Achintya Rao • ಅಚಿಂತ್ಯ ರಾವ @RaoOfPhysics@scholar.social

Here's a much-overdue introduction!

I am a science writer by training and profession, working at #CERN since Sep 2010 and communicating everything to do with #particlephysics.

Since Jan 2014, I've also been pursuing a PhD in #scicomm, from UWE Bristol (remote, part-time -- a hell of a combination that I do not wish upon anyone).

I love learning (about) programming.

When I can spare the time, I also attend #taekwondo training and play #thecricket for the CERN Cricket Club.

When you want to talk about the “Sagan Effect” but address the scientist as Carl Satan.

#PhDchat

I recently learnt that I can cache individual chunks of code using `cache=TRUE`.

My quantitative-analysis chapter now compiles nearly instantenously, as all the images and tables are cached (unless I change them) and all {knitr} needs to do is convert the (mostly plain-text) markdown.

Past Achintya wasted _so much time_ waiting for the plots to build every time.

I spent the weekend playing with #Wikidata at the #WikidataZH hackathon and it was more fun than I could have imagined! Dipped my toes into Shiny for the first time too.

Thanks for the invite, @cassandreces!

Soooooo.

studio crashed on me. And when it relaunched, I clicked on the wrong button, given that it's nearly midnight and I have been working since eight this morning.

And it helpfully opened my thesis chapter not as I had saved it but in the state of the last git commit. Which was two days ago.

And I compiled the PDF without realising.

And now I've lost the entire weekend’s work, worth some 20 hours at least.

Now to redo it all before tomorrow’s meeting!

After having found it difficult to make progress on my thesis for a while, today I decided to go back to my ADHD meds, something I hadn’t done in nearly two years.

Guess who has tapped his foot for the last ~10+ hours, had to be careful he didn’t chew on his tongue or grind his teeth too much and forgot to eat lunch (it’s 19:10 here), buuuuut got a tonne of work done today?

<dramatically points thumbs to self>

Well, I’m off to make some lunch/dinner!

Years ago, I wrote a “PhD Starter Kit”: https://raoofphysics.github.io/phd-starter-kit

I wrote it over the Christmas break instead of working on my thesis.

Should have written a “PhD Finisher Kit” instead.

(I'm never gonna finish my thesis, am I? )

Don't forget to use the built-in Content Warnings, my newly tooting fellow #India​ns!

They're especially useful as subjects/titles for your posts.

Soooooooo excited to be at my fourth MozFest. <3

Let's talk #openscience!

Just listened to an incredible talk by Professor Katie Bouman, who took us through the journey of taking the first ever photo of a #blackhole.

I won’t lie, I cried.

#EPFLOpenScienceDay

Attending #EPFLOpenScienceDay in Lausanne 🇨🇭 today. Looking forward to the #openscience discussions!