| So, guess who isn't dead. This is much more in line with what I expect from Bioware than that cheesy Manson trailer for Dragon Age.
Oh, Mass Effect 2. Spring 2010 just can't come quick enough. | comments: Tell me where to stick it   |
| I was making a graph in Excel today out of numbers between 0 and 2. After going through the chart wizard I had a line that suddenly jumped from about 0.8 to over 1000. I fiddled with it for longer than I care to admit, unable to figure out what was wrong, until...
...I remembered that Europeans write "eight tenths" as 0,8. Apparently Excel isn't too bothered by numbers less than 1, but it was reading 1.012 as 1,012 and that's no good.
*mutters darkly* You know, there are times when I really get sick of the nuisance of living abroad and I just want to go home to where I know how to work the damn computer. | | comments: 4 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| It's beautiful sunny weather today: warm with a pleasant breeze. A group of little blond children sit dabbling their toes in the water of a canal, eating ice cream cones. Nearby a young couple in a small boat are holding hands, Dutch flag flapping merrily above the stern. Seagulls fly, elderly folks carry groceries, and everywhere are scenes of peace and happiness.
Quick! Someone deputize a Dutch Normal Rockwell and get him to Haarlem, stat! If I've ever seen a day that should be painted, it's today. :) | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| I must not hurry.
Haste is the experiment-killer.
Haste is the little mistake that brings catastrophic fuckups.
I will face my impatience.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the UV filter to see my data.
Where the impatience once was, there will be nothing.
Only kickass results will remain. | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| Cost of DNA sequencing per sample: $5
Average number of samples per batch: 10
Average number of batches per hour at the AMC: 15
Hours in a working day: 8
Days in a week: 7
Weeks in a year: 52
Total: $2,184,000/year
Might be more, might be less. I guesstimated the average number of samples and batches per hour based on what I see in the logbook when I drop my own samples off.
If anything, though, I suspect that number is conservative. Pricey! :P | | comments: 3 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| I heard a story on the radio the other day I haven't been able to get out of my head since. It was about false confessions- people confessing to a crime they didn't do, which apparently happens more often than you think. The case in point was a totally normal, suburban 14-year-old who confessed to the brutal murder of his little sister (DNA later exonerated him). No, the cops didn't beat it out of him. Aside from lying to the kid's parents about the interrogation, the police didn't even do anything illegal. Ethically shady perhaps, but not illegal. The entire interview that led to his confession was recorded and played on the radio. This is how it happened.
( Read more... ) | | comments: 4 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| I spent my entire morning setting up a colony PCR, which allows you to screen bacterial colonies for the presence or absence of a certain DNA sequence. This takes a loooong time. Normally I can get at least two or three procedures done, but colony PCR always takes up the whole fucking day. And this is why:
( Read more... )
Anyway I've had to do like 6 of them in the past two weeks, so I thought I was entitled to whine just a little. ;) | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| All right, this thing with the economy is getting out of hand.
Everything I read or watch is about the recession. It isn't just Senator Grandstand McDouchebag and his suicide tips for executives anymore. Supernatural did an episode about the recession. On the Neverwinter Nights forum, where a certain adventure pack has had its release delayed for two years, forum trolls are making jokes about Atari investing money with Madoff.
This is how I can tell that things have reached critical mass. Fanboys of role-playing games on the internet are invoking Ponzi schemes to troll forums. In any other time, these guys wouldn't know a CDO from their OCD. (Neither would I. A few month ago I called to ask my mother what a Fonzie scheme was, thusly confusing, once again, large-scale fraud with "Happy Days".)
Clearly, the apocalypse is nigh. I hope the economy gets better just so financial references get less ubiquitous. | | comments: 4 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| A few weeks ago, my supervisor ordered growth plates with antibiotics on them from the downstairs lab, with the idea that it would save me the time and effort of spreading antibiotics myself. We'd already tested the concentration, so we knew the dosage was correct... and I figured that if a professional was making the plates, there'd be less chance of a mistake than if I made them myself.
It now looks like the plates were not correctly made, and the insufficient antibiotic concentration has been screwing up my experiment for weeks.
Honestly, I'm not sure whether to be relieved (that this was the problem and it's not directly my fault) or really pissed (that some idiot screwed up a simple task and has caused me weeks of frustration). Is it worse to lose time because of a mistake you yourself made, or is it worse when it someone else's fault? I guess I feel it doesn't matter much, but it will be really great if the damn transformation finally works this time. If I get colonies (not confluent growth or nothing at all) I'll be too pleased to care whose fault it is.
Plus, as my boss pointed out, I should have tested the batch of plates we ordered instead of just checking the first one I'd made myself. "This is an important lesson on the value of negative controls, lack of which has cost you two weeks," she said, and she's absolutely right. Therefore I find myself feeling foolish rather than relieved or pissed, even if it wasn't directly my fault. But it wasn't in the protocol and it was frankly inconceivable to me that an experienced professional might make a mistake doing something as simple as this. Apparently, the people we order the plates from screw up all the damn time... but naturally, no one thought to mention that to me until now. :P
Let's just hope it works this time. It'd be really nice to be able to move on to new stuff, instead of repeating the same damn step ad infinitum. | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| | Subject: | oops | | Time: | 10:51 am |
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| Hey, kids: guess what happens when, early on a sleep-deprived Monday morning, you forget to add buffer to your agarose before putting it in the microwave.
Hint: The answer involves a sticky, smoldering brown mess and a disturbingly appetizing roasted-marshmellow smell! | | comments: 2 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| I couldn't sleep very well last night. I lay awake for an undetermined amount of time, and then eventually fell asleep. Or at least I think I did.
See, during that few hours of rest, I dreamt I couldn't sleep. So I'm not sure if I actually was asleep and dreaming I was awake, or if I was largely awake and am now merely confused by exhaustion. Or perhaps I dozed on and off and therein lies the puzzle.
:P | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| The Northern Ireland violence is really tragic... first those two soldiers (who looked impossibly young even to me, and I'm not that old), now a policeman. Things have been going well there long enough that I figured the age of the IRA was truly over.
Thoughts and prayers to the people of Northern Ireland and the families of the victims. :( | | comments: 2 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| Some spoiler-free thoughts:
If you haven't read the Watchmen graphic novel (a term which I've always found silly, but it applies here), you must surely do so. Firstly, it is an excellent and thought-provoking story. Secondly, while the movie was much better than I expected, they committed the cardinal sin of film adaptations: they changed the ending. Not a lot, mind you. The outcome is still the same. But they changed it just enough to diminish its perfect irony, the "big joke" that is the premise of the story. Also... the best moment for me in the comic was when the archvillain reveals his evil plan, and I couldn't help but think "You know... that would probably work." The movie version of the plan MIGHT have worked, but it was way less of a sure thing.
Some other minor things that bugged me: the first half of the movie was awesome, but I couldn't help but feel the second half was a bit rushed. Too much unfolds too quickly, with less background and explanation than you get in the comic. Also, Silk Spectre II can't act for shit. All the other actors did pretty well, and some were even great (the Comedian), but whoever played Silk Spectre just did not do a very good job. This is a shame, because while Silk Spectre is not the most important character, she plays a critical role in some of the comic's most moving scenes. These scenes were decidedly less evocative in the movie as a result.
So... yes, I've turned into one of those comic fans who nitpicks every detail of a perfectly good movie. But allow me to point out that Watchmen, which I've only read once, is the only graphic novel to ever inspire such loyalty in me. It is truly an excellent story. Watchmen has been called the "Unmakeable Movie" because of its deep characterization, complex time-traveling plot and extra-dark theme. Given the many pitfalls of making a film from such a story, the Watchmen movie does extraordinarily well. (The soundtrack in particular really added a lot.) But it's not as good as the comic, which you should read. :) | | comments: 2 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| xkcd.com is hilarious!
Also hilarious: Onion-Span! (Like C-Span, but sillier: these guys advocate absurd ideas while doing uncanny impressions of politicians.) | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| There is definitely something weird going on with my vision today. It started on the train, where I was half-dozing. Upon opening my ideas there was a sort of shapeless colorful blur just off center of my sight. I blinked, rubbed my eyes. It didn't go away. The phenomenon persisted as I continued my morning commute, sometimes changing shape slightly or drifting from left to right. Eventually it settled into a kind of blurry halo at the edge of vision, like a camera with water on its lens. I begin to worry. What if I had a brain tumor? (All right, I'm a fool. I start to see blurry and my first thought is OMG TEH BRAIN TUMOR!1! I guess I'm just the worst-case scenario type.) What if this was the first symptom of an emerging neurological disorder, like MS? And then my head started to hurt.
It hurt in a very familiar way: unilateral, throbbing. This is how my migraines start out, though not all headaches develop into migraines in the end. This was thoroughly in the "too soon to tell" stage, but then I remembered that some migraine sufferers experience what's called an "aura" just before getting one. I've never had this happen before, so I had no idea if this blurry colorful irritation on my periphery qualified as an aura. But it did make sense, and as far as explanations go, it beats brain tumor hands down. And sure enough, as the metro chugged its slow-ass way towards its destination, my head began to throb worse and worse. It eventually achieved "will probably become migraine" status, so I said a little prayer to the god of migraine relief and took some Relpax.
This kept the headache from getting any worse, but it did nothing at all for the "aura" (if that's what it was). Turns out it's very hard to see what you're doing with that odd blurriness distracting you all the time... I'm lucky I didn't accidentally set myself or the lab on fire. The disturbance continued to annoy the bejesus out of me until well into the afternoon.
The whole experience was definitely a little freaky. Does this mean I get auras with my migraines now? Do non-aura migraines become aura migraines over time? I'll have to do a little more googling once I get home tonight. | | comments: 6 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| My problem is that I've totally lost the ability to not condescend to people in biological matters. Take this evening's attempt to explain the process of making knock outs to Tijs.
"Okay, well, you know how homologous recombination works, right?"
*blank stare*
"All right, then do you remember the difference between meiosis and mitosis?"
*blank stare*
"Well, does haploidy and/or diploidy mean anything to you?"
*blankness continues*
I want to emphasize that this is not Tijs' fault. Tijs is a very scientifically savvy dude, particularly given that he's never studied science. I have simply lost any capacity for remembering what non-biologists consider to be common knowledge. Intro to Genetics was forever ago for me, and is so instrumental to my daily life that sometimes I forget that knowing the difference between purines and pyramidines, or even between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, is not essential information for most people. Not only does it make me hard to understand (no wonder I have such trouble talking about work with my mother), I strongly suspect it makes me come across as dreadfully condescending at times.
This is very unfortunate, because I love to talk about biology, and condescension hardly facilitates that goal. Complicating the matter is that I had a very poor high school education, except (as it turns out) for my biology class. I floundered in most subjects after getting to college, which led me to develop this idea that "If I remember learning it in high school, it must be common knowledge to everyone". Except that not everyone takes biology in high school, and many of those who do don't give a damn and ergo remember little of it later. Turns out that my having learned something in high school has little impact on whether other people know what the hell I'm talking about.
So I want to apologize to anyone I've come across as snooty to. It's strictly unintentional, and I genuinely do like to talk about my school/work... please consider giving me another chance in the future. :) | | comments: 3 stickits or Tell me where to stick it |
| I've been trying not to bitch too much, but the past week at school has been immensely frustrating. I have these two... well, long story short, things that need to be done and can't continue onwards until at least one works properly. I spent all last week repeating the same procedure over and over (said procedure constitutes about a day's work). And now, on attempt number 5, the stupid piece of junk STILL refused to behave.
*takes calming sip of tea*
The only comfort is that whatever's going wrong probably isn't my fault. Other researchers have had similar problems with this procedure, and I know it isn't some obvious protocol error because the other samples are fine.
One day I'll write my scientific memoir and this will be the character-building, funny part. In the meantime, I'll settle on renaming my lab notebook "The Chronicle of Shame". | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| It seems this morning's plane crash near Amsterdam was worse than originally reported over the radio. Bystanders originally said the plane was in one piece and several passengers could be seen calmly walking out of the wreckage. But CNN has a quote suggesting that the plane did in fact break up, though it did not catch fire, and that several passengers are dead. :(
What is it with the last month and plane crashes? | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
| | Done! *seals envelope* I'll send it off tomorrow. It's going to feel very good to have that application all finished... that shit has been stressing me out. | | comments: Tell me where to stick it |
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