Guess what I did today?
Had a cat turn blue and be minutes from blindness and brain damage, chopped up a pigeon in the name of science, rescued a swift from a crazy lady who wanted to keep it as a pet and got pounced on by an Akita.

How was your day?


( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:05, 54 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

Extremely boring
compared with yours!

How are you?
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:07, Reply)

Bit smelly
but I'm going to dye my hair and shower in a bit so it's all good. How you doing Clendrix?
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:19, Reply)

Not too bad!
Enjoying an evening at home - about to make a cup of tea and watch some crap on TV.

It's all pretty quiet here, isn't it? Presumably they'll all drift in later...

Crazy colour for the hair?
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:38, Reply)

Not too crazy
it's one of those 3d colours from people who test on animals so it reflects light better and is all shiny.

Well Kaol and Ancrenne are busy, BK is at the pub...not sure about the rest, I'm sure they'll turn up at some point

Off to put hair stuff on now.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:40, Reply)

I'm here.
I still now nothing about interviews, but have decided to just go ahead and decide which date I'll be in London. So there's a London minibash on Tuesday July 22nd.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:47, Reply)

Not as much fun as yesterday.
We got to uncrate and partly dismantle a UV water sanitizing system and debate how best to improve its performance. Unpacking it involved the use of an overhead crane to move this 500 lb plus machine made of stainless steel and extremely expensive glass tubes. Yee-hah!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:55, Reply)

.
@beckx
Sounds like you had an exciting day. 3D colours sounds interesting. Going for red again?

@clendrix
Anything in particular you’re watching?
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:56, Reply)

@Spak
Congratulations on setting the date! I'll look forward to it.

Might watch 'Mock the Week' because it makes me laugh.
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:58, Reply)

Hello all
@becky, I need to hear more about the chopped up pigeon!

@Loon - didn't get back to you last night re the UV. The guy who tried it with the milk failed because the protein and fat absorbed the UV in a very short distance, so only the outer surface was sterilised. It'll work much better with water, as you said.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:01, Reply)

My day sucked.
My boyfriend has gone off to Japan for a fortnight (his parents arranged it about a year ago - just before we started dating).

So I'm a bit mopey.

Akitas are fucking hyper.
(The Oncoming Storm, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:04, Reply)

Well it's red enough
to accidentally make my flatmate think she's got something wrong with her. I have a habit of pouring any excess dye down the toilet and flushing it. Guess not all of it flushed as I heard a scream just now, went to the bathroom and saw a very shocked look on her face. I guess the box of hairdye with a very red haired lady on the front escaped her notice.

In fact that makes our fifth exchange in 3 and a bit months as I forgot about the time she saw a spider in the bathroom and ran to get me to get rid of it.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:04, Reply)

K2k6
this was a pigeon brought in alive by a kindly guy, it's wing was still flapping, but close to death, so I heard screaming from downstairs while I was filing, ran down and found the receptionist running round with it in the prep room as it had just breathed its last. We're not allowed to resuscitate them by law as they're vermin so rather than go for a quick disposal I asked if I could perform a post mortem as it had only just expired. A few snips later with heavy duty scissors revealed that it had eaten some BB gun pellets - the plastic kind - as its stomach was distended and solid as stone.

This Akita was mental. The owner could barely control it. Friendly and sweet luckily enough, but loved jumping up at me, so once again I've got a big scratch from forearm to above my elbow where he got me.

Edit: Sorry your boyfriend's gone away Storm, but think of the fun you can have on here in the evenings to while away the time. Err yeah ,)
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:08, Reply)

@Becky
I'd never thought about how you go about doing a PM on a pigeon, but I suppose scissors are as good as anything.

Shame about the way it died, even though urban pigeons are revolting birds.

Your arms must have more scars and scratches than Amy Winehouse's!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:20, Reply)

Yeah, we were
comparing our battle wounds the other day. My finest has now faded. I had to wrestle a bastard cat to the ground before he escaped off the table and fled and got my leg torn up about this time last year. I thought it was ok until it got infected and had to go to hospital for it. Cat was put to sleep about 3 months later. I wasn't sad.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:23, Reply)

Thanks becky :)
Sadly I'm mainly a lurker :)
(The Oncoming Storm, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:25, Reply)

@ K2k6
It would work okay with milk- you'd just have to have a long, wide channel running very shallow and fast under a series of UV tubes. You'd just need to determine the optimal depth of the channel by measuring the UV transmitted through it- from that you could assume a channel width, then using the minimum exposure time and the optimal depth you could calculate a flow rate that would match those criteria.

In our case it's a three-foot square box of tubes that stand in a six foot deep channel of dirty water that flows past. What we're improving is the mechanism that cleans the tubes by means if a wiper system. At this point it's not well designed, and they know it- so they brought us mechanical types in. Booya.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:31, Reply)

@becky
Nasty. Mind you, I've done myself some injuries at work too. I once jammed a glass tube into the end of my thumb, which of course broke when it went in. I had a perfectly circular wound on the end of it, like coring an apple, and a little bit of glass worked its way out months afterwards.

@Loon - he was using 248nm UV, which is quite short wavelength, and even passing the milk as a thin sheet down over a flat plate it didn't work well enough. I dare say it would have worked had the flow rate been slow enough, but I don't think this was possible for whatever reason.

Edit: @Storm. Lurk ye not. Give us your chat : )
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:36, Reply)

@ K2k6
"Lurk ye not. Give us your chat"?

Or it's the plank for me? ;o)
(The Oncoming Storm, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:43, Reply)

K2K6
Flow rates, you say? Funnily enough I'm writing about flow rates right now. It's all about the Reynolds number, donchew know...

Sorry, am getting slightly hysterical at the thought of leaving work next week.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:45, Reply)

Perhaps I could be more polite, Storm!
Please feel free to actively engage in our discourse and partake of our hospitality instead of remaining silently on the fringes.

We're quite nice, really. Kaol's a bit scary with his knives, but he's off in Brighton with more important things to occupy his mind tonight.

Edit @Rakky - sounds like some of my lectures. When I start talking about Reynolds numbers and Prandtl numbers the students glaze over... For some of them even the concept of a dimensionless number is too much.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:46, Reply)

K2K6
I found out the other week what the Dahmkoller number is. It was a disappointment I tell you.

Christ, re-reading that, one doesn't have to look too far as to why I might be single.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:51, Reply)

@ K2k6
I'm a Scot, we're hard to scare :)
(The Oncoming Storm, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:51, Reply)

Ha, another Scot
the rest of us are starting to get outnumbered here.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:55, Reply)

@Storm
Ah, that's good then. Scots FTW.

@Rakky- I had to Google that one. Turns out Gerhard Damköhler, after whom it is named, only lived until the age of 32 so he must have been a smart cookie to have thought of that so young.

Makes me feel like I'm underachieving. Although I have lasted longer than he did, which I think is preferable!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:58, Reply)

Scots...
get everywhere.

There's only 5.5 million of us in the country, but we keep escaping!
(The Oncoming Storm, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:01, Reply)

I'm not a Scot
and I'm crap at maths.

*has nothing more to say*
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:05, Reply)

clendrix
I've exhausted my maths knowledge now, I can tell you!

So, kittens...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:06, Reply)

@ K2k6
Actually, he could have increased the flow rate by making the channel longer and putting in more tubes. Then it would get hit for a longer time but still be flowing fast enough to process the milk reasonably.

The only problem I can see is, what does the UV do to the fats and proteins in the milk? It would change them chemically, I'd think- basically cook them. Would it make the milk taste funny? Would it do Very Bad Things like start making prions? I think these would be questions that he'd have to answer before he could really do it anyway...

I have no idea what wavelength or intensity we use, other than that you really don't want to see them running, if you wish to see anything else in your life...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:09, Reply)

*googles prions*
*finds something else to worry about*
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:12, Reply)

I'm not a math(s) expert either
I know enough to get by in my job, but I must admit I'd struggle to handle most of the calculus I learned x years ago.

@Loon - if they're standard mercury discharge tubes they'll be relatively long wavelength. The primary emission line is 365nm, which will pass through ordinary glass (and water!) without serious attenuation. 248nm requires quartz envelopes, as it's blocked effectively completely by glass.
Also, the bloke gave up on the milk idea anyway!

@Rakky - for kittens, see Beckyjsbx!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:13, Reply)

Kittehs

FTW
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:24, Reply)

@Becky
You should have a whole 'things that make you go awwww' section to yourself in the newsletter!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:29, Reply)

Thank you becky.
If one thing could have made today better that was it.

Yay the kittehs!
(The Oncoming Storm, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:30, Reply)

Dimensionless numbers
Aren't these the same as scalar quantities?

* realises he's being geeky *

* looks at kitten *

Awwww!
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:37, Reply)

I think I should
but bearing in mind some of the thing I have come into work, it'd also have to be a things that make you go EWwwww WTF OMGZ too.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:39, Reply)

@spakka
A scalar quantity is one which has only magnitude, unlike a vector, which has magnitude and direction. But a scalar can have a unit. For example, distance is a scalar quantity; displacement is not. They both use length units.

A dimensionless number is one which is a ratio of two identical quantities, in terms of their units. Pi is the best known example - it's the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. No matter what units you use to measure these quantities, they cancel out.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:44, Reply)

yay! kittehs!
Loon, there shouldn't be prions in milk. I hope not anyway. There's caesin and other enzymes (no, not you Enzyme). The biggest problem would be protein denaturation.

Actually, we all have prions in our brains anyway. Just like we all have a-beta protein, the one responsible for Alzheimers disease. It's the structure of the protein that matters. when the proteins in your brain misfold, that's when they start sticking together and causing you problems. And that's what I work on!

And now I'm being harrased to get a paper submitted. Aaaargh...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:50, Reply)

.
@beckx: The b3ta newsletter is also a place for 'things that make you go EWwwww WTF OMGZ'.

@K2k6: Gotcha.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:51, Reply)

.
*head explodes*
( Duke Of Belmsford has got 99 records, but Jay-Z ain't one, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:51, Reply)

This is good bedtime reading.





*secretly impressed with huge brain power on display*
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:51, Reply)

Spakka
but this would be medical scientific, proper guts out eww...
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:52, Reply)

Isn't this terribly educational tonight?
@spakka - ;)

@Rakky - I wonder if we all have a b3ta protein...? I dare you to change beta to b3ta in your next paper. Heh.

And with that, I'm off to bed.

Night, all.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:55, Reply)

b3ta protein?
b3ta-carotene!

G'night K2k6
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:01, Reply)

Talking of blue animals
We've got two chinese hamsters. Now all of the other pairs we've had, we've been able to tell apart, but these two are identical. What to do...

I suggested dunking one of them in food colouring. Purple would be nice. Mrs Fireflier took umbridge at this proposal and now looks at me suspiciously whenever I go into the kitchen.

Does the panel have any further suggestions as to how I can distinguish them?

EDIT: As per Clendrix's suggestion:



These two are not our two (you can tell the difference for one thing), but you get the idea
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:07, Reply)

Now, being QOTWers
we get to see a lot of cutesy animals on here to coo over, but I have to say that those little hamsters are gorgeous!

Buy one a hat.
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:14, Reply)

.
Those hamsters remind me of one of the school pets we had at primary school.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:28, Reply)

@Fireflier
Very impressive indeed!

I love it. A city-boy hamster (or perhaps a plumber from the olden days).

Be good, you boys - I'm off to bed.
( thealternativefact, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:37, Reply)

if anyone
is still around can i have a big b3ta woo yay for submitting a paper to the Journal of the American Chemical Society today...

i feel i need one. and a beer. which i have. so the woo yay would be good...

:)
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:47, Reply)

Woo! Yay!
Papers rock! Or is that scissors.

Dammit. Getting myself confused again...
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:56, Reply)

i think
it's papers. or rocks.

what's even better is we managed to submit it despite my boss and the first author being out of town. actually maybe that's "because of"...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:58, Reply)

Hmm...
Midnight. Better go. Night all...

* Morphs into pumpkin *
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 0:01, Reply)

'Night clendrix, 'Night Fireflier
The modified hamster-pic has inspired me to do this:



EDIT: woo yay @ Rakky
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 0:06, Reply)

It's gone quiet
I'm off to bed. g'night.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 0:44, Reply)

.
.
Chat continues here
.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 10:50, Reply)