Getting Back into Piano

During this quarantine period, it seems as though there are fewer jobs and more applicants than ever before. So between my coursera courses and job applications, I’m taking the time to try my hand at the piano again. Not that I stopped, it’s been on and off for a long time. I just did not have as much interest at mastering it before. The timing for my new-found interest is unfortunate…my piano has been neglected from my on-and-off interest, with keys towards both ends often getting stuck, or off-tune. I have little hope for fixing it. the last tuner said there was only so much he can do. Until I get a new piano, I plan to power through! In the meantime, I wanted to share some tips and strategies that I have learned over the last month.

Getting Emacs and Julia to work

Julia and Emacs

Julia is a hot upcoming language. I see nothing but support for it online, and many benchmarks showing a notable improvements over Python or R. The main reason why it is not already rivaling Python or R is the framework and packages. The language is still new, and does not have a mature framework. Even though it is now on the stable v1.4, there are features I’ve seen described as as ‘in development’. The packages are also maturing, and I can find many equivalent packages to those I use a biologist. However, I will admit a certain level of distrust until I understand Julia better.

2020: My non-New Years Resolution

On 31st Dec, 2019, I was sitting in Kolkata, India, on the lawn of the Kolkata Club. In front was a stage, musicians and DJs from bollywood. Around me were relatives and family, ready to celebrate the New Years with a big dinner and lots of musical entertainment. And for all the excitment around me, it felt like any other New Years. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAFnby2184o][John Oliver]] said it well when he described New Years as ‘/The Worst!/’. My track record hasn’t been great with New Years. For all the hype we put on New Year, New Me, we end up falling back into the same habits. So ironically, I came up with a goal on New Years to spite to all my failed New Years resolution; to write 1-2 scripts a week for a year in any programming language.

eink calendar: Part 1

UPDATE 2020, Oct 16 I stopped trying to modify my kobo ereader a long while back. When I started the project, I was enjoy a ready access to nearby libraries and the joys of physical books. I’ve come to find that there is room for the Kobo in my library, especially for the heavier books like Les Miserable and The Count of Monte Cristo that are just too big to carry around. I imagine I’ll return to this project one-day when I get a new ereader, but that probably won’t be for a long, long time. I’m more likely to substitute the ereader for a dedicated eink display.

My plan for a CRISPR-KO library and scRNA-seq

DISCLAIMER I assume that you have working knowledge of vectors (plasmids) used in molecular biology, and know what an RNA or sgRNA is. Anything else is not important or will be explained.

My master’s thesis will be published soon on the NUS scholar’s bank. While I’m proud of what I’ve managed to do, the wet lab side of the work almost broke me! For instance, an image in the thesis showing a western blot of DLG5 Knock-Out (KO) took almost 3 months of work. The problem was not, as one would think, that DLG5 is >300 kDa, but that the antibodies were fussy… >two days incubation in primary antibodies was the solution.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

My Summary

A riveting story during World War II, it follows an Australian soldier interned in a Japanese concentration camp and the hostilities he faced.

Strongly recommended for a tough story of survival and history. The fact that it won the 2014 Man Booker Prize should tell you it’s good!

{{ param “AffiliateLink” }}

Bookshop.org Notes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • A magisterial novel of love and war that traces the life of one man from World War II to the present.

The Story of Art

My Review

Details from Bookshop.org

Description

A cornerstone of art history - in a compact yet readable format and with a new preface by the author’s granddaughter

The Story of Art has been a global bestseller for over half a century - the finest and most popular introduction ever written, published globally in more than 30 languages. Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of all ages and backgrounds have found in Professor Gombrich a true master, who combines knowledge and wisdom with a unique gift for communicating his deep love of the subject.

The Swerve-How the World Became Modern

My Notes

Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in a unwalled city

Men suffer the worst while for the sake of the most alien desires, they neglect the most necessary appetites. It is impossible to live pleasurably without living prudently and honorably and justly, and also without living courageously and temperately and magnanimously, and without making friends, and without being philanthropic.

Details from Bookshop.org