14 Comments
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Nick Winney's avatar

this was quite hilarious.... the wet footprints...nice!

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Mark Hannam's avatar

Thanks — I didn’t even think of the wet footprints as a joke. I just wanted an excuse why no-one was able to follow a sopping wet man running through a building.

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Keith stapings's avatar

Thank you Mark - I appear to have pissed myself…..again

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Mark Hannam's avatar

Medical science may be able to help.

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Jacob Gardner's avatar

I was just barely doing a million titrations in my chemistry lab today…that shower chain is really tempting.

Joking aside, I really appreciate this article. Learning is not for self-aggrandizement, nor to be done out of fear. It is for self-improvement and discovery. This reminded me of that. Thank you!

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Anecdotage's avatar

I once used a aboratory emergency eyewash station. It worked just fine in terms of washing my eyes. But the drain wasn't hooked up to anything, so I had to wash my eyes, stop, wash the floor, and wash, rinse, repeat, until I just sort of felt done with all of it.

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Mark Hannam's avatar

Ow wow! So someone *does* use these in real life!

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

I really enjoyed your story and the humor of its framing.

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Ronald Turnbull's avatar

Warm machine obviously radioactive and the poor dweeb is going to be dead in 48 hours. Subtly understated ironic ending but obvious enough to any alert reader. Incidentally a good maths person can do a 3hr exam in 30 mins so perfectly plausible. Great story!

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Mark Hannam's avatar

That’s an accusation of a severe health and safety violation!

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Larry Hogue's avatar

That post-doc sounds a lot like flat-earthers.

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Mark Hannam's avatar

Everyone has it in them!

(I started writing a comment on your notes on the ending of Ship of Fools. I'm afraid it's getting a bit long...)

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Steven Dettwyler's avatar

Liked! What was the warm machinery…..it was like introducing a gun in a crime story, eventually it’s important. I was a fool, easily led.

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Mark Hannam's avatar

It wasn’t meant to be a decoy, but I’m happy to say otherwise in retrospect. I’ve no idea what that machine was — I’m a theorist, I don’t waste my time learning the names of pieces of lab junk!

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