My new Kindle 2.0

[ScholasticSpastic]

It has a search function that allows me to search all media stored on my Kindle. Citations just got a lot less tedious.

You could just hijack your lab's copy of Endnote

I cannot help but suspect that your expectations of what constitutes a lab far exceed the standards at my campus.

[Psi Wavefunction]

It has a search function that allows me to search all media stored on my Kindle. Citations just got a lot less tedious.

You could just hijack your lab's copy of Endnote

I cannot help but suspect that your expectations of what constitutes a lab far exceed the standards at my campus.

We're a relatively modest lab -- how bad is it on teaching campuses then?!
We only have one post doc (# of post docs seems to be correlated with lab wealth); an ancient centrifuge that makes the worst noise possible -- the exact noise a centrifuge makes when its going off balance, except this is 'normal'; an arcane spectrophotometer from the 70's or 80's (green-on-black monitor, prints stuff on rolls of paper... ); and generally modest funding. We do have a couple cool scopes bought on a special grant though!

Our competitor at Stanford has something like 7 post docs, fuckloads of money, and has the power to scoop our asses in no time... kinda scary.

But then again, that's....Stanford... we're just a random university in some third world dog sledding igloo country!

[ScholasticSpastic]

We have zero post docs. I'm the closest thing to a post doc on my campus. But we do have a Nicolet FT-IR, a 40 MHz NMR, a pretty fancy UV-vis spectrometer, and a single unit resolution (quadrapole) GC-MS. In addition, we, too, have a couple of centrifuges which I prefer to run from the other room lest their intimations of impending destruction turn out to be sincere. I'm pretty sure that our autoclave is older than the building and it's defo older than me.

[ScholasticSpastic]

I just finished reading my first book on my Kindle 2.0 and I'm ready to gush now. The reading experience was better than paper- the only downside being that turning the page is easier and so it's common for me to utterly lose track of time and find myself reading hours longer than intended.

[Psi Wavefunction]

We have zero post docs. I'm the closest thing to a post doc on my campus. But we do have a Nicolet FT-IR, a 40 MHz NMR, a pretty fancy UV-vis spectrometer, and a single unit resolution (quadrapole) GC-MS. In addition, we, too, have a couple of centrifuges which I prefer to run from the other room lest their intimations of impending destruction turn out to be sincere. I'm pretty sure that our autoclave is older than the building and it's defo older than me.

Don't get me started on the autoclaves... ours are about as old as the building, and the building is quite literally falling apart (the whole top floor leaks in random places). We luckily have two autoclaves, so the whole breaking down every couple of weeks thing isn't as debilitating as it could've been. But the building is worse -- single pane glass (Vancouver specialty, from what I've seen so far), no heating on weekends (it does get below 0 outside pretty often!), and one of the 0.5M$ confocals in the basement was damaged by... water leakage. Scratch what I said about the top floor leaking in random places -- the whole fucking building leaks in random places!


Oh, speaking of buildings... they're building this new "Biodiversity Centre" where a few labs will be moving this summer. Walking by there, we noticed the walls inside (it's lit at night) were BRIGHT red. We thought it was just, you know, some part of the construction process, perhaps protective cover on the walls while they're finishing stuff. Apparently, the architect was on crack and decided that bright red was an ideal interior colour for a research facility. You know, let's make all those poor labrats ANGRY, ARGHHHH. The conference room is red too -- pity anyone who has a defense there. Some of the labs complained so they repainted the lab interiors white, but the rest of the building is still fucked up. The lunch rooms are black, or so I've heard.

And to top it all off, they decided to cover the fucking place with "chicken wire" -- a random cage about TWO metres from the window with metal bars every 5cm. Yeah, I don't think I even wanna know WTF was going on there...

And they ran out of funding, so the labs have to actually move their benches to the new building.... a lab without benches = WTF!


That's what my university gets for planning/executing grandiose Ooooh Lets Show off for the 2010 Olympics!!!1! projects in the worst economic times since the Great Depression...

[soul_biscuit]

That's what my university gets for planning/executing grandiose Ooooh Lets Show off for the 2010 Olympics!!!1! projects in the worst economic times since the Great Depression...

I just realized you are in Vancouver. What university are you talking about? I studied at Simon Fraser for a few semesters, but that doesn't sound like it...

[Psi Wavefunction]

That's what my university gets for planning/executing grandiose Ooooh Lets Show off for the 2010 Olympics!!!1! projects in the worst economic times since the Great Depression...

I just realized you are in Vancouver. What university are you talking about? I studied at Simon Fraser for a few semesters, but that doesn't sound like it...

I'm at *The Other* university :twisted:

There's a conference at SFU this summer I may be going to -- at last I'll get to see the prison on a hilltop, as some have described it for me!


What did you study there?

[ScholasticSpastic]

Wow. It's way to easy to spend money on books now. I just spent $280 on books.

On the bright side, at least I don't have to wait for delivery.

[Psi Wavefunction]

I just saw EO Wilson's and some other guy's Superorganism in the bookstore... it's all about the sociobiology of ants, and is pretty fucking awesome.



But it's $60! Science doesn't pay enough to buy science literature!

Speaking of which, I just got my tax slip -- I made more the previous year working as a deli clerk in a grocery store for 8 months, than working as a research assistant in a lab for a year...

[ScholasticSpastic]

Apparently, my debit card balked and I only came away with half of my purchases tonight: A book about microbial ecology of the oceans and one about freshwater microbiology. I also got samples from a soil analysis book and one about biodegradation/bioremediation. It would seem that I'm spending just about all of my tax refund on science books for recreational reading this year.

[Psi Wavefunction]

Apparently, my debit card balked and I only came away with half of my purchases tonight: A book about microbial ecology of the oceans and one about freshwater microbiology. I also got samples from a soil analysis book and one about biodegradation/bioremediation. It would seem that I'm spending just about all of my tax refund on science books for recreational reading this year.

Was tempted to consider spending part of my refund on that book, but I realised I do need to eat. And drink...

For algae stuff, Algae : anatomy, biochemistry, and biotechnology by Laura Barsanti, Paolo Gualtieri is pretty good. Oh, and there's a pirated e-book of that, in pdf form... would you like a copy?

[ScholasticSpastic]

For algae stuff, Algae : anatomy, biochemistry, and biotechnology by Laura Barsanti, Paolo Gualtieri is pretty good. Oh, and there's a pirated e-book of that, in pdf form... would you like a copy?

Yes, please. Arrrrgh!!

[Psi Wavefunction]

Enjoy!

[ScholasticSpastic]

Enjoy!

Thanks! I have successfully converted from pdf to a format supported by Kindle and may now enjoy the book anywhere I go. I quite like that all the photos are grey-scale so I don't lose any detail. The only drawback is that the table of contents isn't hot-linked as in the purchased tomes- but I can remedy that easily enough by bookmarking chapters on my own.