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Author: Subject: Most expensive mistakes you've made?
Fyndium
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[*] posted on 11-1-2021 at 10:20
Most expensive mistakes you've made?


Broke a 300$ flask just a while ago.
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macckone
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[*] posted on 11-1-2021 at 10:35


Accidentally throwing away platinum wire on trash day.
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roXefeller
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[*] posted on 11-1-2021 at 11:58


Trying to time the bitcoin rebound two years ago.



One must forego the self to attain total spiritual creaminess and avoid the chewy chunks of degradation.
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DraconicAcid
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[*] posted on 11-1-2021 at 12:01


Admitting that there had been a platinum electrode in the glassware that was donated to me, and having to give it back.



Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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Fluorite
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[*] posted on 11-1-2021 at 17:17


Adding lots of water to my ammonium nitrate calcium hydroxide mixture >.<
I need a pressure cooker to remove the ammonia now :(
Or I can just bubble co2 to turn it back to ammonium nitrate! which I can concentrate by boiling
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teodor
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[*] posted on 12-1-2021 at 01:21


Starting a home lab ... well, I am not sure it was a mistake, because I like it much, but those expenses ... cover everything I do in the lab.
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Pyro_cat
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[*] posted on 8-2-2021 at 18:37


I bought all this glass to make a capacitor for my tesla coil but the foil was way to close to the edges and it arced across in several places breaking three of them. The glass cost and all the effort assembling the thing.
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yobbo II
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[*] posted on 8-2-2021 at 19:05



1) Got married.

2) Filling oil into a (large) vehicle engine and forgetting to put the bung in.




Yob

Oscar Wilde (I think it was him) said he spent 98% of his money on wine, women and song.
The other 2% he wasted.
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zed
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[*] posted on 13-2-2021 at 21:29


I trusted women.
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Twospoons
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[*] posted on 14-2-2021 at 11:11


Blew up a $1000 magnetic field probe while poking around inside a power supply. Lucky for me the $25,000 instrument it was attached to was ok.



Helicopter: "helico" -> spiral, "pter" -> with wings
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ChemTalk
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[*] posted on 15-2-2021 at 08:02


Bought TiO2 and Cr2O3 from a pottery store.

Well those were very cheap mistakes. Our lab is new so the expensive mistakes haven't happened yet. But we spread out funds out and didn't really put too much money into any one thing.

---------------------------------
ChemTalk
chemistrytalk.org


[Edited on 2-15-2021 by ChemTalk]
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itsallgoodjames
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[*] posted on 11-3-2021 at 09:05


I bought $3000 worth of broken iPhones thinking I could fix them and make that money back... I got $400 out of it, losing $2600. That was...fun



Nuclear physics is neat. It's a shame it's so regulated...

Now that I think about it, that's probably a good thing. Still annoying though.
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zed
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[*] posted on 11-3-2021 at 13:03


Ummm. I reiterate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEg25P91rIs
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arkoma
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[*] posted on 11-3-2021 at 14:30


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qbFPE4f-ms



"We believe the knowledge and cultural heritage of mankind should be accessible to all people around the world, regardless of their wealth, social status, nationality, citizenship, etc" z-lib

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myr
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[*] posted on 11-3-2021 at 18:22


I screwed up an 8k scholarship form and couldn't get the money back in high school. I also messed up another scholarship more recently and missed out on their priory-acceptance track. C'est la guerre.

Chemistry-wise: clamp broke in a rotovap once from my negligence. The hot water almost certainly destroyed the compound, and it's not like I could extract 500 or so mg from 4L of steaming tap water.
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Fantasma4500
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[*] posted on 21-5-2021 at 04:42


getting caught, court aint cheap. was never caught redhanded, always some idiotic backhanded unrealistic stuff like a psychotic druggie having crazy hallucinations and just randomly accusing me

purely chemistry i never had much of a loss, one time i bought a 29/32 distillation set and immediatedly hooked it up to distill nitric acid, turns out when you hook both ends to a flask it blows up because of pressure! a brainfart, a true wonder no more harm was done having boiling concentrated acids splashing all over the place, dripping down everywhere





~25 drops = 1mL @dH2O viscocity - STP
Truth is ever growing - but without context theres barely any such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_table
http://www.trimen.pl/witek/calculators/stezenia.html
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Dr.Bob
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[*] posted on 28-5-2021 at 09:36


Not taking 3 bitcoin as payment for a $120 glassware purchase about 12 years ago. I had no idea how to use it or what to do with it... Doh.
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ShotBored
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[*] posted on 28-5-2021 at 09:48


Working with pharmaceutical tableting presses, I took a job with a company that was using presses that had incredibly poor maintenance in the past. The press was a dual compression press, meaning it was supposed to be using top and bottom compression on the punches when making tablets, however I noticed that they were only using the upper compression and keeping the bottom punch static during compression. Being the young, know-it-all, I advised that they begin using both punches for compression to get more even tablets, and implemented this in a test run. Little did I know is that bottom compression hadn't been used in 10 years due to something in the press being broken and simply forgotten about. Adding bottom compression caused an overpressure event which caused serious damage to multiple subassemblies on the press. $130k later, I got the press running upper and lower compression after we fixed the stuff that broke because of the mishap...Not 100% my fault, but I still got an ass chewing for it. :D
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Fyndium
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[*] posted on 28-5-2021 at 10:17


If I were the manager, I would find the guy that left that fault unmarked, and press him into pills.

Most probably it was the actual manager that was at fault, but shit always flows downwards, so..

Talking about bitcoins, I was playing with them at 2011-2012 in large quantities. Most I had at a given time was over 500btc, and the only moment in my life that I was actually completely broke, I had to sell 20btc for the little around 100€ or something.

I just don't think about it.
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Jenks
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[*] posted on 28-5-2021 at 11:54


I connected a large vacuum desiccator to house compressed air instead of house vacuum. When I went over to see why the airflow wasn't slowing like usual, that's when the lid (practically glued on by vacuum grease) shot off and hit me in the face. Fortunately, nobody was injured, but I'm always felt bad about breaking that expensive desiccator.
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