[Ghostavo]

Funny confessions about methodology

My favorite so far is:

Blood samples were spun at 1500rpm because the centrifuge made a scary noise at higher speeds.

[Klaustrophobia]

oh man.  i could add tons to this from my senior design.

The spark-gap configuration was used because all other equipment in the lab was broken.

Tungsten-rhenium alloy was used because that's what our advisor already had for other projects.

Stand-in grid with 30-second duty cycle fabricated because we couldn't ****ing weld the tungsten-rhenium.

Nighttime work ceased after mental lapse nearly kills researcher (me).

20,000 volt contacts left exposed because all team members are smart enough not to touch them.


shall i continue?

[deathfun]

From the linked website: http://lookslikescience.tumblr.com/stereotype

Have you ever asked a seventh grader to draw a picture of a scientist? A while back Fermilab did just this, before and after a tour of the lab space. Before the students met some real life scientist they mostly drew white men in lab coats, some bald, some with Einsteinian hair.

I personally would have drawn Gordon Freeman in his HEV suit

Afterwards, I'd still draw Gordon Freeman in his HEV suit

[watsisname]

Immediately after obtaining the necessary data to complete her doctorate work, one of my physics prof's managed to literally explode the entire laboratory.  (High magnetic field research for the win.)

So yeah, Gordon Freeman is pretty accurate. 

[karajorma]

One I would personally add was

"The compound was isolated as a mixture of alpha and beta enantiomers" - I'm not running another ****ing column to separate them.

[Mika]

Ooooo boy, there's so much I could add in there!

Redacted from a certain publication that I authored:
"50 Amps and 200 Volts through a LED results in a momentary power consumption equal to your average sauna stove. But for nanoseconds only."

For a laser diode, applying a constant driving current of 20A can be considered cratering to the PCB underneath the laser chip.

We designed the optical angle response according to the theoretical model since we couldn't fix the device to our measurement system.

The measurements were not repeated due to long data logging time - we only had one set of eye safety goggles suitable for that wavelength.

From the tweets, my favorite was this:
"we didn't read half of the papers we cite because they are behind a paywall"

Which sort of happens to be the truth quite often 

[z64555]

Good Stuff

I did a demo of a single rotor (propeller affixed to motor a-la direct drive) to three groups of middle school kids, without any sort of grid or gaurd to prevent fingers from going through. Only realized that it might have been a Bad Idea when the second or third group had me go into a 2 minute discussion of what might happen if somebody stuck their finger(s) in the path of the propeller as it was at full speed.

Also on the same project, I was driving/walking back to my dorm room while the other "half" of the team tried to fool with the programming on the quadrotor. They somehow managed to get it airborne and crash into one of the monitors while I was 2 minutes outside, when I specifically told them that the program they had was "dangerous, Do Not Use." 

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Man, this is so awesome (and true). Hell, even I could add some stuff.

Programming language and framework were chosen because IDE and required librairies were already installed.
Language was chosen because it looked prettier.
Cross-platform support was added because my windows kept crashing for unrelated reasons.
Unicode support was added because intern had nothing else to do.
App was named after an obscure in-joke.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

The lift-drag ratio of the aircraft was not calibrated, as the difference nicely cancels out a known discrepancy in the engine fuel consumption

[Klaustrophobia]

App was named after an obscure in-joke.

oh man, i forgot about that one.  we made our prototype name an absurd backronym based on an internet meme in an attempt to humor the industry advisory board and department head for higher grades.  E.P.I.C. P.I.G.  i can't remember what the words actually were and i apparently don't have the files where it would say.  i also can't find the original source.  it was one of those black border pictures of a pig with war paint and ear rings and ****.