interesting math

I was reading up on a lot of polymers last year, and I still have a few of the references bouncing around.  This one has an odd error that I happened upon when looking for yet more references on polymers (joy!).

some disparity there

For some reason they must have done a shitload of research, and then chopped out a bunch of unused references.  Why they left them all in the list is beyond me, but somehow they all seem to be the references at the end, like a whole final section was lopped off without hurting the overall paper.

For you mathy-y science geeks out there, the mysterious missing 35 references amount to 28% of the total number of used references!

eggplant parm for breakfast

I've always made eggplant, and a lot of other dishes, just like my mom did for me while I was growing up. While that's the norm for people with Italian heritage of any sort, I feel it's pretty common the world over. That being said every now and again I'll think of/read about/stumble onto something different to try and share it with my mom, and she does the same, and it seems that our recipes are getting better over time.

I've always been a fan of cooking shows and the Food Network (even though most of it is complete crap) and now that people are making their own food shows/video blogs available on the net I'm an avid consumer. One of my favorites that I've mentioned before, and definitely my favorite for Italian, is Gianni's North beach. He's an old school dude who cooks in his home kitchen and chit chats in a way that reminds me of my old relatives.

The other day I saw a post of his from last summer about making eggplant parm, and he did it with a small but very important difference from my family's way, and, as it happened, I had just been given several eggplants so I had to try it. My family always used breadcrumbs to bread it and he doesn't, just a simple egg wash. It has a bit less flavor and texture, but it also is less prone to soaking up the sauce on the surface and waterlogging. A pretty neat little change, I think. This dish pretty much always comes out well no matter what happens, but I think I really liked the difference in that it took a little less time and effort to prepare

Making eggplant parm is a bit of a production so of course we made a bunch, and have an entire pan of it we didn't even get to last night. I had an odd thought this morning that the stacked piles of eggplant reminded me of flat enchiladas. Where I grew up it is really common to get an egg on top of flat enchiladas as an option, so I thought "Why not try it on the eggplant?"

Not too bad for a few minutes work.

GRC notes

Apparently I started this post a long time ago, and forgot about it. I finished it up some time over a year after I started it, but better late than never, right?


I had the distinct pleasure of going to a Gordon Research Conference this summer, and the only bad thing I have to say about it is that I wish I had started to go to them earlier. It was totally awesome.

That being said I went unprepared for some of the activities and issues, and wanted to document them here just on the off chance one of you hasn't been yet, but will go in the future. I went to the natural products meeting at the Tilton school, but I expect a lot of this will be true for other meetings, as well.

We stayed in dorms without locks on the doors. Odd, and reasonable under the circumstances, but if you have valuable shit or are neurotic, you might need to spring for a hotel nearby. I recommend the dorms, and you can request to share a room with a buddy if you want. I got paired up with a stranger and had no issues at all, he was a really nice guy.

The shower was communal, and down the hall (obviously) so you may want to bring some flip-flops to walk to and from the shower. We got little hotel soaps every day, but no shampoo. If you have preferred toiletries you should bring them, just in case.

Right as I walked in from the bus, there was a sign in area, right next to a "purchase drinks for the week area". Beers for the week were $30 and sodas $15. Since it's pretty easy to drink $30 in one night, I though it was quite a deal, and people were already heavily taking part in the libations. We had dinner, the talks started the first night, and the the heavy drinking began. After the bar closed at midnight the coolers of beer were brought out, and a short while later the grill was fired up, and brats were served to all comers. It was a lot of fun, everyone was really nice, and it was a great opportunity to chat with old friends and meet new people as well.

This brings up three important points together:
Drink in moderation, there is a whole week of all nighters to look forward to, don't overdo it if you want to go the distance.
If you don't drink it might be a drag to hang out with all the drunks, so be prepared.
If you don't eat meat it might be a drag to hang out with all the hungry drunks, so be prepared.

Most nights there were people out till well after 3 AM, and often a few stragglers made it to sunrise. The morning talks always seemed to come much too early.

If you don't pace yourself it can make for great entertainment for the rest of us when we get to hear you retching in the communal bathroom the next morning and then make fun of you later in the day.

There are periods during the day for rest relaxation between talks. I didn't know, and didn't bring any clothes for hiking/swimming/softball etc. If you can find out what the activities are ahead of time, plan to do them, they are a lot of fun, and are great opportunities to meet new people and hang out in an informal situation while not loaded.

If you don't know what the activities are, or what recreation there is nearby, it's not a big deal. Bring some clothes that are good for the outdoors, and ask someone the first night what there is to do the rest of the week. Often these meetings are attended by people many, many times, and they are very familiar with what there is to do.

Have fun, meet new people, have some drinks (or not, you pussy), and learn some chemistry!

wordy wordness

I'm fond of language, and I like to think of myself as a decent writer. I may or may not be a decent writer in the grand scheme of things, but I feel that I'm above average with respect to the field I'm in and the people I've had the opportunity to work with.

To me language, and specifically the English language with all its various and sundry adjectives and adverbs, can really give straightforward concepts real color and texture in the way they are perceived.

That made him less believable.

His credibility was damaged.

The confidence in him was shattered.

"I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that." Roosevelt declared.

A proper wordsmith can take common terms and rearrange them into something special. There are people in all fields that exemplified this, for example in organic chemistry Professor Danishefsky writes beautiful and eloquent papers that not only describe beautiful science but are beautiful themselves.

Of course these few individuals are counterpointed by an army of hacks that get tired of using "yield" for yield and want to flower up their speech, but seem unable to structure a story that is both accurate and understandable. Sometimes journal articles read like a high-school student wrote a bad parody of Shakespearean scientific practices. The use of 50 cent words can be a beneficial addition to a well-written passage, but won't salvage a limp story. Embedding a few sparkly gems in a turd does a poor job of disguising the fact that it is a turd.

In the last few years some turns of phrase have taken on an odd sort of popularity in the science world, and I find it a little disconcerting. I have heard "inform" being bandied about lately, which is not a problem itself, but the usage tends to be somewhat galling.

Hopefully the data will inform you research.

Use what you find to inform your literature searching.

Inform my research? You mean all I have to do is tell my research something and it will do it? Wow, if only I knew that years and years ago!

What exactly is this inanimate object/concept going to do when I tell it these lovely factoids? Maybe I should inform my car next time I'm going to drive it, or maybe I need to inform my toilet that I'm going to violate it next time I eat a super greasy meal after 10 beers.

It may be a hangover (see what I did there!) from my graduate advisor jumping on anyone that anthropomorphized anything, but this seems to be a particularly obvious situation that makes little to no sense.

I guess there will always be people writing and presenting their work, and trying to emulate those that they look up to. I just wish they would proofread more often.


Side note: if you want to increase your douche-itude by using words like "exogenous" to describe additives to your flask, think about what the phrase actually means and implies before you publicize it. For example reagents that commonly come in their own bottle are always exogenous with respect to the reaction, and if you claim something is exogenous that implies that another is endogenous. If you can't think of an endogenous example, then you shouldn't be able to think of an exogenous one either.

back from the dead

I moved earlier this year, and while looking through some stuff recently I stumbled onto an old treasure. When I was in graduate school a friend of mine modified a neat click type pen ad gimmick, and customized it for me. I used the pen happily for a few years after until it ran out of ink.

From then I think it kicked around in different desk drawers until I found it a few weeks ago. I was able to take an ink cartridge from a coworkers pen and fit it to the custom ride, and bring it back into daily use.

every time you click, a different message is displayed

yay USPS

I'm pretty sure I snapped this pic a few years ago, but forgot to post it.

I'm one of untold millions that are pretty hooked on Netflix services who, love or hate them, have a pretty good business going; their stock went from ~$40 to a high of $300 in less than 2 years! Typically I have no problems with their services (ignoring for the moment their new pricing structure), with few problems spaced very far apart. There was one time where a disk didn't arrive, that was most likely a post office problem, and it took me a while to realize I hadn't gotten it. Netflix, of course, sent me a replacement after I clicked into the 'problem' area on their website, and everything was forgotten.

Some time later I got this in the mail:

One valuable scrap of paper.

Apparently my disk and containing materials were forcefully disconnected from each other, leaving only this poor, lonely address to fend for itself. In an attempt to assuage the damage caused to the psyche of the disenfranchised sheet, they bagged it comfortably up and sent it on it's happy way to the final destination, not unlike Paddle to the Sea.

The thing I find most humorous about this is that I can't think of a scenario where the people working with this scrap wouldn't know what it was, and the value to the customer that it no longer held. They need to perform their due diligence, and finish the job, whether it makes sense or not, but I wonder if the person prepping the lone survivor saw the humor in the obvious futility of the situation.

the old bait and switch

I don't know a whole lot about fluorine chemistry, and I think it's safe to say that not many people do. It's like a magic element that can act like other elements, only harder to deal with.

Because of this when I see papers with interesting fluorine chemistry, especially the incorporation of a fluorine, I like to check them out. Last week this beauty popped up in the Org. Let. ASAPs, and I was enthused to read more and maybe learn something.

that's one wild step!

I was cheerfully greeted by the same image in the abstract for the paper itself.


So I was a little taken aback when I read on further and saw this.


That looks a lot like there are both more reagents AND steps in that transformation. I understand leaving out the solvent and temperature, but the other reagent and step? That seems a little gratuitous, especially since it is still a neat transformation.

I can't imagine they left it out on accident or forgot, but I would hate to think that it was an advertising ploy. Try this reaction, you'll LOVE IT! Just mix it all together and BAM, product! Oh and don't forget that other stuff we didn't mention on the outside of the container. Batteries not included.