{"id":449,"date":"2009-01-31T21:16:01","date_gmt":"2009-01-31T21:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/01\/31\/on_the_weekend\/"},"modified":"2009-01-31T21:16:01","modified_gmt":"2009-01-31T21:16:01","slug":"on_the_weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/01\/31\/on_the_weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"On the weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the cardinal rules for students is that you don’t fiddle with stuff you don’t understand. All right, so maybe fiddling with stuff we don’t understand is part of the working definition of a scientist, but I’m talking about more mundane things like FPLC pumps and computers. Technology<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\nChances are, if something doesn’t work, you, as a student, are not going to be able to make it work again. And if it does work, taking the cover off to see what makes make it tick is not going to win you any friends. I’m thinking of the student who, every time a certain Mac wanted to think for a few seconds, couldn’t bear to wait and would hit three keys (I still get a twitch when I hear that bong<\/em>). I’m thinking of the people who don’t filter their gungy protein solutions, or who leave half molar sodium chloride in the pumps, or who walk into the lab with a sheepish look and a screwdriver…<\/p>\n

\nIn exceptional circumstances people have grown up doing things like taking their grandmother’s washing machine apart and fixing it, or installing ‘O’ over a flakey SSH connection, and these people soon gain a reputation. Which is, actually, pretty hard to get rid of. These are the ‘fixers’. These are the people who recognize the sheepish look, who have learned how to bite their tongue — or at least sub-vocalize “what have you done now<\/em>?” — who have seriously wondered how long a body could remain in the -20 room before someone would see it.<\/p>\n

\nThe sort of people who go to a new job pretending to know nothing<\/em> about computers (yet, strangely, their system is always bang up to date, they never seem to complain when central IT screws up, and they have stuff on their screen that looks like it’s from the Matrix<\/em>). Who, when you’re having problems with your computer either go pale or say, rather too smugly perhaps, “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about Windows”.<\/p>\n

\nThere are a few of us. We know the Secret. You know who you are. We recognize each other instantly: and if you get there first I won’t let on, unless you’re doing it wrong. We can fix AKTAs, and columns<\/a>, and computers. We have a detailed working knowledge of the human body and where it can go wrong. We know where the tool drawer in the lab is. <\/p>\n

\nPerhaps most importantly we know our own limits. And one of mine happens to be the ability to repair metal fatigue in the pool pump drive shaft.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\nBugger<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the cardinal rules for students is that you don’t fiddle with stuff you don’t understand. All right, so maybe fiddling with stuff we don’t understand is part of the working definition of a scientist, but I’m talking about … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}