Desk

A scientist works at his desk and another asks him, "Why is your desk so messy?" He replies, "I prefer to think of it as my shrine to failed ideas."

“It also doubles as a way to track that I’ve actually worked.”

05 Jul 2025

Could

A Venn diagram of "Science Writing" and "The word 'could'". The intersection is "Tenuous 'potential applications of this research'".

The important thing is to be optimistic!

28 Jun 2025

Gaps

A senior and junior scientist look up at the mass which is "The Literature". The junior scientist says, "So much has already been done..." while the senior one says, "So many gaps to fill!"

Combinatorial remixing can often be your friend here.

21 Jun 2025

Nerd Sniping

A graph of "Potential to get nerd-sniped" versus "Time in math". The curve increases more and more quickly over time.

Warning: Exposure to science may also lead to getting nerd-sniped.

14 Jun 2025

Tabs

A graph of "Tabs open" vs. "Time". The first curve gradually increases and then decreases, indicating "Successful learning". The second curve increases as well at first, but then suddenly drops off when the person gives up.

Unless you’re like me, in which case plenty of your tabs become zombies in your browser…

07 Jun 2025

Long Exposure

A graph of "Comfort with a subject" versus "Time". The graph is linearly increasing way past the point of one's competence at the final exam. At a later point, there's an annotation: "Wow, I wish I was this good in the class!"

Of course, this is for subjects that you still use! For myself, this subject is linear algebra. I was pretty confused about it when I first learned the subject, but ever-so-slowly, I’ve become much better at it. What subject is this for you?

31 May 2025

Belonging

A graph of "Time spent volunteering" versus "Feeling like you're part of a community". The graph steadily increases.

Volunteering isn’t easy, but in my experience it’s usually worth it.

24 May 2025

Filler Packaging

Left panel (Good Writing): A person opens a package with an idea that fills the entire box. Right panel (Bad Writing): A person holds up a very small idea in a big box with plenty of filler packaging. They say, "This is it?"

Note, this is not to say that all books should be essays! Rather, find the appropriate container for your idea.

17 May 2025

Forgetting Curves

A graph of "Memory" versus "Time". The baseline curve (solid line) is just a smooth decay over time. The "Spaced repetition" curve follows the same decay shape, but periodically "resets" the memory to the maximal value and then decays more slowly. "The educator's dream" curve is dot-dashed and never decays.

As a sports coach, I’m very familiar with that baseline.

10 May 2025

Performance Trajectories

A graph of "Performance" over "Time". The "Lone wolves" trajectory increases at first, then plateaus. But the "Those in community" trajectory steadily increases, and even accelerates.

As a lone wolf by default, this is a reminder to myself.

03 May 2025

To the past To the present