The Small Stuff That Doesn't Need a Thread. #8

[Spockydog]

Sabine is awesome. This is very brave.

 

[Sw33t Summ3r Ch1ld]

The clothes from Walmart are getting ever better. I'm content with Walmart being really the only place I shop...

[maarsen]

12 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Sabine is awesome. This is very brave.

 

I subscribe to her channel and yes she was very brave. It did need saying though. 

[House Cambodia]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

I subscribe to her channel and yes she was very brave. It did need saying though. 

Same. I particularly enjoy her German sense of humour.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I got my Ren and Stimy sticker today. Nice little last touch to my new Otterbox. 

[JGP]

I've cut my edible intake way back to once or twice within a two week period, yet I've been getting these edible hangovers the next morning that have me fuzzy as fuck for a few hours after waking. Didn't know they were a thing but definitely are for me, anyway,

[Tears of Lys]

On 4/5/2024 at 6:56 PM, Spockydog said:

Sabine is awesome. This is very brave.

 

Since my sister-in-law is deep into academia, I ran this video by her.  This is part of her response:

"I think that woman needs to re-adjust her thinking about what doing research is all about. She seems to think you should pursue a big “ta-dah” question or issue. I learned very early on that science is in large part done incrementally – you ask smaller questions upon smaller questions to build a bigger knowledge base. It’s all about what you can prove to be true and whether others can replicate and verify your findings.  It’s a misperception to think people with PhDs are smart in many areas – all we know is our little corner of the world. Coming back to her point about how articles are published, it is the norm in science that articles are co-authored and that the principal investigator of the project gets to put his/her name on the paper because the paper is describing something his/her project. Yes, grad students often take the lead on writing the paper, but we ALWAYS gave that person “first authorship” in the list of authors on the paper. But the principal investigator ALWAYS reads and comments on the paper as it is being prepared to be sure it is accurate. So I didn’t agree with her comment about the lead researcher not acknowledging the real authors. Guess research in Germany is much more brutal…"

 

 

What I know about the academic world could fit on the head of a pin, and my impressions of it are formed by my sis's experience.  

 

[JGP]

4 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

Since my sister-in-law is deep into academia, I ran this video by her.  This is part of her response:

"I think that woman needs to re-adjust her thinking about what doing research is all about. She seems to think you should pursue a big “ta-dah” question or issue. I learned very early on that science is in large part done incrementally – you ask smaller questions upon smaller questions to build a bigger knowledge base. It’s all about what you can prove to be true and whether others can replicate and verify your findings.  It’s a misperception to think people with PhDs are smart in many areas – all we know is our little corner of the world. Coming back to her point about how articles are published, it is the norm in science that articles are co-authored and that the principal investigator of the project gets to put his/her name on the paper because the paper is describing something his/her project. Yes, grad students often take the lead on writing the paper, but we ALWAYS gave that person “first authorship” in the list of authors on the paper. But the principal investigator ALWAYS reads and comments on the paper as it is being prepared to be sure it is accurate. So I didn’t agree with her comment about the lead researcher not acknowledging the real authors. Guess research in Germany is much more brutal…"

 

 

What I know about the academic world could fit on the head of a pin, and my impressions of it are formed by my sis's experience.  

 

My brother has two Masters and two PhDs, and he's often the first person to say he knows  a lot about a little bit.

Can def relate to your experience with your sis  >.<

Edited April 7 by JGP

[Spockydog]

Speaking of brothers, my brother has two degrees. And for his birthday, I just took delivery of something special.

Back in the 80s, he was the creator and co-editor of the New Whovical Express, which recently got a nice little section in this amazing book.

I think that seeing his work featured in that book has stirred the creator in Chops again. I really hope so. His writing is breathtaking.

After searching for months, I finally found Issue 2 on ebay. Not been able to find Issue 1 yet, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can get some of the previous Doctors to sign Issue 2 for him. Maybe I can pay Tom for a nice little message on it somewhere. It would mean the world to Chops.

Fun fact: my sister, Saurus (short for Laurasaurus), went to uni in Edinburgh with Jamie Magnus Stone, who is, quite frankly, a lovely, lovely guy and easily the best director of the Chibnall age. When she was living with us a few years back, Jamie came and stayed with us for the weekend. 

Saurus went out to dinner with him a couple of weeks ago and relayed our fanboyish gushing to him. She said he totally blushed. Anyway, she says she'll get Jamie to sign Issue 2 of NWE for him.

ETA: Also, the eagle eyed amongst you will spot another notable Doctor Who name amongst the contributors on NWE. He and Chops went to school together.

Edited April 8 by Spockydog

[DireWolfSpirit]

12 hours ago, JGP said:

I've cut my edible intake way back to once or twice within a two week period, yet I've been getting these edible hangovers the next morning that have me fuzzy as fuck for a few hours after waking. Didn't know they were a thing but definitely are for me, anyway,

Fascinating I didnt know any of this.

Do you get a similar high from edibles as you would from toke-ing cannabis or is it not comparable?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

On 4/7/2024 at 8:36 PM, Tears of Lys said:

Since my sister-in-law is deep into academia, I ran this video by her.  This is part of her response:

"I think that woman needs to re-adjust her thinking about what doing research is all about. She seems to think you should pursue a big “ta-dah” question or issue. I learned very early on that science is in large part done incrementally – you ask smaller questions upon smaller questions to build a bigger knowledge base. It’s all about what you can prove to be true and whether others can replicate and verify your findings.  It’s a misperception to think people with PhDs are smart in many areas – all we know is our little corner of the world. Coming back to her point about how articles are published, it is the norm in science that articles are co-authored and that the principal investigator of the project gets to put his/her name on the paper because the paper is describing something his/her project. Yes, grad students often take the lead on writing the paper, but we ALWAYS gave that person “first authorship” in the list of authors on the paper. But the principal investigator ALWAYS reads and comments on the paper as it is being prepared to be sure it is accurate. So I didn’t agree with her comment about the lead researcher not acknowledging the real authors. Guess research in Germany is much more brutal…"

 

 

What I know about the academic world could fit on the head of a pin, and my impressions of it are formed by my sis's experience.  

 

Didn't watch the video, because I find her delivery (going by some other videos of her) to be so off putting, that it puts it on the brink of unwatchable.

I will say a few words abouot academia in Germany. It is brutal for junior researcher.

Essentially, jobs at University can be divided into Chairholders (Professors w. tenured positions) and the folks beneath. As you can imagine, there's only a fairly limited number of those nice tenured positions. Pretty much anybody else is on time contracts, and there you are sorta depedent on your superior's (chairholder) ability to acquire third party (research) funding (this is tied to their reputation, which increases with publications). If a project runs out, you hope your boss gets a follow up or another project (and it creates a certain dependency). Junior Professors are sorta in a weird position. They get the benefit of being tenured, but with very limited abilities to get research funding from the usual places. They have smaller staff (usually doctorates, not post docs). The post docs really hope, that they get appointed to a professorship (first junior and then a "real one elsewhere"). Oh, there's also the no-inhouse appointment rule to avoid academic inbreeding. So you graduate at a University, you continue to your PhD there, and work some more to get your name on research papers, and you have to apply at other Universities for a Professorship. In the 80s and 90s well into the 2000s this was probably a particularly bigger problem, since there's an entire cohort of professors that got appointed during the expansion of higher education (~1960-1971) a lot of them were appointed at rather younger age and it would take literally decades for them to approach retirement age and vacate their chairs.

There are a handful of positions for PhDs, who are permanent, but they are super rare. There was one biologist, who was attached to Chair of Bio-Psychology/Clinical Psychology. He himself was super happy to have that position, as he liked doing his job (teaching and working on research), but was not that keen on writing papers (I think he put it that way, that he had as many publications as children, three. Among them his Diploma and his PhD thesis). He very much liked the distinction in the English system between researchers and readers. But in Germany you are committed to research and teaching.  Needless to say, good teaching does not get you anywhere, research (publication does).

Needless to say, being a good researcher does not prevent you from being a good teacher/educator. Most of the Profs I had infact were. But in other disciplines, Profs. apparently treat the teaching assignments more as a drag, that takes away time from their precious research.

 

As for the tenured positions. There are also Profs. that really take life very easy, once they have attained their spot on the mountain (I know stories from the economics department of my alma mater about one particular example), which frustrates their colleagues and students alike. And those freeriding deadbeat Profs are pretty close to impossible to get rid off. Also from my alma mater (law department this time) they appointed a prof. well known expert in labour law, who happens to hold, let's say quite unsavourable democratic views. No idea, if they somehow managed to eliminate him. I assume as a legal scholar he probably knows what he can and can'T get away with.

Edit: Nope, they were not able to eliminate the Law Professor. Also fixed a spelling errors.

Edited April 8 by A Horse Named Stranger

[JGP]

6 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Fascinating I didnt know any of this.

Do you get a similar high from edibles as you would from toke-ing cannabis or is it not comparable?

Depends on the strain, etc. The high gives my creativity a kick in the ass so I go with edibles with THC. There’s definitely a bit of a body stone component to it as well, but because you eat them it takes about an hour to digest and hit the bloodstream. It’ll last 6 to 8 hours. Very unlike smoke in those respects.

Edited April 8 by JGP

[Spockydog]

Wish I could get edibles here. My THC tolerance is basically at Legolas levels.

[Teng Ai Hui]

I was watching a late night talk show recently and heard the phrase "quiet quitting".  I had to look up the meaning, when an employee only does the bare minimum in order to not get fired.  I didn't realize that the thing I have been doing for the last 8 years or so had a name.

[House Cambodia]

18 minutes ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

I was watching a late night talk show recently and heard the phrase "quiet quitting".  I had to look up the meaning, when an employee only does the bare minimum in order to not get fired.  I didn't realize that the thing I have been doing for the last 8 years or so had a name.

It's a trend that frequently changes its name, 'but you know it when you see it'. It appears to have first caught on in China and spread West without the political justification.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

I was watching a late night talk show recently and heard the phrase "quiet quitting".  I had to look up the meaning, when an employee only does the bare minimum in order to not get fired.  I didn't realize that the thing I have been doing for the last 8 years or so had a name.

I've been doing it in increments since 2008 when they stopped giving us meaningful pay rises and changed our conditions of employment for the worse, every year i care a little bit less.

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I've been doing it in increments since 2008 when they stopped giving us meaningful pay rises and changed our conditions of employment for the worse, every year i care a little bit less.

I’m curious about that. I’ve been listening to the Hamish Macbeth mysteries, all 35 or 36 of them, they’re short and consuming them is like eating candy, and the constant theme of the books is the shutting down of police stations. I looked up “police stations shut down in Scotland” out of curiosity and was surprised to see that it’s continuing even now. I think it said 19 stations to be closed.  A person wonders how the country gets policed. Is this going on in England as well?

[Spockydog]

Just now, Fragile Bird said:

Is this going on in England as well?

Yes. Has been for years. 

[Fragile Bird]

Did the UK have police stations thick on the ground or something, that so many are getting closed? Are the public complaining?

[Spockydog]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Did the UK have police stations thick on the ground or something, that so many are getting closed? Are the public complaining?

https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/mayors-office-policing-and-crime/community-safety/crime-prevention/local-policing-0#:~:text=What's happening%3F,protect officers on the beat.