(I listen to NPR in the car now. Too bad they don't have "things that must go".)
Saturday, October 31
Things that must go
Websites that charge ridiculous fees on ticket sales. It's particularly bad when they do it per ticket. I've seen movie theaters that sell tickets for 6 bucks each that want to tack on 1 or 2 dollars more per ticket for letting you buy them online. Or, as was the case tonight, a site I saw that had a flat fee of $5 on $30 worth of tickets. It's one of those hidden costs that really ought to go.
Tuesday, October 27
Elements
I saw an interesting blog today where someone (an organic chemist) had counted how many different elements he had worked with. Now, a lot of the ensuing discussion can depend on how you define "working" with an element. I'm having trouble putting a specific definition into words, but let's just say that I know it when I see it. In general, the element in question needs to have been a deliberate and important part of what was going on. So, here's what I've used, and, if I feel like it, what I've done.
1: Hydrogen - I've collected H2 gas off of a reaction using HCl, and also ignited H2-filled soap bubbles.
2: Helium - Does inhaling it from balloons count? Even if it didn't, I've put it through a diffraction grating and looked at it spectral lines. That one experiment from physics 107/150 is going to get me a whole handful of these.
3: Carbon - A whole semester of organic chemistry lab. Ewwww.
4: Nitrogen - Liquid nitrogen, for everything from shattering pennies, to making ice cream, to hammering rubber hoses into a 2x4, to actual productive purposes.
5: Oxygen - I've collected it out of the atmosphere as a liquid. Liquid O2 is very exciting. (And potentially very dangerous. I've never had more than a few mL of it.)
6: Fluorine - I use HF at work all the time. The first on this list that I haven't encountered in elemental form.
7: Sodium - It burns yellow. (Like the sun.) I've only burned it in solution though. Elemental sodium is quite dangerous.
8: Magnesium - Burns extremely bright white. It's what they use in fireworks, and it's fun to play around with strips of it. As a side note, water catalyzes it's oxidation, so be very careful how you fight a magnesium fire.
9: Aluminum - Drinking a can of Coke does not fill this requirement. But writing a senior thesis about microscopy of aluminum oxide does.
10: Silicon - More microscopy. And hours spent wedging it down until it is 0.000004 inches thick.
11: Phosphorus, 12: Sulfur, 13: Chlorine: As it turns out, a mixture of these 3 elements (as H3PO4, H2SO4 and HCl) will put holes in your pants quite nicely. Not quite the experiment that I was supposed to be doing, but it's the one that I remember.
14: Argon - this is what we use for an inert atmosphere at work.
15: Calcium - I've dissolved calcium carbonate in acid. Sounds exciting, but it's just limestone.
16: Iron - Well, who hasn't done something with iron?
17: Cobalt - The aluminum oxide I mentioned earlier, well, it was covered in cobalt.
18: Copper - Pennies aren't just for spending, they're also good to turn into brass.
19: Zinc - You take the old penny, disolve some zinc in acid, and, um . . . I forget the rest of the lab, but it ends up with a brass penny.
20: Gallium - it melts near room temperature, so it makes a nice phase transition lab for pre-med students. It also super cools pretty well, unless the surface of your sample is too oxidized, then it just won't re-solidify. And I use it at work all the time.
21: Germanium - I know thee well.
22: Zirconium - Used a strip of it as a heating element once upon a time. It had just the right resistivity.
23: Molybdenum - Hard to spell, and boring to measure the resistivity of a wire made of it! By this point in the periodic table, I'm now skipping the majority of the elements.
24: Indium - I've soldered with it to make electrical contacts.
25: Tin - Also used in soldering.
26: Cesium - I've measured the half-life of a radio active isotope.
27: Tungsten - My wedding ring is made of tungsten carbide. It doesn't scratch. I've tried. Yeah, it's a bit weak, but I'm counting this one.
28: Silver - I have deposited a film of silver onto glass to make my own mirror, which was then used in an experiment to measure the speed of light through different mediums. The experiement was a big failure, but it wasn't the mirror's fault.
29: Mercury - I've studied the spectral lines.
30: Lead - I've measured the half-thickness for stopping the radiation from the aforementioned Cesium isotope.
And, from here on out, pretty much everything is radioactive. There is one other radioactive isotope that I have worked with, but I can't remember what it was. Possibly it was a repeat, but I don't think it was. So, at this point, I can point to 30 elements I've used. There's probably another 1-3 that I have used, but I'm not remembering it at the moment.
1: Hydrogen - I've collected H2 gas off of a reaction using HCl, and also ignited H2-filled soap bubbles.
2: Helium - Does inhaling it from balloons count? Even if it didn't, I've put it through a diffraction grating and looked at it spectral lines. That one experiment from physics 107/150 is going to get me a whole handful of these.
3: Carbon - A whole semester of organic chemistry lab. Ewwww.
4: Nitrogen - Liquid nitrogen, for everything from shattering pennies, to making ice cream, to hammering rubber hoses into a 2x4, to actual productive purposes.
5: Oxygen - I've collected it out of the atmosphere as a liquid. Liquid O2 is very exciting. (And potentially very dangerous. I've never had more than a few mL of it.)
6: Fluorine - I use HF at work all the time. The first on this list that I haven't encountered in elemental form.
7: Sodium - It burns yellow. (Like the sun.) I've only burned it in solution though. Elemental sodium is quite dangerous.
8: Magnesium - Burns extremely bright white. It's what they use in fireworks, and it's fun to play around with strips of it. As a side note, water catalyzes it's oxidation, so be very careful how you fight a magnesium fire.
9: Aluminum - Drinking a can of Coke does not fill this requirement. But writing a senior thesis about microscopy of aluminum oxide does.
10: Silicon - More microscopy. And hours spent wedging it down until it is 0.000004 inches thick.
11: Phosphorus, 12: Sulfur, 13: Chlorine: As it turns out, a mixture of these 3 elements (as H3PO4, H2SO4 and HCl) will put holes in your pants quite nicely. Not quite the experiment that I was supposed to be doing, but it's the one that I remember.
14: Argon - this is what we use for an inert atmosphere at work.
15: Calcium - I've dissolved calcium carbonate in acid. Sounds exciting, but it's just limestone.
16: Iron - Well, who hasn't done something with iron?
17: Cobalt - The aluminum oxide I mentioned earlier, well, it was covered in cobalt.
18: Copper - Pennies aren't just for spending, they're also good to turn into brass.
19: Zinc - You take the old penny, disolve some zinc in acid, and, um . . . I forget the rest of the lab, but it ends up with a brass penny.
20: Gallium - it melts near room temperature, so it makes a nice phase transition lab for pre-med students. It also super cools pretty well, unless the surface of your sample is too oxidized, then it just won't re-solidify. And I use it at work all the time.
21: Germanium - I know thee well.
22: Zirconium - Used a strip of it as a heating element once upon a time. It had just the right resistivity.
23: Molybdenum - Hard to spell, and boring to measure the resistivity of a wire made of it! By this point in the periodic table, I'm now skipping the majority of the elements.
24: Indium - I've soldered with it to make electrical contacts.
25: Tin - Also used in soldering.
26: Cesium - I've measured the half-life of a radio active isotope.
27: Tungsten - My wedding ring is made of tungsten carbide. It doesn't scratch. I've tried. Yeah, it's a bit weak, but I'm counting this one.
28: Silver - I have deposited a film of silver onto glass to make my own mirror, which was then used in an experiment to measure the speed of light through different mediums. The experiement was a big failure, but it wasn't the mirror's fault.
29: Mercury - I've studied the spectral lines.
30: Lead - I've measured the half-thickness for stopping the radiation from the aforementioned Cesium isotope.
And, from here on out, pretty much everything is radioactive. There is one other radioactive isotope that I have worked with, but I can't remember what it was. Possibly it was a repeat, but I don't think it was. So, at this point, I can point to 30 elements I've used. There's probably another 1-3 that I have used, but I'm not remembering it at the moment.
Wednesday, October 21
Prognostications
I've never claimed to be the "prognosticator of prognosticators" or anything, but I did have a dream last night that the moon blew up. So, you should all be on the lookout.
Monday, October 12
Blog Comments
So, I'm about to ask you to comment on my blog in response to my blog post about commenting on blog posts.
Ok, I read various people's blogs. Friends mostly. And occasionally they express opinions about one thing or another. While the most common topic is probably politics, this applies to various topics. (Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, I want to emphasize that there is no one person, blog or post that I'm specifically thinking of here, so don't try to read too much into this.) Anyway, my friends have a tendency to say various sensible things, a few things that I might not agree with, and then drop in something that is down right ridiculous, silly, wrong or dumb. Here, I'll create an example for you (which I am fabricating from my own brain right now):
"I can't believe Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, he hasn't DONE anything! This sullies the reputation of those who have won the prize in the past for substantive work. And since entering office, Obama has decreased our likelihood for peace! Sure, nothing has happened yet, but because of him blaming America for everything, we are going to be attacked more for sure. I guess this is what we get for electing someone who is stupid."
So, lets analyze this hypothetical post. There are various things I agree with: Obama won the peace prize, and he hasn't achieved any meaningful peace, in my opinion. Then there are some things that I don't necessarily agree with, but that I can at least respect as a plausible opinion: America might be less safe now than when Obama took office, because of his policies. Then (and it always seems to be at the end) the post says something downright silly: that Obama is stupid. Say what you will, the man isn't dumb. He holds degrees from Columbia and Harvard.
So now we're down to my dilema as a blog reader. Someone I know has just written this silly statement that Obama is dumb. My first reaction upon reading is to write up a snarky comment pointing out to them that while they may not like Obama, they should stick to actual criticism, rather than illogical logorrhea. I usually get most of the way through the comment when I start to think about how the author will react. Because it's the internet, whatever I type will come out sounding argumentative and condescending (I think the internet does that to whatever you type, whether you mean it or not) and they will get defensive. Arguments will ensue, and now I've just taken a friend and created a whole bunch of bad karma. And the worst part is, I agreed with most of what they said! So, in the end I wind up not commenting at all. And they never know of their silliness, and they get no comments on their blogs.
So dear reader(s), what am I to do? Do I sustain my "keep the peace" policy? (Can I get a Nobel Prize for that?) Or do I try to politely point out that they are dead wrong on a topic and risk the ensuing melee? Some of my friends have some pretty strong opinions, and, while I know I do too, I try to remember that there are more important things than convincing other people that I'm right all the time. (Because I am, and deep down inside, you all know it.)
So, time for you to comment about commenting on friends blogs when you disagree with them. By all means, go ahead and disagree with me. :)
So, lets analyze this hypothetical post. There are various things I agree with: Obama won the peace prize, and he hasn't achieved any meaningful peace, in my opinion. Then there are some things that I don't necessarily agree with, but that I can at least respect as a plausible opinion: America might be less safe now than when Obama took office, because of his policies. Then (and it always seems to be at the end) the post says something downright silly: that Obama is stupid. Say what you will, the man isn't dumb. He holds degrees from Columbia and Harvard.
So now we're down to my dilema as a blog reader. Someone I know has just written this silly statement that Obama is dumb. My first reaction upon reading is to write up a snarky comment pointing out to them that while they may not like Obama, they should stick to actual criticism, rather than illogical logorrhea. I usually get most of the way through the comment when I start to think about how the author will react. Because it's the internet, whatever I type will come out sounding argumentative and condescending (I think the internet does that to whatever you type, whether you mean it or not) and they will get defensive. Arguments will ensue, and now I've just taken a friend and created a whole bunch of bad karma. And the worst part is, I agreed with most of what they said! So, in the end I wind up not commenting at all. And they never know of their silliness, and they get no comments on their blogs.
So dear reader(s), what am I to do? Do I sustain my "keep the peace" policy? (Can I get a Nobel Prize for that?) Or do I try to politely point out that they are dead wrong on a topic and risk the ensuing melee? Some of my friends have some pretty strong opinions, and, while I know I do too, I try to remember that there are more important things than convincing other people that I'm right all the time. (Because I am, and deep down inside, you all know it.)
So, time for you to comment about commenting on friends blogs when you disagree with them. By all means, go ahead and disagree with me. :)
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