AcademicalNerd @academicalnerd@social.cleverlibre.org
People are more important than wires.
Joined Jan 2021
We are buying clothes and (mainly) meds. Some of my family members need medicine made in EU to survive and these may go out of stock soon. So in some sense we do.
Well, Russia is becoming Venezuela in some sense. Prices are spiking and the currency is getting cheaper. Everyone is buying what they can, because there will be no imported goods. A very interesting situation to be in.
This one is from Psi4, visualized with Vesta. I now switched to Quantum Espresso.
Well, people went on the streets in Moscow. 2000 now arrested across country, and on the second day the subway station where people started gathering was blocked immideately. No one wants this war, except for the government.
Some say all germans were nazis in the 1940s. Well, I think I realize how did that feel. Trying to live your life, as best as you can, to find out one day that somebody decided to commit a slaughter using your name.
Another hidden cost of the things that are happening now: no imported medicines. My sister relies on a few of them to live somewhat comfortably, and it was getting progressively more difficult and expensive to buy them over the last years. I guess a couple packs we have now will be the last.
It is now day three of war. I have more or less relized the scale and the consequences of the events and worked out the rough plan of my actions. It's going to take a lot of work, but I'll get through this. There are a few complications.
1) Russia can't buy chemicals from USA anymore. It makes it more difficult to do work as stuff that is made here is not great and what China sells is often quite shite.
2) Germany seized all the scientific projects with Russia, and there were plenty. I think the rest of Europe will follow along soon. And there are few facilities in Russia, most resources spent in the last years were aimed at getting access to foreign ones. Mainly, you guessed it, German.
3) If I happen to drop out of University, I get mobilized and sent to war. Which is not exactly what I aspire to do with my life. Killing humans is not on my to-do list and, I hope, never will be.
4) No CPUs and other components for the next 5+ years, probably. It's a good thing I use linux and pretty much any computer will work. My i3-8xxx should last me a few more years before giving up and by that time I hope to get the hell away.
Correction to n.4: China will import their computers, huawei and xiaomi and maybe others. I may upgrade to these. but who says China will keep getting their CPUs?..
I hesitate reading news even more than usual, but the information creeps in regardless.
An interesting new feeling I encountered today is deeply rooted shame for my country. And now I hope to make sure it won't be "mine" anymore.
The transition is very interesting. I went to sleep in my own bed in a peaceful country and woke up in a war without moving an inch. Frightening.
Yeah, this was a proof of concept to make sure that things actually run.
The psi4 os open-source and partially written on C, python is mostly API.
Do you work in ab initio solid physics? I would like to ask a few questions in the future if it's okay.
Psi4 in python, visualized in Vesta.
My new hobby -- ab initio quantum computations. This one shows sodium alginate molecular orbitals.
So I put together a quick article on giving a talk. Inspired by my experience last Friday.
https://academicalnerd.blogspot.com/2022/01/on-public-speaking.html
That's quite an interesting approach! I have a whiteboard myself for brainstorming and physics, and it is indeed superior to digital format in certain aspects.
For me saving and freferencing journal pages is more important, but I can definitely see the appeal of the whiteboard.
I switched to journalling and planning on paper this year. Been loving it so far.
https://academicalnerd.blogspot.com/2022/01/analogue-note-taking-digital-mess-we.html
The D’Artagnan remark got me a good laugh, thanks.
There is more than enough dice rolling and dark water right now, so I don't worry about it. But the quote you mention sounds good, I'll save it somewhere to reflect upon later. It it yours or from somewhere else?
Well, I used this process a few times and it seems to work just fine. I learned (an retained) more than ever last year, for example.
Life is chaotic and I prefer to have at least some goal, an ambitious one to stretch my limits.
The long-term planning boils down to a simple algorithm:
1) Identify end goal, feasible for your capabilities and the timeframe, a year in this case.
2) Break it down into smaller milestones, assuming linear progress (for the sake of simplicity). Quaters work well.
3) Break the milestones into steps, in this case I use monthly goals as an outline.
4) Consider the processes that are likely to bring you to the end goal and design them.
5) Keep going back to the initial plan and readjusting based on the experience.
It is a difficult process to tacle, in part because it is frustrating to face the uncertainty. But the rewards, I believe, are worth it.
I am now in the process of annual review and planning. This will take me a few days on and off to finish, as there are some 300 daily notes and two small notebooks.
The review will include notable events and parties, some key ideas and lessons, and a list of accomplishments.
The planning part will take longer, as I plan on redoing my entire setup to lean towards analogue note-taking and minimalistic digital workflow, that would link together all or almost all of my work as a scientist, writer, teacher and - lately - game developer. I'll post a few updates on this as I go.
This may become an accurate prophecy.
