Matthew Brown @mbbrown@scholar.social

Writing up a final report for my three-year fellowship and feeling kind of conflicted.

On the one hand, we didn't actually answer the question we said we were going to answer. This is mostly due to equipment issues, but also my own inexperience.

On the other hand, we actually found something really interesting which had nothing to do with our stated goals. That something just got submitted to a journal.

I'm honestly not sure whether or not this is a success.

Things I never thought I'd say as a biologist:

"I really wish I understood quantum mechanics better."

Computers are stupid. They only do exactly what you tell them to do.

What's your favorite scientific theory which turned out to be completely wrong?

If I had to choose, I think mine would be the luminiferous aether.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether

#nowreading

"Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind".

No guarantee I'm going to understand any of this, but it will be fun to try.

So apparently, there's a lake on Mars.

I like I just convinced my committee that using a certain experimental technique would be good for next experiment. Problem is, I've never used this particular technique. I feel like the dog that just caught the car it was chasing.

So I come into the lab today to find the vast majority of it coated in a fine layer of dust. I ask my lab manager what is going on. Apparently, the culprit is our buildings air conditioning system. Because our building is 70 years old and the university prioritizes new changing rooms for the football team over functional facilities for academics.
/rantover

"Towards an Ethics of AI Assistants", by the always interesting John Danaher.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13347-018-0317-3.pdf

Well, I'm stuck. Half my data makes sense. The other half is giving me fits.

Why is George Santayana not more popular? The man was a hell of a writer and his philosophy seems well suited to the modern age.

Got edits back on my paper from my PI. I've seen road maps with fewer red lines.

As a fan of Aristotle, I enjoyed this article immensely. Hope you do to.

https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-aristotle-teach-us-about-the-routes-to-happiness

Two years ago, I told my boss that we should run some gene expression experiments for given study. He shot down the idea.

Today, he says to me that we need to run some gene expression experiments for our study. Gee, wish I'd thought of that.

NASA just announced that they have found organic carbon on Mars!

Now, that is emphatically NOT the same thing as finding life on Mars. Still, very cool news.

https://wgno.com/2018/06/07/nasas-curiosity-rover-finds-organic-matter-on-mars/amp/

In retrospect, building my Ph.D around a piece of equipment that doesn't consistently work was probably a bad idea.