Just a guy, bout to get my PhD in experimental particle physics. I like hockey, basketball, DND, science, and audio equipment.

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  • 4 Posts
  • 18 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Rant about people like this incoming:

    I am a few months away from defending my PhD in Particle and Nuclear Physics and this is such an omnipresent issue with many of the people I interact with regularly. Poorly paraphrasing Dan Olson of Folding Ideas: Because they understand one really complicated subject (particle physics), they see all other subjects as lesser, easily understood and interpreted through the lens of their area of expertise.

    I know at least one professor, well respected in his field, who is a vaccine conspiracist and happy to tacitly endorse right wing conspiratorial thought, despite being an expert on mathematical modelling of complex systems. He should understand the rigor involved in modelling and solving a problem like covid, but instead assumes that because it is complicated, the immunologists and virologists must just not be able to arrive at a conclusion he deems good enough to challenge his simplistic view of the situation.

    Many professors, however well intentioned, try and reduce labor issues to math problems instead of considering the human element that is really the core of the problem. They build their perspective around explotative capitalist rhetoric, even when graduate students are struggling to afford food and rent. Then they turn around and wonder why enrollment is declining and pursuing academia is falling in popularity

    People like Sabine and these professors I have dealt with loudly perpetuate whatever worldview they already hold, assuming that because they must be intelligent enough to grasp difficult math and physics concepts, they couldn’t be ignorant enough for their unrelated ideas to be wrong. It is infuriating because it adds a unearned veneer of authenticity to the concepts, despite a transparent lack of knowledge. Then there is feedback, where people use this support as their evidence for embracing these ideologies and as a building block for furthering their agenda.

    These people are also, generally, stale in terms of their own academic output, for I think the same reason as their uneducated takes on other topics. They assume that they understand what they need to and stop grasping for better understanding. My PI is constantly seeking out new experiments to get involved with to try and widen his understanding, and is also a great proponent of progresssive issues. I don’t think this is coincidence. My scientific role model, another advisor of mine, is trying to develop a better academic system that would make education on the most pressing issue today (global warming) better included and more competently taught in university curriculum, regardless of degree topic. He seeks out as many opinions from students and experts as possible in furtherance of this goal. This is despite being one of the key innovators in our field, where his word might be taken as gospel, but because he hasn’t lost his fundamental curiosity about the world, he still seeks out more informed opinions in this endeavor.

    The really great scientists keep this curiosity and question their own expertise constantly. The Sabines of the world become comfortable in their own knowledge, and by extension, their own ignorance.







  • It was funky and felt distinctly un-LaTeX with the pdf cropping and graphic declarations, but was super fun. Way different from academic writing or even hobby typesetting with normal, pre-made classes (the DnD 5e LaTeX Template by rpgtex is a gamechanger for homebrewed dnd content and was the catalyst for this). The standalone document class is really weird to work with, and using tcolorboxes as the main document content feels like I am fitting a square peg into a non-euclidean hole, but it is still working!

    I am just glad I decided to use LaTeX and not python for this.



  • LaTeX is a typeset that is written in plain text with Markup language. Word, docs, acrobat are all WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, so you type the words and use toolbars to edit formatting. In markup, what you write is what you get: you type everything, including the commands for alignment, spacing, etc. It makes control and customization of your document easier. If you ever have tried to use MS Word to make a good looking equation and wanted to die when it messed up your images and spacing 10 pages back, markup typesetting is the solution.

    My tip would be to find a few templates on overleaf that you might find useful and just mess around and try to come up with what you want to see. Could be for work documents, could be for a hobby, whatever. Overleaf, the website I shared this project on, is great because it handles the backend stuff like compiling, software installs, etc. and allows you to easily copy templates over from premade projects in the gallery.

    I learned to use it for writing scientific publications, but eventually I used it for all my homework, making ‘official’ looking DnD content, keeping a log of my work; basically most documents that are longer than 1 page. It is particularly good for science and math writing, but is almost as versatile as HTML for whatever you want to make.





  • Sometimes, mainly when it is stuff that isn’t rooted in true or false. If I am factually wrong, it isn’t usually concious and I tend realize my mistake after the fact. If I am in the wrong in an emotional/moral way, I tend to realize my mistake while I am still emotionally charged, so I am not always ready to acknowledge it or effectively communicate my apology, though I still try to either admit fault or tell the other person I’d like to discuss it after I have calmed down.

    Either way, I usually allow some amount of time for self reflection, which I think is better for me. It allows me to formulate my reasoning for apologizing/admitting my mistake, calm down, and let go of the ego. I have found that even if there is a long pause, the other person almost always will take the follow up discussion with kindness and respect, and appreciates the emotional/intellectual honesty and vulnerability. Nobody has ever rubbed it in my face. Which helps encourage the practice going forward.

    It also, in general, facilitates better real-time admission of incorrectness to practice in this way.


  • I have struggled against this for a long time. I tend to be a pretty prideful person and the urge to shift blame when I fuck up and deflect when faced with being wrong is something that has I have to actively work to correct. The difference for me came when I was younger in dealing with my parents: My dad was far from perfect and there were plenty of times he was in the wrong, but always made sure to sit down with me and apologize if he fucked up. My mom, for the most part, was better at avoiding being in the wrong in the first place, but when she was, I never once got her to apologize or admit her mistake. Of the two, I was hurt far more by the latter, and make it a point to be willing to admit my shortcomings.

    The most difficult part after I identified it as an issue is to not let my willingness to apologize/admit my mistake become a carte blanche for continuing the behavior. If I fuck up, apologizing only means something if I work on the mistake. If I am wrong about somethimg, I should learn about both the thing and where my misconceptions came from.

    For a lot of people, realizing it is an issue is difficult, because you first have to let go of the pride by acknowledging it. Shame isn’t a good motivator, as it makes most people double down on pride.


  • I can’t speak for OP, but for me it is just a different flavor profile. You do have to account for the added sweetness and fruitiness, but it can really open up the complexity of whatever dish you are making. It takes some experimentation for sure though to figure out how to balance the sweetness of fully ripe peppers.

    If you want a really sweet heat, a mango hot sauce/salsa with mango, hot red peppers, onion, lime juice and salt makes for a simple and delicious topping. They also work well in a chimichurri, where the fruitiness of the red pepper mixes well with the herbs and the garlic.

    For pico de gallo, tomatillo salsas, or stuffed peppers, I much prefer green peppers, as you want that punch of tangy/sour.


  • The salsa I made on Sunday night has been a big hit. I wanted a more smokey flavor, as I had found some chocolate habaneros at my local market and wanted to capitalize on the smokey/earthy profile of them. I see a couple chocolate varietals here, so I think it might substitute well with what you have. Here is my recipe:

    Ingredients:

    • 10 red jalapeños

    • 6 chocalate habaneros

    • 10 bird’s eyes

    • 2 dried ancho chilis

    • 2 dried arbol chilis

    • 6 medium roma tomatoes

    • 1.5 large onions (I did 1 red and 1/2 yellow)

    • 4 cloves of garlic

    • juice of 7 limes

    • salt, msg, and cilantro to taste

    Directions:

    1. Broil the Jalapeños, habaneros, and bird’s eyes together on high, about 6in from the heating element, until the tops of the Jalapeños are blackened. Flip all the peppers and repeat on the other side. Bring a small pot of water to a simmer.

    2. While the peppers are broiling, bring a pan to medium-high heat and smoke the dried chilis. This will fumigate the immediate area, so if you can, you might consider doing this outside.

    3. After the dried chiles have been darkened and are smoking, remove them from the heat, add the hot water to the pan, and cover to rehydrate the chiles for ~10min. You might need to flip the chilis after a few minutes if they aren’t fully submerged. SAVE THIS WATER!

    4. Remove the peppers from the broiler and set aside to cool. Chop the onions into halves and broil the tomatoes and onions on high until the tomato skins have split and blackened a bit.

    5. Flip the onion halves and tomatoes. You can also add the garlic at this point, but be very careful not to let it burn, otherwise it will spoil the flavor. Remove once the tomato skins have been blackened on both sides.

    6. Blend all the peppers, tomatoes, dried chilis, onions, garlic and lime juice together (unless you have a massive blender, you might want to use a large bowl and an immersion blender, as this is the “party size” recipe). Add the chili water from the rehydration until you achieve the desired consistency.

    7. Add the desired amount of cilanto and salt to taste. You can’t really go too far with the cilantro in terms of flavor (in my opinion) but this recipe makes a brilliant deep red salsa and too much cilantro can muddy it, though ymmv.

    8. If you have msg, I have found it adds a little extra special something to the recipe. Again, season to taste. I usually do a ratio of 1 to 2 msg to salt as a guideline, but really I just eyeball that shit and taste test it at every step.

    9. Let cool in the fridge (overnight ideally) and serve with anything salsa belongs on. This recipe also freezes well if it makes too much.

    You have quite a bit more heat here than I did, so my recomendation with what you have is to swap the 10 bird’s eyes with 5 Fatalii Jigsaws and the choco habaneros with the scorpions and the serpents. If this is for the general public to eat, I would only do 1 scorpion and 1 serpent. If you wanna fuck some shit up, do 2-3 serpents and 2-3 scorpions.

    This recipe was made for my friends and fiancee who can’t hang with me on spice, so it has some room to be hotter for someone who likes a really good kick in the ass.