Bored on a Friday

[meresy]

Hi. It's nearly Thankgiving weekend and I am bored in the lab. Poking through science things on the internet has led me to a Facebook group called "you know you've worked too long in a lab when..." which has a very amusing list that I now feel compelled to turn into a meme even though the percentage of my flist that will appreciate this is very low

Comments

[inathunderstorm]

11. When a non-scientist asks you what you do for a living you roll your eyes and talk science at them until they've loss the will to live (mainly for fun)

I do this to people when they ask me what I went to graduate school for. I'm all, "What, you don't want to hear me wax on about Spartan military colonization? :D?"

12. You have to check the web to find out what the weather is outside

LOL I think this one is true of all Internet addicts. :D

71.No-one in your family has any idea what you do.

This is also true when you work in development. People are like, "So you just...ask for money? For...radio? Do you sell ads?" Sigh!

57.You use the word "aliquot" in regular sentences.

I...will now have to go and look this up :P

[meresy]

Some people LIKE hearing about science, though. Thus, I am thwarted. (And SOME orther people continue insisting I have to explain it for laypeople and okay, but that's going to take a little WHILE because even I, while brilliant, still don't understand everything after SIX YEARS and also I can't dumb it down any more. Some people are below the cutoff range.)

12. Yeah, but do you work in a big cold-war era lab? It's a special place.

57. A very cromulent and useful word! :D

[hieronymousmosh]

#12: I was mocked last weekend for doing an "oh, wait don't hang up! what's the weather like?" when a friend called about having a bonfire. Hey, I was very busy doing important internet things all day!

[hieronymousmosh]

70.You say "mills" and "megs". (ALWAYS. What kind of weirdo DOESN'T?)

Ha, yeah! Even I say that and I'm not a scientist. ...I just happen to take a lot of meds (and so do/did my pets) XD

[meresy]

Right? Why go to the effort of 3 or 4 syllables?

Now, if only there was a suitable abbrev. for micrograms. Or nanometres or Angstroms. That would make my life much easier.

[hieronymousmosh]

Hee, so maybe not that much shorter, but you could drive people nuts with "angsts" for Angstroms. Tell me how many angsts to a wavelength!

Bad jokes are my catnip /o\

[meresy]

Sadly, that leading A is actually the kind with the accent that makes it a nasal "Ong".

But I could still try that. Hee.

[luzula]

3. You can't watch CSI without cursing at least one scientific inaccuracy

So how about the biology stuff in ReGenesis? I watched the first episode of that the other day and giggled a little at the random math scribbled on a board. Like, I'm sure they used those trigonometry equations in figuring out the virus thing.

[meresy]

Lulz, I don't even watch that. I saw part of one ep and Peter Outerbridge was going on at length about immunotoxins and I was zzzzzzzz yes getONwithit. Not because it was incorrect, though it was dumbed-down to the point of taking ALL THE FUN out of the win that is immunotoxins.

Math helps if they're doing population medicine stuff! Which is why epidemiology makes me crazy.

Not that trig really helps with THAT...

[luzula]

Yeah, obviously math can be useful in biology. But it was like they just took some random equation and stuck it on the board. Look! It's math!

Heh, I wonder if I'd go crazy if I watched Numbers. I think I never will.

[meresy]

It'd make more sense if they'd had, like... some random membrane dynamics sketches up or some signalling diagram or something. Or, easy, a block diagram of some operon. Scientifically opaque to the layperson, but topical!

All science == math/physics, don't you know? Despite the fact that I can't derive my way out of a paper bag...

[kaizoku]

This list is great! I should email it to my biochem prof.

10. You've worked out that a trained chimp could probably do 90% of your job

My biology prof always used to say that...

16. Safety equipment is optional unless it makes you look cool

I have definitely noticed this phenomenon.

33. You still get amusement out of "freezing" things in liquid nitrogen! (Um, who doesn't!?)

Mmm, icecream!

24. You can no longer spell normal words but have no trouble with spelling things like immunohistochemistry or deoxyribonucleic acid. (Or phthaldialdehyde.)

Pseudomonas aeruginosa...

Yes to 3, 4, 5, 14, 26, 35, 41, 44, 52, 53, 54, 57, 61, 65, 66...

78.You've used Kimwipes as Kleenex.

Really? They're pretty expensive aren't they?

[meresy]

16. Yeaahhh. Because really, who wears a face shield when throwing around liquid nitrogen? nobody, that's who.

24. Aw, come on, bacteria don't even count. Until you're a first year and Escherichia still confuses you and you're leaving naked epithets everywhere...

78. Hey, man, you gotta blow your nose you gotta. And I'm not using brown paper towel. Harsh!

[isiscolo]

I think #1 should be You no longer wonder what...

[meresy]

Yeeek, that would only end in tears...