Tech refugee

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[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Thanks for the chat.

The fMRI stuff was detecting brain activity as part of a realtime feedback experiment. Basically we had a participant in the fMRI machine, then they would look at pictures on a screen telling them to think about certain things, or try to imagine doing or saying certain things. Then we would watch the brain's activity appear on the fMRI machine readouto, with about a 6 second delay. We could then correlate physical activity in specific brain regions to certain types of mental activity. I basically programmed the entire real-time feedback experiment myself for $12/hr, and then was promptly fired when it was finished. And not only did they fire me, but they created false allegations against me and I was escorted out by security on my last day, not allowed to return to my desk to fetch my belongings. I had worked in that facility for 12 years. I was put on retainer and full salary but I had to be accessable phone for a month, to ensure I hadn't backdoored the software somehow. It was terrible.

[–]bobbobbybob 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I used to program those fMRI machines and the software used in them. EDITED to remove self dox doh

weird that we have that in common. Where was it?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

That's cool we have that in common. I was writing mostly overlays to interact with the machine rather than the machine functionality itself. I have a lot of respect for that though because it's certainly complex. I'd rather not say where so I don't doxx myself.

[–]bobbobbybob 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

fair enough. I've doxxed myself to three people at least if they ever read that post!

maybe i'll delete it. not been that careless before. But yeah, was working on the machine protocols themselves, mostly, plus lots of backend coding to try and manage massive datasets for the data analysis in the days before big data. Huge parallel drive arrays acting as swap disk for big endian unix systems. Did a bit of work on the aux systems running it all. Was heaps of fun LSD helped :D

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

That's a nightmare. Hell of a first job, especially the false allegations crap. Could they not have simply hired you on temporary terms to start? I can't understand the motives of people who do things like that. And there's so many of them.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah it was bizarre. I think they did it that way to ensure they'd have me on retainer for a month, to ensure I didn't build any backdoors in to the software, or something strange like that. I'm so glad to be done with that. It was a nightmare, you've got that right