Nerdery

[liv]

Work is a bit politically frustrating at the moment, so have some silly links:

joannas found the personality quiz I've been waiting for all my life: What kind of protein are you? I am a transcription factor, which considering how much of my work has in fact been on TFs, is a particularly pleasing result. It means that I implement decisions by switching genes on and off, thereby delegating other proteins to go off and do useful things. Which sounds about right for someone who spends her non-research time teaching baby doctors and switching them on to go and cure people.

ETA 1: If you're getting a result like "analyst" or "nurturer" you need to scroll up to the top of the picture to see what kind protein you actually are. Yes, it's very bad UI design, I hadn't realized that it was making the descriptions more prominent than the actual result. Sorry about that!

There was an XKCD with biochemistry; there's no point linking to XKCD really cos just about everybody follows XKCD. And that strip isn't closely related to my work, but it's the chemistry a couple of levels under what I do, so it made me feel loved.

All the academics on my Twitter feed are linking to this silly Guardian article about why academics have a bad dress-sense: because we're not alienated from our labour, apparently. It's a charming thought, and there is a serious point buried in the article, which is that many female academics work just as hard on coming across exactly the right degree of nonchalant about appearance as they would on being impeccably presented if they worked in a sector that expected that. Me, I dress badly because I can't be bothered to spend time or money on clothes, and because I'm fat enough that there's no low-effort way to look good. But it's nice to pretend that it has something to do with Marx or feminism or something.

ETA 2: redbird absolutely nails the analysis that's missing from the article: "Even without choosing to dress that way for Marxist or feminist reasons, you can make those choices without a lot of stress in part because of your specific work and class situation." Yes, that. That's the conclusion the article should've come to, thank you redbird for fixing it so succinctly.

Comments

[vatine]

Oh, I am av fair dab at figuring how to n create a 3D shape using cuts or depositing things (I quite enjoy designing models to be extruded on a 3D printer and have started experimenting by making 3D shapes on laser cutters).

But, somehow, cranes elude me.

[liv]

That's really interesting, I would have definitely thought they were related skills. And I'm super impressed that you can design for 3D printers and laser cutters, wow!

[vatine]

I (mostly) use SCAD for my basic modelling (flow is roughly "compose various solids, but specified in text instead of on the screen", I find it quicker). For the laser cutter, the main problem is that you can only really cut 2D shapes, so if you want 3D shapes, you have to figure out if the shape can be created by doing one set of cuts, taking the piece ut and turn, then cut again, etc, etc.

That's easier if you have a copy in your hand that you can turn around and look at, or something you can turn around and look at on a screen.

Here's one model I uploaded to Shapeways (since most people probably don't have 3D printers in the office).