North of the Border

His name is Adam and he likes to make tiny nerdy things. He makes dioramas of nerdy stuff, sometimes normal, some times with too many teeth, fingers, and/or toes.

The SEM+EDS machine in one of my school’s materials labs ran 98 and there was exactly one thumb drive on campus that was allowed to be used if you wanted to pull data. The lab coordinator had to pull the output file to his computer and email them, but made it sound like the biggest inconvenience in the world if you, ya know, wanted your data.

My school gave up on printing/binding theses, so they also gave up on thesis formatting requirements. As long as your advisor approved the thesis and the title page had all the relevant info, it could be formatted however you wanted.

After finishing my dissertation, I spent maybe 20 minutes emailing the library staff about dissertation edits (date format/placement on title page mainly) and otherwise was told any other requested changes were optional so long as my advisor signed off. I have to get my dissertation printed and bound myself, but that is a small price to pay compared to the nightmare that is univeristy thesis format compliance.

Lol, no, but I’d be damned if I put my actual name out on the internet. Dr. Drail is my profesional anonymous title.

As a newly minted doctor, I prefer Dr. Drail because of the work I put in. I have seen three common name/title presentations though:

Dr. Drail

Dr. Drail, Ph.D.

Mr. Drail, Ph.D.

The last one obviously preserves a gendered title if desired. I tend to include my pronouns where applicable, as it makes clear my gender identity while allowing me to use the least cumbersome combo (Dr. Drail) without confusion. I haven’t ever met someone who double stacks their honorifics (ie Dr. Mr. Drail), but if you want to make clear your gender, there aren’t any rules against it, and it is common in some non-english speaking cultures.

Ultimately, it is your title, your honorific, so you get to decide how to present it. I prefer to just go by my name 90% of the time, but while applying for jobs or introducing myself in a profesional capacity, Dr. Drail (he/him/his) is a really easy way to get all the info across succinctly.

My goal for the summer was to finish my PhD. I defended on Friday and am now Dr. Drail, so I actually accomplished my summer task for once. I sacrificed all my sleep and sanity to do so, as I was told at the 11th hour to redo a major analysis that made up 1/4 of my dissertation, but I fucking got it done.

Everything should just be in eV. Particle physics natural units are the best.

I gave my PhD dissertation defense on Friday, so I am looking forward to not having anything specific to look forward to.

I haven’t played a video game for any length of time since Elden Ring first came out, so I might play Shadow of the Erdtree. Or maybe BG3. Or maybe I will just do some dnd planning. I want to get some home repairs done, so some of that. Maybe just go chill with some friends. All the little things that I haven’t had the time/energy/bandwidth to do for so long.

I want to enjoy not being consantly anxious about my research and not just be distracting myself from said anxiety, but to truly relax, just for a week or two before I move and have to start job hunting.

Cividis. Perceptually uniform gradient colormaps are fun for the whole family

Not to dunk on word, if I need slightly more flexibility than a native .txt reader, it will do in a pinch. That being said:

Word: Oh, you want a table? Good luck getting your excel sheet to cary everything over properly, and god forbid you change a formula. You want to write it natively in word? Lol no.

Latex: tabularx goes brrrr

Word: Equations? Have fun properly tracking equation numbers and manually formatting your text to center justified every time.

Latex: $ $, \( \), and \begin{equation} go brrrr.

Word: Figures? Hope you anchored everything properly, it would be a shame if your entire document layout got shifted…

Latex: What the fuck is an anchor? top, here, bottom, those are your options. Add an exclamation mark if you’re feeling spicy.

My former colleague and I both decided on the same template for our dissertation, but hers looked wonky with the default margins. Sacrificing that lamb to have slightly tighter margins was worth it, even if the eldritch ramblings keep me awake at night.

I did all my Quantum Field Theory homework in Latex, the professor required it. My classmates would write everything out by hand and then transcribe it, meanwhile my officemate and I could think/write/math in Latex, so we only had to write our homework once. The prof lifted the requirement halfway through the semester after everyone else complained, but I never looked back.

The only thing that prevented a 100% Latex-only semester was the goddam section where we had to draw Wick diagrams. There just wasn’t a reliable way to draw them on my computer, as the Feynman diagram tools stuggled with the nuances of Wick diagrams. I still included the hand-drawn versions as figures in Latex, but it felt like cheating.

I did figure out how to write the Wick’s theorem bracket notation in Latex though (not that I’ll ever need to again), so that made up for it a bit. I wager that I spent more time researching obscure Latex packages than actually solving the problems that semester.

I love Latex so much, I even made a template for generating profesional looking DND item cards for my table that I submitted to overleaf: https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/d-and-d-item-card-template/ndfdspmmxnrn

There is also a Michael Conklin referenced in the article spiderman pointing meme

I work on a 0nuBB search doing detector R&D, this is spot on, but has 2 extra components. The three elements needed for explaining the asymmetry are:

1. CP Violation
2. Lepton or Baryon Number violation
3. Interactions out of thermal equilibrium

These are the Sakharov conditions for Baryogenesis/Leptogenesis. #1 has been observed via the weak interaction but not in large enough quantities and is not observed via strong interactions, #2 is what proton decay and 0nuBB searches look for, and #3 can be, at least partially, explained by the expansion of the universe as a non-equilibrium interaction.

To get from leptogenesis to baryogenesis requires theretical physics I only barely understand using particles call sphaelerons that convert leptons to baryons.

My boss read the first chapter I turned in, decided I know what I am doing, gave me some basic feedback, and has completely checked out since then lol.

I am half way done with mine, which means I only have 3/4 left to write, then I will be 90% done.

I pitched this exact idea to my fiancé a few days ago (and have no clue why it came up). she didn’t think it was a good idea, but now I can tell her that it was good enough to patent.

Twice, both related to my Crohn’s Disease.

The first was in preparation for my first colonoscopy, where I was told that I was only allowed clear broth, clear soda, coffee, and water for 24hr before taking the colon prep solution. I didn’t think the diet would give a mile-long headstart before the prep solution, so I enjoyed copius amounts of clear broth and coffee, which ran through me like a river, resulting in the mishap. The bathroom was only 10ft away from me, but it was still too far given the rapid pressure buildup.

The second was during an insurance conflict about my Crohn’s Medication, resulting in a flareup and multiple weeks of gut agony and loose stool. It got to the point where no flatulence was trustworthy, and I took a gamble because I was so tired of getting up to run to the restroom every time I felt something bubbling (10+ restroom visits a day, each at the slightest sign of stomach rumbling will do that to a motherfucker).

It is always humiliating, even when I am home alone, and I am hyper concious about the possibility, even when in remission. It fucking bites.

Neutrello sounds good, but it is actually pretty…

weak

Rimshot, crowd moans

Gell-Mann said it sounds like “quart”, Joyce rhymed it with Park, it is a silly word and the pronunciation is as fluid as you desire.