mass spec theatre

Yesterday was immensely frustrating - the machine behaved beautifully Thursday, I was all set to get data yesterday, and then there was a two-second power cut at 1am and it's spent the subsequent 24 hours sulking and is finally finally finally giving me numbers that look as though they'll be usable - culminating in forgetting to take my bedmeds last night, which means I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms. (They tend to start 12-18 hours after a missed dose, and involve going weird and light-headed and fuzzy. They're trivial to get rid of - take another tablet - but unfortunately there are reasons I take my psych meds at night, viz, they do a pretty good job of knocking me out; and I'm not sure which of "crashing out" and "brain zaps" is worse given the work I want to get done. So I am playing it by ear a bit, and if I decide it's necessary I'll split tonight's tablet, take half of it now, and catch up this evening.)

In any case, this means I'm going to be babysitting the mass spec today, if all continues well. What this means in practice is that I'm going to have very brief bursts of activity interspersed with a lot of sitting around by myself in a cellar, ergo it's time for: any questions answered.