Comment by Gimpness on Open thread, Nov. 17 - Nov. 23, 2014 · 2014-11-19T00:56:21.977Z · LW · GW

Have you tried using WolframAlpha? If you get the pro subscription (~$66 per year - ~$45 a year for students) you gain access to their step by step solutions and unlimited problem generator. I am currently studying a Masters of Biostatistics (which has a heavy calculus section) and found this service invaluable.

Examples http://i59.tinypic.com/2yuniv9.png http://i60.tinypic.com/c5i7n.png

Comment by Gimpness on Simulate and Defer To More Rational Selves · 2014-09-09T10:31:04.543Z · LW · GW

Mine went "See if someone has already stated what you want then up-vote them, OP and be done with it"

Comment by Gimpness on What are some science mistakes you made in college? · 2014-03-23T10:40:04.915Z · LW · GW

Wasting time fixing a problem rather then starting a fresh i.e. biology/genetics - rather then just ordering in new primers(oligos), reagents(Taq, nucleotides etc) wasted a few weeks trying to find out which specific component was faulty. All the components are not very expensive while time tends to be - especially for scholarships.

Comment by Gimpness on Academia as a career option, its social value, and alternatives · 2014-03-11T12:53:14.531Z · LW · GW

I work at a University as a research assistant in the Biology Department and I am currently studying part-time in a masters of Biostatistics. One of the main reasons (apart from enjoying it) why I began to take statistics seriously was due to a) most of the PhD students lack of knowledge of statistics and b) complete and utter ugh-fieldness in having to do statistics.

I think your reasoning is good (though that just maybe cause it aligns with mine) just don't forget how many companies/corporate jobs there are for data-science now especially when the money seems very good. I have come to the opinion that going into academia via the "traditional" route is flawed and most definitely not for everyone (see shminux's comment) i.e. PhD -> then madly applying for very competitive (depends on field but mostly true?)post-doc positions ->even more competitive faculty job -rinse repeat. Perhaps that's just my hesitance as it seems to be a path of continual narrow specialization with unequally increasing competitiveness.

Comment by Gimpness on AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything · 2014-01-14T11:36:24.354Z · LW · GW

Could you go into a little more detail by what you mean by recovered from depression and what aspects of CBT assisted the most?

Comment by Gimpness on Brain Training to maximize returns · 2013-10-11T22:40:25.091Z · LW · GW

I am under the impression that a lot of those Brain Training games you may find won't work as claimed i.e. those (Luminosity etc) that claim working memory improvement --> intelligence improvement/cognitive improvement.

Here is a relevant meta-analysis of such (haven't been able to get an original copy have just read through this article

Tis a shame cause I watched the same program and got excited but decided to investigate before I paid up for it.

Comment by Gimpness on New Monthly Thread: Bragging · 2013-08-12T08:20:46.020Z · LW · GW

You have also lead to me implementing Secret Weapon by mentioning it here.

EDIT:Having now done this for 6 months I can attest to sticking to it and it very much being helpful for both checking on what I have done that day and planning for future days. Will keep doing it

Comment by Gimpness on What are your rules of thumb? · 2013-02-20T03:34:41.962Z · LW · GW

Thanks for putting it far more eloquently then I my brain had

Comment by Gimpness on What useful skills can be learned in three months? · 2012-05-30T07:01:21.142Z · LW · GW

Fourthing the exercise habit. A good tracker I have found to stay at it and for confidence building is Fit-o-Cracy