The Official Bitch About Science Thread

[Dlx2]

I'll start.

I hate uploading files to manuscript central. It takes for fucking ever.

[Jest2Ask]

Where are the Flying Cars :D

[Garrett]

Where are the ai household robots?

[Quizalufagus]

We have flying cars (http://www.moller.com/) and AI household robots (http://store.irobot.com/home/index.jsp?camp=Yahoo%2520SSP). It's just that the former were never really a good idea and the latter aren't very smart yet. :D

[Mike PSS]

Metric reporting sucks. Then, when I do my work in metric someone asks for SI units because they can't do the conversion.

[Dlx2]

you know what I fucking hate?

ICZN. It's a bunch of retarded rules based in typological taxonomic convention that are constantly violated by both scientists AND biological systems. That and the whole "three steps to the left, and hop around on foot, except on alternate tuesdays, when you take three steps to the right and stand on your head" nature of the code.

[Matty]

you know what pisses me off? people who book laser time on my machines and then dont show with absol-fuking-lutely no reason why other than they are muppets who slept through the alarm. I'm an easy guy,a voicemail or email cancelling the apt with anything above a half hours notice, is all i ask, but its still to much for some.

You know what makes me happy? the look on their face when i tell them their notoriously grumpy prof is getting charged anyway so maybe they want to explain to him, before i see him next and have a word, that they overslept this morning and didn't even think to call in.

heheh, have a nice day, i hope the extra half hour in bed was worth it, dipshit.

[nygreenguy]

you know what pisses me off? people who book laser time on my machines and then dont show with absol-fuking-lutely no reason why other than they are muppets who slept through the alarm. Wow, i read this about 10 times and could have sworn you said "book laser on my time machines"


I was all excited you had a time machine.


But if I was to bitch, i hate the total lack of funding.

[Dlx2]

But if I was to bitch, i hate the total lack of funding.

Oh man, it looks like I've got full funding for the next two years.

/runs away from the lynch mob

[Matty]

i'm curently good till 2010, and we have a bunch of grants to write before then, but yeah it is a hassle for sure..

i wish i had a time machine, that would be pretty cool.

[Martin B]

I hate how publishing a certain number of things in a certain period of time makes you a good scientist in the eyes of the people who pay you to be a scientist.

[Martin B]

I hate how parsimony algorithms in phylogenetic analysis optimize character state distributions over nodes that are logical impossibilities.

[nygreenguy]

But if I was to bitch, i hate the total lack of funding.

Oh man, it looks like I've got full funding for the next two years.

/runs away from the lynch mob

heh. I want to be a professor, so the money in the education system to help train future scientists is also bleak.

But let me guess, you got a grant for that too. :D

[Dlx2]

I hate how parsimony algorithms in phylogenetic analysis optimize character state distributions over nodes that are logical impossibilities.

For fucking serious.

I just fucking hate PAUP in general.

[SteveF]

I hate how I'm probably never going to truly understand quantum theory.

[Dlx2]

But if I was to bitch, i hate the total lack of funding.

Oh man, it looks like I've got full funding for the next two years.

/runs away from the lynch mob

heh. I want to be a professor, so the money in the education system to help train future scientists is also bleak.

But let me guess, you got a grant for that too. :D

No, my advisor, who I start work with this fall, just said the three magic words:

"I have funding."

[Dlx2]

I hate how publishing a certain number of things in a certain period of time makes you a good scientist in the eyes of the people who pay you to be a scientist.

In the same vein, I fucking hate the Spencer Lucas debacle.

[SteveF]

Debacle? Aren't you being a bit generous there?

[nygreenguy]

Well, im not sure this is on topic, it relates more to science education as opposed to the science field but I hate how seemingly individualistic science is.

It seems to be about individual success and individual learning. Ive found in my limited time instructing how much better it would be if we promoted more "group think". Ive consistently seen students do better and learn more when they work together, even on things like quizzes. </anecdotal evidence>

I dunno, perhaps im crazy. I just think we need to change the way we teach science, and change our expectations.

[Dlx2]

Debacle? Aren't you being a bit generous there?

Perhaps. The Permian and Triassic people are all polarized over the whole thing, though.

[SteveF]

Perhaps. The Permian and Triassic people are all polarized over the whole thing, though.

I haven't looked into it in enough depth to be able to categorically state that Lucas is guilty. However, my impression is that the whole affair has been monumentally badly handled.

[Febble]

But if I was to bitch, i hate the total lack of funding.

Oh man, it looks like I've got full funding for the next two years.

/runs away from the lynch mob

Congratulations!

[Dlx2]

Well, im not sure this is on topic, it relates more to science education as opposed to the science field but I hate how seemingly individualistic science is.

It seems to be about individual success and individual learning. Ive found in my limited time instructing how much better it would be if we promoted more "group think". Ive consistently seen students do better and learn more when they work together, even on things like quizzes. </anecdotal evidence>

I dunno, perhaps im crazy. I just think we need to change the way we teach science, and change our expectations.

I think we need to do something to encourage collaboration, but I don't think that enforced group work is the solution. I always hated group work as an undergrad. My partners would invariably be either incompetent or lazy, and I'd end up doing all the work.

I love collaborative research, but I really can't stand group projects as part of class. I really don't think they teach you how to effectively collaborate.

What is effective is a weekly journal club.

[Goldie]

Medical Science can give you a new heart, cure diseases, make you beautiful... but they can't stop people from feeling pain very well. Not in the long-term anyway. What medications they have aren't very effective and they can have horrible side effects, including addiction.
Odds are you will be in severe pain in your life. For some of you it will not go away. Pain can be tolerated if you know it will end. It's an entirely different thing when you are sentenced to a lifetime of it. You think they can help you? Right now, they can't.
Frightening.
That is my bitch about science.

[nygreenguy]

I think we need to do something to encourage collaboration, but I don't think that enforced group work is the solution. I always hated group work as an undergrad. My partners would invariably be either incompetent or lazy, and I'd end up doing all the work.

I love collaborative research, but I really can't stand group projects as part of class. I really don't think they teach you how to effectively collaborate.

What is effective is a weekly journal club.

I understand, I didnt mean the typical "group project" stuff. I meant simply freeing it up for collaboration.

For example, in dendro I like to let the students work in groups or as one big group to identify a tree. Now, while many may see this as a crutch to learning, i found out that my class section did significantly better on their individual tests compared to the other group. It seems they wouldnt stress out as much, have much more confidence, and would overall learn more and appreciate the class more.

But group projects are often bullshit. I agree 100% on that.

And can I inquire to what a "weekly journal club" is?

[Dlx2]

Perhaps. The Permian and Triassic people are all polarized over the whole thing, though.

I haven't looked into it in enough depth to be able to categorically state that Lucas is guilty. However, my impression is that the whole affair has been monumentally badly handled.

I dunno. The Texas A&M crowd and the Parker-Nesbitt-Irmis triangle are obviously on one side of the table, but there's evidence that Lucas hopped the fence at Ghost Ranch and some other stuff, so who the hell knows. The main issue is turning NMMNH into a reputable journal rather than a citation mill, which is essentially what it is nowadays. I agree that the whole thing's been monumentally mishandled, and I'm not sure how much of that is due to the nebulous nature of science ethics charges in general, and how much of that is due to a bunch of folks eying up the position of head curator at the NMMNH. I wish that this hadn't been made so damned public, and so damned sensationalized. I mean, come on. "AetoGate"?

[Dlx2]

And can I inquire to what a "weekly journal club" is?

Get together with a bunch of people in your department with similar interests once a week and discuss a paper you all pre-selected the last week. Normally it helps if you're discussing the paper in context of methods.

[Matty]

eachlab has a journal club every week in our dept. people take it in turns to look up a relevent new paper to their research and present it for discussion. It highlights the importance of continued reading and of couse helps keep people current with new protocols and research directions related to their field. i've come across the odd one that does papers NOT related to their immediate field too, which i think is equally valid in terms of how to assess research you are not quite as comfortable with and read research papers critically in general.

i agree with your guys thoughts about collaboration vs competition FWIW. much as competitiveness is an essential part of the peer review process, i do think it is too far that way in lots of cases and crosses the line into being a hindrence rather than simply fostreing an intellectually stimulating and progressive environment.

[Dlx2]

eachlab has a journal club every week in our dept. peopl take it in turn to look up areleent new paper to their research and present it for discussion. It highlights he importance of continued reading and of couse helps keep peopl current with new protocols and research directions related to their field. i've come across the odd one that does papers NOT related to their imediate field too, which i think is eqully valid in terms of how to assess research you are not as comfotable with.

i agree on your guys thoughts about colabberation vs competition FWIW. much as competitiveness is an essential part of the peer review process, i do think it is too far that way in lots of cases and crosses the line into being a hindrence rather than an intellectually timulating environment.

Drunk on a Tuesday afternoon?

As far as collaboration goes, I think there's a general sense of distrust. Too many people think that if they share information at the start of a project, someone will scoop them. And they're probably right, for what it's worth. There's this idea that you damned well better be publishing things as fast as you can, and you damned well better have first authorship every time. Which is stupid, because you're more likely to get funded if you're in a research group, you're more likely to get more complete data if you're in a research group, etc. What I see as the right way to approach such things is to find a way that everyone has a critical part in the research, and work out authorships ahead of time, and make sure people are okay with the authorships they receive. also make sure you're addressing everyone's methodology concerns and also everyone's research questions to the extent that it is possible. There's a whole lot of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours," but you get research done a lot faster, and it's really worth it in the long run.

[Matty]

not drunk, just completely clumbidextrous (thanks for that golden term lucretious) when it comes to typing and you quoted before i could edit out my many fuckups,

thanks a bunch, now my cluttiness is on permenant record!! :D

and i tend to agree.

[Dlx2]

I think someone ought to sticky this thread so we have one consistent bitching thread.

Yes or no?

[Matty]

sure. consider it done.

[espritch]

What I hate are people who get legitimate science degrees and then prostitute themselves out to corporations as the goto guy whenever the corporations need a mouthpiece with letters in front of his name to argue that cigarettes aren't really dangerous or global warming isn't happening. S. Fred Singer (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer) has made a career of this, having shilled for both Phillip Morris as a cigarette health danger denier, and for Exxon as a global warming denier.

And then there are the ones that get degrees just so they can claim credentials to sell creationism.

[SteveF]

I dunno. The Texas A&M crowd and the Parker-Nesbitt-Irmis triangle are obviously on one side of the table, but there's evidence that Lucas hopped the fence at Ghost Ranch and some other stuff, so who the hell knows. The main issue is turning NMMNH into a reputable journal rather than a citation mill, which is essentially what it is nowadays. I agree that the whole thing's been monumentally mishandled, and I'm not sure how much of that is due to the nebulous nature of science ethics charges in general, and how much of that is due to a bunch of folks eying up the position of head curator at the NMMNH. I wish that this hadn't been made so damned public, and so damned sensationalized. I mean, come on. "AetoGate"?

I definately agree about "aetogate"! Why is it everyone always feels the need to append "gate" onto the end of every controversy. It was already tired by the time we got to its usage in zippergate and is now just a sign of lack of imagination!

Anyway, have you seen the latest response from Taylor et al? It's a formal response and "full rebuttal" to the DCA enquiry:

http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/nm/DCA-inquiry-response.pdf

http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/nm/Lucas-full-rebuttal.pdf

[hecaterin]

Medical Science can give you a new heart, cure diseases, make you beautiful... but they can't stop people from feeling pain very well. Not in the long-term anyway. What medications they have aren't very effective and they can have horrible side effects, including addiction.
Odds are you will be in severe pain in your life. For some of you it will not go away. Pain can be tolerated if you know it will end. It's an entirely different thing when you are sentenced to a lifetime of it. You think they can help you? Right now, they can't.
Frightening.
That is my bitch about science.Science, or politics?

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/asap/db(1).gif

[Don Alhambra]

The trouble is, hecaterin, that some people are in constant, chronic pain before they are on their deathbed. Like Treacle Worshipper (from IIDB), who woke up one morning and her legs didn't work. She has been in a wheelchair ever since. She can't walk for more than 10 minutes before collapsing in pain. She takes codeine every few hours for it. Morphine would be good, but increased doses of the stronger opiates don't really allow you to function in normal society.

My bitch about science is about experimental participants who either a) don't show up, b) show up but didn't read the exclusion criteria and are ineligible for the study or c) show up, do the study but are then revealed to have misunderstood or ignored the instructions, leading to rubbish data.

There is something to be said for the sciences where you don't have to measure people. People are too damn variable. :(

[Febble]

My bitch about science is about experimental participants who either a) don't show up, b) show up but didn't read the exclusion criteria and are ineligible for the study or c) show up, do the study but are then revealed to have misunderstood or ignored the instructions, leading to rubbish data.

There is something to be said for the sciences where you don't have to measure people. People are too damn variable. :(

Well, you coulda had quanta....

[Don Alhambra]

Meh, you can't measure them anyway. :p

I am reminded of a conversation we had a few years ago, in which you gently tried to demonstrate to me how graphs worked in psychology. :)

[Patient Skeptic]

I hate that people mistake science for technology. When people refer to the "evils of science," or profess to a distrust of scientists, they really mean the weapons that some build based on the discoveries of scientists.

[Mike PSS]

I hate that ultra-hard packaging, PTFE I think, that they wrap everything in at the store. You can't pop it open because they heat seal it so well so you need scissors. Then, when you cut the stuff it doesn't bend out of the way but cuts into your hands and fingers.

Some scientist inventor is laughing his ass off thinking "They bought it. They actually bought it. And RFID tags are cheaper and better for theft prevention." Sadist.

[SAWells]

I hate how the ideas that are so clear and obvious in my head turn out not to work in reality.

[Wolfie]

I hate research papers that start off "It is a well recognised fact that..." when it fucking isn't! One of these sent me on a merry trip along the garden path when I was postgrad. Fortunately I eventually got enough evidence together to blow away the myth of the 'well recognised fact...'

[Don Alhambra]

Nicely done.

My pet peeve is 'we have shown for the first time that...' or 'no other group has yet demonstrated this...'

Bollocks to you. Waste of words. If you're proud of what your group has shown, show it in your results and discuss why it's interesting, don't insert leading phrases. If it's the groundbreaking result you claim, it will be recognised as such.

I realise that I am speaking from the perspective of the naive postdoc who has yet to build a glittering academic career, but those kinds of phrases really turn me off.

[Ray Moscow]

I hate research papers that start off "It is a well recognised fact that..." when it fucking isn't! One of these sent me on a merry trip along the garden path when I was postgrad. Fortunately I eventually got enough evidence together to blow away the myth of the 'well recognised fact...'

This is a bit different, but when a text claims "it easily follows that ...", in my experience the demonstration path is not so easy.

[Don Alhambra]

That's a common complaint among physics undergraduate students (I was one myself): the words 'Clearly,' between steps in a complicated derivation invariably means 'I couldn't be bothered to put in the intermediate step', leaving much groaning and head-scratching in its wake...

[SAWells]

Nicely done.

My pet peeve is 'we have shown for the first time that...' or 'no other group has yet demonstrated this...'

Bollocks to you. Waste of words. If you're proud of what your group has shown, show it in your results and discuss why it's interesting, don't insert leading phrases. If it's the groundbreaking result you claim, it will be recognised as such.

I realise that I am speaking from the perspective of the naive postdoc who has yet to build a glittering academic career, but those kinds of phrases really turn me off.

Unfortunately you'll find that some journals specifically require that this sort of phrase appears in the opening of the paper.

[Don Alhambra]

Bah. Well, science is obviously rubbish then, and I shall have to get a job with Brain Gym (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education) whose slimy marketing of water and exercise to schools as 'neuroscience' happily contains no science whatsoever.

Yes, I am snarky today.

[Bright Life]

I hate it when some dick says "we've proven x," when said dick just happens to be in the field, but had absolutely nothing to do with the research.

[Quizalufagus]

That's usually just a collective 'we' (i.e., 'we' as in 'humanity'), no?

[Matty]

i usually hear it as "its been shown...." tbh.


Bah. Well, science is obviously rubbish then, and I shall have to get a job with Brain Gym (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education) whose slimy marketing of water and exercise to schools as 'neuroscience' happily contains no science whatsoever.

Yes, I am snarky today.

that was a good article. all kinesiologists should recieve a good slap op the head IMO.
You know i hate woo therapies in general especially in that kind of environment but it goes higher up too
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7134/full/446352a.html
which is another bug bear, when institutions like the University of Westminister piss away their integrity for easy cash by offering BSc's in Homeopathy and teh like. like that isnt a fucking contradiction.

i just hate the seeming credibility it gives the wooists, and for what?
its bound to cost more to put the record straight in the long term.

[Mike PSS]

all kinesiologists should recieve a good slap op the head IMO
Thems fightin' words Sirrah!!!

At least to my PhD father and PhD grandfather. Although they work(ed) in the ergonomic and man/machine interface side of the field.

Oh, a rant to stay on topic....

I hate it when my good idea leads to a literature/patent search and I find out that someone else did it in the 1930's.

Am I that out of touch?

[Dlx2]

I hate it when my good idea leads to a literature/patent search and I find out that someone else did it in the 1930's.

Am I that out of touch?

That's not a problem, it's an opportunity to retest the experiment using modern methods, which makes for a fucking cakewalk study and writeup, and absolutely no work at all.

So long as you lack any personal pride in your work, of course.

[Dlx2]

What I fucking hate are reviewers who suggest that you cite a bunch of their own papers, even though you omitted those papers because they sucked, and you figure that if you can't say something nice, you'd say nothing at all.

[Don Alhambra]

I never say that as a reviewer, because I have very few papers. :)

[Bright Life]

That's usually just a collective 'we' (i.e., 'we' as in 'humanity'), no?

Not in the case of the particular professor I have in mind. He actually acts like he's been involved.

Poseur.

[DrLight]

[QUOTE=Goldie;19396]Medical Science can give you a new heart, cure diseases, make you beautiful... but they can't stop people from feeling pain very well. Not in the long-term anyway. What medications they have aren't very effective and they can have horrible side effects, including addiction.
Odds are you will be in severe pain in your life. For some of you it will not go away. Pain can be tolerated if you know it will end. It's an entirely different thing when you are sentenced to a lifetime of it. You think they can help you? Right now, they can't.
Frightening.
That is my bitch about science.Science, or politics?

I cut the cartoon for brevity but i couldn't agree more. I think that we still need more "nuts & bolts" research into the actual functioning of the brain and nervous systems - especially the mechanisms that cover pain (mostly because I feel bloody selfish today).

[Don Alhambra]

I think that we still need more "nuts & bolts" research into the actual functioning of the brain and nervous systems

Sorry, I'll work harder. :p

Your point is taken though. Trouble is that basic research is a tricky thing to fund, because nobody knows if it's going to pay off or not.

[Dlx2]

I think that we still need more "nuts & bolts" research into the actual functioning of the brain and nervous systems

Sorry, I'll work harder. :p

Your point is taken though. Trouble is that basic research is a tricky thing to fund, because nobody knows if it's going to pay off or not.

Sort of. I think a great big part of the problem is that bureaucrats think that any research that doesn't have immediate payoffs is a waste of time. All research has a payoff eventually, so long as it is well-conducted. The question is what kind of payoff and how long from now that payoff will occur.

We're drastically underfunding basic research, though, and the US government seems to want to move even further from basic research into engineering-land.

Nothing against engineers, but you all are a bunch of lazy blowhards.

[Octavia]

I hate the HPLC, and how I trotted in to it, last weekend, all shiny-eyed with joy for my last day on that hideous machine, only to find that some fuckwit had been playing with it and buggered the whole thing up. Manuals scattered all over the place - what have you done to my machine, you bastard?!

Am still waiting to do my last few hours of hell.

[Mike PSS]

Sort of. I think a great big part of the problem is that bureaucrats think that any research that doesn't have immediate payoffs is a waste of time. All research has a payoff eventually, so long as it is well-conducted. The question is what kind of payoff and how long from now that payoff will occur.

We're drastically underfunding basic research, though, and the US government seems to want to move even further from basic research into engineering-land.

Nothing against engineers, but you all are a bunch of lazy blowhards.
Hey, we bring home the bacon. :D

I work mainly with forty to three hundred year old technology and ideas. Only in the controls/modelling arena am I working with fairly new stuff, and even that stuff is more than twenty years old academically.

Even basic research in engineering-land is hard to come by. The payback pressures are even greater. Not many people want to investigate new designs or even adapt new academic findings into workable technology. It's always for the "other guy" to bring the idea to market and only use it if it becomes "well established".

<rant>When I'm in charge things are going to change!!!!</rant>

[DrLight]

I think that we still need more "nuts & bolts" research into the actual functioning of the brain and nervous systems

Sorry, I'll work harder. :p

Your point is taken though. Trouble is that basic research is a tricky thing to fund, because nobody knows if it's going to pay off or not.

Sorry, like Goldie, I suffer from Fibromyalgia, which means I'm in pretty much constant pain. I've been told by medical professionals that there is so much that they don't know about the brain and how it processes information and signals.
But as others have said, the problem is the sort sighted suits that make the funding decisions, not the poor buggers on the coal face. Although legalizing cannabis would help an awful lot of people in pain.

[ofro]

I can't stand it when people claim in their paper that they found a "novel" effect or a "novel" mechanism. Let's just call it new. And presumably it will be obvious that it's not an old effect.

[judanne]

Hand sanitizer! Damned stuff 20x a day. Sore dry hands lotion only partially alleviates. Biohazards. <grumble>

[uberhobo]

I can't stand it when people claim in their paper that they found a "novel" effect or a "novel" mechanism. Let's just call it new. And presumably it will be obvious that it's not an old effect.

Heh, there's a couple of journals in chemistry that flat out bar you from using the word "novel" in your title.

[Matty]

Although legalizing cannabis would help an awful lot of people in pain.Yeah but two weeks after that first doob they'll be running around mugging old ladies to support their heroin addiction, wont they? ;)

cracks me up that they happily prescribe heavyweight drugs like methadone, and in doing so probably create a good few addicts, and yet the idea of someone smoking a doob for effect is oh so terrible becasue of teh "slippery drug slope"that we all know doent exist.

assholes.

[Bright Life]

Missing Post:

And it can causes major issues with short term memory loss, crap music taste,
short term memory loss, putting on weight from the munchies and short term
memory loss.

[Dlx2]

Things I hate about science, part three thousand, four hundred, ninety-five:

When you need a bioinformatics program, and the server it's hosted on has crashed.

[Matty]

i copped a decent zap off my cell sorter today

luckily i was in no major danger but it made me jump like fuck, gave me a five minute adrenalin buzz and made my hand tingle.

then when i checked it out looks like a line to the elstrostatic plates had come loose when the engineer was working on the thing earlier in the week. took me an hour to diagnose and threw my entire schedule out for the rest of the day.

cunt.

[Dlx2]

So, PNAS has a new web layout. While I think the hover-abstract javascript thing is sorta clever, the layout is really fucking ugly.

Really fucking ugly.

[SteveF]

Yeah, it's horrible. Really bad. Stupid PNAS.

I hate the hover thingy too. Intrusive. It's like those blogs where when your mouse briefly glances a link, it brings up a huge chunk of text from whatever the link is too. Gah.

[epepke]

The pay sucks. The politics are intense and petty because the stakes are so small. Getting funded is a bitch. Getting stuff when you are funded is a bitch. Everyone calls you Dr. Frankenstein, even after you sleep with them.

[barbara]

The pay sucks. The politics are intense and petty because the stakes are so small. Getting funded is a bitch. Getting stuff when you are funded is a bitch. Everyone calls you Dr. Frankenstein, even after you sleep with them.

I hate the way brilliant scientists say 'everyone' when they really mean 'a whole bunch of people who are not as smart as I.'

I've slept with you and never once called you Dr. Frankenstein:p

[Dlx2]

Oh man, I'm helping my advisor move into a vacated lab, and I've been looking over the unlocked cabinets full of old, unstably-reacting chemicals, the abandoned experiments left under the fume hood, and so forth. I have now come to the conclusion that I need to call in environmental hazards and get them to remove all this shit ASAP, because the whole thing is one serious safety risk.

It never dawned on my advisor to do something about this, either. I think I need to sit down with him and explain that chemicals reacting randomly is BAD.

[ninewands]

The pay sucks. The politics are intense and petty because the stakes are so small. Getting funded is a bitch. Getting stuff when you are funded is a bitch. Everyone calls you Dr. Frankenstein, even after you sleep with them.

I hate the way brilliant scientists say 'everyone' when they really mean 'a whole bunch of people who are not as smart as I.'

I've slept with you and never once called you Dr. Frankenstein:p
Maybe you're smarter than he is! ;)

[Bright Life]

The pay sucks. The politics are intense and petty because the stakes are so small. Getting funded is a bitch. Getting stuff when you are funded is a bitch. Everyone calls you Dr. Frankenstein, even after you sleep with them.

I hate the way brilliant scientists say 'everyone' when they really mean 'a whole bunch of people who are not as smart as I.'

I've slept with you and never once called you Dr. Frankenstein:p

Barbara, for years, epepke has tried to explain his alpha male theories so that those who put themselves in what he calls the "beta male" position can learn from his example. This has not been received well. Mostly, I think, because people assume it is meant as boastful exaggeration rather than helpful advice.

He's a friend of mine, so I know he means well, but, we're not *that* close *wink wink*. Perhaps you could give another viewpoint?

[Matty]

i returned from a week in the staes to a total shit storm at work and a ton of backlog that was kindly left for me to sort out when i got back. when i get all that shit out of the way i can start doing some actual science again.

i also this morning had to set a rather defensive prof straight regarding a (wrong) fluorochrome she used and wouldnt believe it was what i was telling her, adamant as hell it was totally something different. Then when i produced and printed the the full fucking spectra of whatever was in the samples (and it happened to agree with what i had said it looked like down the scope in the first place) she stalks off muttering about mis-labelled reagent tubes and not a fucking word of apology or thanks. gah.

[judanne]

i returned from a week in the staes to a total shit storm at work and a ton of backlog that was kindly left for me to sort out when i got back. when i get all that shit out of the way i can start doing some actual science again.

i also this morning had to set a rather defensive prof straight regarding a (wrong) fluorochrome she used and wouldnt believe it was what i was telling her, adamant as hell it was totally something different. Then when i produced and printed the the full fucking spectra of whatever was in the samples (and it happened to agree with what i had said it looked like down the scope in the first place) she stalks off muttering about mis-labelled reagent tubes and not a fucking word of apology or thanks. gah.Oh boy, was my week eerily similar, only I got a double shot of it Thursday and Friday. There are some (very few, mind you) who simply refuse to accept that they've made a mistake and woe betide ye if you have to be the one to inform them. :rolleyes:

[Matty]

i know eh. the bane of the core facility. This one in particular is fairly notorious for it, i've heard similar reports from both the EM and mass spec guys.

i often wonder why they question it other than simple pride, i mean there is no vested interest to me in cutting an exp short. in fact the opposite as i get less user fees. i;d much rather do a full exp and send peopl back to their labs happy, its not like i'd nuke the exp for shits and giggles but sometime they just dont see that. just cant accept that they fucked up and were saet straight by a lowly tech type.

the other one comparable one i had was a phd student who bought me what were clearly GFP +ve cells labelled with fluorescein and simply wouldnt believe that his cells were GFP and that he'd fucked the exp. Took a whole bunch of extra controls of the same lineage but non transfected, borrowed in haste from another lab to show him that his "unlabelled cells" were actually bright green before he accepted that he had used the wrong ones. dickhead.

beset by muppets on all sides, and you cant even give them a wake up slap these days. :)

[Bright Life]

http://images.wikia.com/muppet/images/f/f1/Bunsenbeakerpaperclips.jpg

"These are clearly not cells of any kind!"

[BioBeing]

Heh, Matty, I forgot you worked in a core facility. I do to. Fucking clients are the bane of any core facilities life! btw - are you in ABRF? Their meeting is in Memphis next Feb., and I'll probably be hosting a protein purification workshop in my lab.

Right now, I'm babysitting a fermentor as I try to feed it at just the right rate to get the E. coli to grow to an OD of 100 without imploding. All going well so far (OD about 30), I'll be out of here by 1 or 2 am. All not going well, it'll still be almost as late, but I'll have to do it all over...

[judanne]

i know eh. the bane of the core facility. This one in particular is fairly notorious for it, i've heard similar reports from both the EM and mass spec guys.

i often wonder why they question it other than simple pride, i mean there is no vested interest to me in cutting an exp short. in fact the opposite as i get less user fees. i;d much rather do a full exp and send peopl back to their labs happy, its not like i'd nuke the exp for shits and giggles but sometime they just dont see that. just cant accept that they fucked up and were saet straight by a lowly tech type. I think that's probably part of it. Could be they've invested a fair bit of time and/or grant money on a given experiment and find it hard to accept that it's botched and it's their own fault, not someone else's. Fortunately, it's fairly rare that someone behaves like a complete ass. Today there were no flies in my Chardonnay. Good in fact. Some experimental imaging with unusual conjugates and matrix. Interesting and challenging. The imaging turned out better than I expected.

the other one comparable one i had was a phd student who bought me what were clearly GFP +ve cells labelled with fluorescein

people still use fluorescein?

ETA: <occurs to me later you prolly mean FITC...smacks self upside the head :D>

and simply wouldnt believe that his cells were GFP and that he'd fucked the exp. Took a whole bunch of extra controls of the same lineage but non transfected, borrowed in haste from another lab to show him that his "unlabelled cells" were actually bright green before he accepted that he had used the wrong ones. dickhead.

beset by muppets on all sides, and you cant even give them a wake up slap these days. :)It can be frustrating. Last week it was an insistence that the instrument (Chameleon laser) was malfunctioning or maladjusted and that this was the reason there was a weak signal in the blue channel. The instrument was functioning just fine and optimized correctly. It was tempting to remove her live cells from the stage, put a test specimen on and show her how well it was working, but I wasn't about to get into a pissing contest with her. As it happened others confirmed what I was telling her but she still wasn't very happy when she left, probably thinking we're all incompetent. I try not to let stuff like that colour an otherwise pleasant day though :)

[Matty]

heh. missed this thread for a while. Hey fellow core facility types. :wave:

yeah i dont let it bother me for the most part, the actual dickheads are pretty rare, and I am actually having a great week. we just did a publication sweep of all the groups in the uni we do work for (with regards to a grant application for more new toys, yay) trying to see how many papers/projects we've contributed to and are acknowledged in since we revamped the facility when i started 5 yrs back, and it was way more than we thought. 50-60 broad ranging papers done or pending in decent journals, plus 100+ abstracts and phD theses.

Its bits like that that are the awesome aspect to managing a core facility. I dont care about actual authorships, (i have a few but no 1sts from previous jobs) but i do adore the feeling that we have helped so many diverse projects on their way to completion. I am truly sciences bitch, but i do love it.


BB, wont be doing any more trips this year i'm afraid, i spend a week in Penn recently playing with all the new toys Leica have to offer so have spent my course and conference allowance till next year. Tbh i usually save it for the N American ISAC or Cell Biology meetings anyway.

Eta. Honestly, i didnt even know ABRF but having just had a quick look at the site, it seems like a great premise. I shall have a deeper look and may well be member before the day is up. Do they have imaging and FACS guys in there or is it typically more molecular arrays facilities and the like? Thanks for the heads up, well worth a look.


Eta you have a Chameleon 2P Judanne?. Nice. We spend a bit of time bitching at our older Tsunami but it is still pretty good fro the most part, I would dearly love however to simply dial in a wavelength rather than have to walk the prisms each time. Luckily we only really regularly use the 780-840 range :)

[BioBeing]

ABRF is mainly molecular (sequencing) and mass spec right now, but as cores are becoming more diverse, they are trying to cater to them too. Protein Production was really only added a few years ago. Not sure if they have much imaging at the mo.

Nice thing for me about this next one is it is right at home. No need to travel, which means I get to go somewhere else too! I normally get to do two conferences per year, so next year I might get an extra... but that means extra traveling (and leaving my family), so maybe I'll just stay home.

[Matty]

i see they have an imaging and microscopy section on the research fields part of the application.

For less than 100 bucks i will join anyway it might even give em a nudge.
I'd actually love to visit proper blues country. Penn was my first visit to the States proper (other than 20miles across the border type stuff) and i at least realised that Y'all do have some decent beer if you look for it. :))

[BioBeing]

I'd take you to Boscos is you made it here, and BB Kings...

I need to get to the Blues thread as I used (before kids) to be quite into that. But I mainly browse here while at work, and can't access YouTube...

[judanne]

Eta you have a Chameleon 2P Judanne?. Nice. We spend a bit of time bitching at our older Tsunami but it is still pretty good fro the most part, I would dearly love however to simply dial in a wavelength rather than have to walk the prisms each time. Luckily we only really regularly use the 780-840 range It's been a while since I visited this thread, but yeah Matty, we have a Chameleon. We've had some stability issues in the min & max tunable range (720-920) and had to have the service dude come up from California to re-calibrate it, but otherwise it works pretty well and doesn't give us any trouble.

...now for my bitch: I'll have to remember to add "rogue mouse capture" to the list of skills on my cv. We have a live animal bioluminescence setup here and every once in a while the isoflurane delivery system goes on the blink (or is improperly used) and just when you think the mice are immobilized and sleeping they're actually running madly around inside the black box. They seem to want to hide underneath the stage which has to be raised up to get them out. It has a vinyl cover so that you can't actually see where the mouse is when it's under there. You just have to feel around (quickly I might add) with your hand until you've got it by the tail so you can extricate the poor wee thing. Now I like "nude" rodents as much as the next person, but I'm really not all that fond of sticking my hand into a black box when I can't see what the little fella is up to...gnashing its teeth and getting ready to bite my finger maybe? Well probably more likely to be cowering in the corner as this giant latex covered hand fumbles around after it but, just the same I'd rather not get bitten. We're biohazard level 2 so we don't have human pathogens on board...still, not sure I'd want to get bitten. Done bitching now I'm going home :)

[GenesisNemesis]

God, I hate Bill Nye.

[Sylvanspirits]

God, I hate Bill Nye.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjpVQbNpGKo

[Matty]

No way. I guess Bill Nye is the American Johnny Ball. Just with more budget by the looks of it, unless they spent it all on hte opening sequence of course. .

http://www.yorkshirewater.com/resources/library/3027.jpg