{"id":1460,"date":"2011-12-09T10:15:41","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T10:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/?p=1460"},"modified":"2011-12-09T15:44:45","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T15:44:45","slug":"in-which-we-down-a-few","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2011\/12\/09\/in-which-we-down-a-few\/","title":{"rendered":"In which we down a few"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems like only yesterday that Nature Network, in what struck me as a bizarre fit of misplaced paranoia and pettiness, locked some of its most popular bloggers out of their own sites, preventing them from posting their own farewell messages and receiving any final comments of goodwill. Well, I for one have never looked back \u2013 and I\u2019ve enjoyed the past year in my new blogging home immensely. What hit me immediately about escaping the NN sphere, with its clunky interface and registration practices, was that I was suddenly hearing comments from all sorts of people who had never interacted with me before. And that\u2019s been really great, so I thank all my readers for stopping by.<\/p>\n

What could be more exciting than Occam\u2019s Typewriter\u2019s first birthday? Why, institute cocktails, of course! Once a month, one of the lab groups puts on a much-anticipated Friday night bash for everyone else. Tonight\u2019s theme was not without its controversies, however, causing a mild kerfuffle that ultimately culminated in the following mass email:<\/p>\n

Dear All<\/p>\n

It has been brought to my attention by an individual in the department that some people may find the images on the posters advertising this Friday\u2019s cocktails offensive. Let me reassure you that this was not my intention to offend Christians or indeed anybody else, and nobody who had seen the posters before I put them up suggested that they may be offensive.<\/p>\n

However, if you have been offended by the pictures of George and Toms\u2019 faces photoshopped on to Mary and Joseph, or Jemima and I transposed onto Mary and the donkey, then I apologise. I will endeavour to get around the building and remove the posters in question and replace them with hopefully less offensive ones. Please let me know if I miss any, or feel free to take them down and dispose of them yourselves. If anyone is offended by pictures of mince pies and beer, then I\u2019m sorry about that too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After spending a few hours on this afternoon\u2019s lab bonding exercise \u2013 scrubbing fungus from the inside of the tissue culture incubators and hoods \u2013 I\u2019ll be only too happy to exchange my Virkon for a vodka twist. And I don\u2019t care whose face is on the donkey.<\/p>\n

—
\nUpdate 15.39 PM: Just some proof that our lab has definitely earned the cocktails!
\n<\/em>
\n

\"\"<\/a>

Fungus Counter-attack (a.k.a. How Many Scientists Can You Fit Into a Small Tissue Culture Suite?)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems like only yesterday that Nature Network, in what struck me as a bizarre fit of misplaced paranoia and pettiness, locked some of its most popular bloggers out of their own sites, preventing them from posting their own farewell … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-silliness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}