- Powered by
- WordPress
-
Reliability
Three decades ago, the word was “four nines”. Internet providers and company server administrators would take pride to deliver a service that was working 99.99% (four nines) or 99.999% of the time,. In German and Swiss culture, reliability is highly valued and this has been a differentiating factor, for example for automobiles and watches. Chains…
-
The meaning of life
Creating something is a form of expression. You put a piece of yourself into it. Effort, time, but also a piece of your craftmanship and thinking about how something should ideally be. For many artists, the act of creating their art is so important that giving it up would give up an essential part of…
-
Garching
Today, we walked 100 meters from home to the park, set up a inflatable couch, leaned back and watched the Perseid meteor shower 🌠. It was beautiful. Garching is one of the very few places on Earth where you can see the night sky clearly, and work as an astronomer. Garching is a small…
-
An open door policy
The saying goes that those who keep their office door open have a better career. I do not have hard evidence supporting this, but I know that some people shut themselves off in their offices and have then not had a lot of exposure or opportunities. Chance encounters are quite powerful. “Just a quick question…
-
Eye contact in academia
Eye contact is important when giving a talk. If you find it unpleasant to look people in the eye, you can look just above the audience and will achieve the same effect of the audience feeling seen, and you not just bumbling to the screen. Eye contact can be unpleasant to give but also to…
-
Saying your name
When you introduce yourself, don’t through your name out a mumbled string of syllables. It is difficult for those whose culture is not the same as yours to catch your first and last name (or others). Say: My name is (short pause) <firstname> (one second pause) <lastname>. It will be more memorable for everyone. I…
-
Co-authorship policy
Co-authorship and acknowledgement are forms of recognition for direct contributions to a work. I want to elaborate on the policy I follow, influenced by the groups were I have worked. I essentially agree with this blog post, which is well-written: https://ramblingsofanecologa.wordpress.com/2020/11/10/who-should-be-a-co-author-rules-and-etiquette-of-academic-authorship/ There are multiple aspects of how to contribute to a paper: “conceiving the idea,…
-
Application season 2025 post-mortem
Things to improve on:
-
Understanding exponentials: COVID19 and climate change
Exponential growth is unintuitive. The default heuristics of our brains is that things will continue as they are, or keep growing linearly. In the most intense phases of COVID19, exponential growth of case numbers, and thus hospitalizations, and the trigger-happy reaction needed to stop this exponential growth curve early was understood by most people. In…
-
Conflicts: my rule of thumb
Conflicts are common place when working in scientific collaborations, and with people in general, whether in private or professional settings. Be it, that others take undue credit, screw someone’s plans over, belittle contributions, are confrontational and rude, or mock someone. Conflicts are stressful. Disappointment, anger, frustration, fear, insecurity, are intense emotions that can arise. My…