spectastic

that sounds like one of those interview questions where the candidate is not expected to know the answer, and the interviewer is more interested in the thought process of how the candidate would go about solving the problem, which is arguably more important than having a broad knowledge base.

fellow lab member got the nsf. I'm happy for her, but also jealous AF.
some people get to have all the goddamn cookies.
 
it's not over yet though. I still get to apply for it next year *fingers crossed*

dude, I'm just happy to have this gig I'm in right now. I was basically shut out by grad schools twice (to this day, I have no idea why), and wasted 2 years of my life in a job that I absolutely hated. It did paid well, and I grew a lot, but not a great deal for me. the third time, I applied to one school, not sure whether I'd get in or not. I hustled around to about 4-5 different professors, to their offices, and one of them gave me a chance. It's not the best group, we struggle with funding, and I'll probably stay here longer than if I were in a different group. But I'm still glad to be here, because I could've ended up like one of those salary slaves. For me, it's not about worrying about getting the best draw of the cards, but more about playing my best hand, and working my ass off to earn what I have.
 
do I think about what if I had gone to a different college where there were more opportunities that are better aligned with my interests, or wish I could have a 4 hour conversation with my 17 year old self? sure. but you live you learn. not all the lessons will come easy.

dude, I'm just happy to have this gig I'm in right now. I was basically shut out by grad schools twice (to this day, I have no idea why), and wasted 2 years of my life in a job that I absolutely hated. It did paid well, and I grew a lot, but not a great deal for me. the third time, I applied to one school, not sure whether I'd get in or not. I hustled around to about 4-5 different professors, to their offices, and one of them gave me a chance. It's not the best group, we struggle with funding, and I'll probably stay here longer than if I were in a different group. But I'm still glad to be here, because I could've ended up like one of those salary slaves. For me, it's not about worrying about getting the best draw of the cards, but more about playing my best hand, and working my ass off to earn what I have.
 
do I think about what if I had gone to a different college where there were more opportunities that are better aligned with my interests, or wish I could have a 4 hour conversation with my 17 year old self? sure. but you live you learn. not all the lessons will come easy.

dude, I'm just happy to have this gig I'm in right now. I was basically shut out by grad schools twice (to this day, I have no idea why), and wasted 2 years of my life in a job that I absolutely hated. It did paid well, and I grew a lot, but not a great deal for me. the third time, I applied to one school, not sure whether I'd get in or not. I hustled around to about 4-5 different professors, to their offices, and one of them gave me a chance. It's not the best group, we struggle with funding, and I'll probably stay here longer than if I were in a different group. But I'm still glad to be here, because I could've ended up like one of those salary slaves. For me, it's not about worrying about getting the best draw of the cards, but more about playing my best hand, and working my ass off to earn what I have.
 
do I think about what if I had gone to a different college where there were more opportunities that are better aligned with my interests, or wish I could have a 4 hour conversation with my 17 year old self? sure. but you live you learn. not all the lessons will come easy.

dude, I'm just happy to have this gig I'm in right now. I was basically shut out by grad schools twice (to this day, I have no idea why), and wasted 2 years of my life in a job that I absolutely hated. It did paid well, and I grew a lot, but not a great deal for me. the third time, I applied to one school, not sure whether I'd get in or not. I hustled around to about 4-5 different professors, to their offices, and one of them gave me a chance. It's not the best group, we struggle with funding, and I'll probably stay here longer than if I were in a different group. But I'm still glad to be here, because I could've ended up like one of those salary slaves. For me, it's not about worrying about getting the best draw of the cards, but more about playing my best hand, and working my ass off to earn what I have.
 
do I think about what if I had gone to a different college where there were more opportunities that are better aligned with my interests, or wish I could have a 4 hour conversation with my 17 year old self? sure. but you live you learn. not all the lessons will come easy.

dude, I'm just happy to have this gig I'm in right now. I was basically shut out by grad schools twice (to this day, I have no idea why), and wasted 2 years of my life in a job that I absolutely hated. It did paid well, and I grew a lot, but not a great deal for me. the third time, I applied to one school, not sure whether I'd get in or not. I hustled around to about 4-5 different professors, to their offices, and one of them gave me a chance. It's not the best group, we struggle with funding, and I'll probably stay here longer than if I were in a different group. But I'm still glad to be here, because I could've ended up like one of those salary slaves. For me, it's not about worrying about getting the best draw of the cards, but more about playing my best hand, and working my ass off to earn what I have.
 
do I think about what if I had gone to a different college where there were more opportunities that are better aligned with my interests, or wish I could have a 4 hour conversation with my 17 year old self? sure. but you live you learn. not all the lessons will come easy.

boss said we'll talk about it on monday, and do the right thing. he suspects that the first authors didn't know I existed, which was probably true, because I let the other grad student be the liaison between our groups.

i cuddle with my cat. i think it's starting to get serious between us.
 
seriously though. my problem is not being proactive going out and meeting people. last year, I was talking to girls, getting phone numbers, etc. but these are shallow relationships.. and I'm much less interested in that now that research and school has me by the balls.
I've got cycling friends, but boy:girl ratio sucks for me. thought about going to church again. that's a good way to meet people right?

Sounds like the kind of place where there might be lots of politics and inter-personal intrigue. I would suggest approaching your PI with this question, and taking his lead. 
(If it were me, I would probably try to figure out if this is the kind of thing that usually merits authorship, and if so, I'd bring it up and not be ashamed to ask. But then, it's not like a middle authorship is all that important to one's career, so I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it. I would want to make sure this is not a repeat issue, though, where I spend time doing work for someone else, without reciprocity, and without any benefit for myself.)

Find out what's the norm in your field too. The contribution you described may merit authorship in some fields but not in others.
I have been in the same position as you before, in my field. The equivalent would be me taking telescope data, but then having the senior student analyze the data and report the results to the first authors of the paper. The norm in my field is that most people err on the side of inclusion for authorship, i.e. the first author would invite both me and the senior student to be authors. My personal philosophy is to always decline authorship if the only thing I did was obtain the data / create the material. I do accept authorship whenever I am active in the analysis/characterization of the data though. 
The reason is like fuzzy said, middle author papers aren't very helpful to me. Also, I don't feel comfortable being an author if I do not know what happened to the data I took. Instead, I just ask for an acknowledgement and politely decline authorship. 
I try to avoid doing work that don't result in authorship though. The above scenario only happened 2 or 3 times, in the earlier part of my grad school career. I agreed to do the work because it was a good way to 1) gain favours from other people and 2) practice/demonstrate my abilities. After a couple of times, it no longer benefited me so I stopped doing the gather-data-only step.
But this doesn't mean I stopped helping people! Whenever people ask for a favour, I agree and volunteer to collect the data and analyze it, so that I would be a coauthor (and an "earned" coauthorship, in my opinion). Doing this also gets me a lot more exposure to collaborators at other institutions, something that becomes very helpful when you apply for talks at conferences (these people will be on the committees) and applying for jobs. 
In your situation, I second fuzzylogician's advice to basically "pick your battles". Talk to your advisor first and your advisor should be the one advocating on your behalf if it's the norm to grant authorship for your contribution (it would be easy for your advisor to also tell the first author: thanks for including my student X on the paper but you should also include spectastic as they created the material!) etc. If it's not the norm to be a coauthor for this work, tell your advisor that you learned a lot from your experience making this material but you would also like to learn how to do the senior grad student's analysis/characterization as well, so that you can be involved in these collaborations. Maybe the advisor will have the other student teach you (I've also been in the senior grad student's position and am always happy to train junior students). 

i cuddle with my cat. i think it's starting to get serious between us.
 
seriously though. my problem is not being proactive going out and meeting people. last year, I was talking to girls, getting phone numbers, etc. but these are shallow relationships.. and I'm much less interested in that now that research and school has me by the balls.
I've got cycling friends, but boy:girl ratio sucks for me. thought about going to church again. that's a good way to meet people right?

OP srsly, grad school should be ILLEGAL because you got your feefees hurt?
I hate crunchy peanut butter. CRUNCHY PEANUT BUTTER SHOULD BE ILLEGAL Y'ALL NO JOKE.

If you want a hug, I'm located in CPE on dean keeton. we'll hold hands, drink tea and sing songs.

using marijuana should not be a crime. I don't use it, but I somewhat understand its potential medical benefits and the threat it poses to drug companies trying to make a buck. the us justice system is retarded like that, and in other ways as well, making the tax payers pay for their own demise. 

Networking is an essential part of success in academia. My view is that academia is not just about producing knowledge, but also communicating and sharing it as well. In order to do your job effectively, you must be good at sharing your knowledge with others. So, I would say that networking is one of the core skills that an academic must develop as part of being a good researcher, not just as a necessity to find work! Academia is not about shutting yourself off from the world, putting your nose to the grindstone and producing good work.
But as others also said, "who you know" isn't meant to replace "what you know". A lack of a good network might hurt your ability to find a good postdoc or faculty position. But, an awesome network with little skills to back it up won't get you very far. Your network gets you noticed by the decision makers, but your actual ability to produce good work will eventually land you the job. 
"Networking" sometimes has a bad connotation because it brings up images of "sleazy car salesman" type actions and being overly aggressive. This isn't really how networking works in academia. To me, networking is really more about building good relationships with your colleagues and taking time and energy to maintain these good connections. We all take time to maintain our abilities, whether it's coding, keeping our equipment clean, reviewing the literature, virus-scanning/backing up our computers etc. so I think maintaining our connections are just as important. My view of networking is something like, "how I can help this person I just met? Do I have some particular skill to offer? Do I know someone who might?" etc.
Some concrete examples for things I do as a graduate student to build and maintain these connections:
- When visitors and guests come to the department, I sign up for meeting slots with them to ask them about their research and to tell them about mine.
- Conferences are a great way to meet other people in my field. I talk to my peers, junior students, senior students, postdocs, faculty. I especially focus on catching up with people I don't normally get to see everyday. There are some friends that I only ever see at conferences so I ensure to have at least one lunch or dinner with them each time.
- I have a research website and maintain an online presence that is related to my professional work
- Throughout the above means, I will meet many people who are interested in my work. They often ask if I'm writing a paper and I say yes, I'll let you know when it's ready! Then, when I submit it to a journal, while waiting for the official peer review, I also send a copy to 3-4 other people who could help me make the work even better and ask for their thoughts. I pick these people in conjunction with my advisor based on how well I (or my advisor) knows them and how much interest they would have in the paper. After all, we're asking to impose on their time so we want to ensure this is something they actually want to do. (**Note: for some journals, you are not allowed to do this)
- After the paper is accepted, I send it to a wider network, basically anyone who expressed any sort of interest in my work beyond just "polite interest". (I keep a list of names).
- I volunteer to host visiting speakers or to join committees to select/invite speakers. It's extra work but people enjoy being invited to come give a seminar and they will remember you. When you need to give talks elsewhere, they will hopefully think of you and invite you to their institution. 
- When people ask me for favours, I say yes when I can (obviously not to the extent where it is detrimental to my own work!). Usually it is just proofreading or providing my perspective on their work. Sometimes, it is because I have a piece of analysis already made and they want me to run their data through my code. I provide a nice little writeup and get coauthorship, but more importantly, developed a new relationship with someone who sees value in my skills/experience.

I'm using mendeley desktop now. thanks for that suggestion btw.
the desktop is much better than the browser version

Surprise! This is how life works, not only in academia. In any job, it's not always the most diligent or productive employee who gets the promotion or credit for some work, more often than not it's the one who does the best job promoting themselves and networking. That's as true in academia as anywhere else. You're more likely to be invited to give talks, considered for jobs, awarded grants, cited, have your work assigned in seminars, etc. if your name comes to mind when people think of relevant people in your field. And that's more likely to happen if you put yourself out there and network. There is also a lot of politics that goes into all of these things that goes far beyond just networking (like who advised who, who went to what institution, whose student was admitted to which schools, who cited whose work, and so forth), so politics isn't just about who you know. So yes, you have to do a certain level of good work, but beyond that you also need to sell it (and yourself) and know how to position yourself correctly in your field. It's as important, if not more so, than the work itself. 

just different opinions. I happen to side with those who think that obesity is a real problem, and ignorance is not bliss.

just different opinions. I happen to side with those who think that obesity is a real problem, and ignorance is not bliss.

this thread is not about you. my advice has always been directed to help the op address the weight gain problem, not this back and forth BS that helps no one. 
you got our opinion out. we're all unique. that's great. stereopticons clearly has nothing else to add beyond that. can we respect each other's opinions now?

again, and hopefully for the last time.. carbs is energy for your body (and brain). if you're not on carbs, you're running on fat and/or protein, which is is bad, because fat makes you fat... again, not all carbs are the same. you can get it from candy, fruits, bread, even vegetables. just because you're not eating bread doesn't mean you're not eating carbs. just because potato chips make you fat doesn't mean carbs is bad for you. if you can't eat bread or pasta, try rice, or something that doesn't upset the stomach..
your body get its energy on carbs. to say that carbs is bad for you only means that you're not eating the right carbs. substituting protein for carbs (as previously suggested) is wrong and stupid.. I don't know any simpler way of saying this.. 

I use BibDesk to organize my articles. It allows me to search by author/journal/year, etc, and I can also save notes on papers I've read. When I save papers through BibDesk I have it set up so each paper is given a title that is a combination of last.name+year, and the paper itself is saved in a special Bibliography folder I've created in dropbox. Inside this meta folder I have a folder for each author (based on last-name), so it's easy to search directly in dropbox, though I almost never do. I just find my articles through BibDesk, it's fast and easy. Because the .bib file and the actual articles are on dropbox, it all syncs across computers, too. It also creates all my bibliography entries in all my papers, I haven't done that manually in years. 

I use Mendeley for exactly what you are doing with Dropbox. I save all of my Mendeley articles directly on my PC and it automatically syncs with all of my other machines. I have the Mendeley app too for use on tablet and phones. 
For me, the reason why I prefer Mendeley over Dropbox is that I don't have to worry about how to organize my articles. With the dropbox method (what I used to do), I had to manually organize each one and if I want to change the format, it's a ton of work. With Mendeley, I get a searchable database and with a few clicks, I can reorganize all of my folders and files. I also never have to actually search for a PDF in the directory, I just use the Mendeley database. And the second reason is that Mendeley automatically creates the metadata I need to generate reference lists for my own work. I've not written a bibliography by hand since I started Mendeley.

maybe you should be the one being upset in this case, because he's dragging down both of you.