InterPhase

Uncertainty

2008-04-20T23:52:00.002+01:00

Free Energy (or the adventures of Quantum Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Wedding Cakery

Hmm, that's not a word which automatically sounds wholesome and good... 'cakery' ...yep sounds a little dirtier than the average word found in the vicinity of the ultra-clean cut 'wedding'. On the other hand, dirty can be good too. Nothing wrong with a bit of dirty now and then....oh god no! Not THAT dirty - make it stop!!

Please pass the mind soap......

It's a bad day for: Doctor Who

So my main problems with Doctor Who are that the acting is a mostly a bit lame, the script is mostly people yelling 'DOCTOR!!!!' and the subject matter is mostly dependably soppy and overly morally black and white. But most of all...what I really really really hate....is that I bloody LOVE it. Time traveling alien picks up ginger bird and together they save the day again and again! I feel so very VERY dirty....

Again with the mind soap please.....

The science bit

Kinetics!!! Oh lovely kinetics......when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie thats kinetics.....fantastic kinetics....
Well this is definitely gonna last. I mean as soon as something works this well.........

Metal Bondage

2008-02-24T16:17:00.003Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Quantum Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Chocolate Plastique

Today my partner in (cake related) crime and I are mostly messing around with glucose and chocolate! Now obviously chocolate is pretty damn great all by itself but it turns out that if you add glucose syrup (quite dull by itself) you get bouncy chocolate!! Hmmm maybe I should have another crack at that chocolate Newtons cradle....

It's a bad day for: Manual Dexterity

Well I'm okay but the PIC is all over the shop. We're talking juice all down the trousers, chocolate flicked half way to Japan and she just kicked Caylus (which is somewhat ironic as Caylus usually kicks her ass - with a little help from me of course).

The science bit

So the science is up and down, and down, and up and down. Kinetics good! Frying the crap out of a CD machine not so much. Discovering the machine is not totally cooked okay again. Tsukareta desu!

Blink

2008-02-03T20:22:00.001Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Quantum Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Being back on line

So I'm back and this time I have a new character, a new font and a new scanner! So now I have the technological capability to produce somewhat dull and slightly odd comics at any time of the day or night. The jury is still out on whether or not it will improve the comics that you can actual read what the characters have to say. If it all gets too much then let me know via numeniferous comments, which will incidentally make my day (Kevin that does NOT mean you.)

It's a bad day for: Blinking

Specifically it is a bad day for blinking and then finding that a month and half has gone past. Damn and blast Christmas and work and paper writing and weddings!

The science bit

This week I shall mostly be demonstrating that there isn't anything that AUC and DLS cannot give contradictory data on. If it's big in one it's small int'other. Oh where, oh where are you darling little coiled coils hiding?

Thesis

2007-11-14T21:47:00.000Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Hiragana

Well I'm embarking on learning to speak, read and write Japanese. Given I have categorically failed to learn even a smattering of Italian, French or German you may be thinking this is a foolish idea. In fact lets just come out and say it - this is never, ever, going to work. However so far it has actually been fun trying. I have learned about 40 characters out of 110 and thank you so much to all the helpful people pointing out that it's all for nothing coz I'll still get lost in Tokyo! To you I have but one thing to say....suzuki! (seriously its the only word I can make with the characters I know.)

It's a bad day for: Nachos

Tried to order them in pub. Couldn't remember what they were called. Had to rely on the kindness of the already surly barman (had just ordered a Stella). Ended up being provoked into an impulse garlic bread buy.

The science bit

Hey, does anyone out there know a good equation for calculating the hydrodynamic radius of a randomly shaped object? (yup I've already tried wikipedia....theirs looks a bit dodge.)

Rambling

2007-11-12T21:44:00.000Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of an electron named Jeff) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Being Wednesday

See below.

It's a bad day for: Being Monday

Because it isn't. Not even slightly. It's Wednesday (see above).

It should be Monday because that's when I should be making this post. But it isn't. I failed for the first(ish) time. I feel a Megatokyo style whine coming on.....

The science bit

Spent today (actually Monday not today) on trains. This does not in and of itself promote *science*. However sometimes it is necessary for the promotion of *science* particularly by collaboration. Mysterious disappearing Glasgow trains and people committing suicide in the Birmingham area, while understandable (particularly the Birmingham thing) is seriously counter-productive.

Peptides

2007-11-09T23:19:00.001Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Fonts

So it turns out (on the Simpsons) that there are these things called fonts. They are strange beasts that arrive from the aether in zipped form, then expand into crystal trees when you add water! More importantly, they come in handwriting-esque style for comics! Imagine just how much more funny these strips might be if you could actually read the words straight off instead of having to send off for a distance learning cryptography kit with all the paypal induced stress that entails.

It occurs to me that it may actually be better for me to leave it there with you imagining the comic being funny.

Is it working?

Not so much? Alright so I have updated the sixth strip so that the text is in computer not hand - the observant among you may notice some other changes as well :)

Let me know if it helps and please do not track me down and kill me on the basis that it's comic sans because it isn't! Honest!

It's a bad day for: Proprietary file formats

Oh you can send it Word, you can sent it in Powerpoint. God forbid you might even send it in pdf (if the irony doesn't kill you). Most of all you might send the raw data in text format. However should you choose to send it in .jws then it is just very slightly possible that I will be forced to poke you in the eye on Monday. Yup - it's definitely time to start considering which colour of eye-patch will go best with your hair.

The science bit

Ahhhh AUC experiments. After two successive experiments in which pairs of samples came out weighing almost precisely what the other should have weighed, I have hit on a fool proof solution. I am only running one sample by itself....

Squirrels

2007-11-08T01:47:00.001Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Staying up late

You know it's two in the morning when.....

.....the clock goes bong bong (and someone has kindly switched off the big outside shiny thing in the sky).

It's a bad day for: Squirrels

Yup the resistance starts here! Join your local anti-squirrel campaign and help save the universe! Or alternatively, if you are for some bizarre reason against global warming, then kill some people instead. It's not totally clear to me why absolutely anything people do (including attempting to save the environment) is detrimental to the environment. Surely we are part of the environment? Surely it's the planets responsibility to kill any people it doesn't particularly feel it can support any more? So I vote we kick back, relax, and go on lots of holidays to places which have recently been devastated by hurricanes - the beaches are quieter there.....

The science bit

Too stressed to get much done today. Got 5 gazillion experiments to do, 8 million collections of data to analyze, 3451 peptides to purify, 11 equations to solve, two talks to write and a project student (in a pear tree?).

Trip

2007-11-05T22:16:00.000Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Night

No real reason, I just like the idea of it being a good day for night. It has a sort of Paul Simon feel about it. Ghosts and empty sockets etc.

It's a bad day for: Injuries

$%&*£"% and what the hell is wrong with my ankle? Seven weeks I tell you - SEVEN WEEKS! All I did was fall over on it! Still, I was right...the shuttle was indeed out.

The science bit

Is it actually science if you never EVER get the same result twice? Is the very fact that this never happens in itself a publishable result? Could we possibly have powered the good ship Bistromath on the basis that the only result it is never possible to achieve is in fact any result you have ever seen before (oh, and the number of scientists it takes to change a lightbulb is e^iπ)?

Design

2007-11-02T16:01:00.000Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Dreams

So far this week I have dreams about being murdered, dreams about being fired, dreams about having raging arguments with my family and I was getting a little fed up with it. Today made up for that! Dreams of saving the world and other stuff it would be inappropriate to mention here :)

On the whole I'm still glad that none of my dreams ever come true though.

It's a bad day for: Fireworks

Every so often you see a really great firework. I remember the first time a saw the particle accelerator effect (the cool facet here is that there is an invisible phase of the explosion so that new sparks appear randomly all over the place) and two years ago I saw one that ended up with floating glowing lanterns. But apart from that its just the same old same old. Can I be bothered to drag my backside up the hill to see fireworks tonight? Thought not (could someone bring me a toffee apple?).

The science bit

The peptide is made! Let there be rejoicing in the land. Now I only need to find out whether it does what it says on the tin.

Badgers

2007-10-31T19:53:00.001Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Treats

So many tasty treats, so little time to eat them. Peppermint screams, bat cakes, ginger witches and more angel delight mud pie than will fit in the fridge.

It's a bad day for: Tricks

So there I was learning all the great tricks in Derren Brown's book only to find that I'm the last person in the office to read it! What's the point knowing this stuff if everyone else knows it too? Suddenly the world is full of people who can memorize lists and recite them backwards and you can't move for people who know the three laws of magic. What you don't know the three laws? Really?

Can I come round and show you a card trick?

The science bit

Still making a peptide......yup....still going.....wow this is fun isn't it?

Just for light relief I (and my partner in crime) took 90 CD spectra of the same sample today. Now if that isn't edge of your seat science, I don't know what is. Unfortunately I then undid all the good work by attempting to solve a differential equation using Excel. Well, at least it's a step up from using Paint.

Party

2007-10-29T23:40:00.001Z

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Cowboys

Well just Cowboy Bebop really. It is definitely the most amazing anime series I've ever watched (okay it may be the only one but I'm still pretty sure its amazing). Nani? Never seen it? Don't have the urge to develop an extremely limited Japanese vocab? Crazy.

NB. Do not even consider watching it in English. I mean it. Stop thinking about it. Right now.

It's a bad day for: Triangulation

So my dear, dearest, MacGyver, what the hell were you thinking? Okay so we are going to find the bad guys using two radio receivers one of which is hooked up to a cactus for bonus Mac points. We are indeed using our watches and the sun to figure an angle. So far so good (if you don't mind a resolution of 6 degrees or worse). But then it turns out that your watch reads 2 and hers (oh yeah REAL ugly, as if your directors would know ugly if it bit them on the nose) reads 11. I make that 90 degrees. Implying you are both somewhat closer to your target than you are to each other (which was a comfortable 'aww ain't you a surprisingly cute ugly girl' cheek pinching distance) which further implies that at least one of you was actually poking the bad guys in the back of the neck with your cactus powered bent coat hanger.

The alternative solution, which given the orientation displayed on screen is obviously what the directors were gunning for, is that the bad guys are on exactly the opposite side of the world. Presumably the way in which Mac uses the cactus powered receiver to seriously bend the local spacetime geography so as to actual pick up said radio signal is left as an exercise to the viewer.

The science bit

Making a peptide....so great....so fun....so slow....so gngghggh. Still I'm sure I'll love it once I get to know it better. Actually this is unlikely. It's a close relative of one of my least favorite peptides of all time (what mass spec...no seriously where is it?), only this one is wearing a hat
(proline). Still, bring t3h 3v1l!

See you space cowboy!

Stick Horse

2007-10-26T12:26:00.000+01:00

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Practical Jokes

You know, that one where you screen capture the desktop then hide all the icons. NB. amusement value varies with participant competence.

It's a bad day for: Post

Where are my DVDs? Really, where are they???? I need them. I need my Cowboy Beebop, I need my MacGyver. I need my Mum's birthday card to arrive in time or sanctions may be imposed.

The science bit

Lovely, lovely liquid nitrogen and we even got it IN the pressurized dewar instead of all around the dewar or even flying out of the always amusing overhead overflow pipe. Seriously, who doesn't want a surprise liquid nitrogen shower? I hear it's better than conditioner for dealing with bad hair days.

Anchovies

2007-10-24T22:04:00.000+01:00

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Physics

Okay so this isn't really true. What I mean is it was good day for me getting to feel like a physicist which I haven't done for a while. Physics itself doesn't have good or bad days. It just rocks in a quiet sort of understated yup I'm running the whole show kinda way. Unless you count the day 'The Core' came out. That has to have had physics crouched in the corner of a dark room, thumb in mouth unable to even weep with the horror.

It's a bad day for: Faffing

Faff faffity faff faff faffery! Stupid HTML. THE PAIN!

The science bit

Reviewing papers today. Feels like a lot of work for no obvious gain, but I guess I keeps the system functional. I hate the way it tells you how long you have been holding the review process up. Like it begins all friendly and 'please try and review this by the 26th of October' and then you submit your efforts two days early and it just says 'time in review 15 days'. Seriously horrible sensation. So sorry to all you guys out there desperately waiting for news on your precious pdf babies, and can the guys reading mine just GET ON WITH IT! Seriously, or I'll send the lads round.

Genesis

2007-10-21T18:45:00.001+01:00

Free Energy (or the adventures of Entropy Girl) by KAF-E

It's a good day for: Bloggery

My first ever blog entry going live. Traditionally this is the point when you realize that you didn't have anything to say in the first place, and while I do have that feeling, I'm choosing to ignore it. Afterall, it would be amazing if anyone ever read this anyway - so what harm does it do? (slow down the internet my ass!)

It's a bad day for: Lewis Hamilton

We love you. There's still next year!

The science bit

Well today is make or break for the exciting and wonderful CD of alpha helical fibre systems project. Will they be exciting? Will they be wonderful? Will they be Circularly Dichroic? Will they emit sound at a frequency of 4 hertz? Will anyone hear them if they do? For the answer to such riddles try Wikipedia - seriously it's, like, WAY smarter than me.