Dear Abbe,
I was recently at a demo for a new microscope and watched the rep going through the software setup. Part of the setup was creating a “user configuration.” Imagine my excitement at seeing this! I would finally be able to configure my facility's users to use the microscopes correctly! Unfortunately, I found out that this really just meant configuring the software for the user. How much longer must we wait to be able to configure actual users?
Disappointed in Decatur
Dear Disappointed,
I sympathize with you. Many times I have wished to reconfigure users, usually with something heavy and blunt such as the Lab Bat. Unfortunately, with today's litigious environment, the Lab Bat is becoming a liability. Consequently, due to several lawsuits, we at Abbe Labs have been working on this very problem. You may be familiar with OLEDs, flexible transistors, and wearable electronics. And are you familiar with latex masks used in theatrical makeup? No, we aren't talking about a Lady Gaga production prop. Instead, we take a mask, and using OLEDs, flexible transistors, and other necessary bits of circuitry (all proprietary of course), – wunderbar! – we can make the user's appearance configured to whatever we desire. This, of course, does nothing for how they operate the microscope, but at least we can have our very own Phantom of the Microscope, or a famous scientist taking instruction from us when the Dean brings a tour of big donors through the facility. If nothing else, the resulting pics look great on our MySpacebookPB social media page.
Don't be caught empty-handed when the chips are down! Ante up with confidence as you deal out some advice provided by Herr Abbe. Contact him through his questionably competent sidekick at johnshields@gmail.com.
