ornery_chemist

@ornery_chemist@mander.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨y tho⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Those flasks can actually be really nice compared to normal RBFs for real reasons and not just memes. They are a lot easier to e.g. pipette out of because the taper gives small volumes of liquid more height than a typical round bottom, so less material is lost as skin on the glass. “Just use a smaller container”, you say, and yes, do so if you start with a small volume. But a lot of times in organic chemistry, you need to isolate the compound from solution by evaporating the solvent. Depending on the concentration, the volume can start large and end much smaller. These flasks can help recover a larger amount of precious material.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can anyone do the maths?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Just think about all the shit you had to do to get from then to now, and then imagine that you have to do all of it all over again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When you work for a company owned by a A..hole⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Pretty sure I just got ~anti-bribery~ ethics and compliance training that said no one in my company is allowed to accept such gifts lol

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wheee⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Completely rewrite the curriculum and problem sets for my advisor’s grad-level course for flipped-classroom virtual teaching as opposed to in-person lectures. It was the pits for many reasons, not the least of which was that his attitude became “everyone is at home doing nothing, so I can ramble into a recording for 3 h instead of giving 1 h lectures and we can have a full problem set every week instead of 4 in a semester and the scheduled class time is now a problem session amd to answer students’ questions :)”.

  And a fuckton of DFT calculations, so honestly, fair.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wheee⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  And calculating far too many digits of π

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's gooooooooo!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  -onium is usually an extra group/proton (carbonium, oxonium, bromonium…). HO+ isn’t too hard to approximate–just take a hydroperoxide or peroxyacid and add strong acid :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's gooooooooo!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hydroxyl hydride feels wrong given that hydride is H-. So what’s a good name for HO+…? Oxenium hydride? Hydrenium hydride? (comparing carbonium (CR4H+) vs carbenium (CR3+))

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's gooooooooo!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think oxenium hydride would be more appropriate than hydroxyl taking into account the polarity of the two fragments (HO+ and H-), though AFAIK there is no standardized name for HO+.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨when you work in an interdisciplinary institution:⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Computer scientists? Sure, maybe. But all four of us will join together to resent the engineers for designing systems around extrapolated power law fits and lack of rigor (and totally not because they are higher paid or anything).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dots!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Some Pu solutions for your viewing pleasure:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dots!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  just take a cheese grater to it to make smaller pieces smh

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mood.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not when your advisor converts it back to docx before sending you comments.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨But I am mighty!!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure I’d call US sunscreens way worse (they are still very effective at blocking UVB, just not UVA as effectively), but there are definitely better options abroad. There definitely aren’t many options; that’s part of why Hawaii banning two common sunscreen ingredients for marine toxicity reasons was such a big deal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Add it to the pile of reasons to hate 'em⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Back on my did there was an element called unununium until some nuclear scientists bismuth-munching paper-pushers with nickel allergies decided in 2004 that they liked Röntgen more than Regirock.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SUNS OUT GUNS OUT⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know much about this, but I can’t help but think that “complete” and “consistent” are doing a lot more work in that sentence than my current understanding of the terms would lead me to believe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  For those who did a search only to get back pages of less-than-useless SEO slop that just recites the number line, here is something that better describes some of the grammatical insanity.

  also, czterydzieści cztery is imo one of the less pronounceable words (well, two of them) in Polish.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don't ask for more pixels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, there may be a maximal element, but not necessarily a maximum (there might be multiple people of equal and maximal gayness, not just one person).

  Also, not relevent to the logic here per se, but last time this went around the conclusion was that a spectrum implies a total order, not just partial.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨(・・;φ⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I know that this is partially a joke, but I was trying to figure out what kind of lab would be done to produce chloroform that would be appropriate for students (recent OSHA crackdown on chloromethanes notwithstanding)… haloform reaction I suppose? Is that a common teaching lab experiment?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Marshmallow Test⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  My mom took my little brother to participate in a child psych study like this when he was a toddler (mom had some ties to the university). It was a very similar experiment with skittles as the prize. My brother sat staring glumly at the candy the whole time. The test administrator was increasingly enthusastic with praise after each round right up until the end when she congratulated him and said that he could have the whole bag. He said “no thanks” and ran back to mom crying because he was told there would be candy but they only had skittles, which he very much did not like (and for that matter still doesn’t). The administrator was apparently embarrassed and told my mom that she thought that all kids liked skittles…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you know the answer?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  ^dontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutit^

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Good to see someone caring about BiLions⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  According to my buddy who worked for Dow, part of these “savings” apparently was taking a hatchet to their R&D segment with a bunch of spray-and-pray layoffs (apparently a common happening these days). I realize Dow is mostly commodity chemicals these days which is much more preservative in nature than other segments of the chemical industry, but even so it sounds like they are killing any hope of competing with new technologies and moving to the “squeeze as much as possible out before it goes tits up” stage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨100% all natural hand-drawn comic⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A bunch of electrons? Nah F only ever wants just one more than its natural allotment. But it is extremely, violently jealous of that electron.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bubble Wrap!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If it was an x-ray, isn’t it a little weird to use a radioactive dye (or contrast agent)? I thought that for GI things it was usually a just contrast agent that absorbs x-rays really well… barium or some shit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does my back hurt?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If I stood up straight, my eye level was above the window. Also, glove boxes. The shorter group members could use platforms to raise their height but had trouble reaching the corners, while I had to do a mix of taking an uncomfortably wide stance and slouching. I wish they had been more suitable for my height… I thought everything would be better with taller hoods in my current workplace, but all they did was extend the sash to the floor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Definitely didn't waste half an hour making this⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I got one because I was intrigued by its lead rotation, but I found that it really didn’t rotate the lead enough while I wrote. I kept having to rotate the barrel manually to keep a thin line like I do for every other mechanical pencil, and then would get annoyed every time the clip came around to brush my hand. I’ve been wondering if I’m doing something wrong, or if Japanese just uses more shorter strokes. Do you also like it when writing English?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some slow acting poisons?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Arsenic is a classic murder poison. It’s been known since anciemt times, though possibly unsuited to your onset requirement. Acute poisoning by ingestion is generally within a few hours, but if your character sustains lower doses over time, you could probably draw out the timeline to whatever you wanted. It would be obvious that the character is unwell during this time, but the symptoms aren’t super specific and could be confused with e.g. food poisoning.

  Or just invent a mushroom like others said. The toxins are diverse enough that I doubt anyone would be too upset if you tuned it exactly to your timeline and desired symptoms.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some slow acting poisons?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Cyanide poisoning is famously pretty fast though…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Acetone: A Thread⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If those undergrads could figure out how to turn acetone into TNT…

  Amateurs. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone_peroxide

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Acetone: A Thread⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  EHS would raise hell if they caught us putting waste solvent in anything but a hazardous waste container…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"You should probably just throw it away"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What a coincidende, the end of my support for windows is also approaching.

  jk I srubbed that shit from my personal devices years ago after graduating.