plasmon's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on Does anyone have experience working as an independent researcher? in ~science
plasmon LinkI work in a university lab as an undergrad researcher, so my knowledge here isn't complete by any stretch. This comment will apply mostly for physics, though it could be applicable elsewhere. As...I work in a university lab as an undergrad researcher, so my knowledge here isn't complete by any stretch. This comment will apply mostly for physics, though it could be applicable elsewhere.
As other people commented, working independently really depends on what field you're going into—theoretical/computational research is generally free as long as you have a computer and something to do calculations with, while experimental work requires you to spend a lot of money. There's always shed science, like the kind that Explosions and Fire and Styropyro do, but that comes with its own set of caveats—namely that your own safety practices will determine how long you live, or at the very least live without a debilitating injury—and getting payed to do that is a completely different story.
That said, you could get a job as an independent scientific consultant. One of the developers for a package Mathematica package I (unfortunately) had to use a year or so ago, Simon Rochester, has been an independent researcher for a while, doing both academic work and scientific consulting—getting the best of both worlds as it were. You would still need to work for other people, attend meetings, and do all kinds of stuff like that—you know, a bit like your current corporate job—but you would be able to do things at your discretion. Of course, you would probably need some academic collaborators and the like—hypothetically, you could reach out to some old professors and see what they're up to, and then work from there. (I'm considering working as a consultant and faculty researcher somewhere, but I'm not totally sure how I'd do it.)
Working as a theorist independently is a bit iffy. You could do it, sure, but there are some caveats—reaching out to academics is really iffy if you're doing theoretical research, mostly because a lot of so-called "indepdent theoretical physicists" are just crackpots. All I can say to that end is to just not be a crackpot: don't claim to solve all of physics, or disprove x well substantiated theory, or anything like that.
That's the best I can offer at the moment.
I've been playing Armored Core 6 and Mirror's Edge. AC6 is really good so far, but I'm thinking of ditching it—I'm at a point in the game that I feel like I need to grind, and I just can't stand grinding at all. Mirror's Edge is Mirror's Edge: I'm expecting to completely ignore the story and have fun until the last 3/4 of the game.