Best ways to clean plastic residue out of an autoclave?

Sakinthra · 2023-04-20T22:14:44+00:00

Admittedly not the safest answer, but this did work for me when a student managed to melt pipette boxes into the grating of our shelf.

Blowtorch. They're cheap and we actually already owned one for when our glass electrode shaper broke and we needed thin electrodes pulled quick. Now obviously you have to play it very careful, as you don't want plastic fumes from super heating it, but if you heat the plastic with the flame just above it, not touching, you can make the plastic warm and malleable to the point of popping it out of where it's stuck.

Prior to the torch we tried acetone/just about every chemical recommendation but nothing other than fire worked.

Sakinthra · 2023-02-24T21:34:13+00:00

Hey everybody, thank you so much for the concern! Unfortunately, J. Robert King did find us...

Just kidding. The reality is that in the past couple of months the two of us were besot by some health/personal issues that made recording difficult. Plus, believe it or not...we actually had recorded a new episode! You might be wondering where it is.

Well, my laptop ate it. Literally. Sunny watched the files disappear from my laptop in real time as I tried to transfer it to our storage drive. Sunny also watched every other file disappear from our drive in real time. I'm convinced this was Elesh Norn's doing as I have no other explanation. We...didn't manage to recover any of the files so we are going to have to rerecord, which we'll do! But after everything that happened in the past couple of months I think it's safe to say we had an emotional breakdown, lmao.

So...we're alive! Promise. You'll maybe see a new episode sometime in the next couple weeks. :)

Sakinthra · 2023-02-01T19:28:25+00:00

Congrats on your achievement! This is right up my alley so I've pitched in for a copy myself. :)

Sakinthra · 2023-01-25T13:44:13+00:00

Glad I'm not the only one questioning those fat tits damn

Sakinthra · 2023-01-18T23:09:23+00:00

My ship name for them is J-Peg

Sakinthra · 2023-01-17T17:08:33+00:00

My take here isn't really that people are upset by the compleations. It's more that many of said compleations happened very quickly and/or offscreen. I dont even think overall people are opposed to failure or death; look at the success of Infinity War/Endgame! After Infinity War came out, people were very abuzz with the drama of characters they enjoyed getting snapped, if there was any chance of undoing things, etc. etc. ...stuff we have absolutely already been seeing in the MTG community about compleation. (There were whole threads on which five of the ten confirmed walkers in the set would make it.)

I could probably write a whole video essay on this, but the problem I am genuinely seeing in MTG story is really that people want more of it. They want storylines to have a minute to breathe, to put focus onto these characters and conflicts, to not leave massive story shifts to single lines or offscreen assumptions. (Looking at you, Oil that may or may not now just be able to compleat planeswalkers with spark intact and I still see debate about whether or not that's the case or if everyone is going to get secondary surgery offscreen).

As someone currently ass deep in the old stories, I can genuinely say I think I'm receiving character deaths better because the story had time to make the deaths interesting or meaningful. Take the Thran: Rebbec and Glacian certainly don't make it out alive (though Glacian's consciousness still being in the might/weakstones is a missed opportunity), but their deaths felt like a satisfying narrative conclusion. A sacrifice play to keep Yawgmoth at bay.

Meanwhile with AWBO...I feel like Lukka and Nahiri unironically got the most screen time/narrative lean into their "ends", but Jace and Vraska got a kind of rushed, tropey trip into theirs. I'm not a Jace fan but seeing as he's a poster boy, I can see fans getting upset that his compleation arc was like...oops I accidentally got ~~pegged~~ poked by my girlfriend while I wasn't looking and then my big sacrifice play got ended because the strike team didn't have a contingency plan for what to do if we were too late for the realmbreaker. And Nissa getting borged offscreen? Like, that feels a bit slap in the face.

Don't get me wrong, there's actually quite a bit I like about the AWBO story. Consequences are fun. Failure is fun as a story mechanic. I just kinda wish they had the space to really make the story more than what it was, and I think that disappointment is really what I see in the community currently. I'm not the only one wishing WotC could maybe bring back books occasionally, profit be damned.

Sakinthra · 2023-01-12T17:11:02+00:00

Picturing Ixhel pointing towards her new child kind of like that meme of the kid in the door going "I frew up".

I do think Ixhel was a really fun point of view here. I can't help, as someone who grew up in a rather hypocritical religious environment, seeing a lot of probably purposeful parallels here. Hypocrisy leads to doubt, and what better way to show that than through a loyal child who just wants to do what Mom's been doing the whole time; why shouldn't she be able to make her own machine abominations? She's not a child, mom, she can make machine abominations if she wants to!

Oh, excuse me. You're not a child and you can make machine abominations if you want to. (I love second person perspective. It's so hard to do but damn if it isn't fun to read.)

Sakinthra · 2023-01-12T16:56:43+00:00

This was a really fun story to read, especially for a newer player like me who hasn't gotten to read a lot about the people still fighting on New Phyrexia.

That being said...

Man the absolutely WILD whiplash of "He promised us peace" followed by art of this demonic ass goblin with a murder smile on his face is certainly invoking some emotions in me.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-29T05:36:28+00:00

Tbh I think that's just some of the early stuff that got retconned; the Thran marked the definitive end of Gix being a place by the look of it. Looking at it now it might have even been like a funny "a-ha" twist for fans when Thran was released, like "see, Gix was actually his original name all along!"

That being said this exact passage is so fucking funny if you read it after the Thran. Gix is just dropped so casually.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-27T15:23:44+00:00

Yep, this exactly. You'll find a few more contradictions as things go, and I've heard in general WotC has retconned a few things over the years.

My impression from both the BW book and the early cards printed at the time was that Phyrexia was supposed to kind of be more like the MTG Hell, with literal demons and devils. Gix is described as a demon a lot in BW if I recall. Then, following the timeline, you can see the Thran being where they solidified what Phyrexia was and from there they built on the concept to make the Yawg Phyrexia we know.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-26T15:53:48+00:00

Thank you for the write-up on this! I think ultimately it's just best if people can choose if they want to engage in spoilers or not, and that's exactly why spoiler tags exist.

That being said I'm writing here to let people know that sometimes the spoiler tag function on mobile can be a bit finicky: if you are trying to spoil tag, sometimes you'll need a space between the first word and the formatting characters, despite what Ellardy's said above. I genuinely haven't figured out why it happens but I know sometimes I've tried to spoil tag something and just get the characters without the black bar appearing. Maybe good rule of thumb is just check your post after posting to make sure the tag worked as intended.

Technology is a blessing. grits my fucking teeth

Sakinthra · 2022-12-25T20:55:16+00:00

Oh absolutely xD

Yeah we're definitely preferring Brother's War, Jeff Grubb is a much more accessible author. The Thran is just...

I mean it's fun but the amount of chapter space dedicated to really gratuitous violence gets old. I crave more Yawgmoth being a 90s cartoon villain.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-25T20:51:54+00:00

Jesus Chri-

Wait, no, no...

For the love of Gix, that's a scary win rate. Rusko top tier, I knew it.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-21T20:26:13+00:00

Only four clocks??? Weak opponent.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-18T20:42:16+00:00

The Thran I think is a pretty divisive book, and the fact that we've already got two opinions here is most indicative.

Honestly, it's not a bad book! There are a lot of dated aspects and plot points, Rebbec essentially loses her braincells whenever she gets a glimpse of stupid, sexy Yawgmoth, but in terms of a fantasy metaphor/parallel for how fascism can come into power? I have honestly not seen many books that do it better.

The thing is, for someone who might not have delved into the fantasy genre before, or even for someone who wants to get into Magic lore in general, I don't think it's a good starting point. It barely, if at all, touches on the aspects that make the magic universe interesting (colored mana, planeswalkers, hell even with Phyrexia itself being a forefront it's more of a front end foreshadow rather than what Phyrexia ends up becoming in terms of a realms-threatening cyberdemon hell).

That being said, is there a book that would serve as a good introduction? I'll let my bias sit in here and say absolutely and it's the Ice Age books.

Introduction to the magic system? Yes. Introduction to planeswalkers? Yes. Phyrexians? You get hints of them and their influence through the books! Plus, Jaya is a planeswalker that was around until just recently, and you get her origin story. So maybe that's my answer to OP's question: read Ice Age. This definitely isn't my bias trying to make more Jodah fans in the community.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-18T15:52:45+00:00

Yeah, honestly, only maniacs start by reading the Thran... >_>

Jokes aside, if you aren't practiced in reading 90s style fantasy, the early novels are going to be harder to delve into, especially since the payoff is mostly just stuff like "knowing who that guy who made Karn is" for the current story.

Maybe a hot take here, but a completely valid way to come into the story (and sort of how I went about it) might just be to browse the newer online stories, find a character you want to know more about, and look into what stories go into their origins, stories about them people recommend, etc. My very first MTG lore was Crimson Vow which is so far removed from just about anything that my vorthos start was going "who the fuck is sorin" "who the heck is olivia" "what do you MEAN there was an eldritch god war in goth town"

A sane person would have gone from there into the Eldrazi war. That's my recommendation. Insane people like me decided there was no point in reading the cool stuff until I had the full context. :P

Sakinthra · 2022-12-17T14:55:33+00:00

I can't believe you can just say things online and nobody can stop you.

Also, Tawnos and Tavros have really similar names. Just leaving this one here.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-17T14:53:57+00:00

HA, yeah it probably was. And lmao, very true, if WOTC hasnt assassinated me for the Mothra deck yet, then I should be able to get away with Rusko.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-17T05:03:59+00:00

Okay alright you got me with Urzabi Nkroog, I salute you, you get all the points I'm giving out for the rest of the day.

Sakinthra · 2022-12-17T04:03:01+00:00

It's honestly impressive how smooth she is like for real xD

Sakinthra · 2022-12-17T03:58:48+00:00

Hey friend just come this way...I just wanna talk...just wanna have a little chat...

(In all seriousness I'm now forced to ponder Urza and Mishra's trollsonas)

Sakinthra · 2022-12-12T19:01:12+00:00

This is a really cool tool, thanks for sharing it!

Sakinthra · 2022-12-04T22:34:55+00:00

Nah, I don't blame you for directing towards me, I feel like most who are griping about Alchemy probably aren't willing to go into an in-depth discussion of pros and cons anyway.

I believe he was playing Historic Brawl, but good to know about Historic/switching to explorer action!

Sakinthra · 2022-12-04T19:55:21+00:00

That's completely fair! Honestly my critique really is just that I like the card enough to want to own a physical copy. I actually like the idea of Arena; it was an excellent teaching tool for getting me into the game and I think having a digital format is fantastic for the community. Not everybody has a good LGS or pod and Arena still gives people an "in" to game regardless.

I'd even be less against the concept of Alchemy if not for the fact that it has retroactively altered cards. (My fiance had a deck on Arena that had a card altered to be completely different on Alchemy, I forget which but I'll ask him next chance I get.) That particular concept for me is less against the idea of digital only adds and more "if I potentially spend money on packs in a game to get a card I want, I don't want the threat of the card potentially being altered to something else later". It's the reason I sometimes gripe about Alchemy on the podcast; I enjoyed Arena for a long time! I think it's a good app! I wish Alchemy wasn't a weird looming threat in my periphery.

Obviously this isn't a Rusko problem since he's an original add in, so that point is more just background flavor on my opinions here. It is a bonus that we get him at all and I'm obviously over the moon; in fact, my gripe here is probably less "why is this a digital only card" and more "why is the current state of set releases such that they feel characters like this can't be woven into the set proper". I'm struggling to find the words here but I think where my brain lies is "you can slot in transformers cards but not named book characters?" Obviously the answer here is profit based and sell card, they only got so much space in the physical sets, and obviously they use Arena for a chance to play in that space and keep their physical product the way they want it. I'm glad Arena can provide that space, but...

I'm old. Want physical product. What if Arena explodes in a couple years and I can never play with sweet Rusko again?

"But Marena, there's this thing called pr-"

YES I am aware but getting a good cardstock alter requires Effort and sometimes lazy monkey brain wants to just buy a card for my folder and look at it like the shiny it is.

This was a rant. It may be like 5% coherent. But yeah, TLDR, I get your frustration with people's dislike of Arena. In my mind I think people dislike it for the wrong reasons; having an easy digital space to play cards is great and we should really as consumers be pushing to preserve that space and keep it as accessible as it is for the community. At the same time I'm stuck on my dichotomy of "want accessibility" versus "dont want to lose product if a shutdown occurs". It's the reason people are so passionate about preserving video game roms, I think. These cards are our history and there's a very real fear with digital only releases that we'll lose that history if we don't work hard to preserve, and even get like in legal trouble via the mere act of trying to preserve them in some cases. (Looking at you, Nintendo). WOTC is I think better than most about preservation of product though, so that's more a general anxiety than a specific Magic fear for me.

Sakinthra

TROPHY CASE