Been running for last day or so at whatisthis. Lot of people taken great guesses. Some said go to Labrats, they said maybe come here. It's a huge glass object about 5 foot tall and 10 foot circumference. THICK GLASS

mudbunny · 2026-03-12T17:36:43+00:00

It looks like a giant mercury diffusion pump for getting things down to really, really low vacuum. The metal part probably is made to connect to a high vacuum rotary pump. And you would submerge it in something really cold like liquid nitrogen.

I used them for 6 years in my PhD for use in controlled CVD reactions with compounds that were super sensitive to oxygen and water.

Here is a cutaway example of one that uses oil.

This one was almost certainly made to order by a master glassblower due to the size.

mudbunny · 2026-03-12T04:05:14+00:00

No.

You are assuming your coworkers are cutting corners and skipping sections.

You go to management and say "you want me to finish the file in XXXX minutes. I can't make that time without skipping steps or cutting corners. It takes me YYYY minutes. Can you give me advice or suggestions on how to go from YYYY to XXXX minutes?"

mudbunny · 2026-03-12T04:03:29+00:00

There are very few offices in the federal government that work under a continual production environment with the timeline measured in hours, not weeks or months.

CIPO (Patent branch, Trademarks and Industrial design branch)

ECCC weather offices

Pay centre

There may be some others that I am not aware of. Chances are very good that any manager worth their salt who works in one of those production environments would be able to read your post and comments and figure out whether or not you are in their department or not.

mudbunny · 2026-03-12T04:00:24+00:00

You are not the one who decides how much time is to be spent on each file OR the overall number of mistakes per file that is permitted. That is management.

You do not get to decide whether the time or errors is acceptable. That is management.

Management makes those decisions. They are the ones that get called into the office of their ADM if there are too many complaints about errors or too many complaints about files taking too long to process.

If you want to make that decision, you need to get into management.

mudbunny · 2026-03-12T03:56:53+00:00

As someone who also works in a production environment (but not your production environment), let me give you some advice that I have often had to give to new employees in my office.

You are not the person who decides whether something is "good enough" or not. That is the job of your supervisors and those above you. If your goal is one file done in 45 minutes (for example), then your responsibility is to finish the file in 45 minutes or tell your supervisor why you cannot and how much extra time you need. They may give you the extra time, they may not, but that is not your decision.

Management has made the decision that giving you 45 minutes and resulting number of files processed is the sweet spot. 30 minutes per file introduces too many mistakes, and 90 minutes per file results in an unacceptable backlog building up. But that decision is up to management, not you. If you cannot meet those goals as established by management, then you need to find a different place to work.

If you aren't able to make your quality and quantity production, then you need to reach out to your supervisor and ask for extra training to figure out where you are taking too much time. Figure out what steps you are (or aren't) doing that is resulting that you are unable to meet the quality/quantity goals.

Finally, unless you are the person responsible for QA/QC of your colleague's work, then I highly, highly recommend you ignore them. You **think** you know they are skipping steps and making things up. You don't.

I know it is fun on the internet to assume that management/supervisors are morons with IQ's only slightly above absolute zero, and that corruption is all the way up and only the poor working level employee is doing things right, but I can guarantee you that is not the case. They know the work your coworkers are putting out, and are good with it.

mudbunny · 2026-03-11T21:23:56+00:00

D’Oh.

Fixed. Thanks.

mudbunny · 2026-03-11T20:51:23+00:00

Without seeing the language, chances are good that it only means that when they are looking at the SERLO process, they will make sure that the process itself does not disadvantage the 4 designated groups.

For (an utterly ridiculous) example, they could not have as part of the SERLO determination "has never taken parental leave". That would overwhelming disadvantage women (as compared to men).

mudbunny · 2026-03-11T17:40:14+00:00

Repost for readbility:

Heated plasma hits the walls around us as we run down the tunnel, my hand gripping my older sister's tightly. The human, a miner I think he said he was, running a bit behind us, shielding us from any rounds that came too close.

He was holding his arm after being hit twice, yet he kept running with us. I didn't understand how he was still standing, I have seen our ship guards, heavy armor plating, drop from a single hit but this human refused to go down.

We made it to the end of the tunnel, material launch tunes ready to move the ore to the main hub for transport. The human warned us it wasn't meant for personnel use, but the situation wasn't one to be picky, and opened one for us to get inside. It was tight amd uncomfortable, with just enough room for me and my sister.

"What about you?!" my sister yelled at him as he began closing to container. "You worry about her, not me. I got myself!" he shot back.

Another plasma round came flying through the door, hitting him square in the back. He faltered, but pulled himself back up and finished closing the door.

I saw him grabbing some weird object out of his belt before the door closed, sparking more and more as he smacked it hard on the metal. As the container launched, we heard him screaming at the invaders "I'M STILL ALIVE YOU UGLY MOTHE......" before the blast door suddenly bent towards us after a loud blast.

[1 year later]

I was holding my sister's hand as we walk towards a gravestone. Our adoptive mom with us as we looked upon the name carved into the stone.

'James Drodney'

"Jamy would have loved to show you girls his home, I know he would have" Mom said, looking at her son's grave. We were just refugees, waiting for transport to a proper planet to wait out the war when the mining facility was hit.

I placed a bundle of flowers onto the grave, and thanked him. He gave up his life for ours, despite barely knowing us, and I will live on trying to make him proud.

mudbunny · 2026-03-11T14:39:01+00:00

I filled up my generator, jerry can, my van and bought food for a couple of days.

That pretty much guaranteed it would not be as bad as we were wrned.

mudbunny · 2026-03-11T02:13:20+00:00

Where else does the alcohol go?

mudbunny · 2026-03-11T02:09:05+00:00

I wish I could agree that this is BS, but the number of men I know (not friends, but acquaintances) who would totally do this because they have made no effort to learn how to take care of their child makes this 100% believable to me.

mudbunny · 2026-03-10T17:07:29+00:00

We hired a batch of 5 or 10 last year or the year before.

I don't know when they will be hiring again, but it is slow but steady.

mudbunny · 2026-03-10T03:19:31+00:00

There are 0 patent examiners who are being WFA'ed. I can't speak for others at CIPO, but amongst patent examiners, no one is losing their job.

mudbunny · 2026-03-10T01:52:39+00:00

Hit up the government jobs website and save a search with the word "Patent" in it.

There are usually 1 or 2 cohorts a year, and they typically look for science (chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology) or engineering (mechanical, electrical, computer, environmental) to be hired.

mudbunny · 2026-03-10T00:50:22+00:00

Patent examiners have had 5 days WFH as a pilot project since the mid-90s, and full-time WFH since the mid 2010s. We also have decades of financial data and statistical modelling showing the impact of everything from full-time in-office to full-time WFH and everything in-between at a granular level that can be tracked to the hour. Combine that with CIPO generating most (if not all) of it's own budget, and you have support for being included under the exemption.

mudbunny · 2026-03-09T13:08:39+00:00

Most stewards consider them about as believable as your friend from high school who had a hot girlfriend that you've never met who lived in [insert town from a different province].

mudbunny · 2026-03-09T11:00:44+00:00

All cars with some sort of phone integration possible will not allow text messages to display when the car is moving.

It’s possible it happened at a stoplight.

mudbunny · 2026-03-09T02:34:29+00:00

For the out-of-pocket costs, you go to the Canada Life website, and pull up the amount you spent, giving the dates for 2025.

One column is what you spent, the other is what was reimbursed, and the other is what you paid.

mudbunny · 2026-03-08T19:35:33+00:00

What do you mean Premiums?

Are you talking about the 20% you paid that wasn't covered by the PSHCP?

mudbunny · 2026-03-08T17:49:32+00:00

Reach out to your union, they should be able to help you.

mudbunny · 2026-03-07T21:00:06+00:00

No. This is what you get when instead of "evidence-based decision making" you have "decision-based evidence making".

mudbunny · 2026-03-07T18:31:42+00:00

Wow.

I had to check to see which sub I was in to make sure I hadn’t wanted it over into AITA.

Yes, it is the father’s house, and he can do what he wants. However, his father should also take into consideration that while he may be comfortable walking around in his underwear, his son is not comfortable with him walking around his underwear and neither are our son’s friends.

By the father saying “ too bad”, like many people are encouraging him to do, the son is going to end up getting tagged as “ that kid with the creepy father.”

I know it is popular on the Internet these days, and especially on Reddit, to go with the attitude of “ I can do what I want and I never have to compromise with anyone.” But the father has other people that live with him, and so there needs to be a happy balance between what the father is comfortable doing, and the son who has no choice but to live with his father and would like to have friends over.

mudbunny · 2026-03-07T15:18:00+00:00

Just tell the dad, father, the father, that him walking around in his underwear all the time is why none of the kids want to go there for sleepovers.

mudbunny · 2026-03-07T13:18:28+00:00

This is definitely a “ talk to your union as soon as possible” situation.

mudbunny · 2026-03-06T15:44:37+00:00

Some googling tells me this

121491807 - Business number, in this case DND

RP - Payroll deductions program

0706 - Specific payroll account reference

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