Upgrading/tinkering doesn't void your warranty. Explicitly.

And their customer service is top notch. I thought I bricked my gazelle when I upgraded the memory, but their customer service walked me through how to fix it - didn't even bat an eye.

they either don't improve upon or add functionality that's not available, or simply add eye candy. Gaining pretty colors is nice, but not worth losing familiarity with ubiquitous tools.

The thing I like about a lot of these is that I don't lose familiarity with existing tools. When I end up on a cluster that doesn't have them, I'm a bit annoyed, but I can still operate just fine.

The principle exception to this is actually fd - I now find find (har!) almost unusable without having a man page open in a separate terminal. But that's because fd is so much more ergonomic and powerful, I would never give it up unless forced.

Yes. The only things I use regularly that aren't aliased to or replaced by a rust-built tool are mkdir, ln, and rsync.

• cd: zoxide
• ls: eza
• cat: bat
• grep: ripgrep
• find: fd
• sed: sd
• du: dust
• top/htop: btm
• vi: helix
• tmux: zellij (or wezterm mux)
• diff: delta
• ps: procs

Probably some others I'm forgetting

Wait, you're saying that there are nuances and subtleties that my simple solutions don't take into consideration?!?

/s (I didn't think this was necessary, but given your response...)

~~Clinical depression~~Obesity, on the other hand, is caused by various complex chemical imbalances influenced by various environmental and social factors, so you can't simply disentangle yourself from those chemicals and circumstances

Yep, exactly!

Do you seriously think that eating - arguably one of the most fundamental and instinctual things that living things do - is not subject to complex chemical, environmental, and social factors? Really?

The solution "don't eat so much" really is as naive as telling a clinically depressed person "just be happier" or telling a poor person "just go earn more" or telling Israelis and Palestinians "just don't fight do much".

Yes, the solutions really are that simple, at one level, but pretending like the knowledge of this solution gets us anywhere in terms of actually addressing the problem is just silly.

The problem with poverty is easily solved: people just need to earn more. Easy!

The problem of depression is easily solved: people just need to be happier. Easy!

The problem of obesity is easily solved: people just need to eat less. Easy!

I can solve war too - people just need to fight less! And death: people just need to age less!

Man, someone get me a McArthur genius grant already!

Oops, thanks for the heads up! No idea where that came from

9 times out of 10, what I want is tldr (https://tldr.sh/). There are a bunch of terminal interfaces for it, I use tealdeer.

"May" is doing a lot of work here. This is a low-level regulatory element of a systemic protein. It's a neat result - this kind of biochemical investigation is hard and worthwhile - but it's miles from any kind of therapeutic AFAICT

I can understand why it seems the way. But the people doing academic research by and large could make a lot more money working less hard at some company, but choose instead to try to advance human knowledge.

The incentives are just terrible. When I was a PhD student, I railed against this system, but when it came time to publish, I was overruled by my PI. And I know now that he was right - success is built off publication, and the best journals have this shitty model.

I used to think that when I became boss, I wouldn't participate in the bullshit, but if any of my trainees want a career in academia, that stance would be screwing them over. The rules need to come from the top, but the people at the top, almost by definition, are the ones that have prospered with the current system.

Animal testing need not be gruesome - and indeed must not be according to most and approvals.

Typically, minimizing animal suffering and humane procedures for determining when and how to euthanize animals is typically a big part of getting sign off for this kind of thing.

"backing up" biospecimens and other physical samples is not as easy as baking up data. Freeze/thaw often degrades things, and volumes maybe be quite small and not amenable to aliqoting.

This is an interesting perspective! Don't think I've looked at it quite this way - I want to believe that one can be a kind and also realistic mentor - that's what I strive for. But the people who manage to get faculty positions are, by definition the ones who don't heed all of the signals telling them that academia is a mug's game.