xaa

13 ms·

61.
by xaa 9y ago
Hmm, I can see how you got there, but I don't think it has worked out that way in my case. The amount of time you have to spend writing grants is a function of: 1) how much money you are burning, 2) how much help do you have writing, a
62.
by xaa 9y ago
If we're talking about unicorns, a competent "staff grant writer" has to be the rarest of them all. To write a grant well, you have to deeply understand the specific science at hand and be a good writer. Someone who would vol
63.
by xaa 9y ago
Sure. The most mature part of this is analysis of expression data from GEO. We had to take the raw expression data and textual metadata, extract attributes from the semi-structured metadata into something statistically useful, and devise me
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by xaa 9y ago
I thought it would be this way too. But I do actually try to help out with funding as much as I can. Ultimately, though, I'm afraid I can't summon too much sympathy for a PI who thinks this way, because they knew exactly what they
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by xaa 9y ago
The reason this was easily possible in my case is because of the peculiarities of bioinformatics. Namely, equipment costs are low, so there is more money for staff per grant dollar. We also have had much more luck with center and collaborat
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by xaa 9y ago
Yeah. Although it is annoying that we both have to clarify "well, I could be a PI if I wanted to", because of this social norm that if you aren't a PI by the appropriate age, it means you weren't good enough. Because,
67.
by xaa 9y ago
My interest is in applying bioinformatics methods to understand aging. His is bioinformatics in general. So most of the time there is actually no conflict between "my" projects and "his" projects, my interests just being
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by xaa 9y ago
My career goal is to be a staff scientist (in biology/bioinformatics). I hate writing grants and the related political bullshit. All I want is to do actual science, even if it means a marginal pay cut and some degree of decrease in aut
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by xaa 9y ago
> the challenge is finding a "job" that you love and are excited to tackle every day This is great and very important, but it doesn't prevent burnout necessarily. I have a job and career that I really enjoy and consider to
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by xaa 9y ago
> Have you been using it in an enterprise scenario? Yeah, sort of, an academic/hospital setting. Actually, I combined my academic and personal e-mail addresses into one at a custom domain, and forward other accounts to it, which ann
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by xaa 9y ago
> unfortunately HTML email is the way of the world Is it really? I still use mutt, and I have found 99% of the time, heavy HTML in e-mail means the mail is spam. Occasionally an important e-mail (bank, etc) might contain a few HTML links
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by xaa 9y ago
Although this article never mentions the word, it's really about abstractions, not "implicitness" per se. No one would say that if you have an almost-perfect abstraction, like a physics equation for fluid dynamics, that you s
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by xaa 9y ago
> I think dmix hit on a very important point when he mentioned that its hard for politicians to sell a future thats not all rosy and prosperous for everyone. I couldn't find where he made that exact point, if he did, I would reply t
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by xaa 9y ago
> So the dichotomy between historical fluke and market trends doesn't really exist. Historical flukes are market trends. On further thought, you're right about this. I was rather inarticulately trying to remark on the fact that
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by xaa 9y ago
> market trends and phenomenons can be controlled somehow, that they are simply choices that people make, and those choices can be controlled This double standard galls me. If a trend is detrimental to American workers, it's market
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by xaa 9y ago
Thanks so much. Fascinating. I've made many of these types of app but never to "web scale". Bioinformatics apps are a bit niche, and we take the view that our non-paying academic "customers" can wait however long it
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by xaa 9y ago
Bioinformatician here. I appreciate that you need to make money somehow. I do find this a little hard to believe, though: > full-text search of 20MM PDFs at our traffic levels is expensive to operate Assuming you convert them to text onc
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by xaa 9y ago
> exurbs with their cheap sprawling subdivisions and giant SUVs benefit from it I guess I'm with you to the extent this means they "recoup a larger proportion of their losses on these pointless endeavors". > Your not be
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by xaa 9y ago
> income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted Well, this is another issue. It's incoherent, honestly, that someone can be considered both rich and poor from the federal perspective. But in the end, a COL adjustment on income tax wo
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by xaa 9y ago
No, I'm not. I'm suggesting that they be given the choice of moving somewhere else, of their choice, with subsidies for the move, or trying to go it alone in place. And this only for those people who fall in that gap between (appr
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by xaa 9y ago
I must say that as someone who does NOT live in a crazy high-rent state or town, I am not well pleased by the idea of my federal tax dollars going to people who choose to live there but can't make ends meet, and this even though I&#x27
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by xaa 9y ago
Coming from a state where even $50K/hh is quite comfortable (maybe slightly less so with a family of 4, but still beyond "rice and beans" level), I have to ask: how is this even possible? It strains credulity. OK, sure, rents
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by xaa 9y ago
> Now, I'd like to be ethical. I want to choose to be. And I'd like us all to be ethical to each other. But you should make the case that it's beneficial for people to be ethical to each other Well, you just implicitly mad
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by xaa 9y ago
> It's sad how HN is here demanding meticulous adherence to a clause buried deep in the incumbent's ToS and pretending that violating it is some basic moral misdeed. Probably because the context for a "TOS violation"
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by xaa 9y ago
> I enjoy discussing and debating this on HN, but large powerful corporations are likely to get their way. Haha, so true. I think it's fun and worthwhile to at least figure out what's going on. At some point I have transitioned
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by xaa 9y ago
> ...leave everyone better off. Oh, my. If you had said "average GDP per capita" or "total real GDP" or even "many people" better off, OK. Free immigration is very much like free trade: it makes the system a
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by xaa 9y ago
Very interesting argument. While the "serfdom" aspect of this is definitely morally repugnant, the most optimistic interpretation I can see for the H1B program is that it is supposedly a way to encourage or select for immigrants w
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by xaa 9y ago
> The claim is the supply is inelastic in the short term. That is correct, and it may be true. The reason I'm very skeptical is that we have been hearing this same spiel for 5 years at least. If companies are unwilling to raise sala
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by xaa 9y ago
> What does this even mean? Doesn't basic economics tell us about supply and demand. At a low salary, demand for developers will be high, and supply will be low. At a high salary, demand will be lower, and supply will be higher. It
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by xaa 9y ago
They're "high" relative to some (most) jobs and not others. It sounds like you may be implying something like "programmers make enough already". Perhaps true on a moral plane, has nothing to do with economics though

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