Richard P Grant
Scientist, poet, gadfly
Creator and sustainer of
Occam's Typewriteremail: rpgrant at gmail.com
twitter: @rpg7twit
home: rg-d.com-
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- rpg on A Long December
- Henry on A Long December
- Our House | Confessions of a (former) Lab Rat on Three Little Birds
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- Henry Gee on Sweet home Alabama
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- rpg on The Times They Are A-Changin’
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Category Archives: The stupid, it burns
Get off of my cloud
In my previous life, I pontificated on the etiquette of iPods and in particular the signals that earbuds send out. My central thesis was that if you were foolish enough to approach someone at the lab bench who was wearing … Continue reading
Posted in Ill-considered rants, Office life, The stupid, it burns, Work
Tagged day job, iPod, sociopathy, stupid coworkers, writing
1 Comment
On leakage
Apparently there’s a word for it. I did it once, when I went to work at a small (and doomed) startup company in Cambridge, back in the tail end of 1997. I did it again four and a bit years … Continue reading
Posted in Careers, Science is Vital, The stupid, it burns, Work
Tagged academentia, BIS, careers, leakage
27 Comments
On peer review, part 451 (b)
I had a conversation on twitter last night with m’learned friend Nige, who runs the most ethical small business I know of. He pointed me at this blog post by Richard Smith at the BMJ, What is post publication peer … Continue reading
On health and safety gorn mad
The graduate student came running into the lab. “The centrifuge is on fire!” We’re talking quite a while ago now. The centrifuge, an old bench-top Heraeus, was a clunky old blue thing, top speed of about 5,000 rpm according to … Continue reading
On the lunatics, and the asylum
We’re doomed, aren’t we? Herbal remedies are to be held to the same standards as other medicine. Naturally, the loonies are up in arms about this, possibly because paying for testing will eat into their profits. Their comments are at … Continue reading
Posted in The stupid, it burns
20 Comments
On boggling
You know, I really hate to send traffic over to Pharyngula, because it’s rather tiresome and whatnot, but Henry Gee just alerted me to something quite extraordinary. There’s a lovely, well-crafted Futures this week (sorry, subscription required) by Shelly Li. … Continue reading
Whicker’s World
A “mammoth of news” is about to rise behind London’s Fleet Street, a printing press costing £600m and housing about 1,250 “cutting-edge” journalists. Ask not its value. Journalism jeers at the idea. The UK Press Commission has already been dubbed … Continue reading
Posted in Public Engagement, The stupid, it burns
4 Comments
On advertising
Now, we know that advertisers lie to us. It’s right there in the DNA. But here’s a little competition for you. This is (part of) an advert in this week’s Nature. Can you tell what made me so cross about … Continue reading
Posted in Rants, The stupid, it burns
18 Comments
