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.

nice addition

In my current gig I get to read all sorts of articles on topics foreign to me, in journals I'd never heard of before. All in all pretty sweet, I must say.

Every now and then I stumble onto something kooky, and today I found one worth mentioning. This was at the end of an article, after the references.

Chemtech, 1990, 20, 1, 31-37

A nice, funny, way of delivering some solid advice.

great title

This article fell into my inbox via ISI alert:

A density functional theory study of the ‘mythic’ Lindlar hydrogenation catalyst

Really caught my eye, although I didn't read it.

Rochelle's salt

When using aluminum reagents such as LAH, DIBAL, or AlCl₃, it's common to have problems with emulsions in the workup. The simplest and most straightforward solutions to garner homogeneous solutions is to use aqueous mineral acids, but that's not always an option. If, like my last several projects, the substrates are alkaloids you can lose product to the aqueous layer, and acid labile groups can be chipped off. There are a number of ways around this, and one of the most popular and effective non-acid workups is aqueous Rochelle's salt.

Those of you that have used Rochelle's salt in work ups know that sometimes it works a treat, and other not too well. lately I noticed something in my experiments, and wanted to see if you guys have had similar experiences or knew of proper documentation.

When I would work up an AlCl₃ reaction, sometimes it clarified, and sometimes not. The Ph went up to almost neutral from the tartrate, but not strongly basic (Ph 8-10) like I would prefer for best recovery of my amine. After some poorer than expected yields I added saturated aqueous ammonia (ammonia water, NH₄OH) to the stirring workup mixtures. Typically the layers would split immediately, and my recoveries went way up.

It was both surprising and pleasantly welcome.

porchetta

I've been too busy to post anything in a while, but some friends and I took some time off yesterday evening too cook and hang out.

Last week, I stumbled on to Gianni TV, and watched his cooking videos one of which has a great looking porchetta. Oddly I had been thinking for a while I wanted to make a braciole or pinwheel steaks, so this really motivated me to cook it. As it happened whole pork loins were also on sale for really cheap at a store near my house, so that was the clincher.

I roll cut the loin.


As it happened there was fresh sage and rosemary in my landlords garden, so in it went with garlic after a quick chop.


I spread it out evenly, and added fresh cracked pepper. I've made butterflied pork loin stuffed with sauteed onions and swiss before, and thought it was great, so I added it to this one as well.


After rolling and tying, it was rubbed with olive oil, covered with pepper and salt, put on a bed of the same herbs, and a bit of wine and water was added.


It was cooked in two stages. At 350 till it was done, rested till the internal temp was coming back down, and at 500 until nicely browned and crispy.

Resting after stage one, don't the silicone ties look like earthworms?

And that's when the camera battery died. It came out tasty, I added more wine and reduced the drippings to make a jus, and we had some turnips and carrots with it. Overall it was pretty bad ass.