~snarfevs

I am hard at work on my thesis, entitled Dinitrogen Activation via selected Metalla-calix[n]arenes: A Density Functional Theory study. It has to fit in 40 pages plus appendices. I have until the 25th of July to bash out a midyear. I have successfully used the phrase "may or may not influence the apical angle of the macrocycle frustum" in a meaningful english sentence. It rolls off the tongue delightfully.

Essentially most of the research is done and I did very well (against expectations) in the coursework components, including colloid and surface chemistry and 'diastereoinductive aldol reactions in natural product synthesis'; A topic so provincialised that there are not really any text books that cover it, just a few journal papers. The exam was 2 questions (count them).

I present for your pleasure some molecule names that popped up:

- Roflamycoin
- Roxatoxin
- Ylidiyl (actually a fragment)

Now I just need to get this mighty tome pumped out in quadruplicate and defend it against outrageous accusations of irrelevance*. Oh and give a presentation to a mass of PhD students, postdocs and peers.

Oh yeah, I am now a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, a learned society for chemists (shock). I get a journal/magazine with review format articles, a scandalous number of spectrometer ads and a cryptic chemistry crossword. It's like NewScientist except it doesn't suck and it's all chem. It also makes my desk look dignified. I approve.

I demonstrated for the 1st year students and happily no one got hurt, and most appeared to learn something, however we all know that appearances can be deceptive. It does however seem that some people are just too damned fashionable to be OH&S-conscious chemists, with their high heels elegantly clicking and their unbuttoned lab coats billowing behind them in slow motion as they walk into a lab that is NOT A FREAKING C.S.I. MIAMI SET. Seriously people. Do you see me wearing big black shades and cracking deadpan one-liners in a gravelly voice under the insufficient light of moody blue fluorescents? You do not. That happens in 3rd year. You'll be able to put samples into a spectrometer and dramatically announce "Colonel Mustard in the library with a wrench!"

* Not really. I get interviewed by a panel to make sure I know my subject matter or at least appear to.

I have just commenced my honours year at ANU, under Prof. Rob Stranger. I will be using quantum mechanical computational methods to simulate the behaviour of para-tert-butylcalix[4]arene niobium(IV), a funky bowl shaped molecule that has an extraordinary ability to grab either end of a nitrogen molecule and make its formidable triple bond¹ significantly weaker². This makes it more amenable to useful reactions³.

I will hopefully get access to the ANU supercomputing facility, a massively parallel system with almost 2000 CPUs and 5.6 terabytes of ram! Of course, you have to wait in queue, you get a limited time for your jobs to complete in, and you have to use a sensible number of processors. i.e. you have to be courteous.

I'm slightly frazzled from a month of working with the Stranger group (well the 4 members thereof who are in town) at a fairly breakneck pace, keeping 12 cores nice and toasty at once with lots of concurrent simulations. Germán copes graciously with my several-times-daily 'does this look reasonable to you?' interruptions/intermissions, which I'm reducing in frequency.

[1] One of the strongest chemical bonds known!

[2] Floriani, C. et al, Stepwise Reduction of Dinitrogen to Nitride Assisted by Niobium Bonded to Oxygen Donor Atoms: The Potential of Reduced Forms of Niobium Calix[4]arene, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1998, 120, 437-438

[3] Discussed here: [link]

For some reason, I can view my marks on ISIS. I am thrilled and more than a little relieved to announce that I have achieved the following this semester:

SCOM2001 Science Communication: HD
GEOL2015 Chemistry of the Earth: HD
GEOL2019 Marine Palaeontology and Evolution: HD
CHEM2204 Environmental Chemistry: D

Furthermore, I have been approved for conferring of:

Bachelor Of Science (Organic Chemistry / Inorganic Chemistry)

I am a scientist!

Now for Honours, under Prof. Rob Stranger [link]
There's going to be so much honour! Like 300 or The Last Samurai, but no-one needs to die!

Tasks:

- Get crowbar / Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube / Aperture-Science-Thing-We-Don't-Know-What-It-Does
-Wash Lab Coat
- Silkscreen Black Mesa / Aperture Science logo onto Lab Coat
- Attack Erin's headcrab

I am also working on Last Man Standing 3, as well as teaching myself XAML and Windows Presentation Foundation! (And incidentally loving it, XAML is awesome)

I can glimpse a certain Lovecraftian cosmic horror between the frames. A profound reminder that the universe is a cold, dark and utterly indifferent maw - in case you were getting complacent.

[link]

A review: [link]

I've made it just past the 1st boss so far

So, my parents got me one of those torches that you recharge by shaking, through the principle of induction. Basically, passing a magnet through a coil induces a current that recharges the torch.

The thing is made of transparent plastic and has 2 button cells, which are intended to power the torch, with a coil leading off it. The more I looked at this thing, the more suspicious I got. There didn't appear to be any rectifier or any way to stop the batteries from (slowly) discharging through the thin coil. I cracked the thing open to check it out.

- the lens covering the front of the torch conveniently disguises the fact that the parabolic reflector normally found in torches is missing. Instead there is a flat mirror-anodised plastic film. This is sort-of okay, however, as the torch has a white LED which is fairly directional. Light that comes out of the sides of the thing however is lost.

- What isn't okay about the LED is that it is non-replaceable (LEDs do last a long time, however). Why does the thing even come open?

- pulling the coil assembly apart, I remove a small metal slug. Through the hazy plastic of the torch it passes for a plated neodymium iron boron supermagnet. Up close however it is clear that it has been cut off a rod. After some testing with various paramagnetic and ferromagnetic materials, I can safely conclude that it IS NOT A FREAKING MAGNET.

IT IS NOT A MAGNET, IT IS NOT A MAGNET

THE RECHARGING FUNCTIONALITY IS FAKE

This piece of crap masterpiece of throwaway capitalism lulls customers into the false sense that they are doing the right thing in buying a device that will never need batteries. To execute this deception they construct a potemkin recharger, making the device 10 times larger than it need be, expanding the material usage and cost analogously. And when the cells do run down, you can forget about replacing them unless you're really determined, because the internals are all glued shut. Furthermore, the batteries will discharge faster than normal due to the fact that they are joined in a circuit by a thin but conductive wire. It will have to join the landfill with the 100 million others that I just know have been produced.

This whole resource depletion thing we're doing so well, is not supposed to be a race. There will be no prize at the end for maximum plastic utilisation.

[edit] my bad, the batteries are not soldered in. You still need to break parts of the torch to get at them (the lens and where the compartment is glued in to the barrel)[edit]