Random and unsolicited opinions

Warning: this post may sound even crankier than usual, because I’m at the end of an overnight synchrotron run tagged on to the end of a day of work yesterday, and with another day of work ahead of me today before I can go home and sleep. (And yes, I did volunteer for it, so it’s my own silly fault!) I do generally enjoy synchrotron work, but changing samples and aligning the capillaries every 10-15 mins from 3am to 8am is a bit too much like hard work for me… the 30 min runs we were doing up to that point were a fraction more civilised, but not nearly as much so as the 20-hour runs that it’s possible to do on some instruments around the place. 10 mins just isn’t enough time to get anything useful done (either work or relaxation) before the next changeover is due.

- I really don’t mind whether you “think you can dance” – or sing, or cook, or lose weight, or participate in almost any of the multitude of self-betterment shows that seem to be proliferating all over the TV at the moment. I’d really rather just be left alone to watch sport plus reruns (and the occasional new episode if the network is feeling particularly generous) of Top Gear, NCIS and Bones...

- I have been very pleasantly surprised by the weather this past couple of weeks – 20-25 and sunny most days, which is very unusual for this time of year in Melbourne (it’s usually starting to get cold and damp by late April). Ever since Easter, I’ve had this feeling that each nice day might be the last we see for a while, but they’ve kept rolling along, which is downright civil of them in my books.

- I’ve been reading a handful of toxicology papers recently, for various reasons – and the writing style and emphasis are so completely different compared to in engineering or chemistry, it’s almost unbelievable. To start with, the toxicology stuff is actually written in comprehensible English, which is almost unheard-of in engineering at the moment. They also seem to run a battery of statistical tests to ensure the validity of every single statement that’s made, as opposed to the tendency of engineers to waffle, speculate, propose things which may or may not be a good explanation for the data at hand, and so on. It’s a really interesting stylistic shift – but I’m actually glad I can speculate the way I sometimes do in papers without being bound by the rules of probability and statistics. I do believe there’s a place in science for (appropriately labelled and disclaimer-bound in publications) instinct and gut feel in explaining data, and although this will obviously sometimes turn out to be downright wrong (as my published guesses have on at least a couple of occasions so far), it also provides more scope for moving forward and enabling major advances in the field. Yes, journal reviewers complain about it – but science can only advance by increments if the only things you’re allowed to say are things that are only a tiny tiny distance away from what you’re absolutely certain is true. So anyway, there’s my occasional rant on the world of academic publishing for you…

- I’m trying to decide whether Coke or coffee would work better to liven me up a little bit this morning, and starting to realise that neither is in fact likely to do me much good at all… so I might give each of them a shot and see if the combined effects are helpful. And in case any of my process engineering students are reading this: please be kind to me this afternoon when you come to ask me difficult questions about the nasty assignment I’ve set this week!