update!

The hanging wire seems to have gotten just a bit worse in the last few days.






There is another little orange card, that I didn't read, but the biggest question in my mind now is what is this even for? It can't be that important if it's been that badly damaged for this long and is still not being fixed. I'm fairly certain the only reason Pepco even came out was because concerned citizens called about the downed wire, not because someone's power was out.

public works

I live in a pretty nice neighborhood, in a pretty nice town, in a county with high taxes. It's pretty expensive to live here, no downtown Manhattan or San Francisco, to be sure, but still pretty high. Last spring during the economic meltdown the house next door actually sold for significantly higher than the asking price, even.

In general I would say that it is well represented in the quality of public works. The roads suck now, but this last winter is the true culprit and areas of improvement are constantly popping up.

However at the end of my street is this oddity.

You can just make out the lovely yellow streamers.

This issue laden scenario showed up quite some time ago, perhaps a month or more ago, and has changed little since then. Bhy the time I noyiced it someone had already "protected us" by hanging the yellow prophylactics on it, conveniently making it more accessible to children who couldn't previously reach it.

At the time I first saw it, I assumed the tape had come from a concerned citizen. It was put on poorly, and in uneven lengths. The dangling the wire was out of the way, relatively speaking, over a roundabout that sees only moderate use. There were no workers to be seen, and no cones or safety equipment at all. None of this bothered me at the time, because who gives a shit, really? I figured it would be dealt with after some bitchy phone calls from some concerned parents.

Now several weeks, at least, later it's still there but has picked up a new feature.


That's awesome, passing the buck, then letting everyone know you did so they stop calling. I'm not sure what's funnier, the fact that they politely asked people to stop bugging them, or the fact that they have a printed label sticker for this very purpose.

periodic awesomeness, fuck yeah!

I stumbled onto this beauty via Boing Boing today:

sold by Modern Toss, out of England (obviously)

I love the fact that it has a certain periodicity to it. The upper right 'element' "Tit" is about as light and unreactive as it gets, and the lower left has "You Stupid Fucking Arsehole Cunt" which is pretty fucking heavy. There is also a nice vertical trend, as well.

How they mismatched the example Cock and the actual Cock colors and values is beyond me, but the general product is excellent.

now that's GLOBAL deprotection

I stay the hell away from sugar chemistry. In fact as a general rule I try to not even read papers about it. It's not that I don't like it, it's that it scares the shit out of me.

Sugar chemistry is an odd field where it seems that chemistry from other common areas doesn't work, and chemistry that works in sugar chemistry doesn't always translate to general organic reactions well. The reactions within the field, unfortunately, don't always work either.

When I happened on this today, I would have otherwise skipped it except for the compelling graphical abstract, that I have blown up here:

JOC ASAP

These guys took off 21 TBS protecting groups all at once. I gather from the text this may not be all that unusual, but it sure surprised me, especially when it is presented in visual form. The overall yield was ~28% which is an average of ~94% per protecting group. I have, unfortunately, had a lot of worse yields in taking a single protecting group off of a robust molecule in the past.

Sure puts a total synthesis "global deprotection" in a different light for me. Kudos to the sugar chemists, you insane fuckers.

googleness

Google is a surprisingly useful and powerful tool. As an odd show of this, today's Google Doodle for the 30th anniversary of Pac Man, a playable Pan Man game:



After the game is done the Google search for "PAC-MAN 30th Anniversary" comes up, and more of the hits are related to the Google Doodle than Pac Man itself.


It often amazes me when the news bringer is making more news that what it is supposedly covering.

that looks familiar

Check out my new and old motorcycle keys.




I went to go see The Business play on Thursday, and while I was at the show my motorcycle was stolen. Again.

Miraculously, it was also found and returned the next day, with the helmet still attached.



Apparently pushing a motorcycle out of a parking spot and a couple of blocks down the street in front of busy restaurants and bars, all the while bits and peices of the dangling helmet breaking off as you go doesn't alarm anyone.

Oddly the next day someone saw it and thought it shouldn't be there and called the cops, go figure.

After it had been towed to a lot by order of the police ($240, cash only, for almost 2 miles tow), I went and picked it up. The thieves hadn't had much time with it so all they had really done, aside from dropping it a few times, was break open the ignition lock. Luckily I was able to easily hotwire it, after having had some practice in the recent past.

I guess I need to invest in an alarm.

graphical abstract flub

This isn't a terribly big mistake, but still, I wonder why people don't spend more time correcting their papers.

JACS ASAP multicomponent craziness

In this case it's actually in the graphical abstract, and the part that they used color to try to make it more easily understood makes it worse. The blue ethyl group on the diethylzinc becomes the blue methylene in the molecule. First, the ethyl to methylene is a bit of an exotic leap, and even a student should realize, after a moments thought, that's not a trivial transformation. Second, anyone who is familiar with Simmons-Smith chemistry would recognize that diethylzinc plus diiodomethane means zinc carbene, and the ethyl part is not used at all. All they had to do was make the CH₂ of the diiodomethane blue to be correct, and it somehow slipped past them. Too bad.

In unrelated news Alexakis and his crazy phosphoramadites have a nifty new-to-me reaction.

Org Let ASAP

1,4-Addition to aldehydes, and enantioselective no less. Is it general? For a highly specialized reaction, some might say yes, but in truth, no it's not. Is it amazing and life changing? If you aren't Alexakis or one of his researchers working on it then no, no it's not.

However it's still pretty neat, and I expect anyone who had done copper promoted 1,4-additions, and/or enantioselective additions will think it's pretty neat.