Short Post (Open Thread?)

Today's entry is going to be a short post. I have a bunch of pictures from Frances of Em's graduation last friday, but haven't put them in order yet, that will likely be the next post.

At the moment I've been frustrated by/at work, one of the things I've been working on has been a lot more annoying than I expected: there are two different parameter files for the energy model which contain roughly the same data, but the format for each is fairly different, up to the point where the indexing is different (one is 0-indexed, the other is 1-indexed) and the ordering of base pairs is also different. This roughly translates to it being a royal pain in the neck to have a backend data structure that can be fed data for both types on demand. So it's gone slower than I expected, but I have a meeting tomorrow which I'll need to have some demonstrable progress for, not just the hundred lines of code I've put together which only appear to work.

Another frustration has been the temperature. It's been nice and warm out here, but inside it's still a lot cooler, usually because for some reason the existence of air conditioning means that it should be kept way too freezing inside, such that one cannot be comfortable both inside a building and outside it. It has been way too cold in lab lately, and I find myself freezing when trying to work on straightforward but not really mind-intensive work, so I get distracted a lot easier. The simple solution, I suppose, is to change the thermostat, but my office mate prefers it very cold. Thus this doesn't really get anywhere as one of us will be rendered ineffective. So I've been working more from home, but I'd rather be in lab where I have other people to bounce ideas off of.

Anyways... I also thought perhaps this post would be a good one for an open thread, so if there's something anyone reading wants to start a discussion about, go for it! Or just comment on working temperatures, or whatever else suits your fancy.

And yes, I just noticed this is not really that short a post. I really admire some short posts, but I can't seem to write posts like those. Here's an example of an excellent short post which I would aspire to: Neil Gaiman's blog. Look for the entry on June 19, titled "A hundred thousand tumpty tumpties". I really like how he chooses words such that a few short sentences compose a fairly detailed picture of a moment in his life.