omnisci

Uhh, reading this thread is disappointing.

Windows is not a bad OS, it has it's pluses and minus just like OSX. Sometimes I love my windows box, other times I really like my iMac. To blame the OP's issues on windows is short sited, it's like blaming android for touch wiz or motorblur. These problems are with the 3rd party groups putting shit on top of their products. This is why Mac is doing well. It isn't that the OS is "better," it's just that you have go through 290-38080823 popups when you are trying to check the email on your AOL account.

As others have pointed out, MS needs to step up to the plate and really force vendors to release just a vanilla version of Windows. At the enterprise level this saves time/money. Either that, or send machines without OSes installed allowing the customer to put their own images directly on to the computer. MS is losing customers specifically for this reason. That and their laptops aren't "pretty". If MS followed the android lead (ie: nexus), they might be able to recover some of their customer base.

Agreed. Also, at some level, hearing those responses is a good thing. If I was hiring and someone started crying/complaining about my non-interest, I'd keep their name on file as someone to never, ever hire. Don't want that kind of person working with/for/around me. Sometimes bad replies are helpful, especially if you are in a very small field.

I'd have to say that software mentors are no different than any other kind of technical mentor. here are 5 things that I look for in a mentor: 1. Good communication skills. This includes knowing how to talk to their student using methods that work for each individual student. 2. Good technical knowledge (obviously) 3. Even more important than #2, being humble. I'd much rather here "I think this is how you do xyz, but I"m not 100% sure" than someone who says "THis is the only way to do this!" 4. Someone who is clear about the objectives 5. Someone who allows students to make mistakes (sometimes people only learn after they make mistakes)

Think about it. If you heard "The problem with Democrats is young minority women" what would that mean to you? Right now, nothing, but if you (assuming you are male) were unable to get a prostate exam without spending $18209389012830 whereas it was, and always was, easy for women to get breast exams for free under their insurance, this statement would mean something.

Can of worms = opened. The "n word" does imply racism. I'm not going to write a book about it, but I'll just put that out there for you to think about.

If this was a full scientific study, I'd agree. Lets keep in mind that it isn't, and it's just a reflection of what was actually said. It isn't fair to draw conclusions from this such as "Alabama is a racist!?!?", but the data do still say something.

I would write a book on this, especially when I worked doing support for a university. Lately though, it's people who say "my computer is slow, I have to delete some icons from my desktop". That, for some reason, just drives me crazy.

Ah since we are doing this, I have to share a story. I worked as IT support for a university while I was an undergrad. I had a professor call me demanding that I recall an email that he sent to all of his students (outside of the university email system) because he sent out social security numbers by accident. When I told him that wasn't possible, he flipped out on me, because it was my fault. There is no reasonable response with the exception of laughing...which is what I did after he hung up on me.

I had to share that as my support days flashed before my eyes reading this thread.

It is pretty well established that exercise can have a huge effect on brain function, specifically through increasing blood flow. Diet will as well, although the mechanisms by which this happens are probably not as well understood.

Actually, now that I think about it, there are a bunch of articles on this. I'm not familiar with the field as much, but I can point you to a free review paper that goes over the topic. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22141190

Here is a link to the actual article, sans media bs. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442212...

Ps. lots of things can damage your brain long before you are old. Don't go flipping out because of this one article.

If you are interested in learning more about disease, etc, go to www.pubmed.com and search for info there. There you will find links to actual studies (not from the media) and you can inform yourself. If you are interested in a particular topic, look for review papers. NIH has mandated that these must be available to the public (free) for at least 1 year after publication.

Although this one article is not as bad as others, I can't stand when the media talks about scientific experiments. "This just in, study shows that normal drinking water will murder your whole family!!!!......[small font] if you are a bacteria in Antarctica and it's Tuesday night following a purple moon. [fontsize]

Hey, sorry I missed this. Actually NSF does have training funds http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=6201 . Be sure to tell your friends about this as it has to be submitted within the first 2 years of grad school (whereas the NIH grant can be applied for at anytime). It is actually much more generous than the NIH grant(stipend and research $), and is quicker to apply for.

ALso, and I think this may apply to CS people, there are dissertation grants which give a small amount of cash (when I applied it was ~$15k) to improve a dissertation project. http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13453 NSF has some really nice programs out there. I've been funded by them on 2 different occasions and I really like what they support.

because who doesn't like to start their morning with a little Iphone Vs. Android fight?

I'm happy to hear it isn't just me:) I saw the views on my youtube video and have been f5ing the shit out it since then:) I have stopped looking though, knowing that I'm not going to hear anything until the 13th and that is still super quick. I'm used to working with federal grants which take months before you see anything, so I'm happy that we only have a 13 day turn around time (and I have to give them credit for getting through that much so quickly).

So to answer your question, "what have others experienced this round", I'm gonna go with: 1. "oMGBBQ!!!, I got 2 views!" 2. followed by "f5,f5,f5,f5,f5,f5,f5" then.. 3. "ok, so if I get in, I"m gonna do (enter stupidly long list of things that I'll forget to do here) which then leads to.. 4. I should have talked about xyz in the application, DAMniT! which then goes back to number 3, then 4, then 3 and ends with 5. "shut up and go to sleep brain!" (and then I start all over again)

I'll add that a lot of them also stick around as they have no other work experience and don't know what else to do. I actually see this more and more, it seems like getting a PhD is the "well, I don't wanna get a real job yet" pathway, which is really sad. It's also frustrating to work around those people as they have no drive.

It is, and in order to get the gov grant, you need to have data. That data is typically generated by PhD students and Post-docs.

Thanks for that info, I wasn't aware of how PhDs worked in CS.

It sounds very similar to Bio with the exception that the department typically has money for their students coming in(the best schools have training grants from NIH which cover incoming students). Tuition is always covered and is only up to the PI to pay when the student's departmental money runs out, but in practice, the dept. picks it up if the student TAs.

At good schools, students are encouraged (and in some cases, mandated) to submit a grant to NIH which covers their tuition/stipend and provides some travel money for conferences. That grant is really difficult to get, so most 3-6th year students are covered under their PIs grant, or they teach to cover tuition.

Agreed, one can't say that all PIs work the same, it isn't true. Also, some do have the best of intentions, but don't have the skills to facilitate their student's career.

In a sense, each lab is a small business, and I think this is exactly what needs to be taught to a new professor. It is a real shame that this isn't taught. People management, money management, and resource management are skills that some people, regardless of how brilliant they are, don't have. As it would in any business, these attributes ultimately lead to a lab that is run poorly. The really bad thing is that these labs continue to operate, which is a huge waste...especially when talking about federally funded labs.

The truth is that there is a lot of variability between PIs and their students. Some see them as lab techs/free labor, others see them as their family. I"m currently sitting in my lab and experiencing both, one PI is really interested in their students/post-docs lives, has parties for their students, and has a close knit group, whereas the other has the polar opposite. Care to guess which lab is more successful?

In regards to the article, yes. It hits all of the points that all grad students should understand. Especially the social part, which tends to be difficult when PhDs are known to be socially awkward. Hence Beer :D.

Re:Delirium, in my experience (Biology) Professors don't pay for their students tuition. That should be covered by the department for 3-5 years.

But what if you have a cool hair style and listen to electronic music at the same time!? I thought that was the definition of a h4x0r. :)

I think at some level, everyone was a "hacker" at some point. This is what kids do, they explore things...this is why kids say some awesomely crazy stuff (that is sometimes correct).

Why/how people lose this is beyond me. I was actually going to post this question earlier,what drives someone to NOT want to explore boundaries? I'm always intrigued by people who are afraid to push the envelope.

NIH has recently changed how they deal with grants. They are asking for less methodology information and more of the conceptual info. I support that, especially since most of the methods will be modified throughout the experiment and commonly read over anyway. This is one step above that. The concept and end result is the important portion for people to get interested in the project. Those who are in the field know what autoradiography is and how it is done and the investor who is interested in the outcome isn't going to understand/care. If you have limited space to pitch an idea, are you going to spend more time explaining the idea and why it’s awesome, or the intricate details as to how you are going to do it? You talk about the idea and why it’s awesome, if someone is interested in knowing how, they ask. In regards to Sarah Palin’s inane arguments, I agree/disagree. There is some amazing science going on, and some realllllly shitty science going on, both of which are federally funded. This is a huge topic (also one of the main focuses of my YC application) and I don’t know if the details of this proposal, or proposals like this are the venue to really get at those issues. However, I do understand your point and I think it is valid, just in a different venue.

Citizen science is one of the goals of my YC application :) It will be here soon.

$25k for a single experiment is possible. I've applied to the national science foundation for a single experiment and my budget (along with funds for me to present the data at a conference (~$1500) was around $12k as we had most of the stuff I needed already. This lab is already established, they just need some extra funds to run this specific experiment (from what I've read).

Re: mouse work. I'm assuming they already have the facilities to run these experiments...especially at Princeton. If they don't, I'm sure a neighboring lab has the mice/protocols to run this experiment and they will/can cola berate. They write up an IACUC protocol, go through a few bouts of revisions and they should be able to run the experiment. This would be a simple protocol as they are just injecting mice with the drug, this isn't out of the ordinary by any means.

After reading a bit more about this, it seems that they are an established lab with protocols in line for the questions you asked about. The PI's last publication (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...) states that they are affiliated with Princeton, so dealing with hazardous materials etc are dealt with Princeton's Environmental health and safety dept. The same applies to animals, radioactive materials etc.

It looks like a lot of the details of the experiment are purposely left out of the application as they are looking to appeal to the general public and I think that is a smart thing to do. Putting details into the application would make people's eyes glaze over, so keeping it simple was the correct way to go.

From my understanding of their proposal, they are looking to do something quite common in neuroscience research. While I personally haven't done autoradiography, I know people who have and it is a commonly(although not much now) technique that has been used numerous times. To do this as a new lab, without university support would be dangerous, unethical and worrisome, but it seems clear this lab is already established.

What they propose seems to be an initial step in a nice project that could lead to something useful. Doing the anatomy (they are basically trying to see where the drug binds within the brain first) and then the molecular techniques makes sense and I wish more labs did stuff like this. As a neuroscientist, I applaud their going outside of the system and I'm happy to see that they will share their data with everyone.

Great article! While I have some technical background, I'm not a coder and I'm also a single founder applicant. From his comments, it seems that YC wants what everyone who is passionate about their career wants in a teammate. Drive.

I work in a neuroscience lab and I've trained a lot of undergrads, lab techs and grad students. From a state school to IVY league schools I continue to see the same thing. Drive, ambition, and motivation are way more important than technical knowledge. This is a winning combination of traits that always works as the people who have those traits can typically pick up anything you throw at them. My best students have been those with OK GPAs but and a serious competitive nature to them.

As an applicant who lives in NYC and has already submitted an application for this round, I think a day (or more) extension would be helpful. One day should be enough for those who lost time preparing for the storm but were not affected enough to drop their whole application(for this round) due to significant loss.

I disagree with the suggestions to add a "I'm late because" or special consideration for late applications. This will postpone a decision and create unneeded complications with the selection process. What I can suggest, is that YC creates an "I will be late on my application because..." area and provide a 3 day extension for those groups. At the very least, this gives YC an opportunity to see if anything is coming in and allow for YC to make a decisions with some "wiggle room" for the late applications. I'm not sure how the selection process works at YC, but the bottom 2-3 fundable on-time applications could be on "stand by" until all applications are submitted and a final decision could be made for the last 2-3 groups.

I actually agree and disagree. Disagree: I used the windows 8 RC for a while and I actually like it (The desktop portion, metro was a waste for a non-touch screen PC). The additions to the OS were absolutely worth while, especially at these prices. I would upgrade today, without any concern if....

Agree: It wasn't a headache:) I have 2 ATI 4870s in crossfire right now and the ATI drivers were not working well. A lot of stuff that worked on windows 7 was not working on windows 8. Granted, that was the RC, but I don't want to install and find out that it wasn't fixed. 2. Users need the option to opt-out of metro. Period (!).

I'm going to wait for SP1, allow developers to catch up a bit and then jump in. I really liked the speed and the additions made to windows 8, I just think it needs a little time mature.

It is pretty clear that they care about their competitors, but they also don't have to at the same time. People are so locked into the apple marketing that they don't even want to know what else is out there. Uhh, I got to hear this firsthand when looking at a Galaxy Note a few weeks ago. I was looking at the Note to see if I can fit the damn thing in my pocket and two BestBuy employees were BSing about "android people". "Yo, I don't even care what other features android has, I'm apple fo life!" to which the other guy agreed.

This is sad for society and wonderful for Apple. Apple's marketing is so strong/effective that at some level, they don't even have to pay attention to the competition, particularly when their customers think that every smart phone is an iPhone.

However, as said above, it is clear that they do care about their competition and if aggressive marketing from other companies (Re: Samsung's commercials), they may have a bigger battle to fight.

I found this useful. Even if the terms are being abused, it always helps to have others perspectives on how they succeeded. Regardless if it doesn't apply to your system/experience, it is still a valid (and successful) method of getting in. Do you need to work for 1 month to submit the YC application? Nope. Did it work for them: Yep. So, as with anything, YMMV but getting as many different perspectives as possible can only help. Hack a bootstrap to get kickstarted.

Agreed. I am surprised we don't see this more actually. A good PhD advisor can make a world of difference if s/he is working with a good student. Also, you maintain that connection throughout your career and tend to work together (even if informally). Seems like Rabi knew what he was doing.