I have to admit that when I work I spend a lot of time just doing nothing. One of the major reasons for this is not that I'm lazy but that I never want to jump off the cliff. For me when I'm doing research there is this point where it consumes my life. Once I am in the code, math, or writing far enough I just can't stop until it's right. The ( Read more... )

Throughout most grad students' grad school careers they spend a lot of time wrestling with the decision to stay in academia or to drop out. It's a hard decision and often an unclear one. There is no crystal ball to tell one how successful you'll be or how much you'll enjoy the path ahead. I think a lot of people feel that this inner struggle is, ( Read more... )

My advisor has seen the first 5 chapters and given me some revisions that are definitely doable by July 10th. Now I just need to get him Chapter 6 and the last chapter (the conclusion). I have a rough draft of both done but they need some serious work. Luckily for me the red pen is out and in action. Hopefully by the end of Monday they won't be ( Read more... )

Reading papers is a really important part of research. It's something I have a hard time with. There seem to be an endless supply of papers to read and sorting through which ones are important is difficult. Lately I've also realized my inability to recall the contributions of certain papers is also causing me difficulty. I've started making ( Read more... )

I'm reviewing for several conferences this year. One of the PCs of one of the papers I am reviewing sent a message asking for us to respond to a review response that started "Gentlemen,". I find this incredibly annoying. We can see each others names at this point. It's not like he is addressing a group of faceless reviewers. Additionally, even ( Read more... )

I heard a really nice talk at WiML (Workshop for Women in Machine Learning) this year. One of the speakers suggested finding people to work with in your favorite science and seeing what types of machine learning problems they had. I really liked this advice/idea. One of my friends does wildlife and natural resource conservation research. Over ( Read more... )

I have a couple items from this shop and her work is really good. She sells wallets and purses and stuff. I actually have a custom item where one of the wristlet has one side of the strap connected to the zipper. And now I have a cute little wallet. The seller is very sweet as well. I met her in San Fran at a craft show. Leave a comment  1 

So far this year I have applied for 15 jobs, submitted 2 papers to conferences, and given 1 chapter of my dissertation to someone for critique. If I want to graduate in May I need to be done with a rough draft of my dissertation by March 6th or very very close to a complete rough draft. I'm not sure this is possible but I won't know if I don't

I'm writing up a hard timeline for my dissertation. Trying to figure out the exact state of my thesis and figure out exactly what *must* be done. And also trying to figure out what I should apply for when I get done.

http://lucene.apache.org/mahout/Read more... )