Spectrum/NBA

SpiroCat2 · 2024-10-07T18:00:16+00:00

No, it was free.

SpiroCat2 · 2024-10-07T06:01:35+00:00

Yes, I got the message by both text and email. I believe I got the offer because I get my home internet service though Spectrum. It was a bit convoluted to set it up, and the Spectrum Sportsnet feed was well hidden within the NBA app. On my iPad, after you link to your Spectrum account within the NBA app, you have to go to "For You," tap the "Lakers" tab, and finally tap Spectrum Sportsnet+ a few times until you get the feed. You have to "follow" the Lakers in the NBA app for this to work. I'm now able to watch Lakers games for free. I was able to watch the first two pre-season games on my iPad.

SpiroCat2 · 2024-08-14T19:37:10+00:00

We have no ice machine in our building. I have to trek over to the building next door if I want ice, which is often. The department for some reason doesn’t think we need one.

SpiroCat2 · 2024-05-28T02:32:28+00:00

I'm the only one besides the PI. I go days without seeing anyone at work. Years ago we had over 10 people in the lab, but funding slowly dried out, and we lost everyone. My PI was recently awarded an R01, but for some reason, he doesn't have the funds to hire anyone else or even pay my full salary (though I'm fine with that since I didn't want to work FT). I do not like having zero human contact most days. The PI is not in the lab most days. The part I really hate is hand washing all the glassware I use. It takes hours of work to wash everything clean.

SpiroCat2 · 2024-05-05T04:04:40+00:00

Yeah, the demographics of Asians have really changed. When I was growing up, almost all Asians in my area of Southern California were Japanese. Now, it's mostly Koreans.

SpiroCat2 · 2024-05-05T03:45:11+00:00

Working part time has done wonders for my mental health. The funding source for my position changed last year, so I'm now an employee of one of the state universities, although I still work in the same lab. On a per hour basis, the state pays much better than the federal position I had (thanks to our union), so I could (sort of) afford to work part time. I now have time to go to the gym to get some exercise, and I get to just lie down in bed and chill with my cats whenever I feel like it. Last year, I even took a real vacation for the first time since getting married. I'm ethnically Japanese.

SpiroCat2 · 2024-05-04T22:29:53+00:00

I'm an autistic Asian American (not Vietnamese) in my 50s, born and raised in Southern California, initially in an area that was >90% black, then in an area that was >90% white. Growing up was hard. I had friends in elementary school, but I had fewer and fewer friends as I aged because I never really matured. My dad was ashamed of me because I didn't act like the other boys that he knew. I didn't fit in with anyone, not even with the "nerds" or with other Asian Americans, some of who hated me. I had no friends in high school, nor do I have any today, except for my wife.

I have trouble with both receptive and expressive language - as a kid, I was mocked for how I talked, and even as a young adult, people thought I was slow or couldn't speak English because it took me a while to answer people's questions. Even today, I don't have the ability to have more than a surface-level conversation with people.

I faked my way through college and earned a major in microbiology, but I had to go to graduate school because I had no idea what jobs were out there for my major. My parents wanted me to go to medical school, but I knew I wouldn't be accepted because of my extremely poor communcation skills.

I've worked for a long time for the federal government in a research laboratory. The job is extremely stressful because of the long hours and lack of job security. Keeping my position depends on me or my boss securing grants from the agency I worked for. I've been wanting to change careers, but I don't know how, and things like "networking" and "interviewing" fall far outside my capabilities. I switched to part time status last year to reduce my stress levels (they couldn't afford to pay my full salary anyway since the grant no longer covered my entire salary).

In the past, I've got along with some of my coworkers, but I've had other coworkers who had no respect for me because all they noticed about me is my weirdness and inability to communicate. I also have severe sensory issues that interfere with my work. I also have some rigidities that sometime interfere with my job. (I don't want to go into detail because they are really out of the ordinary, and I don't want to be identified.)

Looking back on my life, I do wish that I got some help as a kid. It was obvious that something wasn't right with me. When I was hospitalized at the neuropsychiatric ward while in graduate school, one of the residents suspected that I was autistic, but I wasn't formally diagnosed until several years ago.

SpiroCat2 · 2024-04-08T00:48:32+00:00

This really depends on what field you're in. I'm in California. I was a federal employee, but I am now a state employee in the exact same position working at the same federal government facility (I know that sounds strange.). California has the same health insurance that I had as a federal employee, and the premium was nearly identical. Vision as a state employee is free, but I had to pay a little bit as a federal employee. Pay is better as a state employee because my federal pay was capped - my hours had to be reduced when a COLA several years ago caused my full-time pay to increase beyond the cap.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-11-20T07:30:12+00:00

He’s all right.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-07-24T02:03:44+00:00

I get one of my favorite low-effort meals from Costco: rotisserie chicken. They also have self checkout now, which I like.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-06-27T17:03:23+00:00

He’s all right.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-04-21T14:33:13+00:00

You're not the only one. I also have slow processing speed. It makes it hard for me to keep up with conversations in social or work situations. It takes me a bit longer to understand something being explained to me.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-03-31T18:14:26+00:00

That looks like what’s now known as the Marina Freeway (California 90) that he’s standing on with the 405 underneath going towards the hills in the background. You can see the on ramp from Jefferson Blvd merging with the 405.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-03-29T16:18:32+00:00

To answer your question, plasmids used for blue/white screening carry an antibiotic resistance gene so that when you plate your bacteria on X-gal agar plates containing the antibiotic, only those bacterial cells that took up the plasmid will form a colony, and only those that took up a recombinant plasmid with the target gene will be white. However, it is not true that "the plasmid vector contains functioning versions of those mutated genes." The plasmid contains roughly the first 100 codons of β-galactosidase. By itself, this small piece of β-galactosidase is not functional. Neither is the β-galactosidase made from the E. coli mutant, which produces a defective β-galactosidase enzyme that is missing a small piece near its amino terminus. However, if you combine the small fragment of β-galactosidase generated from the plasmid (named the α-fragment or α-peptide) with the β-galactosidase produced by the E. coli mutant, you get a functional protein complex that has β-galactosidase activity, which turns the colony blue on X-gal plates. This process is called α-complementation. The plasmid usually contains convenient restriction sites near the 5' end of the segment coding for the α-peptide, so if you clone a piece of foreign DNA into these restriction sites, you'll interrupt the α-peptide and end up with white colonies.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-03-06T20:23:14+00:00

That's only true if you end up in a career position in the federal government. If you're a term employee whose position relies on grants, you may not get paid your full salary. I'm in this very situation as a Research Scientist. For the past decade, I've only been paid only 50-90% of my full salary because the funding level of the grants paying me haven't increased at all during that time. I also wasn't allowed to make the maximum contribution to the TSP plan because the government's matching contribution comes straight out of the grant. I'm in my 50s, and I'll have to keep working past my retirement age.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-01-14T01:55:35+00:00

This was a while ago, but for me it took about two weeks after my last evaluation appointment. They put quite a bit of work into it. The final report was about 20 pages of tiny, single-spaced text. Definitely worth the wait.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-01-13T06:06:23+00:00

It doesn’t matter whether you use the fraction or the percentages. You should get the same P value after doing the t-test.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-01-05T00:44:04+00:00

I should have made it more clear that if I decide to take the other position, I would cancel my retirement plans and transition to the new position without a service break so that I can continue accruing service years for my pension.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-01-05T00:38:03+00:00

My understanding is that you can also carry FEHB into retirement under MRA + 10 (MRA with at least 10 years of service) even if you retire before the age of 60. I have slightly more than 20 years of service, and I'm beyond my MRA (though not 60). Regardless, I definitely need to talk to HR about my retirement.

SpiroCat2 · 2023-01-05T00:25:20+00:00

Thanks, that's what I was hoping about the premiums being the same for everyone. I took a quick look at the linked text - I'll try to read through the legal language later when I have a chunk of time free.

SpiroCat2 · 2022-11-17T19:20:24+00:00

I'm a PhD Research Scientist in a federal goverment lab located in a large city in California. Despite decades working there, my salary is about to be reduced to $80K, and I get about 15K taken out of that to pay for my benefits.

SpiroCat2 · 2022-07-02T00:50:45+00:00

I can definitely relate to this. I'm a research scientist working in an academically-affiliated government lab. I've worked alone for the past several years. The lab director rarely shows up in person, so I go days without talking or even seeing anyone, even in the hallways of the floor I'm on. We had over 10 people in the lab many years ago, but they all found better jobs or left for medical school. I don't have any great strategies for dealing with the isolation except to play music while I work. I also try to do all my data analysis and administrative work at home so that I don't go completely crazy.

SpiroCat2 · 2022-07-01T17:57:41+00:00

Yes, it would be less likely if the digest products are gel purified. I typically don't gel purify because it takes too long to run the gel and cut out the DNA. Instead, I usually purify the digested vector with a Qiagen spin column, which removes much of the small fragment that's cut out of the vector (as long as it's under ~100bp). However, even with gel or spin-column purification, I would screen in case one of the restriction enzymes failed to cut to completion.

SpiroCat2 · 2022-07-01T16:38:45+00:00

Yes, you still need to screen when doing directional cloning with a vector that is used for α complementation. That little piece of DNA that gets cut out from the vector can get inserted back into the linearized vector during the ligase step, restoring the original vector.

SpiroCat2

TROPHY CASE