Read Online Launch Pad by Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Brotherton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Brotherton
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bathe today. Both sides this time.”
She let the corners of her mouth twist up into a smirk. “Sorry. It’s just that I was making a little progress with my imaging code and I don’t really want to change gears right now.”
He gave her a serious look. “I understand completely, but it is our destiny to change gears for the greater good of the university, isn’t it?”
Bev smiled.
“Well, if you put it like that. Okay, let’s go learn how to catch cheaters in the age of paraphrasing software.”
Rodger held the door open for her, and shut it behind them.
“You can say that again, but in slightly different words, of course.”
Rodger was rather fun to be around, she had to admit, her irritation at the interruption fading. If only there were enough time to just be around anyone, to hang out, but there was no way she’d make progress on her research and get tenure doing anything but staying focused. Still, she’d try to make the best of these required social moments.
“Sure,” she said, as they made their way down the long corridor. “Let’s develop the skills to identify Wikipedia entries revised by computer for the benefit of sneaky students wishing to avoid thinking for themselves in the year 2033.”
“Well, when you put it like that, brilliant! I can’t wait!”
She let herself smile big.
O O O
Bev resisted the urge to look at her watch. That would look bad to the other faculty and the couple of dozen students in the auditorium. The seminar speaker, a collaborator of Marty’s, was taking his sweet time explaining the significance of a new class of variable star identified in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope archives and seemed oblivious to the fact that it had to be past five o’clock.
She remembered when she’d looked forward to talks on subjects outside her own specialty. Now that she was a professor and not a student, there were times they seemed more of a burden, even the interesting ones, unfortunately. They just broke up the flow of the day too much.
She wondered if any cookies remained from the pre-talk snacks she could snag for a light dinner. Bev knew it wasn’t a healthy idea, but carbohydrates would tide her over and let her put in a few more hours before heading home. She could work from home, but sometimes found herself crawling into bed before she was really ready to. Having a bed nearby was too tempting. She really wanted to run some sanity checks on her code, which she’d named Vizier, with some test data before getting back to the real thing.…
A round of polite applause snapped her back to the moment. Bev sat up straight and joined in, feeling guilty. She hoped no one would her ask any questions.
A few minutes later she was checking out the snack cart at the back of the auditorium, disappointed that there were only peanut butter cookies left, which she didn’t care for, when someone spoke to her.
“Dr. Rix-Johnson?”
Bev half turned, feeling literally like a kid caught raiding the cookie jar, and saw one of the new grad students. A dark-haired, heavyset guy, named Dino, if she remembered correctly. “Yes?”
“I wanted to ask about doing a research project with you.”
“Okay,” she said. Her brain raced ahead to the possibilities.
Mentoring grad students was part of the job, and she wanted grad students. Good ones, anyway. She knew that at the start of research, training a student was slower than doing the work herself, but if they were good they’d pay off the investment in a few years. She’d also been advised to try to get a student to defend their PhD before she came up for tenure review, so she had already envisioned this scenario.
Dino here, probably only a decade younger than she was, could be her first PhD student. She decided not to put him off for later but to give him a quick pitch now.
“I have a starter project that would be perfect,” she said, eagerly. “Star spot migration in close binaries. The data set is sitting there, waiting
She let the corners of her mouth twist up into a smirk. “Sorry. It’s just that I was making a little progress with my imaging code and I don’t really want to change gears right now.”
He gave her a serious look. “I understand completely, but it is our destiny to change gears for the greater good of the university, isn’t it?”
Bev smiled.
“Well, if you put it like that. Okay, let’s go learn how to catch cheaters in the age of paraphrasing software.”
Rodger held the door open for her, and shut it behind them.
“You can say that again, but in slightly different words, of course.”
Rodger was rather fun to be around, she had to admit, her irritation at the interruption fading. If only there were enough time to just be around anyone, to hang out, but there was no way she’d make progress on her research and get tenure doing anything but staying focused. Still, she’d try to make the best of these required social moments.
“Sure,” she said, as they made their way down the long corridor. “Let’s develop the skills to identify Wikipedia entries revised by computer for the benefit of sneaky students wishing to avoid thinking for themselves in the year 2033.”
“Well, when you put it like that, brilliant! I can’t wait!”
She let herself smile big.
O O O
Bev resisted the urge to look at her watch. That would look bad to the other faculty and the couple of dozen students in the auditorium. The seminar speaker, a collaborator of Marty’s, was taking his sweet time explaining the significance of a new class of variable star identified in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope archives and seemed oblivious to the fact that it had to be past five o’clock.
She remembered when she’d looked forward to talks on subjects outside her own specialty. Now that she was a professor and not a student, there were times they seemed more of a burden, even the interesting ones, unfortunately. They just broke up the flow of the day too much.
She wondered if any cookies remained from the pre-talk snacks she could snag for a light dinner. Bev knew it wasn’t a healthy idea, but carbohydrates would tide her over and let her put in a few more hours before heading home. She could work from home, but sometimes found herself crawling into bed before she was really ready to. Having a bed nearby was too tempting. She really wanted to run some sanity checks on her code, which she’d named Vizier, with some test data before getting back to the real thing.…
A round of polite applause snapped her back to the moment. Bev sat up straight and joined in, feeling guilty. She hoped no one would her ask any questions.
A few minutes later she was checking out the snack cart at the back of the auditorium, disappointed that there were only peanut butter cookies left, which she didn’t care for, when someone spoke to her.
“Dr. Rix-Johnson?”
Bev half turned, feeling literally like a kid caught raiding the cookie jar, and saw one of the new grad students. A dark-haired, heavyset guy, named Dino, if she remembered correctly. “Yes?”
“I wanted to ask about doing a research project with you.”
“Okay,” she said. Her brain raced ahead to the possibilities.
Mentoring grad students was part of the job, and she wanted grad students. Good ones, anyway. She knew that at the start of research, training a student was slower than doing the work herself, but if they were good they’d pay off the investment in a few years. She’d also been advised to try to get a student to defend their PhD before she came up for tenure review, so she had already envisioned this scenario.
Dino here, probably only a decade younger than she was, could be her first PhD student. She decided not to put him off for later but to give him a quick pitch now.
“I have a starter project that would be perfect,” she said, eagerly. “Star spot migration in close binaries. The data set is sitting there, waiting
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