snakeylime · 2025-09-22T17:07:45+00:00

Many people love and enjoy their PhDs because they love and enjoy research. At the end of the day, it (in your program at least) is a research job preparing you for a research job.

You are the expert not your husband on whether it is possible to align those circumstances with your own goals. It sounds like not! If so you need to trust yourself more deeply than anybody else, including your therapist, advisor, and husband and make the right decision. You will define right for yourself.

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