|
December 21st, 2009
 | 11:04 pm - Scientists Are Assholes (again)
"Continuous, rapid, cocaine self-administration also occurs in animal experiments in which unlimited access to intravenous cocaine is provided. The animals die within 14 days."
Frank H. Gawin, "Cocaine addiction: psychology and neurophysiology." Science, vol. 251, 29 March 1991
|
November 16th, 2009
| 10:08 pm - Not a record, but the right direction
Four papers read in the last two days.
|
October 21st, 2009
| 08:28 pm - Basic Excel feature request
This seems like it should be simple. I want to be able to make a worksheet full of data and charts showing assorted data summaries. I want to be able to cut copy and paste that into a new worksheet, and plug in a new day's batch of data. (So far, no problem). I would then love to be able to click a button that updates all of the graphs on the worksheet to the data in the same location on that worksheet.
I suppose I could probably use a template to do this, but A: don't wanna, B: I do make enough day-to-day changes to my data analysis that I would like to be able to easily choose between how I analyzed the data yesterday and how I analyzed it a week or three months ago, and C: I don't have enough faith in Excel to actually have gotten that far right.
The really frustrating thing is that this has gotten significantly harder since I upgraded to 2007, which is otherwise a significant improvement. Whereas before it could be accomplished with a right-click-left-click-enter or a right-click-tab-left-click-repeat-enter, it's now an complicated process that takes a couple minutes for each chart, which is really frustrating when I'm trying to update a dozen charts or so per worksheet while catching up on a week or two's worth of data.
[/vent]
Current Music: Doctor Who - Bad Wolf
|
September 24th, 2009
| 10:16 pm - General announcement to the peanut gallery (or maybe just myself)
Thing #1: As part of a general new nose-reapplied-to-the-grindstone commitment I'm making to myself, I've decided to set myself a goal of reading at least one paper or relevant textbook chapter a day. To assist myself in following through on this task, I've decided to also try and make myself post little blurbs on each of them--synopses, notes, & whatnot--also, hopefully, each day.
Thing #2: As part of same commitment, I'm also going to try and do some mini-posts briefly going over what I do each day, just to force myself to actually be productive each day (or at least own up to it if I'm not). This will also hopefully include acknowledgments of things I wanted to do but didn't; whether it be due to lack of time, energy, or motivation.
Unfortunately, the nature of these posts is probably going to involve insight into my current projects around the lab. Due to the cutthroat fear-of-being-scooped nature of modern science--and even moreso out of respect to my labmates and PI, whose projects may also be involved (or at least interpreted by those with proper insight)--I'll be making some to all of these posts friends-only on lj to make sure I have control over who sees them. I'm sorry if a facebook-only friend feels screwed out of this, but I'll be honest enough to admit I don't think there's actually anyone who will miss the content. Regardless, however, if someone out there really cares it's not too much effort to make a livejournal account and friend me, and I would of course be honored if such occurred.
All for now.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) Peppermint tea
Current Music: Makyo - Devabansha (Tantric Laswell mix) | Powered by Last.fm
|
August 28th, 2009
 | 12:15 am - Week in Review
NOTE: Assume all days also include "unpacking," "cleaning up," "organizing/re-organizing," & "playing Burnout 3"
SUNDAY: Gaming, 1st day of Chase's D&D campaign
MONDAY: Sick, sat around, read The Gods Themselves, broke iphone further
TUESDAY: Surgery ended prematurely; had iphone repaired; purchased and read The Boys vol. 4 & Thor Visionaries: Walt Simonson vol. 2; went to library and picked up Astro City: The Tarnished Angel, Ranma 1/2 vol. 2, Naruto vol. 2, Thunderbolts: Faith in Monsters, and The Savage Sword of Conan vol. 1.
WEDNESDAY: Surgery kept me at work from 9:30 AM to ~8 PM due to electrode and anesthesia issues; finished reading aforementioned Thor volume & also finished the WSB biography I'd been reading (which isn't handy, and I don't recall the title).
THURSDAY: Surgery kept me at work from 9:30 to ~7 PM due to mad electrode issues; dinner @ Cedar's with the m-i-l; attempted (and failed) to prepare for my Biomedical Research Integrity discussion group tomorrow.
*peering in my crystal ball*
FRIDAY: Lab meeting, discussion group, surgery will most likely either be done by 4 or run fairly late; publab in evening? Cleanup at old apartment in evening?
SATURDAY: Trip to Goodwill, followed by Ikea & maybe REI for needed furniture for new place (new dresser, new book/DVD case, shelf paper, indoor bike rack)
Any questions?
|
August 19th, 2009
| 12:48 pm - Recommendation?
I am looking for rechargeable batteries, and am looking for recommendations from someone who knows more than I do.
Basically, my need is very simple: because of concerns of electrical noise, I have a ton of battery-powered LED lamps in the Faraday cage I use in the lab for my voltammetry experiments. However, they tend to drain battery life relatively quickly so I want to be a bit more economic and get a bunch of rechargeable AAA's. My sole point of interest is that I want to get maximum brightness from the lamps as long as possible on each charge--it's pretty clear so far that the lights dim rather quickly and then can maintain in the almost-too-dim-to-be-useful state indefinitely. I *don't* really care about how long the batteries last before they stop holding a charge, as this is on the lab dime. It would be nice to not have to replace them once a year or whatever, but on the scale of expenditures I contribute to the lab, that one is pretty tiny.
So I *think* that the value I care about is the milliampere-hour of each battery... but I'm not certain. Can anyone contribute thoughts and/or opinions? Are there other battery traits I should be concerning myself with?
|
December 9th, 2008
| 01:02 pm - F1000
So I was updating my Faculty of 1000 stored searches, when it occurred to me that the total was 11.
11?
Is there really only a total of 11 things that I'm interested in, and that's all I care about studying for the rest of my life?
...then I thought of a bunch of other things, and now it's up to 22. Plus there are other things like "plasticity" that I don't bother to list because the result counts will be too ridiculous.
|
December 3rd, 2008
| 04:15 pm - General request for assistance
The short version, as much as I can:
I have two operant chambers that I'm recording from directly onto a DVR. In the lab, this information is "normally" extracted from the DVR by a software called Video Web Server. Unfortunately, it appears to be the case that the computer I'm currently stuck with is too old to be able to reliably convert the video from its home format (.vse) to (.avi) so that I could then run it through video analysis software. However, I have discovered that I think I can also reliably copy off the .dvr files that are directly ripped from the DVR. They're the right size, and if I open them in Video Web Server it automatically converts them to its house format (which normally it does on its own).
But I have not yet been able to actually watch video on them. I've only tried on my laptop so far, which recognizes the extensions as a "Microsoft Recorded TV Show" and tries but fails to open in Windows Media Center. If I try to open them in Windows Media Player, it doesn't recognize them and fails to open them. I don't have anything else available worth trying on my laptop, so I intend to try and play around some more at home.
Questions:
* Does anyone know if there's anything I should know about the .dvr format that would be helpful or a hindrance towards being able to watch/interact with the files? Are there codecs or anything like that that I should be wary of?
* Does anyone know of any free software for XP that can convert .dvr files into .avi or .mpg?
Thanks, yo.
|
November 19th, 2008
| 11:48 am - Scooped?
The boys just got back from Neuroscience and reported a poster featuring the project I've been setting up to work on for the next six months to a year or more.
Doh!
At least if I got scooped, I got scooped by Harvard.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/confused.gif) confused
|
November 14th, 2008
| 01:17 pm - Kill me now
Injected animal with terminal dose of anesthetic at 9:08 AM.
Gave animal booster injection at 12:50 PM.
Animal is still unconscious at 1:18 PM.
Don't you just love that moment when you realize your only hope to get out at a reasonable hour is that your animal suddenly up and dies before you get your data?
Le sigh.
Current Music: Foetus - Why Can't It Happen to Me
|
October 29th, 2008
| 06:32 pm - Exhausted
Cris & I were sick most of last week. This was mainly problematic because I was supposed to get a rough draft of my NSF GRFP application to my advisor by last Friday. I didn't work on it at all because I was using all my energy just to keep up with other things.
So I spent all the weekend writing two of the essays, and all Monday night writing the third.
I spent yesterday & last night catching up on my stats class (having not been to class the entire previous week, but there are podcasts of the lectures online) so I could get the homework done.
Woke up feeling exhausted, then I spent all day today failing to cut 10 micrometer thick carbon fibers down to 100 micrometer lengths with a scalpel. WITH A SCALPEL!
I need to revise the three essays tonight; and I need to read four papers for class tomorrow, two of which are reviews. Probably, I also need to do other things that I'm not thinking of.
This is all a long way of saying I'm really really tired.
|
September 8th, 2008
| 07:29 pm - Oh yeah, this totally happened a couple weeks ago.
Short version: So I know what I'm going to do for my dissertation project, and it's going to take at least 6-8 months to get the equipment.
Doh!
|
August 7th, 2008
| 02:07 pm - I don't know if I've ever seen a bigger delta...
...of joy experienced in my life. Coming back from the wedding, from 'sota, to being in the lab calibrating electrodes all day every day. In the hopes of having 10 usable electrodes for a surgery next week.
At least I finally know _how_ to do the calibration. Last time I had a surgery scheduled (two days before we left), I wasn't even able to learn that much before hand.
But so far? Zero working electrodes... well, maybe one. Out of 5 I've tested thus far this week. Ugh.
Some of them might be working, maybe I'm just having problems with the flow cell... if only I could talk to my postdoc and find out. But all I can get out of him is "do you try this, that, or the other thing? Yeah? Man, you're getting all the weird stuff." It's all I can do to get him to come down to the lab and look stuff over with me.
Incredibly. Frustrating.
|
June 3rd, 2008
| 12:28 am - This is ridiculous
I think this is the first time I've actively had fun working on a homework assignment since I started grad school. This must have something to do with the fact that I'm completely off the rails in terms of what I'm focusing on vs. what the professor expects us to focus on.
I just hit my third page of text write-up when she made it clear she doesn't want more than a single page outline or text. I think I may edit it into a 4-5 page proposal just for fun and lj posting, then edit it down to a single page trying to limit it to what she's interested in.
Silliness
|
June 2nd, 2008
| 06:07 pm - Democratic Homework Assistance
Still working on the homework problem mentioned last night, and I'm trying to figure something out.
One of the given presumptions for the robot we're designing is that it is familiar with the search area prior to an earthquake, presumably so it already has a rough map of the region it is searching for survivors. Something I would like it to do is comprehensively search the workspace (that is, the disaster area) in the fastest time possible following some sort of optimization algorithm that is able to update when previously known pathways are discovered to be inaccessible. Is this reasonable? Is there an obvious algorithm to use for this purpose?
It's days like this that I miss being good at math. And yes, that was well over a decade ago.
|
June 1st, 2008
| 09:16 pm - Epic Homework Assignments
Our assignment this week: to write an outline for the design of an autonomous robot that could conduct search-and-rescue operations after an earthquake.
Um, DAMN.
So yeah, I'm having fun researching that one. Any suggestions?
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
malcubed's journal