I quit my Ph.D. two years ago because of multiple reasons but largely due to my own naiveness over deciding to enroll for a Ph.D. I decided to do a Ph.D. without knowing anything about it. I wasn't prepared at all. I wrongly chose a lab that has a very poor vision for any scientific advancement. I foolishly chose a supervisor who had no idea what's going on in his lab. Once I understood this, I also became aware of my own weakness that has resulted in not getting me an ideal lab. This realization happened very lately and until now I had already developed a strong vision for my research project and my future career. And according to my plan, it wasn't that lab or supervisor who was going to help me to reach my goal. In academia, everything is connected, so if I wasn't going to be the best version of myself in Ph.D., the chances of finding a better opportunity after my Ph.D. was very less. So I decided to quit my Ph.D. and start it all over again; only this time knowing everything about a research career and how to excel in it. I wanted to become the best and for that, I had to work on myself first. So, a six month gap period was planned after leaving my Ph.D. But this gap time became much longer (because of some unfortunate circumstances); almost two years now and I have started feeling like a failure. I really want to go back and do some quality research. What is the best way to do it?  P.S. I am from India and I am talking in terms of the Indian research institute.
I am a Ph.D. dropout with a one year of career gap. I want to return to academia, but now  I have realized that it was perhaps the biggest mistake to take a gap after quitting my Ph.D. The purpose of taking a gap was to work on my communication skills and get a  new perspective on my work and my career in science. This could have been done within a period of 2-3 months but it became one year long because of my own recklessness. I allowed myself to distract from my goal and I started working on my hobby i.e. Painting. I lost myself there and completely lost track of my time. I was really enjoying everything about this new venture. I took it as a challenge to become better at my skills in painting. Eventually, I became the best in my group and got lots of appreciation. But then, I lost my interest while realizing that there was no further challenge and all there was left is to work and work while crafting your art which was never going to be perfect. It made me realize that what I actually love is to take the new challenges and work on myself. To be an artist was never a career option for me, all I wanted was to learn the skills. That's it!   While counting my achievement in science, I  realized that it was an irresponsible thing to take a gap in doing something that has nothing to do with science. Earlier I had a scholarship and a very competitive mind that has led me to get a Ph.D. position in one of the best labs in the country. Now I don't have the scholarship. I want to go back to my world of research where I was accelerating exponentially. I want to tackle the challenges of science with a new perspective and better skills. I want to be productive more than earlier and ready to take all the tough challenges.  But I feel embarrassed about my past mistake. Because of this, I come across as someone who is not sincere about her career. But I can't help it because the truth is that I did behave insincerely by losing track of my time.  I should have been conscious enough to realize the consequences. Now, what do I do? The past has gone and the vision of the present is crying for a better future. How do I make things better like before?
Centering \vdots in a system of many equations I have a system of equations with an arbitrary number of equations (k). I'd like to use \vdots to compactly describe the system, like so:  \begin{align*}   R(-1) &amp;= \sum_{i=1}^m A(i)R(i-1) \\   R(-2) &amp;= \sum_{i=1}^m A(i)R(i-2) \\         &amp;\vdots                    \\   R(-k) &amp;= \sum_{i=1}^m A(i)R(i-k) \end{align*}     I'd like the dots, however, to be centered with = or the entire equation. Is there an elegant way of centering a column or row with AMSMath? I'm currently using an unholy combination of whitespace operators (\; \, etc.) to get the job done. Change post permalink to external URL from custom field What are the badges I can earn on each site, and what are the exact criteria for earning each badge? I normally use the following idiom to check if a String can be converted to an integer.  public boolean isInteger( String input ) {     try {         Integer.parseInt( input );         return true;     }     catch( Exception e ) {         return false;     } }   Is it just me, or does this seem a bit hackish?  What's a better way?    See my answer (with benchmarks, based on the  by ) to see why I've reversed my position and accepted  to this problem.  I think this original code will be used by most people because it's quicker to implement, and more maintainable, but it's orders of magnitude slower when non-integer data is provided. Why are 15 reputation points required to upvote? I think more reputation points should be required to add a new answer than to upvote an existing answer.  I don't continually watch for new questions, so usually when I find a question it has already been answered.  It seems bit inappropriate to answer an already-answered question in order to contribute to the conversation, but until you earn reputation, you can't upvote or comment; you can only add new answers, which prevents me from contributing at the moment as much as I would like to.  This seems backwards to me. If someone incorrectly upvotes a bad answer, the damage is minimal, as other users can down vote it and upvote the correct answers. On the other hand, an incorrect answer wastes the time of everyone who reads it.  So, IMHO, it should require more reputation points to add an answer than to upvote or comment on an existing answer.  I wouldn't say say that users should be prevented from answering unanswered questions until they have x reputation points, as that might prevent users who have answers from providing them, but perhaps it should be required if the question is already answered, to discourage users from reiterating previously given answers.  What do you think? Where do I get the key for the first house? How to use numpad / on a keyboard without a numpad? I've just got into Blender, and I like it a lot. But as I just switched from a stationary computer to a MacBook, I've got some new problems regarding the numpad. I can use 1-9 perfectly, But I have no idea how to emulate buttons like / (used to enter local view). I've searched the web for an answer, but I can't find any. Is LED properly implemented in the constant current circuit? Objective-C Static Class Level variables CSH - How to check if input is NOT number Need to apply it on csh.  to check if the inputted $2 is not number nor the word "all"  if ($#argv == 2 &amp;&amp; ($2 != all &amp;&amp; $2 != **any number**)) then    echo "wrong parameter" If A and B play a game with a fair coin such that A wins by getting consecutive TT for the first time, while B wins by getting a consecutive TH.  Who has higher probability of winning the game?   I tried the following method but not sure:  For A to win,     TT, HTT, HHTT ... that is, 2-k for each game length k   For B to win,     TH, HTH, HHTH ... that is, 2-k for each game length k   So ultimately I am getting same probability of each to win. Prove that functions map countable sets to countable sets One of my homework problems asks to prove that if $f:X\to Y$ is a function and $A$ is a countable subset of $X$, then $f(A)$ is countable.  I believe I have a valid proof by partitioning the set A into equivalency classes based in image under $f$. Then using that partition as domain for a choice function $C_f$ back to $A$. So now the function $f$ restricted to the domain (range $C_f$) $f|_{range(C_f)}$ maps to $f(A)$ 1-1 and onto. Therefore  $$|f(A)|=|range(C_f)|\leq |A|=\aleph_0$$ $\therefore f(A)$ is a countable set. $\quad \blacksquare$  My problem is that I used the axiom of countable choice $AC_\omega$ in my proof but that isn't a part of the course I am taking. Does anyone have a simpler proof or one that does not involve Choice? Weighing a flying bird Looking for a post-apocalyptic trilogy where pilot is nursed back to health by natives of the land I read a series of books around 2005. I think it might have been a trilogy.  Basic story line is in a post apocalyptic world. The main character is a pilot for the Federation or something similar to that. He crash lands, is nursed back to health by the natives, comes to like and respect them, and does not want to fight against them.  Also in the later book I think it also involves another race who are very Japanese-ish. They drink sake and the "clan" names are things like Fu-Jitsu and Mitsu-Bishi. Making an Emission shader emit a different colour of light than the colour assigned to the object? Is there a general way to change the font of a particular symbol without switching packages?  For example, suppose I'm using Computer Modern for my entire document, but I want the "subset" operator to look as it does in mathabx.  How can I redefine it to appear in this way? PHP in_array() / array_search() odd behaviour Changing data type in ArcGIS attribute table? Remount squashfs root filessytem read-write I am working on an embedded device. The fstab shows the following info:  &lt;file system&gt; &lt;mount pt&gt;      &lt;type&gt;  &lt;options&gt;         &lt;dump&gt; &lt;pass&gt; /dev/root       /               ext2    rw,noauto                           0               1 proc            /proc           proc    defaults                            0               0 devpts          /dev/pts        devpts  defaults,gid=5,mode=620             0               0 tmpfs           /tmp            tmpfs   defaults                            0               0 ramfs           /var            ramfs   defaults                            0               0 sys             /sys            sysfs   defaults                            0               0   Running the mount command I get this:  rootfs on / type rootfs (rw) /dev/root on / type squashfs (ro,relatime) proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime) sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,gid=5,mode=620) ramfs on /var type ramfs (rw,relatime)   Which means that the root filesystem is read-only.  How can I remount the read-only part as read-write? I want to write all zeros to my hard drive, so I can re-install windows 7