Yeti101

Are we living in a computer simulation? Maybe, maybe not. Enjoy There's some good discussion of this idea here too: https://aeon.co/essays/is-reality-a-computer-simulation-does-it-matter

Yeah, that's crap. I'm sure lots of people will keep an eye out for your plants, and can help with starting a new collection.

Getting itchy feet, for the first time in many years. Due most of my marketable skills being higher education related, and my relative inability to function in the real world, I'm asking: What uni's do people think/know would be good places to (potentially) work/teach/do research? (Not just because of the uni itself - I'm interested in the surrounds, environment, number of nearby SAB members and cost of living etc.) All answers ranging from serious to insane welcome . Accounts of personal experiences accepted with much gratitude.

I hope it goes well too. I have to confess, it's my partner who has scored the good job - I'm still going to be scrounging money for teaching people to use their heads as more than hatstands. Still, Melbourne seems as good a place as any to be in my line of work. Thanks @Amazonian, I look forward to getting to a plant meet in the near future. Now I just need to figure out how to get my core cacti collection to come with me - had no idea that the quarantine laws were, technically, so onerous between NSW and Vic were so onerous.

So, sadly for my friends up north, it looks like the Melbourne thing is happening in the next month or two. On the up side, I might earn enough cash to actually get a bit further around the country when I'm not working.

That's a pity man, I'll have to meet you IRL some other time.

Awesome Sally. I was thinking about this recently - doing my annual grumble about crappy peripheral circulation - and I'm thinking of moving somewhere much colder than here (if it gets below 10 it's a cold morning and all the locals act like it's a mini ice age).

Don't know if there're any SABbers with a PhD in plant or fungal molecular biology out there looking for a job, but if there are, maybe check this out: http://jobs.anu.edu.au/cw/en/job/516195/postdoctoral-fellow

How did I miss this? Very interesting.

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen" - "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Well look, if we want to go for ultimate flatness, just go with Susskind's Holographic Principle - that the entire universe is two-dimensional information on the cosmological event horizon - can't get any flatter than that!

Well yes, there is that - I don't think anyone here is supporting the MDT scam though - just that the swab itself is the least of your problems. If I thought refusing to take the test on the grounds that they haven't been proven to be safe had any potential, I'd support it, but I don't think it would get widespread support.

Have to get one of our sciency types to explain it, but I very much doubt that the swabs (or anything like them) could be toxic unless you eat the whole thing - the only chemicals the enzymes/proteins in the swabs react to are drugs or drug metabolites.

I sometimes feel the same way about some of the motorcycle club members in my street, but would not recommend confronting them without a functioning suit of power-armour.

Was with a group of friends walking across an ice lake at night - raiders on motorbikes coming across against us in the moonlight - teenagers around me falling in a hail of bullets. We return fire, and take our toll, but a few of them keep coming. I'm holding a long barrel revolver (.357 or .44?), activate my targeting system (which is suspiciously similar to V.A.T.S.) and pick off all but one of the remaining attackers. We end in a stand-off - and it's somehow daylight - he has drawn on my friend, and my revolver is against his head. We share a dirty harry moment as he wonder's if I'm empty - I am, but the look in my eye causes him to hesitate for long enough and I club him to the ground with the butt of my gun. The dream ends with me experiencing overwhelming sadness and guilt. I may have to cut back on the amount of Fallout 4 I'm playing.

So, after a few years of vacillation, (and total career stasis), a move in the next year or so seems likely. Can anyone from the far south give the inside word on the good bits of Adelaide and Melbourne?

Yeah, it was pretty good - thanks mate.

Look, it might be Ok - the dude clearly knows how to play the LinkedIn game, and he has been involved in a number of startups (though I suspect most of them have been mothballed or imploded). If people want to give this a go, that's their lookout, but they should go to it with their eyes open.

Not to be a downer, but it's always worth checking the details of unpaid internships and what exactly they involve. Strictly speaking, unpaid internship is not employment, it's work experience. So, unpaid interns should be the main beneficiaries of such an arrangement: the person must not be doing “productive” work the main benefit of the arrangement should be to the person doing the placement, and it must be clear that the person is receiving a meaningful learning experience, training or skill development. More: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-guides/fact-sheets/unpaid-work/unpaid-work and https://theconversation.com/are-unpaid-internships-unlawful-60197 This might well be a good opportunity, but that ad already stretches the definition of internship a bit. If you do go for this, ask serious questions about what they expect of you, and try to figure out if it's a genuine internship and they are just a bit confused about the legal definition, or if they are looking for a way to get someone to work for them for nothing. If nothing else, someone needs to tell these guys to re-work that ad. Because as it stands, if that's an accurate portrayal of the situation, it looks a bit like other cases where the Fair Work Ombudsman has taken companies to court (and won).

Awesome to have you back man.

Same - sure it will all come good eventually though.