My senior high school science research paper was on graphene (well, mostly buckyballs). So rad.
On topic because it falls under the general topic of "science I don't understand": Best abstract ever.
My advisor has a paper where the abstract just says "At times".
I'm paraphrasing for anonymity.
I have discovered a completely novel form of carbon.
Your links are broken.
Also: graphene, graphene, graphene, all people do anymore is talk about graphene. </curmudgeon>
Oh yeah? YOUR links are dirty sluts.
I mean, fixed!
6: I hope I was clear enough with my implication in 1 that I was into it before it was cool.
I think production of uniform systems is the real challenge in carbon-based materials. The chip's edges look non-uniform compared to the center in Fig. 1. The C-C bonds are stong, and formation is difficult to reverse if there's an error. Also not sure how I feel about NbSe2 in manufacture. Ick. Carbon nanotubes are pretty hot, but y'all have seen the uniquely named copper nanotubes, right?
9: That's a pretty standard protocol for reductions; I guess they wanted pretty pics to get it into that journal?
10: Baby, your copper nanotube is so tight!
Though calling it a heterojunction seems so heteronormative.
11: never underestimate the power of pretty figures.
Cool. Just check the author list to make sure that Jan Hendrik Schon isn't listed.
13, homojunctions are still illegal in 37 states.
11, Why do good science when you can do pretty science?
11, Why do good science when you can do pretty science?
The two are strongly correlated, IME.
I guess I'd disagree with pretty being correlated to good. The paper linked above uses a bog standard reduction that happens to turn very dark blue. It is a pretty color (and interesting the first time you run that reaction), but that's about it, really. No need to include a picture with a paper. There's a running joke in my field that taking photos of vials with different colored contents will automatically get your paper into a higher journal than it maybe deserves. There's definitely pretty and good work, too, like these very pretty and useful dyes. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, and you're referring to results presented in an eye-pleasing fashion as pretty when I'm meaning putting in colored photos to shorthand how cool the work itself is?
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, and you're referring to results presented in an eye-pleasing fashion as pretty when I'm meaning putting in colored photos to shorthand how cool the work itself is?
Yeah, I guess we're talking past each other. I mean people who put care into making their visuals comprehensible and clear and aesthetically nice tend to be people who put care into making their thoughts and arguments clear as well, IM(narrow)E.
6.2 was kind of silly. I have to admit graphene is pretty interesting.
||
O'Reilly is publishing a book dedicated to Dwarf Fortress.
|>
Solar panels are cool. Know what's cooler? Graphene supercapacitors. (Sorry for the Slate link.)
And then at the other end of the spectrum, we have FarmVille for Dummies. [The obvious joke is made here by reference.]
I was going to complain about the preëmptive apology for Slate-linking in 25, but then I saw that the article was by Farhad Manjoo, so yeah, fair enough.
Didn't we have a presidential commenter who worked on those and even better had a mildly salacious academic throwdown that she liveblogged for us which better yet resulted in the total destruction of an eminently deserving slimeball? I wish she would come back and talk to us about them.
I don't think said commenter actually specified what it was she worked on.
Well let's just imagine together that she worked on graphene supercapacitors. Or maybe the application of graphene supercapacitors to paleolinguistic analysis of words for sweet potato.
Historical linguistics actually doesn't require a whole lot of energy storage.
I guess we could just talk about words for sweet potato again. Where's essear?
Actually I will tell you what I don't understand: how do historical linguists know that some changes are less likely than others in a given language family? Just by analysis of descended words where the linkage is known for sure?
how do historical linguists know that some changes are less likely than others in a given language family? Just by analysis of descended words where the linkage is known for sure?
Some changes are considered more or less likely based on phonological universals, many of which are tied to articulatory constraints. I guess it's also at least possible to conclude that certain changes are more likely in a given family because they are similar to other changes that are known to have occurred in that family, but I can't think of any examples.
In general, though, this isn't really how historical linguistics works; instead you start by looking at phonetic correspondences between languages and figuring out which changes in the proto-language are most likely to have resulted in those correspondences. The a priori likelihood of those changes based on other factors is mostly used to evaluate the plausibility of the reconstruction, but it's not usually a huge factor in that. Very "unlikely" changes are widely accepted in some very well-established language families. Armenian is one of the best examples.
instead you start by looking at phonetic correspondences between languages and figuring out which changes in the proto-language are most likely to have resulted in those correspondences
But how do you know that you're not telling a just-so story? (I kind of want the answer to involve lots of statistics but I feel like that might be unlikely given the historical development of the field.)
Woah, I missed 28.
While they do have some sense of which sounds are likely to knock down other sounds and take their lunch money, I think historical linguists sense of likely and unlikely is driven by how parsimonious the set of sound changes are. A spectacular example of this is Sassure's laryngreal theory for proto-Indo-European. Some patterns in Indo-European languages were explained by proposing that some words had initial consonants that were absorbed by the neighboring vowels. Then when they deciphered Hittite, it turned out to actually have consonants in the proposed places.
28 resulted in the total destruction of an eminently deserving slimeball?
Wait, were there further interesting developments not reported in the original thread?
Historical linguists fear and hate statistics, so the danger of a just-so story is there. I think it'll be another generation before any serious attempt is made.
But how do you know that you're not telling a just-so story?
Basically you don't. It ultimately comes down to whether you can convince other historical linguists that your reconstruction is more reasonable than the alternatives, and parsimony plays a big role in this as Walt notes in 37. Walt is also correct in 39 that statistics doesn't really play much of a role. Historical linguistics is very much a humanistic discipline rather than a science.
I'm now wasting an inordinate amount of time trying to track down the paper that was discussed in the thread Sifu referred to, to see if any publicized negative fallout happened. Found one possible candidate but no public shame seems attached to it so far.
I'm with 38. I don't recall such further developments coming up.
I'm about 95% confident now that I did track down the paper in question. So if justice has been meted out, it is not yet apparent from the journal's webpage.
J. Org. Chem 36:1 184-186 (1971) "Comparative Mobility of Halogens in Reactions of Dihalobenzenes
with Potassium Amide in Ammonia"
Written in free verse. Behind a paywall but here's a sample from the end:
The haloanilines do not react
Extensively with excess amide ion,
As shown in Table III. In harmony
Appears the fact that yields of halide ion
With surplus amide ion slightly exceed
One ion from each dihalobenzene molecule
(Table I). However, ortho-iodo
Substrates afford much more halide ion
Than can be attributed to subsequent
Attack on the haloanilines that form.
An unexpected pathway of reaction,
Unclear in its details, is thus revealed.
This complication, our thanks to him,
Is under study by Jhong Kook Kim.
Also oh darn re: justice. It sounded like things were headed that direction.
|| Hey teo, did you hear that the latest defender of the Washington Redskins' name is a self-styled "full blooded American Inuit chief originally from the Aleut Tribes of Alaska"? See, he doesn't have a problem with the name because "when we were on the reservation, we'd call each other 'hey what's up redskin?'" Historical linguists will unearth the video, which will tell them much they hadn't yet learned about social structures in Alaska. (Or Ohio, where the guy is actually from.) |>
Ohioans have 36 words for offensive racial terminology.
47: I dunno, that guy's nickname is Chief. Seems legit.
Buckyballs, discovered in the 80s by people looking at soot, were a precursor, are themselves.
When you get down to it, isn't everything itself?
Or if not then, at least when you get right down to it?
Vaguely topical: the largest geodesic dome is in Omaha.
Not so, according to Wikipedia. Seems it's just the world's largest glazed geodesic dome. But, you know, glazed is always better than unglazed.
OT:
I have a technical, quite possibly boring question: I am not receiving email notifications from Facebook in my regular email client when someone sends me email via Facebook. I can't figure out how to tell FB to send me a notice. ? I remember that this was an issue maybe 6 months or a year ago, when FB changed its default protocol for emails ... um, I am just not seeing how or where to tell it to send me a notification.
Update: Okay, I receive notice of new messages sent via FB, but not of replies.
55: Who are you going to believe, Wikipedia or a teenaged tram driver?
47: Yeah. This article is a good discussion of the issue from an Alaska perspective.
For those who are looking for statistical approaches to historical linguistics, there's this.
For the record, the adult tram driver agreed with Wikipedia.
"Adult tram" analogous to "adult movie"?
Mmmmmm, ride the love tram to the big, glazed dome.
There's a creepy subculture that makes and shares videos taken from ground level of trams connecting to overhead wires.
|| Tough mudder completed. As Ajay said, not actually that tough, if you can run 8 miles and do one pull up you can do this. However, Ajay lied about the "electric eel" obstacle, where they shock you as you go through water, which was like a day visit to a Syrian prison.|>
64: This was a tram by function, not form. By appearance, it was a tractor pulling a few small trailers.
Did each trailer have to pay for its own ticket?
I told myself this morning I would work my way through a to-do list of stuff I meant to, but didn't, get done earlier this week. Instead, among other procrastinatory things, I've managed to waste a couple hours playing "Sleuth", which was my favorite DOS game when I was a kid.
I managed to almost finish moving from one apartment to another today.
I managed to almost finish moving from one apartment to another today.
Why'd you have to have that intermediate apartment between the first and the last?
I didn't get any closer to finishing moving the second time I posted that.
For those of you who don't keep close track of geodesic domes with glazing, I was at the zoo.
71: I haven't seen the second, truth be told.
Have they improved the big cat accommodations there yet? Always so depressing to see the tigers in their tiny concrete cells.
78: Didn't get to those, but I'd bet so. Lots of change.
Well, that's good. Just looked through a history of the zoo in photos, and was saddened to read of the break in in 1969 when a 10 year old and 11 year old attacked animals in the petting zoo, killing 32 of them. I don't know if that is better or worse than the kids who killed the polar bear in the Como Zoo in the 80s. It just seems particularly horrible. Not that much different from what happens to the 9 billion animals we destroy every year for agribusiness in this country, I guess.
1979 for the polar bear incident, I guess. People are fucked up.
They wand the kids before they get near a pygmy goat now.
"Sifu asked: Didn't we have a presidential commenter who worked on those and even better had a mildly salacious academic throwdown that she liveblogged for us which better yet resulted in the total destruction of an eminently deserving slimeball? I wish she would come back and talk to us about them".
Well, here I am, a day late and a dollar short. Sorry about that, I just can't keep up with you guys. My advice is to beware of all the breathless claims you read about energy storage devices in news articles-Slate or otherwise (although I am a fan of Farhad Manjoo). There are a whole lot of people who are trying to get tenure or great jobs or whatever and talking up their technologies to gullible journalists, who pass on the absurd claims without questioning them. Also there is a lot of money sloshing around in energy storage right now, not all of it wisely spent. You can't charge up a device with a lot of energy density rapidly without melting a bunch of wires or worse, so the dream of combining the power density of a supercap with the energy density of a battery will not come to pass. Packing a lot of energy into a small space starts to sound a lot like a bomb-trying to balance energy density with safety is just one of the challenges that make battery development so daunting.
As for the outcome of the aforementioned liveblogged dispute, the journal is supposed to add a correction in the printed version (which of course no one reads nowadays) and add it to the online version when the printed version comes out (don't ask me why, the vagaries of publishing are a mystery to me). The wheels of justice turn slowly or something. Mr. Snake, with whom I work on a number of committees, is appropriately abject and remorseful. I'm sort of enjoying it, actually.
I'm sort of enjoying it, actually.
I'm so pleased to hear this.
Packing a lot of energy into a small space starts to sound a lot like a bomb-trying to balance energy density with safety is just one of the challenges that make battery development so daunting.
I'LL SAY.
So that is why the super capacitor hype is kinda BS! Neat. I imagined it was, but that wouldn't have occurred to me.
|| With the readerpocalypse upon us I've been getting newsblur set up, and I figured I'd try adding the unfogged comment feed again. I've got it set up so that it works nicely, except that it doesn't have the comment numbers. I have no idea if that's a reasonable feature request, but it would make the feed make a lot more sense. |>
I'm sort of enjoying it, actually.
Yay!
My advice is to beware of all the breathless claims you read about energy storage devices in news articles-Slate or otherwise (although I am a fan of Farhad Manjoo). There are a whole lot of people who are trying to get tenure or great jobs or whatever and talking up their technologies to gullible journalists, who pass on the absurd claims without questioning them.
I'd say things look pretty similar from over here on the deployment end. We recently had a community buy a fancy state-of-the-art battery to use with their wind farm, and once they had shipped it all the way up and tried to connect it the damn thing didn't work. They eventually sent it back to the manufacturer, who may not be able fix it, and now the community's back to where they started except for all the money they spent.
62: "Adult tram" analogous to "adult movie"?
Hmm, graphene to me is "that stuff George Osborne makes sure to mention just before his latest disastrous economic policy because science futurey." He doesn't miss an opportunity.
77: 71: I haven't seen the second, truth be told.
I went in predisposed to like it given Michael Caine playing the older half this time around, but now cannot really remember a thing about it. And in retrospect why did I even expect it would be any good?
However, Ajay lied about the "electric eel" obstacle, where they shock you as you go through water, which was like a day visit to a Syrian prison.
Wait, I thought I was the one who was lying to you about that. (Not lying, exactly, just that I got lucky on that one. For me, the wading-through-ice-water was by far the worst.)
Amusingly enough, some friends of mine were talking about taking a weekend trip to LA, and my first thought was, "Uh, sorry, no, vacations are for people with real jobs and incomes", but then my second thought was, "Hey, no, wait: party at Halford's place!"
With the readerpocalypse upon us I've been getting newsblur set up, and I figured I'd try adding the unfogged comment feed again. I've got it set up so that it works nicely, except that it doesn't have the comment numbers. I have no idea if that's a reasonable feature request, but it would make the feed make a lot more sense.
I just added the "Full posts with comments" feed to Feedly, and it's showing the comment numbers. At least on the web version - my phone is out of battery. So it may be an issue at Newsblur's end.
What I'm using is the standpipe feed in forward chronological order on NewsBlur. The posts and comments feed on NewsBlur didn't seem to mark individual comments as read, so involves too much scrolling.
65: heh. Either I am made of tougher stuff than Halford or (more likely) simply stuff with a higher coefficient of resistivity. Halford is more sensitive to electricity due to the metallic construction of his endoskeleton.
(Also on mine there were two! electric fence obstacles: but one you could get under without any electrocution if you went flat on your belly with your face in the mud, the other you could get through pretty quickly if you just yelled and ran at it. As long as you didn't trip. If you tripped you just lay there writhing and getting repeatedly shocked.)
