4 ms·

I'm working to create a community model with a communal research lab. It's meant to meet my needs as a researcher while also removing pressures/norms from capit

I'm working to create a community model with a communal research lab. It's meant to meet my needs as a researcher while also removing pressures/norms from capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. What do you want to research and what's in your way?

kayhi 6y ago
For most it is the start up costs.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  Yeah I tend to browse eBay and other resellers looking for old engineering / scientific equipment and even for obsolete stuff it often still resells pretty high.
  - ramraj07 6y ago
    The way I think about it, people own boats, and this still can be cheaper than that hobby!
    - neltnerb 6y ago
      I guess not if they live in them? https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Get-a-Free-Yacht/ https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Get-a-Free-Yacht/ I love this one.
neltnerb 6y ago
I've heard this dream a few times, and have had it myself. Hazardous waste disposal and storage. This is the big kicker for any research project I might want to do. Every other expenses after getting that set up is trivial (in comparison) for an individual researcher, though national lab style shared analytical equipment is nice. That can come later though... It's really hard. It's much simpler to set up a machine shop or similar, but then it's just a new hackerspace that there are good models for already.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  >Hazardous waste disposal and storage. Partner with a hazardous material testing lab, or another type of operation where they use lots of hazardous material similar to yours and end up turning a bit of it into waste themselves. Not necessarily an environmental lab where they actually test waste, better an industrial lab that tests material. Some better opportunities can even be with material or waste handlers who have no lab at all. Hazardous material does not become hazardous waste if you can legitimately sell/ship it off the site as a worthwhile product instead. Otherwise if you need to truly discard excess (even prime chemical assets then become a liability) you need to not only usually pay, but bump your paperwork and liability up from merely dangerous goods to full waste documentation requirements. Ideally, as a scientific consultant (giving free advice only) once you get on the toxic site where yours is a drop in the bucket by comparison, you will be able to identify recycling opportunities worth way more to them than the cost of properly disposing of your paltry amount by the established registered professionals, according to the specific arcane regulations in place which you value their expertise for. They will love you. So you can get the best deal possible. Don't just recycle the equipment, recycle the chemicals.
  - neltnerb 6y ago
    > Hazardous material does not become hazardous waste if you can legitimately sell/ship it off the site as a worthwhile product instead. Otherwise if you need to truly discard excess (even prime chemical assets then become a liability) you need to not only usually pay, but bump your paperwork and liability up from merely dangerous goods to full waste documentation requirements. This is what I meant. For a small organization I would expect a lot of small volume experimental products that are not exactly known in composition combined with perhaps some rinse acetone or other solvents. Have you encountered an example where this works? I've done consulting for startups in exchange for a fume hood before, so I guess it's not that out there. It's much harder to imagine doing this for a big hazardous waste site, but maybe? Thanks for the idea, I definitely won't be trying to do that but maybe there could be a symbiotic thing going on there. Probably a lot easier to do that with a university somehow? A national lab will be too stuck up to accept hazardous waste or advice, but maybe a university would hire you part time to work for them while letting you use the space for your own project.
ramraj07 6y ago
That's great! Honestly I'm still navigating more pressing existential crises (like which country and then city to set roots in, if I even have a choice) but after that the plan is to embrace fields that are amenable for cheap amateur experimentation. In that regards, I have some connectomics projects with c. Elegans in mind, followed by evolution with basic cell lines. Depending on answers to aforementioned crises I was planning to be near some big univs so I can mooch off of their inventory control auctions and core facilities as need be and go from there! However if there's actually communities of similar minded people that'll only be great since it'll expand the no. Of topics I can dabble in (which is precisely what you can never ever do in academia contrary to whatever crap they peddle to get you into the system).
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  I find the surplus equipment from universities is not usually sent to _asset recovery_ (auctioned off) until it is older and more worn out compared to industrial operations. So I always wanted (always did) have my lab in a heavy industrial area. For biotech the US area of New Jersey and Connecticut has a high concentration of pharma giants and their many satellite contractors. One business model has been to become enough of a contractor yourself to pay the bills, then research all you want and own it all yourself.
- crawfordcomeaux 6y ago
  Here's what I want: a lab to experiment with these findings (https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0078-7)in https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0078-7)in a 3D colonies from the perspective of encoding various structures from human culture (particularly the community housing the lab) and seeing how the microbes address different perturbations. And then remodeling the community's culture based on whatever findings are uncovered to test the relationship between human and microbial cultures. Or remodel the cultural blueprint within some communal space to see how it works with the outside world. Or...I don't know. There are so many ways to play with culture in this way. We're tackling the question of where to live, too. I find it useful to identify my values & then to use that to filter my options. Choosing based on availability of resources tends to lead to all kinds of blindspots in my experience. We're also trying to figure out how the community model can work without moving and what the process looks like for building it out where anyone is. The approach I'm going for right now is to identify the exact spaces and ways of relating to them I want, creating an absurdly long organization name with all those words in the name, and a mission of "evolve the name" or something similar, short, and simple.
jacquesm 6y ago
I love this idea. A 'lab space' instead of a maker space. If someone is going to do this in NL then I'd be happy to help fund it.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  Are you near Rotterdam?
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Hilversum

kayhi 6y ago

For most it is the start up costs.

the_only_law 6y ago
Yeah I tend to browse eBay and other resellers looking for old engineering / scientific equipment and even for obsolete stuff it often still resells pretty high.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  The way I think about it, people own boats, and this still can be cheaper than that hobby!
  - neltnerb 6y ago
    I guess not if they live in them? https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Get-a-Free-Yacht/ https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Get-a-Free-Yacht/ I love this one.

neltnerb 6y ago

I've heard this dream a few times, and have had it myself. Hazardous waste disposal and storage. This is the big kicker for any research project I might want to do. Every other expenses after getting that set up is trivial (in comparison) for an individual researcher, though national lab style shared analytical equipment is nice. That can come later though... It's really hard. It's much simpler to set up a machine shop or similar, but then it's just a new hackerspace that there are good models for already.

fuzzfactor 6y ago
>Hazardous waste disposal and storage. Partner with a hazardous material testing lab, or another type of operation where they use lots of hazardous material similar to yours and end up turning a bit of it into waste themselves. Not necessarily an environmental lab where they actually test waste, better an industrial lab that tests material. Some better opportunities can even be with material or waste handlers who have no lab at all. Hazardous material does not become hazardous waste if you can legitimately sell/ship it off the site as a worthwhile product instead. Otherwise if you need to truly discard excess (even prime chemical assets then become a liability) you need to not only usually pay, but bump your paperwork and liability up from merely dangerous goods to full waste documentation requirements. Ideally, as a scientific consultant (giving free advice only) once you get on the toxic site where yours is a drop in the bucket by comparison, you will be able to identify recycling opportunities worth way more to them than the cost of properly disposing of your paltry amount by the established registered professionals, according to the specific arcane regulations in place which you value their expertise for. They will love you. So you can get the best deal possible. Don't just recycle the equipment, recycle the chemicals.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  > Hazardous material does not become hazardous waste if you can legitimately sell/ship it off the site as a worthwhile product instead. Otherwise if you need to truly discard excess (even prime chemical assets then become a liability) you need to not only usually pay, but bump your paperwork and liability up from merely dangerous goods to full waste documentation requirements. This is what I meant. For a small organization I would expect a lot of small volume experimental products that are not exactly known in composition combined with perhaps some rinse acetone or other solvents. Have you encountered an example where this works? I've done consulting for startups in exchange for a fume hood before, so I guess it's not that out there. It's much harder to imagine doing this for a big hazardous waste site, but maybe? Thanks for the idea, I definitely won't be trying to do that but maybe there could be a symbiotic thing going on there. Probably a lot easier to do that with a university somehow? A national lab will be too stuck up to accept hazardous waste or advice, but maybe a university would hire you part time to work for them while letting you use the space for your own project.

ramraj07 6y ago

That's great! Honestly I'm still navigating more pressing existential crises (like which country and then city to set roots in, if I even have a choice) but after that the plan is to embrace fields that are amenable for cheap amateur experimentation. In that regards, I have some connectomics projects with c. Elegans in mind, followed by evolution with basic cell lines. Depending on answers to aforementioned crises I was planning to be near some big univs so I can mooch off of their inventory control auctions and core facilities as need be and go from there! However if there's actually communities of similar minded people that'll only be great since it'll expand the no. Of topics I can dabble in (which is precisely what you can never ever do in academia contrary to whatever crap they peddle to get you into the system).

fuzzfactor 6y ago
I find the surplus equipment from universities is not usually sent to _asset recovery_ (auctioned off) until it is older and more worn out compared to industrial operations. So I always wanted (always did) have my lab in a heavy industrial area. For biotech the US area of New Jersey and Connecticut has a high concentration of pharma giants and their many satellite contractors. One business model has been to become enough of a contractor yourself to pay the bills, then research all you want and own it all yourself.
crawfordcomeaux 6y ago
Here's what I want: a lab to experiment with these findings (https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0078-7)in https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0078-7)in a 3D colonies from the perspective of encoding various structures from human culture (particularly the community housing the lab) and seeing how the microbes address different perturbations. And then remodeling the community's culture based on whatever findings are uncovered to test the relationship between human and microbial cultures. Or remodel the cultural blueprint within some communal space to see how it works with the outside world. Or...I don't know. There are so many ways to play with culture in this way. We're tackling the question of where to live, too. I find it useful to identify my values & then to use that to filter my options. Choosing based on availability of resources tends to lead to all kinds of blindspots in my experience. We're also trying to figure out how the community model can work without moving and what the process looks like for building it out where anyone is. The approach I'm going for right now is to identify the exact spaces and ways of relating to them I want, creating an absurdly long organization name with all those words in the name, and a mission of "evolve the name" or something similar, short, and simple.

jacquesm 6y ago

I love this idea. A 'lab space' instead of a maker space. If someone is going to do this in NL then I'd be happy to help fund it.

fuzzfactor 6y ago
Are you near Rotterdam?
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Hilversum