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Maggie’s Funny & awesome pics, vids and memes thread (work safe, no nudity)

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It's scams and race hustling all the way down.

Academia itself is rotten.

30 years ago I worked for the Dept Chairman of bio sciences as part of my senior year to vet doctoral and post doc papers math. We are not talking does 1+1=2, but the actual theoretical alignment of the methods to the problem at hand. Over a third of the papers had fundamental mathematic errors where they used or misused the wrong math tools and another 20% had data issues. They were essentially garbage and had to be redone. And this was where a handful of kids who were very, very good at math caught the issues.

We did not know the domain and could not discern if the topic was relevant or important. So I would guess the other half that passed may have had other flaws.

For example. One of the really good kids in the domain of genetics was able to show that many testing labs at the time were getting flawed results. He sent off carefully vetted samples to all of the labs and got lots of differing results back. Then submitted a paper for review to a journal that this well known with his results. That set off a shitstorm.

A few years later I was working on getting a free years tuition while working on my MBA. The professors at the time used excel to do their work and I showed them how to use some advanced tools on their PCs to handle very very large data sets. Something I was routinely doing at work. They got cold feet when they realized that these tools were so new, that "No one could reproduce" their work. They were weak at math and the new statistical tools and got cold feet as a result.

I also saw some state labs selling "studies" to the highest bidders.

Much of Academia is a beauty contest that rewards the lowest common denominator. It's basically a bunch of idiots pawing through a box of bike reflectors.

Math and hard sciences can be humbling. The first few years are hard, very hard. Like Selection or BUDs. And it just gets harder. Some things may be out of reach just because your mind cannot handle it and other areas are easy where others struggle. You either have it or you don't and there is no in between.
When I was 18 I went to undergraduate school, UC Santa Cruz. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, at the stupidity and ignorance of some of the professors. Mostly those were in non-hard science. They were paid with tax dollars and had no clue about how the world worked. Later on Angela Davis started working there as a professor, right after she beat her case on supplying 2 or 3 of the three guns that were used to overcome guards at a murder trial and kill a few innocents such as the judge. This should tell you how FU that university system is. She still works there, as a "Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies Departments,"
 
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Looks like those South African dudes that fly those Texans wheels down over water and run there tired on the water surface.

One mistake on exact elevation they eat the front of the cockpit.
 
Shhh giving away pro tips!

In addition to cig paper, I always had a lighter to burn off the varnish of wires for wiring things up.

3 essentials for Cyrogenics:
Cig paper (also good for separating wires)
Lighter (burn and strip varnish insulation)
Varnish

We were the cool lab...
If I don’t have an edge finder because some asshole broke it again, I use receipt paper. 1-2 thou depending on the paper. I actually keep the receipts that are the thinnest paper for use in the shop. How they get it this thing consistently I have no idea, but it works well and is free. Notebook paper, not so much.

Pro tip: make sure what you buy won’t cause the shop floor to give you hell. It doesn’t matter what it is, you are gonna get the Treatment if you bought anything that can be turned into a joke. Good humor makes the day go by faster. I had a set of calipers repaired and they put a little baggie of candy in it. They found the receipt and the moron that broke them started trying to give me hell about it, so I ate a couple pieces while he was mouthing and then put the rest in his machine. In the chip pan while it was running. “Now clean it out, its gonna ruin the coolant”, and walked off. Good times.
 
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