No More Behaving

PhizzleDizzle "lost her junk" so to speak over my popcorn recipe listed as a favorite snack in the 5 Things Meme.I just made me some (and yes, it was insane!) so I thought I'd post the recipe while I'm thinking about it so PhizzleDizzle (and whoever else thinks they're crazy enough) can partake in the madness.I will not be posting pretty pictures of the process because a) it's popcorn after all -- you know what it looks like, and b) my digital camera gave up the ghost about 5 years ago and I am too cheap/broke to replace it so I shoot 35mm...which doesn't lend itself well to this medium.Ingredients:Cooking oil - I use extra virgin olive oil because this is what I keep in large quantities in my kitchen. If you choose to go this route, keep in mind that the smoke point for olive oil is very close to the temperature at which the corn pops, so you must be quick about putting your kernels in as soon as it's hot enough - no faffing around! If you don't want to worry about this, use some other kind of oil, the variety really isn't that important.Popping corn - I prefer a variety called "Black Jewel" because it's pretty -- the kernels really are black in color -- and because the hulls are pretty thin so you can also eat the half-popped stuff in the bottom of the pan without breaking your teeth. Trust me, you'll want to.Brewer's yeast - or something called "nutritional yeast"...if there's a difference I can't tell you what it is. You can get it in bulk at any health food store. It's yellow and flaky and can be stored in a sealed dry container pretty much indefinitely. Pelletized baker's yeast is NOT a suitable alternative.Curry powderDried seaweed flakes - my supermarket was out of this last time I was there so I am currently using some kind of South Asian "seasoning mix" containing sesame seeds, seaweed, miso and ???. It's also good, but not as pretty as the little green flakes.Sea saltButterGarlic PowderOnion powderCider vinegar - alternatives include balsamic vinegar, soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce. Feel free to experiment.Any other dried herbs/spices that appeal to you - I've used cayenne (spicy!) with good results, and this most recent batch was made with Spanish hot smoked paprika (expensive, but so worth the difference in just about everything I've used it in).To make the madness:Throw 3-4 kernels into a deep soup pan. Pour in just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan to a depth of one kernel.Cover the pan and light burner to high.DO NOT LEAVE THE KITCHEN! Listen carefully for your "test kernels" popping. Once they have, pour in enough popcorn to cover bottom of pan in a single confluent monolayer of kernels and replace the lid -- quick! -- before they start popping.Shake the pan every 10-15 seconds.Remove from heat when you hear a silence of 2-3 seconds between pops.Open the pot. Liberally sprinkle popped corn with yeast, curry powder, and seaweed. Also some salt, and whatever other dry herbs and spices you're using.Melt some butter in the microwave with a dash of garlic and onion powder. Stir in a splash of cider vinegar, then pour over the popcorn.Close the lid and shake it up.Go nuts!

Labels: Phizzledizzle, Popcorn

I'm supposed to be hitting the gym right now while my plates are drying so that I can get home in time to actually make dinner. There's a perfectly good chicken in the fridge and we've eaten out way too many times this week.But sneaky people kept getting their stuff into the autoclave ahead of me! It's like they have some kind of autoclave pager or something. As soon as one person's cycle was finished, someone else's was in, while my LB languished on the benchtop. Who are these people with the super autoclave timing? I don't even know who they are. They're like autoclave gnomes or something.So I didn't get my shit autoclaved til way too late and it is stiiiiilllllll coooooolllllliiiiiinnnnnngggg......Blergh.

Labels: Foiled Again

I have been toiling away for the better part of 4.5 years now trying to find an answer to my favorite research question. I have a lot of tools at my disposal. Some are better than others. Some are easy to use, and give consistent results relatively quickly. Some involve variable time and energy investments on my part and produce results accordingly. Some are time-consuming and not very easy to use, but give beautiful results.I've been pinning a lot of my hopes on one of the latter. It is a total bitch to use, but is giving me by far the most promising results of all of my tools. Trouble is, in order to publish the beautiful promising results from this tool I need to put to rest one tiny technical detail...and that detail is proving to be even more of a bitch than the rest of the tool has managed to be over the entire 4.5 years I've been working with it. It should be trivial but it hasn't been. I've sweated through several permutations of 2 of 3 possible assays to address this and they haven't worked. I've just completed the third of 3 possible assays and it looks like that one won't give us anything useful either. Without this technical detail the results from beautiful bitchy tool are unpublishable and these results are at the crux of my paper that I wanted to get out um...last year.GrAdvisor thinks it's time to throw in the towel on this tool. He may be right. He gave me a little "pep talk" on learning when to let go. I'm scared to - that will mean completely reworking the paper because no one else has another tool capable of addressing this question.I've invested a whole lot of time and energy into this tool and it's hard to walk away, because it means redefining question, my paper, and my quest. It feels somewhat reminiscent of walking away from a bad relationship. I've known for a while that it just wasn't good for me but I've put so much in at this point that walking away is admitting defeat, admitting I was wrong, and that I was stupid for holding out for so long.These are good lessons to learn. But still, science can be a real heartbreaker.

Labels: Learning

Thing1 just brought me a bird. A real one. (Awwww, thanks buddy!) He carried it in through the cat-flap and then yowled at me very insistently until I properly acknowledged his superior hunting skillz. (He yowls as a matter of course and I generally just ignore him so it took me a while to notice the bird.)When I went to scoop up the carcass to discard it he picked it up and wouldn't let go. Fine. Be that way. So I picked him up and chucked him (with bird) out onto the second story patio and locked the door behind him. It's raining. He's informed me of how cruel I am. I could hear him from all the way across the house. Sorry mister, that bird carcass is not coming inside. This is one smart cat though. The bird carcass did eventually come inside...in his stomach. When I went to let him in, all that was left on the patio was a few feathers. Now taking bets on how long before he pukes it up.

Labels: Who

I was having an interesting discussion the other day with a friend (over beers of course) about why we're in science.GrAdvisor is fond of saying, "Nobody gets into this field for the money."He's right, but he's also in a position where it's pretty easy to say that money doesn't matter. He's a well-established tenured PI who owns a very nice house and a very nice car and makes enough to continue living this rather comfortable lifestyle. Not to mention that his salary is secure.It's a different view from where my friend and I are at. We both really love doing science (or we wouldn't be here), but it's not so easy to be flippant about the pay. I'm starting to get kind of anxious about the next few years as a post-doc. It will certainly be a pay raise from my student stipend, but most or all of that increase will go towards paying off my (rather sizable) student loans. Our stipends here are under the estimated cost of living and I have no savings as a result. This doesn't keep me from wanting to continue in science, it just makes it pragmatically more difficult. I worry about how this is going to impact my future career (will I be able to afford to move to a new position? will I have the financial freedom to take a job that I like better over one that offers a higher salary?), and my life (like will I by able to buy a house before I'm 50? will I be able to save for retirement or will I have to work til I'm dead?), and just general stability (pre-tenure there's really not much in the way of job security - without any savings I can't afford a gap in employment).My friend just started a new post-doc. She's loving it. Her new PI is the polar opposite of the former one, and the difference in management styles and people skills has had a marked impact on her happiness in the lab and most importantly her motivation. We were talking about how some PIs subscribe to the idea of competitive motivation - let people compete within the lab and you will encourage better faster work by offering authorship to the one who gets the results first. I've seen this backfire. Sometimes it results in fraud. Sure, falsifying data is a decision that the individual makes and that individual should be held accountable, but it just doesn't make any sense to me to foster an environment where falsification might appear to be a valid option. PIs who employ this "competition" management technique seem to believe that they are incentivizing hard work. That might work for some people (probably those that "win" the race), but what about those who lose? Seems to me that if you pit three post-docs against one another in a race for data, you're establishing a gamesmanship dynamic. Personally, I'm not interested in playing under those conditions and I suspect I'm not alone.Other incentivizing techniques I've seen are less carrot and more stick. "If you don't get this paper/fellowship application/data set submitted by [arbitrary deadline] I won't let you attend conference/keep your job." Now, sometimes those are just the real life constraints and when that's the case them's the breaks, but I've also seen examples of people employing these kinds of threats just because they think it will make their trainees work harder.It's these sorts that make me want to beat them over their heads with a clue-by-four. Most of us are not here because we're offered awesome material rewards - if that's what we wanted we wouldn't be doing trained monkey tasks for peanuts. We're here in the lab because we're curious. We want to figure things out. We want to make a career of figuring things out, so we're willing to make material sacrifices now to give ourselves the best possible chance of letting that happen in the future. In short, we're intrinsically motivated. Which is why sticks don't work any better than a competition for carrots. Personally, I find it rather insulting if someone implies that I'm not working hard enough, and even more insulting if they believe that chasing me around will make me want to work harder. I'm not a donkey. I'm too smart to be happy being a pack animal. I like to work for and with people who get this and who appreciate that this is why I'm here. If those people want to throw me a carrot from time to time I certainly won't complain. But I'm doing this job for myself, my future, and my own curiosity, not for the peanuts, the cookies or the carrots, or to escape punishiment.I think that this video sums it all up rather nicely. Have a look - you won't be sorry.Dan Pink makes the point that the best way to motivate people who perform creative problem-solving tasks under poorly defined or unknown rules towards a non-specified outcome (gee, sound like experimentation at all?) is to foster autonomy, mastery of skills, and a sense of purpose. This is in stark contrast to what motivates people to perform well on mechanical (non-thinking) tasks with narrowly defined rules towards a "right answer" type of outcome. Carrots and sticks work rather well in those cases, but very little of what we do actually centers on these kinds of tasks. This is all backed up by robust empirical data. (Squeee! Data!) I think it's something that most of us "know" intrinsically, but when so much of our managerial experience (from either the manager's or the managee's position) relies on the carrot-and-stick model it's hard for people to break out of the pattern.It's also worth noting that relying on intrinsic motivators to inspire good work requires that the conventional extrinsic motivators (like pay) be "taken off the table". This does not mean that we shouldn't worry about paying people. It means that the people we're paying should adequately and fairly compensated for their work. If you are paid fairly and adequately then you're not spending your time worrying about making the rent or competing for the next big bonus, and you can focus that time and energy on (wait for it...) YOUR SCIENCE. Not only that, but once you're relieved of those pesky distractions like crap/unequal/unfair pay and inane competitions for worthless payoffs and pacifying the makers of obtuse demands or else!...you're more likely produce some really pretty good and innovative science.Revolutionary!

Labels: Motivation

One more plea for help.Any of you trusted PIs out there have the time and energy to take a gander at my CV before I send off post-doc applications next week? I'm getting a lot of conflicting advice about what's important to include, what isn't, where to put it on the document for max effect, etc. and I think it would help to have an objective assessment from someone who doesn't already know me or my work (because the PIs I'm applying to don't either).I know you're all busy people, so if this is something you'd like to do, and you are willing to protect my pseudonymity after getting all that personal info, please drop me a line in the comments or email, and I will be forever grateful. So much so that I will buy you some motherfucking Jameson, a dirty martini, or a bag of Doritos if when we're next in the same city. Your choice. Thanks.

Labels: Shameless, Solicitaiton

st1\:*{behavior:url(http://ambivalentacademic.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html#ieooui) } Over at FSP there is a discussion going on as to whether or not students should be required to go to seminars�as a student I don�t have a lot of sway in this decision but the general rule of thumb here is that:Students are required to attend seminars in series that GrAdvisor calls "compulsory." These include:weekly invited speakers from outside the institutionmonthly faculty seminarbi-weekly sub-sub-field research forumweekly departmental journal clubweekly sub-field group meeting with rotating presentations by students/post-docsweekly lab meetingWhen students are slow to produce data, GrAdvisor will say something along the lines of, "I�ve seen you at a lot of seminars lately�." As if to imply that students are using seminars to avoid benchwork.I am not sure he realizes what mixed messages this sends. Some of these seminars are really good and there is a lot to be learned and so the time away from the bench is well-spent. Not all of these seminars are good/useful, but all of them are "compulsory"�which would imply that we should feel compelled to attend them even if they�re crap. But if he sees us there when data are slow, we should no longer feel compelled to attend? You just can�t win with this system.On top of this conundrum, some of these seminars are very poorly organized, much to my frustration (and today, relief). The speaker schedule for the weekly sub-field group meeting (there are two speakers each week) was sent out several months ago. This meeting is held on Tuesday, but the dates on the schedule were actually Thursdays�oh well, I knew what they meant, so I marked on my calendar the Tuesday that fell in the same week as the Thursday on which I was "scheduled" to speak. (Which, for the record is next Tuesday, one week before my committee meeting. Why is it always right next to my committee meeting?). A short time later a corrected schedule was sent around with the dates corrected to Tuesdays. I checked it against my calendar � yep, still next week. A short time after that a third schedule was sent around with Thursdays corrected to Tuesday AND some, but not all, of the speakers rearranged. Apparently, I was one of those speakers, and according to the third schedule I was supposed to speak today. Nowhere, in any of the subsequent schedules, nor the emails in which they were distributed, was it suggested that the schedule had fundamentally changed aside from the Thursday-Tuesday thing. So I, of course, didn�t read the third schedule too carefully since it appeared almost identical to the second corrected schedule. So I didn�t know I was supposed to speak today (according to the third schedule) until I sat down in the audience and LabFriend asked, "where�s your computer?"AA: What? I�m not talking until next week.LF: You�re on the schedule for today.AA: Yeah, very funny. [There is a not-so-funny running joke in ReallyBigLab in which one or more lab members will try to "punk" another lab member by making them believe that they are supposed to give a talk for which they are unprepared. This joke has been going around for so long that I am generally disinclined to believe people when they try to pull this crap with me. LabFriend also doesn�t find this joke to be very funny so he, as a rule, does not try to "punk" people. Which means I should believe him.]Eeeek! Fortunately, someone else (a complete stranger to me � it�s a big group) was also confused by the multiple schedules because she showed up ready to present today, as she should have according to the first several schedules (as did the other guy who really was supposed to talk today according to all three schedules), and the powers that be were none the wiser. So I guess I will be talking next month in Stranger�s place (on the third schedule)�thanks Stranger, for saving my ass. And to whoever is in charge of "organizing" this debacle � you can rot!Now if only we could all agree on the changes to our lab meeting schedule. I swear it shouldn�t be this complicated.

Labels: Stranger