Doohickie Posted February 26, 2015 Report Share Posted February 26, 2015 :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josie Posted February 26, 2015 Report Share Posted February 26, 2015 (edited) I don't get art. Seriously, you're the only artistic person that I "know". I find your situations with students interesting though. I am very NOT artistic, I just remember taking art as an elective Jr year of high school thinking it would be an easy A and a good way to talk to a particular girl, boy did that suck. I would finish a portrait or a landscape and my teacher would hand it back and say "this is a very nice start." Nice start? I'm finished! Good luck finding your way to get through. I teach certain classes at work and it's always harder when everyone is grasping and advancing through the material except one or two. Honestly man, I don't get art either. The reason I went into illustration instead of general art or fine art was because it was more technical- you can actually break it up into points easier than most kinds of art. I originally wanted to do medical illustration, even more scientific/quantitative. It's still tough, you have to accept that everyone works in their own unique style/goals. I try to grade everyone individually at their own pace and only compare them to each other technically when I'm having trouble picking a number for a grade. The class I'm teaching is still very early in the college program, and one of those "if you just aren't feeling this kind of work, you're in the wrong major" canary in a coal mine courses. My problem student I ranted about- I think she belongs more in fine art, where you can paint with no reference, say every color you choose has deep deep symbolism, have wildly terrible proportions and crappy composition and write it off as "stylistic choices" and get pretentious about "how my soul feels". It's like the GOLD STAR FOR TRYING! of art. Barf. Unless you have some edgy concept or paint with bodily fluids, good luck gettin a job/gallery show with that. Sorry those who love it... Some fine art is great, but I prefer my art to look like something. That's an argument for another day... :P oh, and you're all doody heads. <3 Edited February 26, 2015 by Ivanna Byleyvenlov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biodork Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 (edited) I'm getting an early start on my Thursday complaining this week. Probably won't entirely make sense, but I'll feel better writing it out, anyhow. Funding for academic research freaking sucks. My boss thought he had enough funds set aside from his startup to continue covering me through June, after which we'd need do get another grant or internal funding. Okay. About two weeks ago we finally hear back that a grant he'd submitted was approved for funding (and there was much rejoicing). Problem solved, right? Wrong. We have no idea when those grant funds will actually be available to us, and since my current appointment expires at the end of March, we need to submit the paperwork for an extension in the next two weeks. And something was miscalculated because after factoring in the grad student's stipend, there isn't enough left in the startup funds to cover me and still leave us money for supplies. My former boss, who has asked a few times about me rejoining her lab, had told me a few weeks ago that her postdoc will be leaving in May or June and she'll have 6 months of funding left if I want to come back. I'd told my current boss this could be an option if the two of them could work something out to divide my time / salary, but it's not an attractive option at all, and now it looks like we'll need to explore it. The type of work I'm doing now cannot easily be done on a part-time basis, and as much as I like my old boss as a person, I really don't want to work for her again because she's frustrating as a boss and the work itself is uninteresting. That, and I think my current boss only wants to do this on a very temporary basis until the other grant funds are available, while my old boss would prefer something longer-term. And I get to be stuck in the middle, potentially working for both of them and doing neither job satisfactorily. All better than being unemployed in April or May, but still really sucks. Pending official paperwork, I'll be working half-time each for my current and former bosses from April through June. And the grant that was approved (but not yet funded) might not actually get funded because the resources have been mis-managed by the group in charge of them. And my boss is seriously considering not bothering to pursue additional funding and letting the lab close down after our student finishes his PhD next spring so he can go into private practice rather than continue to be a physician scientist. Yay me. Also: eff freezing rain. It took me 20 min. last night (with the defroster on high!) to chisel the 1/4" of ice off my windshield so I could go home. Tonight it was raining, and sometime overnight it's supposed to switch to all snow with 3-5" by the afternoon. The F is up with this weather? :angry: Edited March 5, 2015 by biodork Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weave Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 So sorry to hear, Bio. Sounds like it is time to seek other options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 So sorry to hear, Bio. Sounds like it is time to seek other options. I'll echo this. Bio, what are your options? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dEnnis the Menace Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 (edited) Sorry to hear that Bio!! What other kinds of options do you have? (EDIT: D4rk beat me to the qurestion) Work has now blocked all streaming sites because something is wrong with our internet. Lately it's been really slow, so the bright minded people they are here, decided it must be related to all the streaming of music... now youtube, pandora, and all the other 'streaming' sites are blocked (including radio stations). I'm pretty sure technicians are going to start killing people without their background music... oh, and we're not supposed to wear headphones, and itunes or other music software is not allowed to be installed on the computers... wonderful. I told my technicians I'll buy a blouetooth speaker and bring it in. We can use my data in the lab and stream pandora from my phone. Edited March 5, 2015 by dEnnis the Menace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 Sorry to hear that Bio!! What other kinds of options do you have? (EDIT: D4rk beat me to the qurestion) Work has now blocked all streaming sites because something is wrong with our internet. Lately it's been really slow, so the bright minded people they are here, decided it must be related to all the streaming of music... now youtube, pandora, and all the other 'streaming' sites are blocked (including radio stations). I'm pretty sure technicians are going to start killing people without their background music... oh, and we're not supposed to wear headphones, and itunes or other music software is not allowed to be installed on the computers... wonderful. I told my technicians I'll buy a blouetooth speaker and bring it in. We can use my data in the lab and stream pandora from my phone. I'd bet money the problem is on one lone computer somewhere. Someone has some malware that is likely sending tons of data out over your network. I would bet that finding the culprit computer would solve all the slowdown problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dEnnis the Menace Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 I'd bet money the problem is on one lone computer somewhere. Someone has some malware that is likely sending tons of data out over your network. I would bet that finding the culprit computer would solve all the slowdown problems. I would bet that too...except our IT is 2 people...and they run IT for all of our locations (all 6 of them). and them taking the time to do that is too easy. They'd rather take the cop out and block everything (luckily they haven't blocked everything as I can still get on here :thumbsup: ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 I would bet that too...except our IT is 2 people...and they run IT for all of our locations (all 6 of them). and them taking the time to do that is too easy. They'd rather take the cop out and block everything (luckily they haven't blocked everything as I can still get on here :thumbsup: ). It's not even a difficult fix. Just send out an email with a trusted link to download malwarebytes, instruct everyone to run it, and see if it solves things. If it doesn't then you know you need to spend more time on it. Sure, some people won't do it but at least it's a start. I hope they know better than to chase the dragon of blaming hardware or the ISP. It's almost never that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2ForTripping Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 It's not even a difficult fix. Just send out an email with a trusted link to download malwarebytes, instruct everyone to run it, and see if it solves things. If it doesn't then you know you need to spend more time on it. Sure, some people won't do it but at least it's a start. I hope they know better than to chase the dragon of blaming hardware or the ISP. It's almost never that. Perhaps the habit of "chasing the dragon" is the problem... time out of mind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dEnnis the Menace Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 It's not even a difficult fix. Just send out an email with a trusted link to download malwarebytes, instruct everyone to run it, and see if it solves things. If it doesn't then you know you need to spend more time on it. Sure, some people won't do it but at least it's a start. I hope they know better than to chase the dragon of blaming hardware or the ISP. It's almost never that. right? except no one has rights to install anything. So they'd need to allow rights for that, and I doubt that they're gonna do that. I'm hoping they're doing more behind the scenes, but there's no transparency soooo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 right? except no one has rights to install anything. So they'd need to allow rights for that, and I doubt that they're gonna do that. I'm hoping they're doing more behind the scenes, but there's no transparency soooo... Oh they're not doing anything. It's not a problem that is fixable behind the scenes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claude_Verret Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 I'll echo the others sentiments bio, sorry to hear about your difficult funding situation. The uncertainty of funding is what led me to seek getting out of grant funded research a long time ago. Of course industry has its own pitfalls too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wjag Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 (edited) When all is said and done, Phoenix could end up with McDavid, Domi and Duclair. Now that is one heckuva core. Edited March 5, 2015 by wjag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwampD Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 I am so ####ing sick of putting on t-shirts backwards. I get the whole no tag thing. I get that even though they are passing it off as a "comfort" thing, it's really because they don't want to pay for the extra process of buying and sewing on tags, but could they at least put enough ####ing ink on the damn thing so that I can actually see it and be able to tell which is the front and which is the back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleven Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 I am so ####ing sick of putting on t-shirts backwards. I get the whole no tag thing. I get that even though they are passing it off as a "comfort" thing, it's really because they don't want to pay for the extra process of buying and sewing on tags, but could they at least put enough ####ing ink on the damn thing so that I can actually see it and be able to tell which is the front and which is the back! It is DEFINITELY a comfort thing. I can't wear a t-shirt with a tag any more. Get a sharpie and make a dot on the back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josie Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 I'm sorry Bio. I hope something better comes along soon, or at least some viable answers! Our office flooded Monday. Someone busted a sprinkler in a different part of our building and soon, water was everywhere. We saved all important electronics and managed to reach the bosses who were delayed in Chicago on their way to GDC in San Fran. They brought in dozens of massive industrial fans to dry us out and it was like working in a jet engine testing facility (the office is open plan and cement floored so the echoing... oh the echoing). But honestly, it's been a huge blessing in disguise for me- I've been working from home since one day in that environment elicited a migraine from hell. The bosses are gone, half the office is at PAX, I don't have a huge to-do list at work, so I've been staying home and chipping away at the freelance mountain (most I've ever had, which is good, but stressful). Weird week. 2 more people are quitting. One of them is very mad and threatening to send a (rather immature, in my opinion) email around that just lets the management have it. That makes 5 in the last 2 months. All important people, too. I'm beginning to look around a bit more than I was.... ice maintenance guy at Thomas Creek has offered to teach me to drive the zamboni and work there! So yeah, who knows... I'm definitely getting worried. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biodork Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 (edited) Thanks, everyone. Not entirely sure what my next move would be... my former boss has some funds, but I doubt they'd last beyond the end of the summer. I can always ask around campus and see if there's another lab in need of someone like me, but I'm at the point experience-wise where I'm in a catch-22; people want someone like me, but often only budget for a more junior person and can't afford me. My boss could potentially get bridge funding from our institution, but he has to want to fight for it and it sounds like he's ready to throw up the white flag. The closest industry location is at least 45 min. away, but I'd consider it if things still look bad in another month or two. I think the worst part is feeling like my job no longer has any sense of purpose. If it's just funding and I might have to leave, that sucks but I knew it was a possibility. If the lab is closing, then what's the point in any of the work I'm doing? The project would die when the lab closed, and there wouldn't be money to do the research anyhow because we'd be conserving as much as possible to make sure there's enough for the grad student to finish. Just sucks. It should be in the awesome thread that I'm leaving tomorrow for a long weekend in Arizona (my mom's b-day), but the timing is awful, and I just want to stay home and sleep. Edited March 5, 2015 by biodork Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inkman Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 Get a sharpie and make a dot on the back. You are wise in the ways of science Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biodork Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 Oh yeah: and the gift I ordered for my mom and was going to pack in my suitcase was scheduled to arrive Tuesday, and instead has been sitting in Philadelphia since Tuesday afternoon. Still has an estimated delivery date of 3/3, too. :censored: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 Thanks, everyone. Not entirely sure what my next move would be... my former boss has some funds, but I doubt they'd last beyond the end of the summer. I can always ask around campus and see if there's another lab in need of someone like me, but I'm at the point experience-wise where I'm in a catch-22; people want someone like me, but often only budget for a more junior person and can't afford me. My boss could potentially get bridge funding from our institution, but he has to want to fight for it and it sounds like he's ready to throw up the white flag. The closest industry location is at least 45 min. away, but I'd consider it if things still look bad in another month or two. I think the worst part is feeling like my job no longer has any sense of purpose. If it's just funding and I might have to leave, that sucks but I knew it was a possibility. If the lab is closing, then what's the point in any of the work I'm doing? The project would die when the lab closed, and there wouldn't be money to do the research anyhow because we'd be conserving as much as possible to make sure there's enough for the grad student to finish. Just sucks. It should be in the awesome thread that I'm leaving tomorrow for a long weekend in Arizona (my mom's b-day), but the timing is awful, and I just want to stay home and sleep. So ultimately the project dies and the work you've done on it becomes valueless? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleven Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 Holy , bio, just read your post. Ick. Check your PMs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biodork Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 So ultimately the project dies and the work you've done on it becomes valueless? Quite possibly. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattPie Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 I would bet that too...except our IT is 2 people...and they run IT for all of our locations (all 6 of them). and them taking the time to do that is too easy. They'd rather take the cop out and block everything (luckily they haven't blocked everything as I can still get on here :thumbsup: ). Suck it up and stream to your phone like adults. :) You'd be surprised how quickly streams add up to choke business-type internet connections. But d4rk may be right, it could certainly be malware. I am so ####ing sick of putting on t-shirts backwards. I get the whole no tag thing. I get that even though they are passing it off as a "comfort" thing, it's really because they don't want to pay for the extra process of buying and sewing on tags, but could they at least put enough ####ing ink on the damn thing so that I can actually see it and be able to tell which is the front and which is the back! Heh, I was thinking about this just the other day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted March 5, 2015 Report Share Posted March 5, 2015 Quite possibly. :( You can't take your knowledge of that work somewhere else? Certainly if no one wants to continue it you should be able to claim it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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