geek – Page 36 – Geeky Girl Engineer

Half Bathroom Deconstruction

Posted on December 31, 2014 by geek

Sadly, with this phase of renovation, there was no drywall demolition. I say sadly because drywall demolition is one of my favorite activities. Deconstruction is now finished. The plumber came in first and removed the toilet and disconnected the sink. I removed the wallpaper, tile floors, the vanity, and all the fixtures. I then had a contractor come in and remove the second layer of plywood subfloor which only went around the old vanity. As with previous rooms I have renovated, at some point, “renovators” came and removed the old floor, but only around the old vanity, then put in another layer of plywood subfloor for no discernible reason, and then tiled. Thus everything had to come out to get to the original subfloor.

Old tile floor

Old tile under the vanity still present

Demolition (almost) complete

Hole left from medicine cabinet

Vanity removed and tile removed

Phase 4 Home Renovation Begins

Posted on December 30, 2014 by geek

The (possibly) final home renovation phase has begun. This will be a rather small and hopefully short phase. The only room involved is the half bathroom off of the living room and kitchen. So first some photos of the bathroom before renovation. The vanity cabinet is the exact same style and color as the old kitchen cabinets were. I did not realize it until I took it out, but the mirror above the vanity was actually a medicine cabinet.

Looking into the bathroom from the living room

The old vanity and medicine cabinet

Old vanity

Looking out to the living room

NY Subways

Posted on December 26, 2014 by geek

On my last trip to New York, I took a tour with the New York Transit Museum that included a subway ride through the Jamaica Maintenance Shop yard and the tunnels through it. Even cooler, the train conductor kept the door open to the train control room, so we could go in and take a few pictures out the front window of the train. Normally when on a subway train, you can only see stuff go flying by out a side window, so being able to see the tunnels through the front, allowed a much better view. In some places they were working in the tunnels, so there were a lot of lights lit, which allowed even better viewing.

Subway tunnel surfacing to ground level

Jamaica Maintenance Shop yard

Subway car wash

Subway tunnel

Subway tunnel spliting

Subway tunnel right before station

Subway tunnel entering station

Conversations I have with my Mom

Posted on December 24, 2014 by geek

Mom: Did that thing bloom again?

Me (looking confused): At my house?

Mom: No, the thing at the botanical garden. You know what I mean.

Me: The corpse flower?

Mom: Yes, but don’t call it that. I think it should be called by its botanical name.

Me: You prefer to call it giant misshapen penis?

Mom: No, call it by its Latin name.

Me: Its Latin botanical name, Amorphophallus titanum, means giant misshapen penis.

Mom: Oh, well yes, that is a better name to call it.

Me: Ok, well, no, it hasn’t bloomed that I know of. Last time it was in the news.

It’s Not Individualism or Bad Fashion, It’s Sexism

Posted on November 12, 2014 by geek

I once hypothesized that male heterosexual scientists and engineers single-handily keep the Hawaiian shirt industry in business. Don’t ask me why, but as a group, they love those shirts. I make jokes about their lack of fashion and just plain dressing ability. I tease because I love. I love their individualism, and I love how they don’t know or care about fashion. I may be a female heterosexual scientist and engineer, but I am one of them when it comes to dress. The last time I remember being fashionable was when I was in fifth grade. I don’t understand or like many fashions. I have my own style, and I like to look nice, but I consider my ability to wear jeans to work and not even own a suit, a serious perk of my career (and employer).

And then there is this.

No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt. https://t.co/r88QRzsqAm pic.twitter.com/XmhHKrNaq5

— Rose Eveleth (@roseveleth) November 12, 2014

This is Rosetta Project Scientist Matt Taylor of the European Space Agency (ESA) in a shirt covered in scantily clad women in in sexually suggestive poses. That is the shirt he chose to wear on a day when ESA did the amazing feat of landing a probe on a comet. This is the shirt he chose to wear on a day when he would be interviewed by the media and featured on live webcasts of the events. Not only did he not see a problem with this shirt, but evidently no one else at ESA did either. This. Is. Not. Acceptable. This is not appropriate. This is offensive. This shirt should not exist period, but it most certainly should not exist in the workplace. This is not about how ugly the shirt is. This is not about how unprofessional a shirt like that is. This is not about Dr. Taylor being an individual and expressing his style. This is about a shirt that objectifies women. This is about a shirt that is sexual harassment without Dr. Taylor even opening his mouth or making any type of gesture or doing absolutely anything other than wearing it. This is about a complete and utter lack of respect of women on the part of Dr. Taylor and evidently everybody at ESA who works with him and would have been in a position to say something. This about no one over there seeming to care about whether or not women feel comfortable working there when someone can wear a shirt like that. This about telling women it doesn’t matter your intelligence, skills, education, or ideas, you are but sex objects. The STEM fields continue to have a problem with sexism and gender inequality. My alma mater, a technical college, still only has about a 25% female student body. Wearing shirts like that to workplace will not help. It will not tell women that they are welcome. I quite frankly don’t care if Dr. Taylor is actually a really nice guy who is actually very supportive of women in STEM. His shirt says otherwise. He and ESA owe all of us an apology. That shirt overshadowed what should have been the main headline that ESA did the absolutely spectacular task of landing a probe on a comet. That shirt and the attitude it expressed ruined it for me in fact.

Finally, I would like to give mad props to Dr. Paul Coxon for his absolutely awesome idea, that if you want to wear a shirt with women on it, wear one with these women on it.

Awesome idea! RT @paulcoxon: @edyong209 @MCeeP @Mammals_Suck I’d wear a shirt with *these* women on: pic.twitter.com/egyu55QzpS

— Geeky Girl Engineer (@gkygirlengineer) November 12, 2014

These would be some of the women of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) celebrating after ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft successfully entered the Mars orbit. And they are awesome.

Gowanus Canal

Posted on November 12, 2014 by geek

Last month while in New York, I spent some time walking around Gowanus Canal because I’m an environmental engineer, and I couldn’t resist an opportunity to visit a body of water, infamous for being incredibly polluted. The Gowanus Canal is a Superfund site due to contamination with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic contaminants (VOCs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, and metals. However, the Gowanus Canal is also polluted with more ordinary pollutants such as bacteria from untreated wastewater from combined sewer overflow outfalls and other urban pollutants from surface runoff (and possibly illegal outfalls). The area residents are understandably pushing to get the canal cleaned up quickly, and the cleanup is a joint effort between the city, state, and federal government. The area around the canal is an interesting mixture of industrial, art galleries, and up and coming residential. It is actually a nice area. There is a Whole Foods Market next to the canal that has a nice little canal walk on the property, which features signs that say “This is the greenest supermarket in New York State. No smoking, please.” I will take them at their word about being the greenest supermarket, as I did notice solar panels and wind turbines in the parking lot. However I still had to laugh at the irony of the sign. On the bright side, the Gowanus Canal is not so polluted that should someone smoke near it, it is not in danger of catching on fire, like the Cuyahoga River did in 1969. While I was walking along the canal, I spotted a small boat with two people who seemed to be monitoring the water and also two people in a canoe. I guess the canal is safe to canoe on, if you just make sure you don’t touch the water to your skin and most definitely don’t let any get into your mouth, nose, eyes, or any other orifices. The canal does not look that polluted. There are areas with floating trash, but there are very few places where I saw a sheen. When I was there it did not smell either, but evidently especially in summer, it can smell. However, it is a good example of how appearance is not a good way to tell if something is polluted. If you want to read more about the Gowanus Canal, this article in Popular Science is pretty interesting.

Northern end of the Gowanus Canal

Bridge on northern end

Carroll Street Bridge

Stormwater discharge warning sign

A wooden dolphin that had a book attached to the top as some sort of art or memorial

View from the Third Street Bridge

Survey boat

Third Street bridge

People actually canoe on the Gowanus Canal

Barge sitting on the canal

Fourth Street Basin, next to the Whole Foods Market, with some sort of art in the sculpture in the water

Gowanus Canal southern end

Gowanus Expressway

Liquid storage tanks

Run the Chesapeake Bay Bridge 10K

Posted on November 11, 2014 by geek

View of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge near the start of the race

On November 9, 2014, I ran the inaugural Across the Bay 10k Chesapeake Bay Bridge Run. The point to point course includes 4.35 miles across the bridge, which reaches 186 feet at its peak. The run across the bridge provided amazing views of Chesapeake Bay. As an engineer, I really loved being able to examine the bridge up close at a slower pace than when driving across it. I wore a GoPro Hero 3+ on my head during the race to make a video of the run. I have edited the video to only include the start, bridge portion of the run, and the finish, and I have also sped up the video. My official run time was 1:16:24, and nobody wants to watch a video that long of me running across the bridge. I removed the sound due to a weird noise that was created when I sped up the video. Also, I took a few photos with my iPhone and made a few photos from freeze frames from the GoPro video.

View of the bay from the bridge

View of both bridges

In the truss section of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

They also gave us a pretty cool medal for completing the race.

Completion medal

Real Sexy PhD Regalia

Posted on November 1, 2014 by geek

It seems to be more and more, all Halloween costumes for women are “sexy” costumes for women. Of course the definition for sexy being showing as much skin as possible. This Halloween, some company named Delicious has given us Delicious Women’s Phd Darling Sexy Costume. This probably sounds stupid, but the only reason this one particular “sexy” woman’s costume annoys me more than others (they all annoy me truthfully), is that this is not Doctor of Philosophy, or any other doctoral regalia. I mean if you are going to demean an entire group of people like female PhDs, at least get your costume close to correct. This costume is not even a Master’s regalia; it is a Bachelor’s regalia with honors. That gold “sash” is a stole, similar to what Bachelor graduates wear if they are a member of an honor society or have high scholastic honors, depending on the school.

Academic dress differs by country, but I am sure this is meant to be United States regalia. So let’s review what is wrong.

1. I’ll just ignore the length of the gown at this point. Because SEXY!

2. The sleeves are too short and should balloon out as bell sleeves. Yes, yes, I know, but sexy means more skin!

3. The sleeves do not feature three velvet bands on the upper arm.

4. There should be two velvet bands running vertically down the length of the gown.

5. It has no hood. The Master’s regalia has a hood that goes about halfway down the back of the torso, and the Doctoral regalia has a hood that goes all the way down the back of the torso. The hood features different colors that designate your specific academic field.

6. The head gear is wrong. Head gear can differ, but normally Doctoral regalia features a tam which can be 4, 6, or 8 sided. The tam is normally velvet also and is softer looking and puffier than the mortar board Bachelors wear.

To demonstrate the difference, below is me in my Doctoral regalia after I graduated. Sorry for the weird blurred out face, but I want some anonymity. However, let me be clear, my actual, hard earned Doctoral regalia is sexy. You know why? Because I am smart enough to become a Ph.D. Because I worked my butt off for six years to earn it, not to mention the four for a Bachelor’s and two for a Master’s. Because mine is REAL. Because sexy is not just about the body, it is also about the mind.

So Delicious and all other makers of “sexy” women’s costumes, why don’t you go demean men for a change?

Me in my Ph.D. regalia

Bergen Sign Shop

Posted on October 30, 2014 by geek

Collection of old signs on the shop’s wall

I recently had a chance to tour New York City’s MTA’s Bergen Sign Shop. The Bergen Sign Shop is where all the signs for MTA’s subways are made and possibly a few other signs. The wonderful employees came in on a Saturday so that they could take two tour groups, from the New York Transit Museum, through the shop and show us how they make the signs. It was really neat to see and also interesting to hear how things have changed from the way things used to be made. Computers are now used for much of the process where as like many things, they used to have to be done by hand. Some of the signs they make are made like many of us make signs with regular ink jet printers, although they have massive printers with the biggest ink cartridges I have ever seen.

Safety first signs being printed in bulk. As an engineer, I particularly enjoyed seeing this.

All the “buttons”, the colored circles with the subway line letter or number, are printed on rolls of colored vinyl with adhesive backing. The line’s letter or number is then printed in black or white. A machine also cuts the circle into the vinyl, so employees just have to remove the excess from around the circles.

Rolls of vinyl in various colors ready for the printer. C line buttons being printed.

Drawer full of ready to go buttons. The buttons are made in 7 standard sizes.

They have another machine that just does detailed cutting of vinyl rolls. Once the vinyl has been cut, the excess is removed, and letters, numbers, and symbols are left in place. The letters are already spaced properly like they would be from a printer and are then transferred as a unit by an employee to a sign.

Roll of vinyl leaving the cutter.

The below, very short video is a series of photographs of an employee showing how he transfers the cut letters to a sign. The method he uses keeps all the letters spaced properly as they were spaced by the computer. The letters are transferred from the vinyl roll to transfer paper then to the sign.

Once the letters, buttons, etc. are on the sign, the sign is then laminated. It is later sent to the tin shop to be applied to a metal frame.

Sign being laminated

There is another machine that engraves signs and also applies to plastic beads to make braille signs.

Engraving machine

Temporary location sign with Braille.

In a separate room, they make frosted glass signs by applying a template and coating the glass with uv-activated substance. Ultraviolet light is then applied, and anything not covered by the template will be frosted.

Glass placed into machine where a vacuum will be applied and then it will be treated under ultraviolet light

Sign about to be treated under ultraviolet light

Sign being treated under ultraviolet light

Glass after being treated with uv light

In the back, they had the finished signs stacked up ready to be installed. They also had a supply of generic signs used in various places.

Spare generic signs stacked in storage

Finished signs ready to be installed

It was a really fun tour, and it was really neat to learn how the signs are made. Thanks to the New Your Transmit Museum and MTA employees for allowing us to take this tour and showing us how they do everything!

Do not mess with a toxicologist

Posted on October 28, 2014 by geek

I was attending a lecture today on toxicology, and of course the subject people purposely poisoning other people came up. The lecture relayed the story of a female chemist who had a romantic relationship with a male chemist who worked in the same lab. The male then broke off the relationship and starting dating another female chemist who also worked in that same lab. The first female chemist evidently pretended like she was ok with everything and continued to make tea for everyone afterwards. However she started adding acrylamide to the male’s tea. It sounded like the poisoning was discovered fairly quickly. He then relayed another story of similar circumstances when a male broke off a relationship with another woman, but they continued to work together. She used thallium to poison his tea. She however was a toxicologist and made detailed notes of the effects on the male. She then adjusted the dosage accordingly. My lecturer did not relay information as to when she was caught. Summary of the story is don’t piss off a toxicologist, and if you do, don’t be stupid enough to let the person make your tea.

DISCLAIMER: This is in no way meant to encourage people to poison people. Don’t do that. Seriously, don’t.