Category Archives: Bohemian

Creeping Featurism: Too much Software

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My big problem in life, other than being age 50 on a runaway train with the Grim Reaper, is a plurality of software.  It crept up on me while I was standing there, slack-jawed and admiring of all of the pretty colors and pull-down menu’s that were a mouse click away. What a wonderous stack of riches, says I.

In any given week, I can find myself at the console of a Bruker 300 MHz NMR, an HP GCMS, an older HP GC with stand alone integrator, a TA Instruments TGA, a Cecil UV/Vis, A Perkin Elmer FTIR, two GOD**MNED cell phones, an office voicemail system, the business MRP accounting system (&$^#!#!@!), office laptop with many applications in Word, Excel, Access, Contact, GoldMine, ChemDraw, SciFinder, a telescope driven by The Sky, numerous platforms on the internet, two home computers, two cars, and, oh yes, a family. And don’t forget my cruel mistress- Chemistry.

It all adds up to a bit too much. I use perhaps the top 5-10 % at most of nearly every software on the list.  The standardization imposed by Microsoft Windows does help with basic navigation, but the data workup and all of the particulars put me into an eternal state of “technological Alzheimers”. I keep asking “Now, how did that work again”?

Then there is the password issue.  All of the computers I work on have some level of security, and so passwords are required to get in. Blessedly, being a networked system, my network password usually works. But passwords expire and it is a constant battle to remember all of them. But if you log onto the Aldrich catalog, or any number of other on-line systems, entry requires a password.

Each of these computerized marvels is layered like an onion with hierarchies and taxonomies unique to the miserable cluster of sods who wrote the code. These sadistic canker blossoms … whoa! I’m getting carried away here. Easy does it, skippy.

Then there are the rules- business SOP’s, IATA, DOT regs, Customs issues, TSCA, policies, lab safety, Hazmat storage, respirator training, new Homeland Security regs, flash points, HMIS numbers, Haz Waste issues. 

This week I did bench chemistry, wrote an MSDS, issued and received inventory in the accounting system, defined SKU‘s, ran a few TGA‘s and FTIR’s, defined some product specifications, did competitive intelligence and worked out some costing and pricing, sent out some quotes, sat in mind-numbing meetings, took two long days to write a report, noodled through some patents, sent some products out the door that I made with my own hands, and received a few new orders.

It was a productive week in fabulous industry. They don’t call it industry for nuthin’.

Feral Chemists. Gaussling’s 4th Epistle to the Bohemians.

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Like the house cat that returns to the wild state when it leaves the house, chemists can go feral when they get out into the world.  The process begins the morning after graduation from college.  No exams to study for, no lab writeups to hand in. Being enrolled in coursework has a kind of edifying effect; a kind of regimentation that keeps one true to the discipline.

Human behaviour resembles a gas in some ways- we expand to occupy the space available to us. If bench space is available, we’ll find something to put on it. If condensers are in abundance, we’ll find a way to hook them up to something. If other distractions are available, our consciousness will expand into that space.

Some chemists quit learning after graduation.  They lose their gusto for the subject.  They acquired their bag of tricks in grad school and are quite content to stick with those tools for the duration of their careers. They become an intellectual couch potato- a 9 to 5 technocrat. Some companies are unaware of the value of professional interaction and refresher coursework.  Other companies just do not care.

A wise chemist once told me that the worst thing you could do in your career was to be a chemist in a company where chemistry was not the main activity. He was an IBM chemist and he spoke from bitter experience.

One of the most valuable assets of a scientist is curiosity and keeping it well honed is crucial.  Industry can bleed you of all of your professional enthusiasm if you let it.  Or, it can tempt you to go to the dark side- the business end.  Industry can exhaust you with endless administrative requirements and supervisory duties.  Insane deadlines and fickle management can bind you to seemingly impossible projects like a modern Sisyphus.  You’ll wear leg irons bearing the letters SAP, and speak in tongues- TSCA, MSDS, ROI, and CYA.

Through the years, unopened journals stack up on the floor. You can’t remember what an ACS meeting was like.  The paper in your college textbooks begins to yellow, and you become aware of your prostate. 

But the feral chemist has to resist. You have to rage against the stupifying isolation and indifference. It is important to periodically experience that rush of adrenaline that you get when some new concept opens before your eyes.  Open a journal and don’t set it down until you learn something new!

Listening skills of the highly educated

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Like everyone else, Th’ Gaussling has been sailing through life, tacking to windward usually, but occasionally a breeze astern will fill my sails and I can unfurl the spinnaker and just enjoy the ride.  You know the sensation, one blunders forward smoothly in life only to run aground on an uncharted sand bar.   <<< end metaphor>>>

I was met with one of those sandbars recently when my spouse pointed out an observation she had made.  She observed that, in conversation, 

the more highly educated a person was, the more likely they were to spend their listening time formulating their next sentence, rather than actually … listening. 

Jeepers. It is hard to refute that one.  After she made the remark, I knew instantly that it was not just a random comment.  There I was.  Exposed.  Metaphysically naked. 

What I, Th’ Gaussling, find is that as time goes on, I tend to give answers to questions that I wish were asked, rather than those that were actually asked.  It is a poor habit, I’ll admit. But it stems from the notion that the best questions give the best answers.  If someone isn’t going to ask the best questions, then by George, I’ll give answers to the better questions.

Russia Goes Deep

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Our Russian friends have apparently “claimed” the seabed under the north pole by planting their specially crafted Deep Sea Flag.  (Is it still a flag when it is underwater or is it just a stick with a wet cloth on it?)  In the grand tradition of empirialist land grabbing, these folks believe that they have staked a claim to the vast untold, untapped mineral riches of the arctic floor. Of course, the Canucks were not impressed-

Peter Mackay, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, dismissed the voyage to the Arctic floor as “just a show.”

“Look, this isn’t the 15th century,” he said, according to the Web site of Canadian Television. “You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘We’re claiming this territory.'” 

According to Douglas Birch at Forbes magazine, the flag was planted in the sea floor 2 1/2 miles below the surface on what is called the Arctic Shelf.  [Th’ Gaussling didn’t realize that a shelf could be that deep. Sounds like an abyssal plain to me, but, hey… I’m not in real estate.]  The basis of the claim, Birch reports, is that the region is a part of the Eurasian continental shelf.  Russia’s public claim seems to be based on a kind of geographic tidiness.  But like all big issues today, it is really about resources.

In December 2001, Moscow claimed that the ridge was an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia’s continental shelf under international law. The U.N. rejected Moscow’s claim, citing a lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009. 

The good news is that there won’t be any aboriginals to cruelly displace.  Seems to me that the Palestinians missed another big opportunity here- their sub must have been in the shop.  I would offer the suggestion that they give Putin an office on site there so he can keep an eye on the place.

Prudent Professor Prophesy and Pragmatics

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I know it is hard to fathom, but as an undergrad the Gaussling wasn’t automatically the favorite of all the faculty in the chemistry department.  I had been independent for 4 years prior to my matriculation into the fabulous world of chemistry. With independence comes a strong dash of unruliness, an attribute that irritates those around me to this day. 

One faculty member who was especially irritated by a precocious bugger like me was a particular analytical professor.  He was and is to this day a bit of a fuss budget. But, he was and is a pretty smart guy too. One day in an unusually tedious analytical lab he was expounding on what an analyst could expect to be doing out in the world. As a part of an attempt to clue us in to the “real world”, he pointed out that one day in the not-so-distant future we would be writing procedures for others to follow.  His prophetic allusion to job descriptions struck me as an interesting comment.

Increasingly, I find myself synthesizing work structure and writing lab procedures for others to follow, just as this analyst had predicted. 

Which brings up another point.  One road rage trigger out in career space is the nimrod manager who himself cannot synthesize ideas or plans, but somehow has been blessed with veto power over those who do.  Sometimes the only realistic solution is to leave the company. 

It is possible to be so compliant in the corporate world that you labor against you own best interests.  On the windward side we have HR ever turning the screws by more tightly narrowing job descriptions, freezing out degrees of freedom. Eventually they have the option of discontinuing narrow positions by eliminating specialists.    

If you have ever taken a personality test battery as part of career advancement, you’ll see what psychologists have been up to since they collectively got bored with rat mazes and Skinner boxes and discovered marketing.  In many corporations certain profiles are culled and steered up the ladder. There is logic to this, obviously, but I retain a conceit that merit is demonstrated by deeds.  Organizations who apply scientific Human Resource management now presume to remove growth opportunity with psychological instruments that are sold to them by sales people. I have been told by straight-faced practitioners that they themselves do not understand the test theory or methodologies, much less profess a clue as to the statistical limitations.

Unfortunately, my dear old professor didn’t warn us about this aspect of career space.

B-24 Liberator in the Morning Sky

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This morning while on a pleasant bike ride through the countryside I chanced to hear a familiar rumbling noise.  Not seeing anything immediately, I stopped to look at a pony and a mule that had gotten loose from a pasture.  Moments later, over the cottonwood trees there appeared a B-24 Liberator flying overhead not more than 1000 ft above ground.  This is something you don’t see every day. 

Turns out that the owners of this aircraft were flying out of a local airport over the holiday selling $400 rides in this lumbering relic of another age.  Hell, if I could justify it to my wife, I’d have taken a ride too.

Burning Man

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If you are what might be called a Bohemian and have never heard of the Burning Man project, you have a treat coming. I won’t spoil it- just click in the link and navigate around to see for your self. 

A friend attended last summer but only recently did I see his pictures from the desert. It is a total immersion experience. To really understand the event, it is worth reviewing the 10 principles.  It is a very civic minded event, though in a bacchanalian way.  The pyrophoric theme brings an element of ceremoniousness and awe that seems to appeal to brain stem centers long dormant in our suburban lives.  To be in attendance means that you camp for days on a desert dry lake with nary a sprig of green to be seen anywhere. It takes endurance .

Th’ Gaussling hopes to attend in 2008.  Perhaps recent attendees can comment and set me straight in my anticipation?