Undergrad asked me if sodium hydroxide makes an acid or a base.
I asked her to repeat the question because I thought I'd heard wrong.
Nope, I didn't hear wrong.
There are so many things wrong with being asked this question by a bio-major who has been working in a lab regularly I don't even-
Showing posts with label AHHHHH. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AHHHHH. Show all posts
20120403
20120201
20110910
Local insanity is insane
Dear all,
I am currently in lab, since the power outage from Thursday put me slightly behind schedule in terms of experiments, both in terms of actual experiment and in terms of equipment malfunction (sensitive equipment don't take well to sudden shut downs). The day had started off gloomy, moved toward sunny, and now the evening clouds have already crept in from the ocean. I am going to attempt to summarize the past week's events in the order that I remember them, which may seem random and definitely will not be chronological. You all have been warned.
Blogger's new posting window does the "save" thing automatically, much like Google docs, but somehow the lag is worse and so I end up pressing enter fruitlessly, trying to start a new paragraph, while the scripts are busy churning away, trying to store a snapshot of my typing, and then my cursor jumps to the start of the paragraph for no reason. It is annoying. Dear Blogger, please stop doing that.
The recovery from the blackout seems to be coming along fine. There are still traffic light malfunctions everywhere. It looks like any system that is tied to a timer is a little ditzy at the moment (and on Friday, all the outdoor lighting that's tied, I assume, to a digital -- as opposed to analogue -- timer that does not run on batteries was on the fritz -- as in all the night lighting were on during day time and that was interesting), but we have so far received no warning about the fragile system after Friday, and it looks like everything's still set to run on full power come Monday.
The side-view mirror from my car came this week. I got the first notice, in fact, on Thursday. I always get notice for these things since I am never home during normal working hours on weekdays, and they can never tell me exactly what time they were going to drop by (I can't exactly sit around all morning / afternoon waiting for one package), so am well familiar with the course of action required of me. Though I did refrain from calling Thursday evening since they keep all the records on computers and well, with the power out, even if they were diligent and didn't go home like the rest of us, they won't be able to pull out my record anyway. So: I called yesterday and have just picked up the mirror. It's currently sitting in the trunk of my car (the office for it is closer to lab than home). (Though on my way there I noticed a restaurant that declared "Japanese! American! Seafood! Chinese!" One of those is obviously not like the other. I was amused.)
...
It turns out the cursor only appears to be at the start of the paragraph, but when you type the font shows up at the right place. I am on Ivy right now, running Firefox 3.6.20 on Fedora 14. Dear Blogger, I do not understand.
...
Earlier this week I was ordering a copy of Persepolis (along with a set of jeweler's screwdrivers, heh) on Amazon when I realized that I have been talking about buying a nicer camera, which my parents did offer to do for me (then they talked to me and decided to get me a new laptop instead. Did I blog about that when they came over? I don't think I did. We had a joint almost-birthday thing -- belated for mine and early for mom but right on day for dad and they gave me a nice Dell laptop which I named Elev) for a really long time. And you know what? I have no idea why I haven't bought it yet. So: I ordered myself the Canon EOS camera that I've been crushing on for just over a year and a macro lens (with my obsession with plants this cannot come as a surprise to ...well, anyone) and that, everyone, would be very exciting indeed. Especially given that it's starting to look like that more people can make the Arizona trip over winter break and that Malvina would prefer a winter break trip and so I have Thanksgiving, which I refuse to spend ALL in lab (just most of it to make up for the time off that I'll now need at probably the end of December), so I'll probably go hiking somewhere nearby and play with my camera.
...
And now I'm home, having left lab to do grocery shopping, where I ran into a post-doc. This is not the 99-Ranch meeting of Chinese. My program has 4 predominant neurosci / genetics labs: I work in one, he and Wendy's best friend is in the other (our labs have a complicated sometimes collaborator, sometimes competitor atmosphere). He is French and the subject of much teasing when Wendy and I went over to borrow their guillotine tissue slicer and couldn't find it, in the sense that the girl we were with claimed that the French (man) stole it. (He didn't actually steal it. It was in a box with other boxes from another post-doc who left.) It was a health food store and I suppose that makes sense, given I see on him on the bus fairly regularly. I said "hi" and it was all very awkward, because I can never quite figure out how closely I must interact with someone before they remember me, and so must decide between accidentally ignoring someone who did remember me and creeping out someone who didn't. Luckily he remembered me, so that's one less Awkward Penguin in my zoo.
I've installed the new mirror (despite of the advertisement, the connectors aren't quite right, so I'm trying to figure out if I have the tools to slap on a new connector) on the car after that, and washed a lot of dishes and now I must go make dinner if I want to eat it by the time I get hungry. But before that I want to mention that Ivy's my carry-on "book" where I have it sync'ed to a lot of things and have a bunch of reading material there and Thursday night I did try to read HUNGER GAMES again (having downloaded a copy much earlier)...and quickly remember why I stopped: generally I don't like first person narratives, but I can tolerate it if I like the person OR the writing is really good OR the plot is really engaging. Katniss annoys me, the writing style is not what I would consider exceptional, and I failed to be wow'ed by the plot. So no, not for me.
There are some other things but a) I can't recall them off of the top of my head at the moment and b) FOOD! And I'm on Elev running Firefox 6.0.2 on Windows 7 and when I hit enter twice to start a new paragraph the cursor disappears, though the letters will show up at the right place afterwards. Dear blogger, I am confused.
I am currently in lab, since the power outage from Thursday put me slightly behind schedule in terms of experiments, both in terms of actual experiment and in terms of equipment malfunction (sensitive equipment don't take well to sudden shut downs). The day had started off gloomy, moved toward sunny, and now the evening clouds have already crept in from the ocean. I am going to attempt to summarize the past week's events in the order that I remember them, which may seem random and definitely will not be chronological. You all have been warned.
Blogger's new posting window does the "save" thing automatically, much like Google docs, but somehow the lag is worse and so I end up pressing enter fruitlessly, trying to start a new paragraph, while the scripts are busy churning away, trying to store a snapshot of my typing, and then my cursor jumps to the start of the paragraph for no reason. It is annoying. Dear Blogger, please stop doing that.
The recovery from the blackout seems to be coming along fine. There are still traffic light malfunctions everywhere. It looks like any system that is tied to a timer is a little ditzy at the moment (and on Friday, all the outdoor lighting that's tied, I assume, to a digital -- as opposed to analogue -- timer that does not run on batteries was on the fritz -- as in all the night lighting were on during day time and that was interesting), but we have so far received no warning about the fragile system after Friday, and it looks like everything's still set to run on full power come Monday.
The side-view mirror from my car came this week. I got the first notice, in fact, on Thursday. I always get notice for these things since I am never home during normal working hours on weekdays, and they can never tell me exactly what time they were going to drop by (I can't exactly sit around all morning / afternoon waiting for one package), so am well familiar with the course of action required of me. Though I did refrain from calling Thursday evening since they keep all the records on computers and well, with the power out, even if they were diligent and didn't go home like the rest of us, they won't be able to pull out my record anyway. So: I called yesterday and have just picked up the mirror. It's currently sitting in the trunk of my car (the office for it is closer to lab than home). (Though on my way there I noticed a restaurant that declared "Japanese! American! Seafood! Chinese!" One of those is obviously not like the other. I was amused.)
...
It turns out the cursor only appears to be at the start of the paragraph, but when you type the font shows up at the right place. I am on Ivy right now, running Firefox 3.6.20 on Fedora 14. Dear Blogger, I do not understand.
...
Earlier this week I was ordering a copy of Persepolis (along with a set of jeweler's screwdrivers, heh) on Amazon when I realized that I have been talking about buying a nicer camera, which my parents did offer to do for me (then they talked to me and decided to get me a new laptop instead. Did I blog about that when they came over? I don't think I did. We had a joint almost-birthday thing -- belated for mine and early for mom but right on day for dad and they gave me a nice Dell laptop which I named Elev) for a really long time. And you know what? I have no idea why I haven't bought it yet. So: I ordered myself the Canon EOS camera that I've been crushing on for just over a year and a macro lens (with my obsession with plants this cannot come as a surprise to ...well, anyone) and that, everyone, would be very exciting indeed. Especially given that it's starting to look like that more people can make the Arizona trip over winter break and that Malvina would prefer a winter break trip and so I have Thanksgiving, which I refuse to spend ALL in lab (just most of it to make up for the time off that I'll now need at probably the end of December), so I'll probably go hiking somewhere nearby and play with my camera.
...
And now I'm home, having left lab to do grocery shopping, where I ran into a post-doc. This is not the 99-Ranch meeting of Chinese. My program has 4 predominant neurosci / genetics labs: I work in one, he and Wendy's best friend is in the other (our labs have a complicated sometimes collaborator, sometimes competitor atmosphere). He is French and the subject of much teasing when Wendy and I went over to borrow their guillotine tissue slicer and couldn't find it, in the sense that the girl we were with claimed that the French (man) stole it. (He didn't actually steal it. It was in a box with other boxes from another post-doc who left.) It was a health food store and I suppose that makes sense, given I see on him on the bus fairly regularly. I said "hi" and it was all very awkward, because I can never quite figure out how closely I must interact with someone before they remember me, and so must decide between accidentally ignoring someone who did remember me and creeping out someone who didn't. Luckily he remembered me, so that's one less Awkward Penguin in my zoo.
I've installed the new mirror (despite of the advertisement, the connectors aren't quite right, so I'm trying to figure out if I have the tools to slap on a new connector) on the car after that, and washed a lot of dishes and now I must go make dinner if I want to eat it by the time I get hungry. But before that I want to mention that Ivy's my carry-on "book" where I have it sync'ed to a lot of things and have a bunch of reading material there and Thursday night I did try to read HUNGER GAMES again (having downloaded a copy much earlier)...and quickly remember why I stopped: generally I don't like first person narratives, but I can tolerate it if I like the person OR the writing is really good OR the plot is really engaging. Katniss annoys me, the writing style is not what I would consider exceptional, and I failed to be wow'ed by the plot. So no, not for me.
There are some other things but a) I can't recall them off of the top of my head at the moment and b) FOOD! And I'm on Elev running Firefox 6.0.2 on Windows 7 and when I hit enter twice to start a new paragraph the cursor disappears, though the letters will show up at the right place afterwards. Dear blogger, I am confused.
20110416
Forgot to turn off Zen before leaving for lab. Returned in the afternoon to use it and had it crash on me. Current report is that RAM overheated and only 20% is usable, with 64% of harddrive being still accessible. Have no access to any program besides Firefox & Windows explorer. Lost all files that were not backed up (including all my recent sketches and art projects but thankfully nothing academic). All the software / OS checked out intact as far as I am able to see. Short of reformatting everything there is nothing to be done at this point. Despite of the fact that I have gotten an "okay" from PI I still have not sorted out the paperwork with the funds manager and the VAIO that I have my eyes on is already on backorder to April 26th (it really is very shiny).
Yes, Ivy is still suffering from occasional glitches.
Yes, that means my most reliable comp power right now is Daemon.
Dammit. This is spectacularly bad timing.
Yes, Ivy is still suffering from occasional glitches.
Yes, that means my most reliable comp power right now is Daemon.
Dammit. This is spectacularly bad timing.
20110305
But why can't there be flying roombas?
Filling tax return when part of your income is from the the PI's university whatever-you-call-it and part of it is part of a NRSA training grant that's not included on W2s while your university also includes its tuition and the fee it has paid for those tuition also as a scholarship/grant (but it's not your actual income) is a nightmare from hell.
[edit 21:18]
Which means I'm done! Done!
[edit 21:18]
However, if you were a degree candidate, include on line 1 only the amounts you used for expenses other than tuition and course-related expenses. For example, amounts used for room, board, and travel must be
reported on line 1.
Which means I'm done! Done!
20091101
I...just...
Got a flat tire today. In addition to not knowing how to change a tire (someone really should teach me that, one day, before I try to navigate it on my own based on some print out from Google) (which will not end well) I know for a fact that I don't have the tools I need to change a tire.
Annie used to say, when these sort of things happen, that this just proves that there is a God and that He hates me. Although I, for the most part, remain agnostic, sometimes I have to wonder at fate's sense of humor.
[edit 11:09]
AND I just found out that the ATT account I thought I'd closed when I moved is still open and they are, apparently, still billing me. In addition to my current address's billing I mean. The phone system at ATT claims my number doesn't exist (no doubt due to the fact that I closed it) and the actual people who are in charge of this sort of thing work normal M-F hours.
[edit 12:13]
AND I think I have termites in the walls of my apartment. What the hell, life?
Annie used to say, when these sort of things happen, that this just proves that there is a God and that He hates me. Although I, for the most part, remain agnostic, sometimes I have to wonder at fate's sense of humor.
[edit 11:09]
AND I just found out that the ATT account I thought I'd closed when I moved is still open and they are, apparently, still billing me. In addition to my current address's billing I mean. The phone system at ATT claims my number doesn't exist (no doubt due to the fact that I closed it) and the actual people who are in charge of this sort of thing work normal M-F hours.
[edit 12:13]
AND I think I have termites in the walls of my apartment. What the hell, life?
20091016
This is a little appalling, but
I think I've had too much tea today, as that I am currently exhausted, unable to sleep and harboring a strong urge to scrub out the kitchen and the bathroom. Unfortunately I do not have bleach, which, in my current state of mind, seems like a minor tragedy. (No, you do not understand. Detergents contain bleach won't do it. I'm at the mindset where I need to pour liquid bleach into a large container and soak things in it so they'll be nice and disinfected.) Clearly what I need to do tomorrow morning, in addition to going to the lab to put away my in situ stuff and stow my slides at -20C, is to buy bleach. And tea, since I'm running low.
I'm on the 6th draft of my qual now. Not counting all the v3.2, 4.5 and so on that I've taken to doing (because the comments between the PIs on what I should change are almost always different).
Oh God. I've wanted to sleep since 8 this morning. What is wrong with me?
Yes that's rhetorical.
On the bright side, my current bout of insanity should end before Thanksgiving?
(Admittedly it's not just qual right now so much as qual + four different experiments of mine that keep on failing + Stuff In Beijing. It's a lethal combination that managed to do what GRE + grad school app + scholarship app + senior thesis + classes failed to do two years ago.)
(And you know what? I still think grad school is most likely the best thing to have ever happened to me. Clearly I am insane.)
I'm on the 6th draft of my qual now. Not counting all the v3.2, 4.5 and so on that I've taken to doing (because the comments between the PIs on what I should change are almost always different).
Oh God. I've wanted to sleep since 8 this morning. What is wrong with me?
Yes that's rhetorical.
On the bright side, my current bout of insanity should end before Thanksgiving?
(Admittedly it's not just qual right now so much as qual + four different experiments of mine that keep on failing + Stuff In Beijing. It's a lethal combination that managed to do what GRE + grad school app + scholarship app + senior thesis + classes failed to do two years ago.)
(And you know what? I still think grad school is most likely the best thing to have ever happened to me. Clearly I am insane.)
20091015
20090907
Panic rising
Okay, so drafts of the first three sections of my qual is due tomorrow and and I sent my stuff in last week and I STILL have not heard back from the PI yet (he needs to sign it before I can turn it in). I just sent him another email with the file attached. On one hand, I feel bad for bothering him on Labor Day. On the other hand, he is a known workaholic and I SENT IT TO HIM LAST WEEK, dammit.
TEA. This calls for tea.
[edit 13:58]
I GOT AN EMAIL BACK. (He's a workaholic. Yes.) THERE IS HOPE YET.
TEA. This calls for tea.
[edit 13:58]
I GOT AN EMAIL BACK. (He's a workaholic. Yes.) THERE IS HOPE YET.
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