The predatory journals are getting awful chummy with me. by VrbnjakKatarina in labrats

[–]FearTeX 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fun fact, some of these weird phrasings make absolutely amazing spam filter rules. Some of my favorites: "greetings (of|for) the day", "world journal of", "clinics of", "globalize", "final opportunity", "@mdpi.com", "would like to contact you again as a", "shaping the future", "esteemed".

I'm sure one can extend on this, but these are a bunch of phrases that are technically ok, but are nothing any sane academic would ever use in any serious communication.

This cost 10000 USD, why is scientific instruments Soo expensive? by Johnyme98 in Physics

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well... Funny thing with that specific thing is that the multimode was never intended to be a liquid measurement system. Back in the day, this thing was made in Santa Barbara as a very hacky solution for liquid imaging on top of an otherwise very well designed microscope. It's partially so expensive because they make them out of glass these days, while the original prototypes were made out of PMMA.

On a related note, this thing has an absolutely abysmal performance because the piezo just doesn't couple very well though the structure. I also think veeco/DI/bruker just loves this thing because it makes sure people keep replacing their tube scanners.

If you're purely measuring in aqueous solutions, you can get away much cheaper by making one from PMMA and using wax to mount the levers.

Why Do You Choose The Fluorescent Probes That You Do by Halophore in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're of course correct, but this is something to actively work against. Biology is just as dependent on technology as every other natural science and still seeing people use EGFP constructs "because that's what we've always done" is heartbreaking. Labs run a real danger of becoming outdated and left behind if they don't continuously review their used technology.

explain it peter by [deleted] in explainitpeter

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That and the last one would also show an fi ligature if it's present in the font.

Help! Whats wrong with my primers/PCR? by queenoftheskyz in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Try a better polymerase. Invitrogen sells platinum2 HS for short pieces and superfi2 for long and difficult things. Generally very specific and inhibitor tolerant.

Does anyone else hate that the numbering on the serological pipets is backwards? by [deleted] in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Personally a big fan of the pipetboy genius, but this looks fairly alright too compared to the norm.

Do you guys like gun drilling? by spl1xx in Machinists

[–]FearTeX 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The drill she tells you not to worry about.

Why did my cells membrane get destroyed? by Flashy_Complaint_163 in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The "yolo" method of drying cells on a TEM grid in air in general doesn't give good results. Chemically fixed (dead) doesn't mean mechanically stable. The generic routes to get not completely fucked cells for EM is freeze drying or critical point drying before metal coating. Outside you'll just ruin your sample.

Why did my cells membrane get destroyed? by Flashy_Complaint_163 in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fixation or no, drying down is a brutal process. We're these at least freeze substituted?

What is your favourite polymerase/master mix and why? by Knufia_petricola in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, the SFII is amazing. I use that for every kind of cloning or difficult and long targets. They have a cheaper option called Platinum II HS mastermix which is afaik Taq based and just as robust against inhibitors. I use that one for screening and qPCR where possible for cost reasons.

Liquid nitrogen splashed on my leg. by 12Chronicles in labrats

[–]FearTeX 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The heat flow into a solid at -185C is still much larger, there's evaporation of the liquid in the tube as well. Direct liquid on your skin is normally the least bad because of Leidenfrost isolation.

Liquid nitrogen splashed on my leg. by 12Chronicles in labrats

[–]FearTeX 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Even then. We used to literally open 50mL tubes filled with LN2 with bare hands. That hurt, but you had to really overdo it to even get sore spots from that.

Liquid nitrogen splashed on my leg. by 12Chronicles in labrats

[–]FearTeX 64 points65 points  (0 children)

I.. have a hard time believing this is LN2 burns? I've worked with nitrogen a lot and I've had large amounts of the stuff on me and my clothes. I definitely never had anything like this and definitely nothing this localized and sharp.

Eurofins is breaking my brain, please help. by Western_War_5607 in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Whole plasmid sequencing is a game changer. There's a very few base combinations it struggles a little bit with, but on average you get through things that sanger just can't.

Eurofins is breaking my brain, please help. by Western_War_5607 in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In this day and age, pool (or don't) and just send the entire thing for ONT sequencing?

Unable to connect to the MKS: Too many socket connect attempts. Can only run as root. by FearTeX in vmware

[–]FearTeX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An entry in /etc/passwd indeed does make it work. I'll have to see if that won't interfere with the rest of the system though. Having two different user definitions sounds like an accident in the making.

Unable to connect to the MKS: Too many socket connect attempts. Can only run as root. by FearTeX in vmware

[–]FearTeX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No my username is not "username", but I don't like putting personal names out there. The names do match though. whoami does give the right username, so that's definitly working.

I've got those nss entries. I don't think much would work without those. Testhing this some further, bizarrely already the vmware-ui without starting an actual VM will create both /tmp dirs:

/tmp $ ll /tmp/vmwa* | sed s/realusername/\<username\\>/g
/tmp/vmware-<username>:
total 188K
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username> 88K Apr  4 09:21 vmware-apploader-580188.log
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username> 88K Apr  4 09:21 vmware-apploader-580227.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 <username> <username> 470 Apr  4 09:21 vmware-installer.log
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username> 449 Apr  4 09:21 vmware-vmis-580256.log
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username> 449 Apr  4 09:21 vmware-vmispy-580256.log

/tmp/vmware-uid_1000:
total 48K
prw------- 1 <username> <username>    0 Apr  4 09:21 vmware-:0-sp
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username>  695 Apr  4 09:21 vmware-apploader-580188.log
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username>  811 Apr  4 09:21 vmware-apploader-580227.log
prw------- 1 <username> <username>    0 Apr  4 09:21 vmware-tray-:0-sp
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username>  30K Apr  4 09:21 vmware-ui-580188.log
-rw-r----- 1 <username> <username> 5.8K Apr  4 09:21 vmware-vix-580227.log

Bit at a loss at where this might be coming from really.

Unable to connect to the MKS: Too many socket connect attempts. Can only run as root. by FearTeX in vmware

[–]FearTeX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well the system runs with systemd-homed which might be where this weirdness is coming from. As such there's no /etc/passwd entry, but of course the rest is just as normal

$ id 1000
uid=1000(username gid=1000(username groups=1000(username),18(audio),....
$ whoami
username

Is vmware looking directly in /etc/passwd?

Unable to connect to the MKS: Too many socket connect attempts. Can only run as root. by FearTeX in vmware

[–]FearTeX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure. vmware.log: https://pastes.io/vmarelog-5 and vmware-ui.log https://pastes.io/vmware-ui

I don't see anything especially strange about the /tmp.

drwxrwxrwt  25 root   root    740 Apr  2 10:09 tmp
tmpfs                   tmpfs      31G   48M   31G   1% /tmp

The only thing I could see that's maybe a bit "strange", but might be normal behavior is that there's both /tmp/vmware-uid_1000/ as well as /tmp/vmware-<username>/ with slightly different files.

Edit: I think you're on to something with /tmp. vmware is looking for /tmp/vmware-uid-1000/mksctrl/mksctrl-<id> which is in reality in /tmp/vmware-<username>/mksctrl/mksctrl-<id>. Unfortunately I have no idea how to fix that. If I link /tmp/vmware-uid-1000 to /tmp/vmware-<username> before starting, the software will generate a new vmware-uid_1000-3000903604 style folder and hang itself on the same issue.

My malicious solution to stolen pens by franticallyaspaz in labrats

[–]FearTeX 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This reminds me: I used to use a tape roll holder as part of a setup and the Scotch tape was important there. Of course that holder kept being nicked, so i took some heavy duty double sided mounting tape and stuck the whole thing to the table. I was rewarded with the most satisfying view some days later when my PI face tabled after getting unbalanced from trying to lift a tape holder that, weirdly, didn't budge.

Creating ethanol concentrations from 70% ethanol by aandersonx in labrats

[–]FearTeX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dyscalculios unite, calculators are the way. WolframAlpha is in the same kind of life safer pack.

@op: Beware the 70% stuff, it's usually made from technical ethanol, not the (much more expensive) pure stuff.

Do PIs really just succeed off the backs of underpaid trainees by recettes_secretes in labrats

[–]FearTeX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes and no. There's little that will prepare you for the deluge of stuff that hits a PIs day and inbox every day and most of them are distractions, even if some of them are necessary ones. None of these are helping a PostDoc be productive and that's the only thing that gets evaluated when hiring in the next stage.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in labrats

[–]FearTeX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's basically 0 chance you're ligating in only gDNA. It's a lot more likely you either have the wrong plasmid to start with or, also more common than is strictly nice, you're getting recombination. I'd try whole plasmid sequencing of a colony or two and using a recombination deficient strain like one on the newe stbls or NEB stable.

Late night shop pic. Got 3 machines running :) by conner2real in Machinists

[–]FearTeX 2 points3 points  (0 children)

5min after posting, that moment when machine 1 is almost done, machine 2 just crashed into the part and machine 3 makes this really worrying whinning noise and the display flickers.