There are no stupid questions. How many times have we heard that from colleagues and in classrooms? Obviously an exceedingly sizeable chunk of our community does not receive stupid questions often enough. Even silly questions have their merits though, and obviously they deserve an answer, at least to avoid them being asked in the future. My very busy mailbox has recently seen a staggering increase ...[Read More]
The Sassy Scientist – Chill Pill Refill
Angela is one to stress out just a wee bit every time a conference is right around the corner. It’s almost like she consistently doesn’t prepare in time. Ever so slightly concerned, her office mate asks: How last minute is too last minute when preparing for a conference? Dear Angela, Just take a breather and come down from your academic productivity high! It’s an untenable situat ...[Read More]
The Sassy Scientist – Faulty Segments
`Segmentation fault’. One of the most annoying things ever to appear on our screens. Right up there with `fftw.h not found’. Compilation errors are the (rock-hard) bread and (rancid) butter of any of us that need to debug write codes. Tahina is deeply down the rabbit hole and asks: Why does my code not compile? Dear Tahina, I am assuming you already thoroughly searched Stack Exchange f ...[Read More]
The Sassy Scientist – The Nonsense Of Open Research
Enzo submitted his manuscript for review at one of those well-known, Earth science-niche journals. However, shortly thereafter he received an email by his editor that it was rejected. Reason being that not enough research was added in the manuscript. Furious, he bellows: When is my research open enough to be published? Dear Enzo, I know, right? It seems that over the past few years the need to giv ...[Read More]