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Anxiety is a serious problem for a lot of people and sometimes they can't deal with it on their own. Taking pills isn't the "easy" way out. For some people, it's the only/best way out. Anxiety is a real medical condition. OP, I'm not saying you need to take pills. I can't say that. The only...

You know things are bad when, if something doesn't work, your strategy is to go home for the weekend and try again on Monday. As for the data being believable; that's not really something I concern myself with (I mainly just want my TVServer not to disappear) but some people in my lab are...

Yes. I hate my life ;(

There's nothing wrong with seeing a psychologist or a counselor or somebody like that, for something like this. They won't insist that you take medicine. They might suggest it, but they can't really force you to. I've always felt myself that talking to a professional about stuff like this is...

Everybody's needs tend to be quite different actually. It's also just a really handy skill to have. For example, I use an astronomical imaging program that was made by computer-scientists/astrophysicists that should in theory take care of my needs, as you suggest. But it's glitchy and old and...

I know, right? It's crazy! They just presume we know all this stuff already. Even in the Matlab class I took in 2nd year, they assumed we knew it already. HOW WOULD I KNOW A THING LIKE THAT ALREADY?

I wasn't aware there was a free equivalent to Mathematica, thanks for that! I've had Octave recommended to me by some postgrads in my lab so I'll probably give that a try...but I've heard good things about Python too and know a few people who use it. Yeah I've downloaded LaTex but it's...

See this is what I needed; someone to just make me do it. Because then at least I wouldn't find it so intimidating. But I'd forgotten Matlab, which I did once slightly know...in fact I seem to remember being fairly handy at it as long as I understood the physics that was going on behind it. So...

You're an astrophysicist too, right? Familiar with AIPS by any chance?

Ah, Matlab I do slightly know! Now that I think of it, I took a rather haphazard course in it in my second year. It was taught by this very dense academic type who couldn't understand the merits of learning the basics before you dive into the heavy stuff...he set me a coding project on a really...

So when I started my Physics course, nobody had ever told me how important it would be for me to have computer skills. Not as in being able to type and make spreadsheets; real computer skills like being able to write code. I was literally clueless as to the amount of reliance physicists had on...

Yeah :( Sometimes the world is a sad place. Stern, I wouldn't mind if someone I was voting for was religious or not, as long as they didn't try to impose their beliefs on the general public or use them to run the country.

Fixed. Didn't Obama wave a birth certificate out the window of the White House there last year?

I'm not American, and I'm deeply curious: Do American women really go for this crap? Is there one single possessor of a uterus in the USA who heard Santorum say that and thought "yeah, I'm comfortable with this level of judgmental control of the female reproductive system by a man, and will...

"Flat" in this context doesn't really mean flat like a page...flat has all kinds of crazy meanings to cosmologists. The universe could be spherical or elephant shaped and still be "flat". But beyond that I'm just as confused as anybody.

This stuff doesn't come up on my Cosmology exam. So I try not to invest more than a fleeting moment's thought in it. To be honest, in the unlikely event of KiplingsCat = infinity being true, I don't think it would overly bother me. They'd all by necessity be really far away.

Yes this. There's no reason for a skull t-shirt to be seen as so masculine. In fact, I'd say a parent who wouldn't let their daughter wear that t-shirt because it wasn't girly enough was being way too uptight. So why not let your son-daughter-thing wear it? Similarly, there's no reason for a...

We have one of those opinel knives at home, or one similar to it. I wouldn't call it quick and convenient though, it's pretty fiddly to pull the blade out of the handle. My favourite carry-around knife is a stanley knife. I used to dabble in backstage theatre (it being the family trade) and...

Oh no taxes jesus christ I supervise labs in college and I got taxed even though I wasn't meant to be taxed and I have to ring some number and demand that they fix it but I don't know what to say to them and I don't know what to do and it's all very sad and confusing and I wish people would stop...

If you like interesting/depressing, you should definitely include Du Maurier on your list too. All her stories are quite creepy and melancholy. I tried to read a book of her short stories during a mountain-top observing run at an isolated telescope but found myself beginning to imagine things...