Swans on Tea

Physics, tech and humor. Because science and learning are cool, and life’s too short not to laugh.

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Category: Lab Stories

Hey You, Stop Being … so … Unsafe!

30 June, 2009 (03:00) | Lab Stories, Other science, Physics, Politics | 1 comment

Over at incoherently scattered ponderings, there’s a post on safety at academic labs, which links to an article at Slate about an explosion at a lab which killed a worker, and discusses the difference in safety standards for students vs workers, and academia vs industry.
Why the difference between industry and academe? For one thing, the [...]

Vintage Lab Pictures

25 June, 2009 (03:00) | Experiments, Lab Stories, Physics, The Lab | 2 comments

I was decreasing the local entropy in a small part of my abode and found a shoebox full of photos which happened to contain a few shots of my grad school lab, in all its glory. We were building an interferometer which would use cold atoms, which means relatively large deBroglie wavelengths and a [...]

Putting the “Vent” in “Inventory”

19 June, 2009 (03:00) | Lab Stories, Rants | 1 comment

It’s getting to be inventory time again, and that usually invokes trepidation and stirs the nightmares of the ghost of bureaucracy past. Somebody, somewhere, needs to know that all that shiny equipment you’ve purchased hasn’t walked off, and that’s fair enough — I’m spending somebody else’s money, and they have the right to know [...]

Mffle Wffle Hmm?

14 June, 2009 (03:00) | Lab Stories, science-y observation | No comments

Eating al desco
I was recently eating lunch ‘al desco’. While I was eating-working, a student walked in my office to ask me a question, saw I was eating lunch at my desk, and said “Oh, I’m so sorry for interrupting your lunch. I’ll come back later.”
I was stunned. This has never happened to me before.
I’ve [...]

Not Subject to the EEOC

4 June, 2009 (03:00) | Lab Stories, Language | No comments

We’re rearranging the lab, and clearing out some old equipment, including taking down part of the original Cesium Fountain laser layout (which uses a lot of optical table space). A colleague was moving a rack, and wanted to know where it should go. I suggested next to a hard place, but leaving a [...]

The Inside Job

26 May, 2009 (03:00) | Lab Stories | 1 comment

Scott Adams (fellow Hartwick alum) continually tells people, “No, I don’t work at your company,” because the problems he lampoons are so widespread.
Allyson points out a problem that is less so, that of purchasing within government regulations, in the shoe bomber theory of purchasing regulations. So in this case she does [...]

The Man Across the Hall

1 May, 2009 (04:05) | Lab Stories, Navy | 4 comments

Every so often the powers that be™ decide that a reorganization would be a good idea, and that some people should change offices. A few years back this was stimulated by one group of people vacating some desirable office space in the main building (they were ordered to relocate to Crystal City by [...]

Attack of the Killer Dust Bunnies

31 March, 2009 (03:58) | Lab Stories, Misc, Silly | 1 comment

I was waylaid by dust bunnies yesterday. It started in the lab; I was exposing the fresh layer of sticky mats as I usually do, and noticed that the air disturbance (quite a flourish if you want to get the sheet up in one motion) had sent some dust bunnies scurrying. I tracked [...]

No More Breadbox

28 March, 2009 (05:19) | Lab Stories | 2 comments

I’ve mentioned before that I’m bigger than a breadbox. But that description will have to change. It’s not that I’m appreciably smaller (though I have lost some mass from running a net energy deficit the last several lunar cycles), it’s that I now have a much geekier description to use.
A colleague has been [...]

Mired in Red Tape and Bad Business Practices

20 March, 2009 (04:52) | Lab Stories, Rants | 1 comment

A colleague’s computer crashed, and he’s having the IT department wipe and reinstall the operating system and the software on it. But the Microsoft Office suite is old (2002), and they want the recent package … but not too recent. They’ve standardized on Office 2003 but are about to move to Office 2007, [...]

A Bootstrapping Problem

11 March, 2009 (04:03) | Lab Stories | 1 comment

My glasses fell apart while I was attempting to clean them. The little tiny screw fell out, so the lens was no longer in a captive state, and the carpet in my office is not designed to make nanoscrews stand out to the casual (or even interested) observer, especially if you can’t wear your [...]

Hot Fun in the Summertime

16 February, 2009 (05:36) | Education, Lab Stories | No comments

10 Awesome Summer Internships for Science Students
The National Science Foundation sponsors hundreds of summer programs, which allow sophomores and juniors to get their first taste of real labwork. Most of them last ten weeks and pay more than 3,000 dollars to cover your living expenses.
NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) search page
Opportunities are not just [...]

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