We got a new spectrophotometer at work a couple of weeks ago. It’s the greatest spectrophotometer I’ve ever seen! This thing is the Rolls Royce of specs. It’s got a footprint smaller than a toaster. Operating it is just sheer elegance - you load one microliter (ONE MICROLITER!!!) of sample on the pedestal, drop the arm, and press a button. In seconds, it measures a full absorbtion spectrum and displays it on the computer, where you can pick any wavelength you want. Even cleanup is a breeze - just wipe the pedestal off and you’re done. No removable cuvettes, no need for a vacuum to remove the sample. Oh, and no need to dilute any samples! It can handle DNA soluitions up to about an A260 of 60-something. It’s a thing of beauty.
Trust me on that.
It’s replacing our old crappy spectrophotometer, which was about four times as large, required 60 microliters of sample at an A260 between 0.1 and 1.0, used a removeable cuvette that had to be kept clean and sucked dry with a vacuum, and, oh yes, liked to reset itself periodically, so you’d get absorption readouts of about -3. Piece of crap. Also, the manufacturer just charged us about $1000 to change the light bulb in it.
I’ve needed to brag about this thing for some time now, but I don’t know anyone who could possibly care. So, if you’ve got something to brag about that no one will understand, do it here!
One microliter? Daaaaamn. Rest assured, Smeghead, I am duly impressed. And with a footprint smaller than a toaster? How tall is it? More to the point, how much did this thing cost?
As for me, I’d like to brag about the time I saved the ship from certain destruction. See, we encountered this massive energy storm in sector 5923, and it polarized the plasma flow in all our EPS conduits. The warp core was losing magnetic containment, so I inverted the plasma manifolds and recalibrated the magnetic gyrodyne relays, while simultaneously using the structural integrity field as an energy dump for the buildup in the port nacelle. That gave us enough stability to warp to a safe distance. Man, that was great.
I love having this level of understanding of technobabble …
My new Zojirushi rice cooker is fan-tas-tic. I bought it mainly because my old one was getting long in the tooth and it was too big. This new one is much smaller and it’s as cute as a button (actually it looks a lot like a Toyota Prius from the back). What I didn’t expect was that it would cook rice about five times better than the old model. The rice comes out absolutely perfect, plump and fluffy and appetizing. The new machine is a whiz to clean, too.
The front shock on my bike is messed up. Its compressing way too easy, losing about 80% of travel then firming up before bottoming out. Rode it through a technical rock garden yesterday evening and it was miserable, no control whatosever on rocky drop -offs, capped off with me stacking it and twatting my knee on a rock. :mad:
The funny thing is that the air pressure in the shock is bang on, 170psi which is perfect for a rider of my weight. So whats going on?
The most likely explanation is that the air piston is out of position and needs resetting. Trouble is, thats a job for a shop as an unusual castle tool is required that I don’t have, or know how to use even if I did have it. I hate putting the ride into the shop, they’re good wrenches but they don’t ride leftys so don’t have a real intuitive grasp on their performance.
Before things went pear-shaped the shock was exceptional, probably the best XC medium travel shock on the market (had to get some bragging in!).
Today I am auditing like a motherfuck. I have a study here with three radiolabels and two types of test systems so its really like six studies all rolled up into one but I am flying through the preliminary study doing both radiolabeled cyclopropane labels (cis- and trans-) AT THE SAME TIME. I rock.
That seems a little odd. Mine gets 5,440 rods to 0.0158730158730158 or so Hogsheads. That is unless I am being aggressive and then I can get down to about 4000 rods. I have an SUV though. YRMV.
Ooh. I had an amazingly geeky moment the other day, which I was incredibly proud of: I drew a near-perfect comparison between Achilles (of the Iliad), Ajax (of the Sophocles’ play), and the ‘founding fathers’ of the American revolution. Achilles and Ajax both, in a very stripped-down analysis, had something they thought they deserved taken away from them, and threw some form of tantrum about it. The Founding Fathers, with the whole tea thing, essentially went through the same thing.
That sounds like such a splendirific machine that I think I want one. I’ve only operated really, really crappy ones, say one you would find in a HS chemistry class.
IIRC, it was a single beam spectrophotometer that measured the absorbtion rates of solutions. It required cuvettes and was so sensitive (aka “crappy”) that we had to use brand new ones every single time. It also required quite a big sample, probably somewhere in the the 5-10 mL range, or an entire cuvette. Diluted, no doubt. I don’t remember what spectrum it measured - probably visible or near UV. It, of course, used a monochromator instead of photosensors to detect the absorbtion rates, since cheapness was it’s reason for existance.
To operate, we had to drop in a substance of known absorbtion rate, calibrate the damn thing, twist several dials around, place in our unknown diluted sample, and dick around waiting for a read out. The read out was a slightly-retro dial, like something you would see on the dash of a '57 Bel Aire, with a highly subjective arm that meant you could only really get a precentage in the integer range.
By the way, if I may ask, what’s your job at the moment? For me, after this week I get the official title of 12th Grade Student. Snazzy, I’d say.
I can prime a dialysis machine very quickly with little or no foam in the blood lines. If someone else’s machine has foam, I know how to get rid of it for good. If the air detector alarm will not reset, I know how to clean the photo sensor so that it will cease giving off a false alarm. Of course, if it is a true blood leak, I will perform the test accurately and protect the patient from contamination, per common sense and protocol.
I’m very proud to say that, at age ~50, I still managed a longline deep this w/e. My tumbles sucked, as I had touble rolling off the sweet spot when on a boom-&-bridle. I also managed 5 and 1/2 @ 15-off on an old F3 (Hey, I said I was old… gimme a break… at least I got the gates…). My son is still perfecting his front-deeps, but he’s young. He’s wasting too much time on w2w’s and tantrums, and not enough time on the righteous stuff like offsides, preturns, and setting up for the pull. (I swear… the kids these days)
If you need an FBA on a kid with AU, ASD or CD I’m really good. I’m great at identifying unseen precursor antecedents and desiging BIPs that are easy for staff to implement. DRI, DRO, DROP, DR-Alt - I’m there with a schedule that works for your meatware.
I’m also great at looking at ADL’s and modifiying them for the future.
And if you are doing a CST or IEP I’m great at PLAAFPS, MAGs and STOBS. I’m particularly good at STOBS since when I was a TCM I taught and edited the DDCPT. And my years of experience in translating what OSEP writes in IDEA and the state of Montana ARMS.
But I hate working with SIB’s.
whistlepig, who prides himself on his ability to make all this stuff understandable in trainings.
My old boat was a forgiving, do-it all river runner but had too much volume in the ends for serious play. Since getting my new boat with it’s slicier ends and lower volume, I’m getting flatspins on waves, learning some in the hole moves and stern squirting like a madman. Pretty good for an old geez.
I achieved the perfect shade of pink – halfway between carnation and tawney orange – for the 'bethan I’m building this summer. I used madder with an alum mordant, completely overdoing the amount of dye/mordant for the WOG. Only three hours at 160 degrees Farenheit. It’s scans a nauseating Buddhist monk orange, otherwise I’d provide pictures. It’s just perfect. Almost coral but it holds back. And the fabric’s silk taffeta, so it shimmers and rustles like no other. I dyed some laceweight yarn at the same time, and that did turn orange, but it’s a great spicy color, like a sunset.
Could you provide pics after you finish the dress? Is it a dress? I want to be you when I grow up.
I was thinking of posting a new thread, but I’ll slip it in here. I have a dark blue/teal/black plaid (totally unperiod) Georgian open dress I want to recycle as something else. I’ve taken the stomacher off, and lost the sleeve ruffles a while ago. It’s a medium-weight crisp silk taffeta. What do you think? I loathe mid-Victorian.
I think I’m finally achieving good isolation with my undulations, although with bodywaves I still pull from my back muscles. I hope to be able to do belly rolls soon. Also I’m working on doing a continuous three-quarter shimmy while sideways-walking undulating with changing levels. Hip isolation is getting better, too. Figuring out the right muscles for three level hip drops is tough.
I’m in the middle of a Phase 1 this week, and we’ve gotten enough chalks processed by the end of today that we may have an early weekend. All PAX are ready for the Phase II, but we just need to get the cargo ready. I’m doing the beddown plan (giving the brief tomorrow) for it, and I don’t see any major LIMFACs. The TPFDD is almost ready, and LG is spinning up for the movement. The best part: The MTNG is loaning us some MILES gear for the trip, so you know it’ll be a hoot. Don’t worry, I’ll get pictures.
Why can I brag? I’m leading a convoy of 255 on an FTX. So, if you see a convoy on I-15 in early June, that’s probably us.
Tripler
Go ahead and wave. We promise not to point anything at you.
