Adblock Plus doesn't work nearly as well in Chrome as in Firefox. That's what holds me back from switching to Chrome.

On a recent visit to China, I noticed payphones there also operated as wifi hotspots for customers of the phone company.

Who mentioned the indoor environment?
As for location: my employer is where it is because it is close to the government departments that we need to work with. My husband's employer (a lobby group) is where it is because it is close to the government departments they hope to influence. My father's employer (a processing plant for a mining company) is where it is because it is the closest industrial-zoned area to the mines that is also on a major port. My mother's employer (a school) is where it is because it needs to be in the community that it services. Most of my friends work for government agencies, which are where they are for political and historical reasons. I can't think of many employers who are in a position to choose their location simply to attract staff.

Most people don't interpret "benefits" as meaning that, in this context. To me, "benefits" means the child care and fitness services my employer offers, health insurance, flexible work hours, frequent flyer lounger membership, company cars, salary sacrifice options and so on. In other words, things deliberately offered by an employer to attract or retain employees.

Likewise. For me, it's not so much about the benefits as the work. I'm a research scientist. I could get a 50% pay increase by going into consulting, but I'd be doing less interesting work, and in a more stressful work environment.

Then, too, are lifestyle issues. To switch jobs and stay in my field, I'd need to move to another city. So before any other considerations, my spouse would have to agree to move with me... which would mean he'd have to be satisfied he could find a good job in the destination city as well. Besides that, we'd both have to agree on the desirability of the new city (I'd like to move to the tropics; he thinks it's already too hot in our cool temperate location. I'd like to move to a city a little bigger than where we live now; he'd like somewhere about the same size, if not smaller). And then, we'd have to agree that it was worth uprooting ourselves and our mortgage and establishing a new social circle.

So after all that, realistically... double my current pay and we'll talk.

I used to do this when I was a student. A very light fabric such as cheesecloth or a light sarong works better than a bedsheet, as there's some airflow through it. But it still doesn't work very well. Just spraying water as a fine mist into the air works better, as long as it isn't humid.

Taking a cool shower when you get too hot helps.

Going out and staying in larger buildings (e.g. at work or supermarkets) helps if the heatwave and power outage haven't been going for more than a few days.

Sleeping outside can be an option if insects and personal safety aren't problems in your area.

Agreed. I am also in Canberra, and tried both Optus and Vodafone before switching to Telstra. Vodfone had very poor coverage both in my home suburb and at my workplace (only a couple of kilometres from the city centre -- but probably affected by local hills). Even where the coverage seemed good, data speeds were very slow. Telstra has much more reliable and very much faster coverage, and better service these days, too.

Search for "scientific programmer". The HPC and CUDA bits are likely to be implied between the lines rather than mentioned in the ads.

You have rare and important skills for environmental modelling and I very much doubt you'd need prior experience specifically in that context to get a good job in a research support position. You'd be working with scientists with that experience and expertise, and using your own expertise to provide skills that they probably don't have.

Yes, you be in a research support position rather than a research scientist or lecturing position -- at least initially (people do move from one to the other, with or without PhDs). But the sort of work you say you want to do mostly sounds like a research support role rather than an academic role. it wouldn't make you a second-class citizen.

PS - OP, please leave a comment below if you'd like to get in touch with a scientific programmer or three who are working with oceanographers, so you can hear from them directly what the work is really like and how rewarding it is. I'll send you some contact details.

As an oceanographer, I absolutely agree. People with the OP's skills in the earth sciences rare and very highly valued.

These roles are not generally highly paid compared with what you could be getting in gaming, because research just doesn't pay as well as commercial work. On the other hand, there's a good chance you'll get to play with high level HPC and a near certainty that you'll be contributing in a very tangible way to research with public good outcomes.

Probably more valuable than becoming a researcher yourself would be to take on a research support role, and work with scientists. The job title might be something along the lines of "scientific programmer".

As a research student, you don't take classes, but you still cost money: almost certainly more than undergraduates cost, though you are doubtless also giving back a great deal of value through your productive research.

Costs include (at very least) the cost of your advisors' time (probably more time than you think), the cost of your office space and furniture, IT, HR, and HSE support and library services, as well as little things like access to counselling and other student/staff services. You may not use any of these much, but they need to be funded and there for you anyway. Probably also research operating costs and travel costs.

Ah but there's a danger in that. So many young men who move to OZ end up marrying Australians and never make it home. My husband is one of them :)

Don't forget that lots of highly skilled people want to work in another country for a while, but have no intention of living there permanently.

My brother in law worked happily in the US for a few years on well over $150K/year, but after he and his wife had a daughter, they wanted to move back to NZ to bring her up. He found a job back home (at a considerable paycut) and left the US after 4 years, 10 months. His US colleagues thought he was mad to leave a good job so close to getting a green card, but he had no interest in a green card. Living in the US forever had never been in his plan.

I have several other friends who have worked in the US for a year or three after getting their PhDs, just for some overseas experience before heading home. It's pretty common among younger, highly educated people.

I picked "slightly safer". It's much safer from accidental deletion or corruption, much less safe from hacking. It's probably slightly safer if anyone really wants to target me specifically (most of my data has no protection if you have physical access to my hardware). But for me, the biggest risk is accidental loss.