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is how many people you could employ for a year for $306 billion, at a cost of $70 per hour, for 40 hour work week, 50 weeks per year. Those people would then go out and spend the money, generating some velocity and additional jobs. or at a mean hourly rate of only $15,000 - you could get 1,000 of the top financial executives in the USA, for a year. That is, to be fair, taking the mean only for the top 20 or so CEOs. So it'll buy you a bunch of COO and CFOs for matched sets.

The Corporation. Have you seen it?

Have you seen The Corporation? It is an excellent documentary that runs through the list of psychiatric disorders that seem to be endemic to corporations. It came out in 2004, but is still very relevant. If you've not seen it, you should. The film has a website, here. In some countries you can watch at least part of the film there (it may also be on YouTube, I've not checked lately) and The DVD costs about 20 bucks to buy or a few dollars to watch on Amazon. It is not on Netflix streaming, but it is available as a DVD.

Multi Head Computers 4U

This, I've gotta try: Build a three-screen workstation for $230 or less. ... This involves taking the video output of a laptop and running through a widget that gives you two (or four, for a bit more money) additonal screen, which, in turn, you've bought really cheap somewhere. There are open questions as to how windows would be managed on this extra real estate; This method may not be as smooth as the multi-head systems when you have an internal video card. Worth a look, though. Or, just buy one of these: Lenovo to release ThinkPad laptop with 2 LCD screens

Allergan will be doing just fine with Latisse™

Even at this incredibly slow time of the year for blog traffic, we hit about 250% of our average readership yesterday with search engines finding our post on Allergan's new eyelash enhancing cosmeceutical, Latisse. Lots of folks wanting to know where to buy Latisse - Allergan stock anyone? (Aside: Among my other search term hits yesterday was: "'junior faculty' hate my job." It hit an older post on whether junior faculty should invest time in writing review articles. I suggest that the reader start adding feeds to many of our commenters who with whom they may be able to commiserate.)

For the working scientist: what lab instrumentation would you buy?

This one's for the molecular and cell biology and pharmaceutical chemistry crowd: what's on your current wishlist? If you had a US$250,000 equipment budget, what would you buy to outfit the lab? Assume that your department has all the big ticket items like real-time PCR, confocal microscopy, flow cytometer, histology gadgetry, >500MHz NMR, MALDI-TOF, LCs, etc. And, no, not for scientist salaries - instrumentation/capital equipment only. I just want to know if there are any newfangled whizbang thingamabobs out there that I haven't seen in the last year or two, perhaps along the lines of the…

RIAA sends a clear message

RIAA, the music industry's mouth-piece and hired hand, sends you a message through this case: Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, was found liable Thursday for copyright infringement in the nation's first file-sharing case to go before a jury. Twelve jurors here said the Minnesota woman must pay $9,250 for each of 24 shared songs that were the subject of the lawsuit, amounting to $222,000 in penalties. It's time for people who make music and buy music to move on. Like what Radiohead have done. Go for indie music. Look at ccMixter. Let the dinosaurs go extinct.

links for 2007-10-15

Stores make customer testing for their products too easy The result: Customers overestimate their ability and buy fancier stuff than they need Audiophiles and the limitations of human hearing Can we *really* hear the difference $7,000 speaker cables make? What about $100 cables? Radiohead lets fans decide how much to pay for their album Notes on the psychology behind this plan Did language originate with hand gestures? A flaw in the ganzfeld parapsychology experiment? I sense a disturbance in the literature about parapsychology Artificial erections They may be good for business,…

Ivory Billed Battle Continues

How naive I am. I thought it was settled that the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was back among us. I guess I was wrong. As an amateur birdwatcher, I also thought that the videotape provided of the bird was extremely convincing. But I guess I can't be too certain any more, as a real expert ornithologist doesn't buy it. There's a lot of hope involved here, and hope can easily cloud our judgment. But once again--though I'm not an expert--I don't see how hope alone can explain the striking white outer wings of the bird in the video. My hunch, and it's only a hunch, is still that this is the real thing…

Which hybrid should I get?

I'm saying a sad goodbye to my trustworthy vehicle of 7 years that has been declared a total loss after a traffic accident last week. But, I'm excited about the prospect of buying a new car this weekend. We've decided to get a hybrid. I spend too much of my commute stuck in traffic, and it vexes me to lecture my students about carbon emissions and global warming and then go idle in traffic for a half hour. The question for you is: "Which hybrid should I get?" Do you drive a hybrid? What have your experiences been with it? Would you buy it again?

Rejected Greeting Cards: Appropriate for No Occasion

There's a new humor presence on Twitter and Facebook: rejectedcards. The author says, "I'm a copywriter for a major greeting card company. I get bored and create cards I know we'll never print. These are those cards." Cards like. . . "Another Year, Same Birthday Question: (inside) Are you sure you don't want us to pull the plug?" or "So sorry you lost your job. Are there other professions that use poles?" I wish this writer would collaborate with the snarky letterpress outlet Blue Barnhouse. I'd totally buy their products. But FYI: some of them are pretty offensive, so don't say I didn't…

Tick tock, tick tock.

I wanted to remind all the nerds (a term I use to encompass as well geeks, poindexters, dweebs, and those in allied fields) that you'll need to nerd things up by Sunday evening if you want to be considered for the final nerd-off rankings. The time remaining to represent is ticking down. And that reminded me of my nerdy DARPA time piece, pictured here. You can't buy this watch in stores! But perhaps even nerdier is the reason I always opt for analog over digital watches: analog watches remind me of the unit circle, for which I have a deep and abiding love.

Best or worst birthday card ever?

While looking for a birthday card for a relative a while back, I found this card and was intrigued enough to buy it, even though it wasn't appropriate for the person for whom I was seeking a card: So far, it's just pretty standard Bush-chimp stuff, a staple of comedy ever since W. took office. But what got me was the inside of the card: Two points: It's rather amazing that the whole "intelligent design" debate has become so ubiquitous that it's showing up in birthday cards, of all things. I haven't decided if this is the best birthday card ever or the worst birthday card ever. Opinions?

Dann Siems Benefit

A colleague and fellow freethinker at Bemidji State University, Dann Siems, has been diagnosed with a terminal glioblastoma. This is not good. This is damned scary stuff. He's still blogging away occasionally, discussing the experimental treatments being tried on him, but this is all expensive, and he has a family as well. If you'd like to help, there is a benefit concert being held on 5 June with a raffle. Maybe you can't attend because Turtle River, Minnesota isn't exactly next door, but you could buy a raffle ticket. Or if you'd rather, you can just make a donation through Headwaters…

Wikipedia Academy, Lund

I'm at the first Swedish Wikipedia Academy conference in Lund. Yesterday I did a talk on inclusionism vs. deletionism (vs. mergism) on the online encyclopedia (text available on-line in Swedish). Above is my audience who asked a lot of questions and were nice & friendly. Most participants are not themselves Wikipedians, they're largely librarians and teachers. I've chatted with a lot of people, notably Mathias Klang and Lennart Guldbrandsson and Lars Aronsson, and I look forward to future collaborations. [More blog entries about wikipedia, Sweden; wikipedia, Lund.]

Grand Rounds 3.38

I'm on the road today, literally--driving from Iowa to Ohio with kids and dogs in tow. (Well, okay, not exactly in tow--I do allow them to ride *inside* the car). I have a post scheduled for a bit later, but in the meantime, hop on over and check out not one, but two versions of this week's Grand Rounds. For you minimalists, click here; whereas if you want a bit more meat with your post descriptions, check out this version instead. Not sure when I'll next have a chance to get online, so I apologize in advance for any comments that get hung up in the junk filter...I'll pull them out as…

Last night in NYC

"In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it.", Emile Zola (1840-1902) Or, in modern online usage - "Pics, or it didn't happen!" So, here are some of the pick from last night. First, we went to Seed offices, where we met everyone during the Happy Hour, including the Overlords, Erin and Arikia: Then we walked over to Old Town Bar, where we soon were joined by my Scibling Jake Young, my old friend from SciFoo and the 1st Science Blogging Conference Jacqueline Floyd, my Twitter buddy Arvind Says, and the Overlords of the new Nature Network NYC Hub Barry…

Cool new Open Access Journal

From Sage Ross, via John Lynch come exciting news about a new Open Access Journal - Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science Spontaneous Generations is a new online academic journal published by graduate students at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. The journal aims to establish a platform for interdisciplinary discussion and debate about issues that concern the community of scholars in HPS and related fields. Apart from selecting peer reviewed articles, the journal encourages a direct dialogue…

Alice is heading offline

Folks, I know my blogging has been near non-existent recently. I've just come back from yet another workshop (this time on engineering and identity - v. cool) and tomorrow we head out on vacation. We're camping across the country, then spending some time with my folks in Canada, then camping back. I suspect the intertubes will be thin on the ground but will post snippets when I can. I'm also at the cusp of making a big decision, and the time away from online I think will be really helpful for me. So I leave you in the hands of the always insightful Science Woman for the next few weeks - I…

How Reporters Can Connect Climate Change to Cities

Earlier this week, I argued that a fundamental shift was needed in climate change communication strategy and that the shift meant refocusing news coverage on urban areas rather than arctic regions: Climate change needs to be repackaged around core ideas and values that a majority of Americans already care about. This means shifting the public lens away from distant arctic regions, socially remote people and places, or consequences far off in the future, and instead recasting climate change as an urban problem with local impacts and solutions. Now comes this report from Cristine Russell at…

The Coal Industry Understands Framing

Excerpt from coal and utility advertisement run in Kansas Back in November, by framing their advertising appeals in terms of economic competitiveness and patriotism, a coal company and utility effectively promoted it attacks on the governor of Kansas. Their claim, conveyed powerfully in ads as shown above, argued that the governor's rejection of two power plant applications on the basis of greenhouse emissions would force the state to rely on natural gas from an Axis of near-Evil that included Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. The Wichita Eagle newspaper responded with both a print editorial and…

On the Microbial Road

Blogging briefly from Chicago. Today's talk at the Field Museum went well--I managed to lure a fair number of people inside from a beautiful spring afternoon to hear me talk about a gut germ. I also had a chance to walk through the fabulous Shedd Aquarium. The Field Museum has an acquarium of its own--filled with 520 million year old creatures. They set up three gigantic screens on which they have a mind-blowing animation of Cambrian animals--slithering, flapping, wiggling, and looking quite alien. I found it mesmerizing. The animators have a movie you can watch online, but if you ever get a…

Wildlife photograph of the year

(Image: Ben Osborne)  This photograph of an elephant at a watering hole, by Ben Osborne, has just been announced as the best overall photo in the 2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. "I staked out this waterhole in Botswana's Chobe National Park for three weeks," Osborne says, "taking pictures from my vehicle of thirsty elephants and other animals coming to drink. Sometimes the waterhole overflowed, and this huge bull was the first to indulge in a head-to-toe spa. I focused on the centre of the action, an explosion of texture and colour." This, and the winning images…

Activism for Activism's Sake

The Coalition Against Biopiracy has announced their winners for the 2006 Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy, and they're a hoot. We already knew that Darwin was a pirate, but now we learn that so are Craig Venter and Google. What are their crimes? Venter is accused of being the "Greediest Biopirate", and Google is accused of being the "Biggest Threat to Genetic Privacy". I have some more details on these charges below the fold, in addition to showing why the Coalition Against Biopiracy needs to walk the plank. Venter is accused of: "undertaking, with flagrant disregard for national…

Vague and Curious, Geithner's Explanation of Bank Plan Resembles Post-modernity

The Geithner Treasury plan for rescuing the banking system (more here) is getting panned on both sides of the aisle for being excessively vague. Megan McArdle: Tim Geithner reveals that the Treasury has a plan to fix the problems in our broken capital markets by . . . er . . . fixing them. ... The Wall Street Journal adds that "critical details of the plan remained unanswered, despite the weeks of planning leading up to Tuesday's announcement." Plan? That's not a plan, it's a fervent wish. Paul Krugman: An old joke from my younger days: What do you get when you cross a Godfather with a…

The Science of Blogging

Via Bora Zivkovic, I see that there's a new blog in town -- this one devoted to the joys of scientists blogging to advance their work. It's called Science of Blogging and it's by Peter Janiszewski and Travis Saunders who blog at Obesity Panacea. I'll let them explain their mission: Social media provides a tremendous outlet by which to translate and promote scientific knowledge and engage the public discourse. All scientists, researchers, clinicians, government and not-for-profit organizations have much to gain by adopting an effective and viable social media strategy. Science of Blogging will…

The legal consequences of acing an ethics test.

If you ever wonder why state employees are so marvelously equipped to believe six impossible things before breakfast, this story from Inside Higher Education will provide some context: Who would have thought that doing too well on a test could get you in trouble? Certainly not Tony Williams. After passing a new online test on ethics required of all state employees, the tenured professor in the English department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale received a notice from his university ethics officer and from the state inspector general that he was not in compliance with state…

AZA Annual Conference - Animal Art Auction Today at 4PM (CT)!

I stumbled into a meeting my brain and experience are wholly unqualified to report on, so instead, I will tell you about this much more exciting piece of information. Today, from 4PM-7PM, the AZA will be holding a live auction of paintings created by animals. Anyone can join the auction online but be aware you must register first. Thanks to reader JuliaGoolia for cluing clueless me in. Check it: Art by Mishindi the Rhinoceros from the Denver Zoo Art by Hari and Hakuna the Meerkats from the San Diego Zoo more below the fold Art by the Chubs Raccoon Family from the Huchinson Zoo Art by…

Democrats Want to Create Green Jobs, but Newt Gingrich Seems to Favor Porn

From Think Progress, we learn that Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) group is choosing people for 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year awards by his Business Defense and Advisory Council. One little problem though: Pink Visual is a porn DVD superstore -- not the type of company you'd expect Gingrich would want stimulating the economy. ThinkProgress contacted Gingrich aide Joe Gaylord, who sent the faxed letter to Vivas, but we didn't receive a response. An ASWF representative reportedly called Pink Visual this morning saying it had "inadvertently" sent the fax to…

Best Science Books 2012: Planetizen

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Planetizen Top 10 Books - 2013 (urban planning, design and development). Green Washed: Why We Can't Buy Our Way to a Green Planet by Kendra Pierre-Louis Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into…

Do You Know What You Eat?

Eric Schlosser, Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, Troy Duster, Elizabeth Ransom, Winona LaDuke, Peter Singer, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Carlo Petrini, Eliot Coleman & Jim Hightower recently participated in a Nation forum: One Thing to Do About Food. Here are a few excerpts - go read the whole thing: "Once you learn how our modern industrial food system has transformed what most Americans eat, you become highly motivated to eat something else." "....the American food system is a game played according to a precise set of rules that are written by the federal government with virtually…

Quack Miranda Warning

"These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease." This "Quack Miranda Warning" is on every just about every woo-meister's website. I see dozens of patients every day, and I never Mirandize them, so whats the deal? There are three ways to look at this: the truthful way, the sinister way, and the bat-shit insane way. Truth: Anyone who wants to sell you something that's a load of crap must use this statement to cover themselves legally. Sinister: Variation of above--someone wants to sell…

Microbiology for preschoolers

As I mentioned, I spent yesterday morning talking microbiology to a bunch of 3, 4, and 5 year olds in my son's preschool class. It was fun, actually--I took along a prepared slide to show them some bacteria under the microscope, and then took a scraping from my son's tongue and Gram-stained it to show them a more realistic bacterial sample (a mixed sample of Gram negatives and positives of different shapes). I also passed around some pictures of bacteria and viruses. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'm used to giving lectures and talking science with high-schoolers and college-age…

a modest financial proposal

we need to make the political personal Hank Paulson, US Secretary for the Treasury, wants a "clean" bill to bailout the investment banks. $700 billion, he disposes, no review or oversight. Now, there is an argument that the bailout will lead to a probable profit for the taxpayer in the long run. The argument is that forced sales of mortgage bonds have driven prices too low, and that vulture investors are waiting to pick them up for too low a price, after the banks go under due to positive feedback driving down asset prices, and the government must not only save the banks (for systemic reasons…

Duck Stamps and Duck Hunting

I just put up a post in 10,000 Birds reporting on a recent study of duck stamp sales and duck hunting. There have been changes in recent years in the patterns of both waterfowl hunting and the purchase and use of federal duck stamps. Waterfowl hunters are required to have a duck stamp, and about 90% of the funds raised through the sale of these artistic quasi-philatic devices are used to secure wildlife preservation areas. For decades, duck population numbers and duck stamp sales were closely correlated, but recently this correlation has broken down. Read the post to find out the details and…

Edis on Among the Creationists

The Reports of the National Center for Science Education has just posted a new review of my book Among the Creationists. The reviewer is Taner Edis, professor of physics at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. Since Edis's own books on science and religion, The Ghost in the Machine and Science and Nonbelief are among my favorites on this subject, his opinion means a lot to me. So, did he like the book? Jason Rosenhouse, who teaches mathematics at James Madison University, might at first seem an unlikely person to be interested in the creationism/evolution wars. Creationism isa…

Links for 2009-09-13

A Smoove Evening | The Onion - America's Finest News Source "The plan to seduce Michelle Obama in both body and soul has also not moved forward during the last few months. She and her people have stopped returning Smoove's phone calls, and his letters, and the elaborately arranged fruit sculptures he has assembled from the earth's most exotic produce. Also, I think I am on some kind of FBI watch list now. " (tags: onion silly sex) YouTube - I Am a Paleontologist - They Might Be Giants with Danny Weinkauf Because dinosaurs are awesome. (tags: dinosaurs music video youtube kid-stuff)…

So This Is What Ohio Feels Like

Mike Dunford has a post up titled You Almost Have to Feel Sorry for Jim Tedisco, about the special election that's being held to fill Kirsten Gillibrand's House seat. The title alone is enough to tell you that Mike doesn't live in this area any more. Nobody who has to listen to the multi-media saturation bombing that's going on regarding this election could feel sorry for either of the participants. Though, to be fair, the worst of the advertising is actually from the National Republican Congressional Committee, one of the groups that Tedisco is trying to distance himself from. They've got a…

links for 2009-01-16

Simple Checklist Makes Surgery Safer - NYTimes.com "The researchers reviewed the outcome of 7,688 patients who were undergoing noncardiac surgery at the hospitals. About half the patients had surgery before the checklists were adopted, and half after. At the end of the study, the average death rate dropped to 0.8 percent from 1.5 percent, and the average complication rate fell to 7 percent from 11 percent." (tags: science medicine health-care) Methane on Mars varies with the seasons - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society "Michael Meyer: "What we have here is not evidence for…

Ask A ScienceBlogger About...AIDS

I was just thinking about the topic, not with regard to myself, but the issue in general, because of a good interview on Ira Flatow's href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/">Science Friday.  There is no permalink, yet, but it's the show for 8/11/2006, second hour.  They discuss the progress, or lack thereof, in finding a vaccine. To what extent do you worry about AIDS, either with respect to yourself, your children, or the world at large?... I don't worry about it for myself or my family at all, except in the same abstract way that I worry about pancreatic cancer or something like that…

A doubtful essay

There's an essay in the latest issue of Science & Spirit on the history and value of doubt called "Redeeming Saint Thomas." It carries my byline and I'm quite proud of it. Science & Spirit is a curious and evolving publication that explores "things that matter." If that's not reason enough to buy a copy, the cover package of this issue is a series of pieces on stem cells research by veteran science writer Rick Weiss and Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, among others. Which makes it quite timely, considering what's going on in the halls of Congress at the moment. Other writers…

The Dark World of the Slow Loris Trade

Primitive primates indigenous to Southeast Asia, Slow Lorises are endangered and absurdly adorable. Most importantly, they just so happen to be this editor,Aeos favorite animal since early childhood. However, it wouldn,Aeot take a childhood obsession to be appalled at the horrors of the illegal loris trade. Prized for their cuddliness, slow lorises are sold in Japan as impulse-buy pets like puppies. But the process of getting them to Japan is fraught with misery for the animals. Baby lorises are the most valuable, but unable to care for themselves. They cannot defecate without assistance from…

Book News, Part Two

Following up on my earlier post, I wanted to relay one more piece of book news. I've been getting some emails over the past couple months inquiring about my book, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. I wrote it as a companion volume to the 2001 PBS television series, Evolution. Like the series, the book surveys the history and cutting edge of evolutionary biology, from the origin of new species to mass extinctions, from the rise of complex life to the emergence of humans. It also looks at ongoing evolutionary races, whether the competitors are hosts and parasites or members of the opposite sex…

Quack Miranda Warning

"These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease." This "Quack Miranda Warning" is on every just about every woo-meister's website. I see dozens of patients every day, and I never Mirandize them, so whats the deal? There are three ways to look at this: the truthful way, the sinister way, and the bat-shit insane way. Truth: Anyone who wants to sell you something that's a load of crap must use this statement to cover themselves legally. Sinister: Variation of above--someone wants to…

What if we lost them as students?

I've only been a college student and grad student at one institution and I have to confess, the library treats students as second class citizens. Particularly technical services. When I mentioned in a sociology class that I am a librarian, a whole bunch of grad students piled on with complaints about interlibrary loan. One guy got only the second page of an article the first time he requested an article, then a completely illegible copy the second time, and then finally a whole copy the third time - after numerous e-mails and about 6 weeks. He kept asking because he didn't want to let them…

From Jeremy Jackson: Randy Olson Got It Right and Al Gore Gets It Right Again

Today the Shifting Baselines blog is proud to host a guest post from Dr. Jeremy Jackson, marine paleoecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and long-term scientific proponent and communicator of the shifting baselines syndrome. He finds similarity in Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project founder Randy Olson and former Vice President Al Gore: Having served as America's Vice President, having created a slideshow powerful enough to win an Oscar, and having won a Nobel Prize, one can assume Al Gore is a smart man. Everyone should have been interested, then, when two weeks ago…

Michael Pollan, Omega-3s, and Fishy Hot Dogs

As I've mentioned previously, Michael Pollan will release this month another book on "the tangible material formerly known as food." In Defense of Food grew out of his brilliant essay on nutritionism. Read an excerpt from the first chapter, a review of the book, and check out his book tour. And here are some of his thoughts on omega-3s: In the years since then, egg producers figured out a clever way to redeem even the disreputable egg: By feeding flaxseed to hens, they could elevate levels of omega- 3 fatty acids in the yolks. Aiming to do the same thing for pork and beef fat, the animal…

Feeding the beasts (a little kitchen science).

Tonight in the kitchen, I have cultures to attend to. Since I won't be on the road again for months, I brought out my jar of sourdough starter to revive with fresh water, flour, and some time at room temperature. And, I have some kefir culture from our friends in Santa Barbara that'll be wanting more milk. In my mental list this morning, I tracked these as "Don't forget to feed yeast and bacterium." But, it turns out, even if I only fed one of these two, I'd be nourishing yeast and bacterium. Let's start with the kefir, with which my acquaintance is more recent. The stuff you can buy in…

Google Inc IS a different kind of thing

In the old days, canals, roads, train tracks, etc. were almost all privately owned in many countries. Some airports too, but not many. Now, most of these elements of our infrastructure are publicly owned or so regulated that they may as well be. Same with utilities. I wrote a while ago about how Amazon Dot Com is a public good that should not be privately controlled. A lot of people got mad at me and pointed out how wrong I was, but that is because they did not understand that the vast majority of on line commerce is actually run by Amazon even though you don't know that while you are…

Carbon tetrachloride (Dry cleaning, fire-retarding, radical reaction solvent)

Here is another molecule that's gone out of favor in recent decades: carbon tetrachloride: Chlorinated solvents are great solvents. Something about the polarizability, medium polarity, (relative) lack of reactivity, just makes them the only thing that will work in a lot of applications. The three simplest chlorinated solvents are dichloromethane, chloroform, and carbon tetrachloride. Those are CH2Cl2, CHCl3, and CCl4. Those are in order of increasing degree of halogenation, and, coincidentally, increasing degree of toxicity. Methylene chloride/dichloromethane is regarded as a necessary evil…

My New Years Resolutions

This year, I will: Totally empty my email inbox every day. Read one classic novel published before 1950 each week. Learn the names of the capitols, mottos, bird and mineral of all of the fifty states. Learn to play five new musical instruments. Lean to speak five new languages In the spring, plant a large garden and live off the produce through the subsequent winter. Learn how to frame pictures from scratch. Reduce my personal carbon footprint to zero. Clean the fridge once a week. Go to the gym every fifteen minutes. Change my own oil. Learn fifty new emacs key combinations. Not eat any…