Still living

What are readers trying to tell me that I get more hits than ever before now that I am not writing? Well, anyway I feel like supporting you with some more important bits of information. These days I am doing some summer research. I can't tell you what I am doing because you might steal the information, publish, and get famous. But I can tell you what it is like. I don't lead the easy life of synthetic chemistry. I don't get to set up a synthesis in the morning and wait around all day until it is done. Life in my field is much rougher [1].

The nice thing about computations is that no work that's older than 10 years is any competition. It's not the fault of the people from 10 years ago, they were alright. They just did not have the computers. I remember our first PC from that time was 20 times slower and 5 times as expensive as mine is now. For the same price computational power increased 100-fold. That's the difference between running five jobs over night or running a PC for a whole month. Thanks to anyone who is funding me through the computer game industry.

Next week I am going to the Central European Symposium for Theoretical Chemistry. That makes me feel pretty smart. I don't know how much I am going to understand. But I can spell the word symposium: symposium.

---

[1] A computational chemist sets up a computation in the morning and sits around all day until it is done.