Success

A graph of "Time spent doing X" versus "Success at X". As you get better at X, the time you have for doing X goes down.

This is another reason why working in obscurity can be useful.

16 Jan 2023

Appropriated

A graph of "Appropriated casual words" versus "Jargon". There's a positive linear relationship between the two. There's a label for the line at the top-right which says, "That word doesn't mean what you think it means."

“Hey, were you really expecting us to use our creativity to come up with new words when all of these old words were just sitting there?”

13 Jan 2023

Fact Check

A scientist and her friend are discussing. The friend is saying, "...I saw it in a scientific paper, so I *know* it's true!" The scientist has one hand on her head and says, "No. Just no."

“Wait, are you suggesting that scientists can sometimes get things wrong?!”

11 Jan 2023

Possibility of Failure

A graph of "Sense of possibility" versus "Fear of failure". As fear increases, the possibilities decrease.

Instead of seeing failure as a binary quantity (either it happened or it didn’t), perhaps it’s more healthy to adopt the view that there’s always going to be some amount of failure, and our job is to limit it as much as possible.

09 Jan 2023

Fun

A graph of "Fun" versus "Taking yourself too seriously". It's a negative, linear relationship.

“How much others enjoy being around you” is often a correlated variable here.

06 Jan 2023

Command Line

A scientist sits at their desk, one hand covering their eyes and the other hand hovering over their laptop's keyboard. "Here goes nothing..." they say. Caption: Me every time I use the command line.

I’m sure my running watch picks up a spike in heart rate in these critical moments.

04 Jan 2023

Well Written

Two scientists (a woman and man) are discussing a paper. The first one says, "This paper is written pretty well." The second one says, "You enjoyed reading it?" The other responds, "Oh no, I just skimmed the headers. But it *looks* good."

“The authors had good typographic taste, so I can tell the rest of the paper is good.”

02 Jan 2023

Nodding

A graph of "Understanding" versus "Nodding". The curve goes up and then has a long tail where more nodding means less understanding.

“Wait, I always thought those blank looks and nodding meant that what I was teaching was too easy…?”

30 Dec 2022

Practical

A theorist and realist are discussing a research proposal. The theorist asks, "So...can you do it?" The realist looks at the proposal and responds, "Your experiment would cost 10 billion, requires more energy than we can produce on Earth, and breaks 50 laws of practical physics." She answers, "So...maybe?"

“Well, 50 isn’t infinity, so can’t you just improve your equipment?”

28 Dec 2022

Snowball

A researcher stands on top of a hill and drops a snowball, saying, "A little hype is fine." At the bottom of the hill, the snowball has become huge, with a lot of momentum. The huge snowball has the label, "What it soon turns into."

“Hmm, who would have thought that would happen?”

26 Dec 2022

To the past To the present