I have an author who asked for the Word doc, and when we said no, you need to work with the PDF, emailed back with "Good news! I converted the PDF to a Word document! I will re-convert it back to a PDF before I submit it!"

"Good news, everyone!" Getting changes in the Word doc is a freaking nightmare. It's right there in the instructions; don't do that.

Stephs author is being crazy, of course, but I will say that it is frustrating to do anything other than the smallest editing in the pdf when your bibliographic program and figures are native to Word. It would be better if authors and editors could collaborate on the lossless version of the manuscript.

By the time the paper gets to me, it shouldn't need more than the smallest editing from the author. It would be better if the authors would finish writing the manuscript before they submit it.

I'll tell another one. Some journals will not accept figures generated in Excel, because they are not high enough resolution. However, if you print out the Excel figure and then scan it back in at a (meaningless) high resolution, the figure is acceptable to the journal. When faced with the prospect of learning a new graphics program to finish a paper they long since stopped caring about, people fire up the printer and git er done.

Yep. Git er done. That happens because it's an automated process accepting the figure; it's just checking the resolution. If the resolution is too low, it'll look bad and the author will complain bitterly about it and insist that I redo it, as if I can give him perfect sharp figures when he sent me blurry crap he created at 96 dpi. That's why we insist on 600 dpi from the author. However, if the author sends me a figure that's still blurry at 600 dpi, I have to assume that he doesn't give a shit if it's blurry. I do care that the figure looks bad, but I can't force him to give me a better figure. The resolution is more important with complex figures than line graphs, I guess, but the automatic process can't tell the difference.

One trick I've used to cheat with high resolution is to save an Excel-generated graph as a PDF and then output the PDF from Acrobat as a .tiff with a high resolution.

This is what we usually do, and what I usually suggest to my authors. It's not "subversive", it's a "work-around".

I am back at work from a week's vacation today, and I don't want to be.

Timelies all!

Why did it take me so long to realize that Veterans' Day is on a Tuesday?(As in, November 11) For some reason I thought it was Monday. Can't brain today, I have the dumb.

I need help.

Grace has balanced choromosomal translocation. I'd assume it's on her X chromosomes because that is what the endo tested but that may be a false assumption. It looks like this might increase her chances of lymphoma but what else does this mean?

In other words, how worried should I be?

Seems like it totally depends on the chromosomes, Kat?

Ugh, Kat. I don't even know what your questions means (don't worry about explaining it)--I'm just frustrated you have to deal with things I don';t understand. Much strength to you.

I just had a pretty good interview that I honestly can't remember having agreed to. By pretty good, I mean they were fooled--I was awful, but the interviewer talked like a next step was inevitable, and that if I'd applied for recently filled positions I'd have been a shoe in. Which--is nice of him to do. Fingers crossed.

I just feel weird and ill since I arbitrarily decided to cold turkey methadone on my own schedule. Note to audience: DON'T DO THAT. But I got fed up. I think the bulk of the symptoms are over now.

Oh dear, ita! How are you feeling aside from withdrawal? Which I imagine is a bitch.

Oh, yikes, ita. I hope the worst of the cold turkeying is over, and that the interview goodness was sincere.

I do not have actual knowledge, Kat, but googling seems to imply that many people have balanced chromosomal translocations and don't know because it does not affect them at all. All the information I am finding about specific chromosomes refers to the chromosomes by numbers (for example, a balanced translocation of chromosomes 19 and 20).

ION, ha-HA! I finally got on chat with Zappos about why I still don't have my shoes, and there was "a glitch," they will be sent next-day, I got a $35 coupon AND a VIP membership.

So that's good.

Way to squeak, Jesse!

Of course, the coupon has to be used in the next 90 days -- pretty sneaky, Zappos.