AcademicalNerd @academicalnerd@social.cleverlibre.org
People are more important than wires.
Joined Jan 2021
2021-01-25, 14:30, Monday.
Today I was doing a bunch of C++ programming and fixing linker issues caused by my ignorance and lack of attention to details. The thing I want to share is a stream I randomly stumbled across, from George Hotz/GeoHot (link below), which starts with casual computer architecture axplanation and proceeds to deconstruct a bunch of things from software engineer's and scientist's perspective. I rarely see things like getting a girlfriend or, say, earning $1m deconstructed using input-model-output approach, although it is a very good way to think about some things. I hope this is helpful.
2021-01-24, 12:52, Sunday.
Well, today I'm writing in the afternoon, since the morning was preoccupied with some work. Yesterday's events in Moscow led my thoughts to an interesting conclusion: convenience usually leads to cavpivity. Here in Moscow the majority of transportation (some trains, subway, buses and trams) works with so called "troika" cards which you can top up. Each card is unique and they are usually bought and topped up using your card. So you are identified by these cards; more so, if you choose to buy a ticket, it is also identified with a number and there are more than enough cameras to identify you. But they can't store this footage indefenitely, right? But these tickets expire very soon,m my guess - as soon as the data is purged, a few months I believe.
Actually, think China, these guys dont need to use tickets! Facial recognition and virtual wallet tied to your ID. Oh, how convenient, right?
#survelliance #thoughts #Russia #Moscow #life #privacy
@freemo Oh I see. Thanks! Oh, and qoto just showed me "loading fonts latex/math/italis" and then "no font found, using images instead". Couldn't copy so these arent exact messages. Maybe it will help.
This is supposed to be phi over lambda: \( \frac{\phi}{\lambda} \)
This is e=mc^2: \( e=mc^2 \)
And now with []:
This is supposed to be phi over lambda: \[ \frac{\phi}{\lambda} \]
This is e=mc^2: \[ e=mc^2 \]
@freemo, looks like I broke something...
Good morning.
2021-01-23, 08:45, Saturday. Coffee with cinnamon. Yum.
So I happen to live in Moscow. Today there will be some protests for an opposition politic, he is arrested for no reason other than being, well, in opposition. It seems to be his hobby. On a serious note though, there is one leader in this country and one opposing group. No political variety, you can choose whether your group wins or loses the fight waaay ahead. It's obvious who loses.
#life #coffee #politics #russia #protests #whining
Also, I want to test qoto's inline latex.
Which I did and it breaks every time. Sad.
Good morning.
2021-01-21, 08:22, Thursday. Drinking my morning coffee (cezve with some cinnamon) and preparing for my report. I'll probably make a separate post about it since it's an opportunity to tell about my scientific research. For now I'm in a mood to write some more "tips".
STEM tips №2: build your foundation. There is a very good reason for all textbooks on the same subject to convey material in the same order. It is not tradition, it is crucial for understanding concepts. The only exception in basic sciences I am familiar with is organic chemistry: Clayden's textbook is wildly diffirent from standart approach, but I'm not sure how it feels to actually use it for studying without prior knowledge of organic chemistry.
I digress. The particular order most textbooks follow builds new concepts on top of previous ones, and this principle applies throughout your academic career. Let's say you skipped a trigonometry introduction in high school. You crammed for the test and did fine, memorizing all your pi-over-2/3/4/6, but there is no solid understanding of the concept. Now you will struggle in your further math classes. Not only that, in mechanics knowledge of trigonometry is implied, the same applies for calculus, most of the physics and a bunch of other disciplines.
So the takeaway is: don't skip basic topics and make sure you know them very well. Otherwise your ignorance will backfire, usually sooner than later.
#stem #stemtips #student #uni #science #life #lifesyle #qotojournal
Good morning.
2021-01-22, 08:20, Friday. Plain black coffee with very high ratio, almost 10:1. I like it, though.
Yesterday I finished my fifth semester with science work report. Might as well write about my work here. So there are a lot of thermodynamic models of liquids. Modern ones are quite precise, but complicated and have a lot of maths involved. They are very useful to predict the reaction equilibrium or solution's properties, but because of their complexity you need to run them through computer. So people tend to create their own implementations of these models and use them, but diffirent implementations perform calculations slightly diffirently and this can affect results of the study.
The idea is to create a more or less versatile program with GUI, that would be easy to use by anyone and make results reproducible. I now managed to make a prototype with saving, loading and calculating quilibria. The core code of implementation is not mine, however, I use pre-coded model (my colleague made it) to create GUI and more or less intuitive logic around it. The entire thing is in C/C++ and runs quite smootly on binary systems.
#stem #stemtips #student #uni #science #life #lifesyle #qotojournal #coffee #thermodynamics #programming
@freemo I see. Thanks, I will probably use it quite often.
@freemo
Thanks, I will. Is it a hashtag for anything long or anything long and science-related?
Good morning.
2021-01-09, 07:30, Wednesday. Today I'll share some random thoughts on studying STEM related subjects. Might do somthing like this every once in a while.
STEM tips №1: there are no shortcuts. The original quote is attributed to Euclid: there are no royal roads to geometry, he said to king Ptolemey. This my point: you have to put in the hours and effort. A lot of them.
A decent problem in calculus or physics will take you a solid hour even if you have all the notes from your lectures. And there are these problems in every chapter of your textbook and they won't get easier, so cramming this kind of thing gets impossible. Unless your end goal is to pass the test and not to learn something.
I'm in the middle of my third year of bachelorship and there hasn't been a semester where I'd have more than a day off, unless I was ill. It doesn't mean that I always spend the whole day studying, although sometimes I do, but 1-2 hours of studying every morning are a part of my routine now.
Good morning.
2021-01-19, 09:00, Tuesday. Got 4 for my exam (out of 5), which is good enough for me. I'm done with exams for this semester. And since I'm a nerd I'll tell you what the exam was about.
Solid Phase Thermodynamics. It is a separate course from thermodynamics in my uni, and for a good reason. Studying thermal properties in solid phase reactions is usually impossible (because thermal effects are small and the reactions themselves are slow), so there are a few tricks to do it.
The most important and versatile method is the EMF method, which allows to calculate Gibbs energy of the reaction using its' electrochemical properties. So we learned how to use it (how to compose electrochemical cells) and the thormodynamics specific for solid phases, like x-lg(pO2) diagrams.
@Pat @doltamalte @alex
Damn you are right.
Good morning.
2021-01-18, 06:40, Monday. Back home, the exam is in three and a half hours. Solid phase thermodynamics, very weird course that barely lasted for two months. Not sure how it goes, slightly anxious. But at least I had a good rest on Sunday.
My best exam tip - apart from actually studying the subject - is to not break the routine. Even if you have to wake up slightly earlier, do so and drink your usual cup of coffee and write a note in the journal. This will eliminate at least some of the anxiety.
I meant 2021-01-17, Sunday, but whatever. Should've finished that cup before writing.
@Pat @doltamalte @alex
Fahrenheit makes me wanna cry, but it makes sense physically. I am now wandering, if the wind is hotter than the object, will it heat it up faster than idle air?..
Good morning!
2021-01-16, 08:52, Friday. I moved to countryside for a night. It's chilly inside and I can't turn the heanting up because radiators won't survive the pressure. Physics is merciless, but at least I have some ground coffee and a small cezve here. No spices, I just need something warm. And of course my favorite mug < 3
@doltamalte @alex
That's neat. I always thought that realfeel was google's for some reason.
Good morning!
2021-01-06, 08:45, Saturday. So here is a basic cezve coffee recipe.
Finely grind some coffee, starting with 60g/liter and adjusting the ratio to your preference.
Put your coffee into a cezve, add spices. Today I went with some nutmeg and cloves; if you are new to this, cinnamon is generally a good starting point.
Fill the cezve with water and put in on the stove, use weak fire/low setting if you are an induction person. While the coffee is brewing, preheat your cup with hot water from kettle.
Once the water boils and foam starts to form - remove the cezve from fire and pour coffee into the cup. Wait for around two minutes while grounds settle and water adsorbs some more flavors and you are good to go.
@doltamalte @alex
So I ran some math and you seem to be right, at these temperatures (-15 C) it's about 1% heat capacity increase at 100% humidity. Which is weird because it feels really cold. Maybe the wind does it, indeed.
