"A physicist, a pharmacist and a chemist walk into a bar...."
The last few weeks were a bit stressful, so I neglected all the internet and switched to a numb autopilot-program. My mind tends do go blissfully blank, when I have reached a certain level of tiredness. Thank you, evolution, for keeping me sane (if utterly boring) during the hard times :D
(sorry in particularity to the dear otter; I will resume our Christmas preparation this evening!)
Anyway. Among other things I attended a conference! I even presented my research within a 3-minutes talk, which is apparently a new thing in science. 3-minutes, enough time for advertising!
...
Despite the bitter undertone, I was actually quite relieved that the nightmare only lasted for a few minutes, I am embarrassingly bad at presentation of any kind. Like, pathetically bad.
But otherwise it was a nice conference. For example, I talked to an amazing Indian postdoc, who suggested adding a video to any paper, and in that video there will be the truth behind the -as always-positive results. Also, small pleasantries, such as things to avoid while trying to reproduce the results. Neat!
Again, I liked the conference, really, and I do not want to focus only on the negative aspects, but this subject just hits a nerve. But, apparently, not only my nerves are badly damaged by the current (life) science politics. On the second day, there was a panel discussion and this year's topic was "Problems of the scientist in 21th century". Guess what was the first question raised by almost everyone in the audience? Papers. The sheer, insane amount on papers. One could spend the whole day just reading those related to your specifically field (again, the problem is most urgent in life science fields, I hear the mathematicians are a bit more relaxed). And the worst thing is that the most papers do not strive for a better world, but are just single currency for getting a better job.
Sorry for the outburst, it just frustrates me from time to time :/
Also job-related: I am no longer alone in the office~ I am now sharing the tiny room with a physicist-guy. He dislikes Linux, which is a minus, and pops up around 11 a.m. to stay till the late evening, which is a plus. So far it could have been worse... and together with our pharmacist-girl (who also works for my boss, if only half-time) we are now quite a diverse lot :D
Definitely, positive.
(sorry in particularity to the dear otter; I will resume our Christmas preparation this evening!)
Anyway. Among other things I attended a conference! I even presented my research within a 3-minutes talk, which is apparently a new thing in science. 3-minutes, enough time for advertising!
...
Despite the bitter undertone, I was actually quite relieved that the nightmare only lasted for a few minutes, I am embarrassingly bad at presentation of any kind. Like, pathetically bad.
But otherwise it was a nice conference. For example, I talked to an amazing Indian postdoc, who suggested adding a video to any paper, and in that video there will be the truth behind the -as always-positive results. Also, small pleasantries, such as things to avoid while trying to reproduce the results. Neat!
Again, I liked the conference, really, and I do not want to focus only on the negative aspects, but this subject just hits a nerve. But, apparently, not only my nerves are badly damaged by the current (life) science politics. On the second day, there was a panel discussion and this year's topic was "Problems of the scientist in 21th century". Guess what was the first question raised by almost everyone in the audience? Papers. The sheer, insane amount on papers. One could spend the whole day just reading those related to your specifically field (again, the problem is most urgent in life science fields, I hear the mathematicians are a bit more relaxed). And the worst thing is that the most papers do not strive for a better world, but are just single currency for getting a better job.
Sorry for the outburst, it just frustrates me from time to time :/
Also job-related: I am no longer alone in the office~ I am now sharing the tiny room with a physicist-guy. He dislikes Linux, which is a minus, and pops up around 11 a.m. to stay till the late evening, which is a plus. So far it could have been worse... and together with our pharmacist-girl (who also works for my boss, if only half-time) we are now quite a diverse lot :D
Definitely, positive.