Comments on: Absorbed http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/ Random samplings from a universe of ideas Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:15:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Nobel Fashion Police | Cosmic Variance http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-302416 Nobel Fashion Police | Cosmic Variance Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:52:40 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-302416 [...] for the meager posting of late. I’m in one of those phases with papers that are justthatclose to being done, and have to concentrate on pushing them out the [...] [...] for the meager posting of late. I’m in one of those phases with papers that are justthatclose to being done, and have to concentrate on pushing them out the [...]

]]> By: Finally, it is done! « Symmetry factor http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-265913 Finally, it is done! « Symmetry factor Sat, 26 May 2007 18:37:18 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-265913 [...] or so. Indeed, this is related to the end-of-the-semester business. But mainly I was very much absorbed by writing this paper… And, finally, it was submitted to the preprint ArXiv on Thursday [...] [...] or so. Indeed, this is related to the end-of-the-semester business. But mainly I was very much absorbed by writing this paper… And, finally, it was submitted to the preprint ArXiv on Thursday [...]

]]> By: Pablo http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-263462 Pablo Thu, 17 May 2007 12:01:08 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-263462 Thanks for sharing this special moment with us! I'm right now working on a paper for my PhD thesis, and even when unfortunately I'm not doing it in such a pasionate and intese way as you, I found your post very inspirational . . . actualy, I'm going back to work on my stuff :-D Thanks for sharing this special moment with us! I’m right now working on a paper for my PhD thesis, and even when unfortunately I’m not doing it in such a pasionate and intese way as you, I found your post very inspirational . . . actualy, I’m going back to work on my stuff :-D

]]> By: Middle School Science for the Future! » Blog Archive » This IS what science is like! http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-258674 Middle School Science for the Future! » Blog Archive » This IS what science is like! Mon, 07 May 2007 16:32:04 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-258674 [...] I was reading the blog Cosmic Variance and came across this post called Absorbed in which the author apologizes for not posting recently due to her utter absorption in her current work.  Below I am including a quote from the blog which I found illuminating: This IS what science is like! When you get so caught up and so excited about something, that literally everything else in life gets put on hold. I’m very excited about this paper, and want to do my best job! I have 3 collaborators, 2 on East coast time, and one in Hawaii. Two of us are in charge of the master text file – me and a collaborator on the East Coast. He is a morning person and works on the file from 8 EDT until mid-afternoon. That means around 10 AM PDT he ships the file to me and I start my day, working until about midnight. Comments from the other 2 collaborators are coming in at all hours at a rapid pace. This means that the collaboration is literally working round the clock! We have a system set up, so we don’t get confused and mix up the “master file” for our paper. It hasn’t failed us yet… [...] [...] I was reading the blog Cosmic Variance and came across this post called Absorbed in which the author apologizes for not posting recently due to her utter absorption in her current work.  Below I am including a quote from the blog which I found illuminating: This IS what science is like! When you get so caught up and so excited about something, that literally everything else in life gets put on hold. I’m very excited about this paper, and want to do my best job! I have 3 collaborators, 2 on East coast time, and one in Hawaii. Two of us are in charge of the master text file – me and a collaborator on the East Coast. He is a morning person and works on the file from 8 EDT until mid-afternoon. That means around 10 AM PDT he ships the file to me and I start my day, working until about midnight. Comments from the other 2 collaborators are coming in at all hours at a rapid pace. This means that the collaboration is literally working round the clock! We have a system set up, so we don’t get confused and mix up the “master file” for our paper. It hasn’t failed us yet… [...]

]]> By: Aaron Denney http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256871 Aaron Denney Thu, 03 May 2007 16:38:12 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256871 <blockquote> Are there any good revision control systems specifically designed to work with LaTeX? I’ve been trying to get by with a combination of SVN and latexdiff to show changes from one version to the next, but it’s far from elegant. </blockquote> Not to my knowledge. I'm not really aware of any revision-control systems tailored to a specific language. From your mention of latexdiff, I take it that you want to be able to see the differences in the compiled output, not just the source changes? I've never felt much need to do that, but it seems like it might be handy. My frustration has generally been with reformatting (e.g. rewrapping a paragraph after adding a sentence) introducing a lot of "spurious diffs", due to the granularity being lines. There are ways around this, such as storing in a canonical form that breaks on whitespace, and reformatting on checkout, but that will lose formatting which can be very important when reading.

Are there any good revision control systems specifically designed to work with LaTeX? I’ve been trying to get by with a combination of SVN and latexdiff to show changes from one version to the next, but it’s far from elegant.

Not to my knowledge. I’m not really aware of any revision-control systems tailored to a specific language. From your mention of latexdiff, I take it that you want to be able to see the differences in the compiled output, not just the source changes? I’ve never felt much need to do that, but it seems like it might be handy.

My frustration has generally been with reformatting (e.g. rewrapping a paragraph after adding a sentence) introducing a lot of “spurious diffs”, due to the granularity being lines. There are ways around this, such as storing in a canonical form that breaks on whitespace, and reformatting on checkout, but that will lose formatting which can be very important when reading.

]]> By: Refuting nonlocal realism? « Quantum Quandaries http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256591 Refuting nonlocal realism? « Quantum Quandaries Thu, 03 May 2007 03:03:28 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256591 [...] Refuting nonlocal realism? May 2, 2007 at 10:03 pm | In papers, Quantum, Experiment | Posting has been light of late. I would like to say this is due to the same sort of absorbtion that JoAnne has described over at Cosmic Variance, but in fact my attention span is currently too short for that and it has more to do with my attempts to work on three projects simultaneously. In any case, a report of an experiment on quantum foundations in Nature cannot possibly go ignored for too long on this blog. See here for the arXiv eprint. [...] [...] Refuting nonlocal realism? May 2, 2007 at 10:03 pm | In papers, Quantum, Experiment | Posting has been light of late. I would like to say this is due to the same sort of absorbtion that JoAnne has described over at Cosmic Variance, but in fact my attention span is currently too short for that and it has more to do with my attempts to work on three projects simultaneously. In any case, a report of an experiment on quantum foundations in Nature cannot possibly go ignored for too long on this blog. See here for the arXiv eprint. [...]

]]> By: Eric http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256548 Eric Thu, 03 May 2007 00:02:48 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256548 Look forward to seeing your paper. Any hints about the topic? Look forward to seeing your paper. Any hints about the topic?

]]> By: B http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256517 B Wed, 02 May 2007 21:22:07 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256517 tomato plants? very brave - I've given up on plants and only have artificial ones left... it hurts far less thinking of throwing them away with the next move. tomato plants? very brave - I’ve given up on plants and only have artificial ones left… it hurts far less thinking of throwing them away with the next move.

]]> By: Kea http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256500 Kea Wed, 02 May 2007 20:19:09 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256500 Sounds interesting! Good luck, and tell us about it soon. Sounds interesting! Good luck, and tell us about it soon.

]]> By: Quasar9 http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256483 Quasar9 Wed, 02 May 2007 17:08:15 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256483 Isn't Nature just amazing One tomatoe seed and you get a tomatoe plant Each tomatoe from the plant full of seeds, each a potential plant I wonder what the universal limit on tomatoes on earth IS I'm sure they'll be one of the first 'plants' to travel space - again(?) They'll probably do well in a 'greenhouse' on the Moon and even on Mars Isn’t Nature just amazing
One tomatoe seed and you get a tomatoe plant
Each tomatoe from the plant full of seeds, each a potential plant
I wonder what the universal limit on tomatoes on earth IS
I’m sure they’ll be one of the first ‘plants’ to travel space - again(?)
They’ll probably do well in a ‘greenhouse’ on the Moon and even on Mars

]]> By: janko http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256478 janko Wed, 02 May 2007 16:32:31 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256478 cretivity always seems to come in bursts, so you gotta take the chance when it arrives (and when the deadlines call ofcourse :-) I like the busy times better than the uninspired inbetweentimes though... Good luck!! cretivity always seems to come in bursts, so you gotta take the chance when it arrives (and when the deadlines call ofcourse :-)

I like the busy times better than the uninspired inbetweentimes though…

Good luck!!

]]> By: Impressions of ArXiv identifiers and other random news « Symmetry factor http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256463 Impressions of ArXiv identifiers and other random news « Symmetry factor Wed, 02 May 2007 14:23:26 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256463 [...] random news May 2, 2007 Posted by apetrov in Near Physics, Particle Physics, Physics, Science. trackback It’s been a month since ArXiv.org, one of the main sources of information for particle,nuclear, astro and other physicists implemented new scheme to identify papers submitted there (and two weeks since my last post — finals as well as other matters). I guess the big idea behind changing the old scheme, when papers were identified by topic, year, month, and a number, say, arch-ive/YYMMNNN, to a new one was that the old one was not good enough for computers (as it was fine for most of the humans I know who use the archive). For example, it used to be that paper identified as hep-ph/0610039 simply meant that the paper in High Energy Physics - PHenomenology was submitted to archive in October 2006 and identified as paper number 39. The new scheme assigns identifiers as arXiv:YYMM.NNNNvV (see here for explanation of ArXiv labelling scheme). I wonder that if the new scheme is better for automatic classification, what was the point of introducing it at all, and not, say switch to DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers… In other words, I don’t know what subject class this paper belongs to just by looking at the archive number. Of course, this is not a big deal, as I can always download a paper and look to see what it is about, but for my colleague, say in Irkutsk, who sits on a modem line and pays for service by kilobyte, it might not be that easy… [...] [...] random news May 2, 2007 Posted by apetrov in Near Physics, Particle Physics, Physics, Science. trackback It’s been a month since ArXiv.org, one of the main sources of information for particle,nuclear, astro and other physicists implemented new scheme to identify papers submitted there (and two weeks since my last post — finals as well as other matters). I guess the big idea behind changing the old scheme, when papers were identified by topic, year, month, and a number, say, arch-ive/YYMMNNN, to a new one was that the old one was not good enough for computers (as it was fine for most of the humans I know who use the archive). For example, it used to be that paper identified as hep-ph/0610039 simply meant that the paper in High Energy Physics - PHenomenology was submitted to archive in October 2006 and identified as paper number 39. The new scheme assigns identifiers as arXiv:YYMM.NNNNvV (see here for explanation of ArXiv labelling scheme). I wonder that if the new scheme is better for automatic classification, what was the point of introducing it at all, and not, say switch to DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers… In other words, I don’t know what subject class this paper belongs to just by looking at the archive number. Of course, this is not a big deal, as I can always download a paper and look to see what it is about, but for my colleague, say in Irkutsk, who sits on a modem line and pays for service by kilobyte, it might not be that easy… [...]

]]> By: Change Control Guy http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256459 Change Control Guy Wed, 02 May 2007 13:07:44 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256459 SVN may be the quickest one to setup, assuming that you all have ssh access into wherever you choose to be the master repository. SVN may be the quickest one to setup, assuming that you all have ssh access into wherever you choose to be the master repository.

]]> By: Dave Andrews http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256432 Dave Andrews Wed, 02 May 2007 10:38:59 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256432 Are there any good revision control systems specifically designed to work with LaTeX? I've been trying to get by with a combination of SVN and latexdiff to show changes from one version to the next, but it's far from elegant :( Are there any good revision control systems specifically designed to work with LaTeX? I’ve been trying to get by with a combination of SVN and latexdiff to show changes from one version to the next, but it’s far from elegant :(

]]> By: Aaron Denney http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256424 Aaron Denney Wed, 02 May 2007 09:38:44 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256424 I would definitely concur that revision control, if you choose a good system, can help immensely. (Personally I like darcs or mercurial.) I would definitely concur that revision control, if you choose a good system, can help immensely. (Personally I like darcs or mercurial.)

]]> By: Christian http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256401 Christian Wed, 02 May 2007 06:55:22 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256401 Been there! You guys should start using version management. Adds a whole new level of complexity to writing a paper :-) Been there! You guys should start using version management. Adds a whole new level of complexity to writing a paper :-)

]]> By: What is doing science like? « Entertaining Research http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/02/absorbed/#comment-256396 What is doing science like? « Entertaining Research Wed, 02 May 2007 06:35:58 +0000 http://cosmicvariance.com/?p=1218#comment-256396 [...] JoAnne at Cosmic Variance. [...] [...] JoAnne at Cosmic Variance. [...]

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