Leebra science_memes
login register

*hands to an undergrad*

a year ago by fossilesque to c/science_memes

save

share

report

Jode 86 points a year ago

I'm a traveling Metrology guy. It sure is fun bringing home a $250k Leica laser tracker home to my house that is worth less than what's in that box.

save

path: 0 16634534, hotness: undefined, score: 86, children: 4
Kyle_The_G 16 points a year ago

Is that the same company that makes histology stuff? half my lab is Leica equipment

save

path: 0 16634534 16635159, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 3
Jode 18 points a year ago

Possibly, Leica seems to make all sorts of fancy (expensive) stuff

save

path: 0 16634534 16635159 16635315, hotness: undefined, score: 18, children: 1
smeg 16 points a year ago

save

path: 0 16634534 16635159 16635315 16636450, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 0
Thrashy 5 points a year ago

Microscopes, too!

save

path: 0 16634534 16635159 16636204, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
Kroxx 50 points a year ago

I found the more I work with high dollar equipment in a lab the more relaxed I've become with it. Everything is so obscenely priced in R&D you just get desensitized

save

path: 0 16634251, hotness: undefined, score: 50, children: 3
ch00f 28 points a year ago

As someone who builds $50k lab equipment, we service insanely abused units all the time. While they're expensive, customer service is great.

save

path: 0 16634251 16635129, hotness: undefined, score: 28, children: 0
The_v 19 points a year ago

When you work with high value goods long enough in any field you get desensitized to it. However you compartmentalize it in weird ways.

I think nothing of ordering $800K worth of stuff at work. Then I get home and refuse to pay $8 for a fancy coffee because it's ridiculous.

save

path: 0 16634251 16642009, hotness: undefined, score: 19, children: 1
OccultIconoclast 4 points a year ago

Well you're not a multimillion dollar business so that makes sense. 8 dollars for coffee IS ridiculous.

Unless the boss is paying for it

save

path: 0 16634251 16642009 16648871, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
drail 46 points a year ago

In my first year of grad school, I was visiting a colleague's lab and was asked if I wanted to test some of their new diffractive optics. I said sure and started toying with the big lens on the table, no gloves, no precautions other than trying not to drop/smudge it. After about 5 minutes of geeking out over the fact that a perfectly flat, transparent lens was focusing the light, I asked how much it would cost to get one sent to my lab for an experiment I was working on. He said that it was the only one of its kind in existence, but the manufacturing r&d cost for it was over $50K alone. My heart nearly fell outta my chest.

save

path: 0 16636072, hotness: undefined, score: 46, children: 3
shneancy 7 points a year ago

wait,,, $50k for a lens?

save

path: 0 16636072 16642587, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 2
drail 17 points a year ago

Yup, though the $50K was specifically the R&D cost to develop a technique for making the lens. It used a nano-scale pattern on glass to focus light via diffraction, as opposed to standard refractive lenses or mirrors. The ultimate goal was to develop a process for manufacturing these lenses en masse, for deployment in a large particle detector where traditional lenses wouldn't work. They succeeded, and nowadays (6 years later), they can basically print the pattern using the same techniques as in microchip manufacturing. Back then, though, there was just then one prototype that represented that $50K of research, so I am really glad I didn't fuck it up haha

save

path: 0 16636072 16642587 16643154, hotness: undefined, score: 17, children: 1
shneancy 3 points a year ago

woah :0

save

path: 0 16636072 16642587 16643154 16644603, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
troyunrau 34 points a year ago

I work in scientific equipment. It helps to focus oneself to occasionally imagine the box as being full of $100k in $100 bills, when I debate whether to leave it in the car or take it inside overnight...

save

path: 0 16640076, hotness: undefined, score: 34, children: 5
mvirts 23 points a year ago

... I said to myself as I meticulously removed all traces of the serial number.

save

path: 0 16640076 16640420, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 4
Tar_alcaran 28 points a year ago

For the stuff that's worth >a million bucks, the serial number is like "6"

save

path: 0 16640076 16640420 16642378, hotness: undefined, score: 28, children: 0
troyunrau 24 points a year ago

Also, typically notoriously hard to fence, cause nobody knows what the fuck they're going to do with a gamma ray spectrometer or whatever.

save

path: 0 16640076 16640420 16640445, hotness: undefined, score: 24, children: 2
mvirts 16 points a year ago

Ya and taking off the serial number doesn't really matter when it's less than 10 😅

save

path: 0 16640076 16640420 16640445 16640467, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 0
varyingExpertise 5 points a year ago

Never again having trouble figuring out the exact welding wire needed for all the gathered materials in a project seems like an excellent perk by itself.

save

path: 0 16640076 16640420 16640445 16642495, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
RegalPotoo 33 points a year ago

Over COVID I was given 3 of the widgets that my company manufactures to take home in case I needed to help diagnose a customer problem. Stuck them in my backpack and walked to my car, then realized that my backpack was now worth about $150,000. When I got home I emailed my boss to confirm that, if my house were to burn down, the widgets would be covered under the companies insurance policy

save

path: 0 16634806, hotness: undefined, score: 33, children: 1
Tar_alcaran 2 points a year ago

I'm self employed and use/rent out air sampling devices, and this is exactly why I have an insurance advisor nowadays.

When the stuff I have at home costs as much as the home, I think getting some professional advice is very worth it.

save

path: 0 16634806 16643478, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
InternetCitizen2 31 points a year ago

I actually got to use the Arecibo Observatory a few times. There are these things called tie downs that keep the big ball thing from falling over trying to look beyond its ability. At the time they were down for maintenance, so they told me to just not fuck it up. I was 22 at the time.

save

path: 0 16634582, hotness: undefined, score: 31, children: 4
Zwiebel 16 points a year ago

Better triple check those coordinates I just entered...

save

path: 0 16634582 16634889, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 3
InternetCitizen2 19 points a year ago

Its okay at the end of it all, someone else broke it.

save

path: 0 16634582 16634889 16634986, hotness: undefined, score: 19, children: 0
prex 14 points a year ago

"hey, do you guys use a comma for a decimal or a full stop?"

save

path: 0 16634582 16634889 16635925, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 1
Tar_alcaran 6 points a year ago

"It's kind of important to me"

save

path: 0 16634582 16634889 16635925 16642403, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
x00z 26 points a year ago

It has a euro sign so I wouldn't be scared. It'll just be insured.

save

path: 0 16641351, hotness: undefined, score: 26, children: 0
CaptainPedantic 23 points a year ago

This happened to me at work. I was talking to the chief engineer, and he handed me one of the products he was working on.

Thinking it probably was worth $100,000 I asked how much it was worth. He said "Oh about a million dollars"

Then why'd you hand it to me?!

It's cool but holy moly!

save

path: 0 16635109, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 0
Kyrgizion 18 points a year ago

I felt the same way after being handed a corp full admin account over the datacenter. Like "I wouldn't give my car keys to a toddler, but here I am..."

save

path: 0 16634375, hotness: undefined, score: 18, children: 0
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 3 points a year ago

make sure you do that with everything, like even a beaker full of h202 so when they actually break the expensive stuff they don't sweat it

save

path: 0 16651639, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
science_memes
science_memes

@mander.xyz

login for more options
21158
7343
835

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

go to feed...