Forbidden Planet

Having broken a few compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) over the years, I must confess to never having followed the recommended cleanup procedure. Hmmm ... I wonder if my homes are toxic badlands now? EPA recommends the following clean-up and disposal guidelines: Open a window and leave the room (restrict access) for at least 15 minutes. Remove all materials you can without using a vacuum cleaner. Wear disposable rubber gloves, if available (do not use your bare hands). Carefully scoop up the fragments and powder with stiff paper or cardboard. Wipe the area clean with a damp paper towel or disposable wet wipe. Sticky tape (such as duct tape) can be used to pick up small pieces and powder. Place all cleanup materials in a plastic bag and seal it. If your state permits you to put used or broken CFLs in the garbage, seal the CFL in two plastic bags and put into the outside trash (if no other disposal or recycling options are available). Wash your hands after disposing of the bag. The first t...

I am sure most people have heard or read the quote attributed to Sir Isaac Newton: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. It sounds like a wonderfully humble and self-effacing comment. We can easily imagine Newton slipping that in as he is being lauded for his contribution to science. The actual context is a little more interesting. Newton was involved in a number of controversies during his life. The best known is probably between him and Liebniz over the invention of calculus (which historians now say was developed independently by both). Of course, he was also involved in conflict with Robert Hooke. Hooke criticized Newton's work on numerous occasions. Probably the most serious accusation came in 1675, when Hooke accused Newton of stealing work on optics from him (you might remember that Newton showed a prism will split light into a rainbow of colours - Hooke claims it was his discovery). A number of letters were exchanged between the two over this ...

A while back Barbara played a meme game where she answered 5 questions as did Mother Of Invention . You are free to answer the 5 questions yourself. You can also ask me to give you 5 customized questions. These are five questions Barbara asked of me: (1) What advice do you have for your children and others of their age as they prepare to take our places in the world? What a delightfully interesting question that irritates me. The irritant is as they prepare to take our places in the world . It is a mindset and mentality that I dislike and have always disliked (even when I was young). My children and others are already a part of this world; they are not being groomed to replace anyone or to fill someone's place. It is the sort of thing that used to get me into arguments at church when I would fight for children and youth to be more involved rather than waiting on the sidelines observing and learning until they were ready to take their place in the community. They are their own sel...

A few months ago I applied for trademark registration with the governments of Canada and the United States. The USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) has replied to me enumerating a number of problems with my application and I have six months to amend it. This is not really a surprise, since I deliberately made my application broad, trying to cover information products information delivery as much as possible. I will probably need to get a lawyer who specializes in this sort of thing - although, first off I will start with Sofia. She is a lawyer (granted, her principal work has been in the area of women's issues and human rights and most recently in protection and preservation of traditional knowledge), so we will see how that goes. Of course, I think it would all be simpler if I was a publishing house, then I could apply for general coverage. I did apply for general publishing coverage and this was their response: In addition, “non-fiction books on a variety of topics...

I think most people would disapprove of watching TV while praying. Could such a request be made palatable? I could ask, "Can I pray while I watch TV?" This is more likely get a favourable response. However, despite seeming the same - simply expressed differently - the questions are totally different. The difference lies in the principal activity and the proposed secondary activity.

I discovered this as I was going cleaning up images on my computer. I don't remember where I originally found it. If anyone knows the source, I will happily credit them (although, the image does lead me to believe is was probably here ).

Uploading personal images to Blogger or any place on the web always makes me cringe a bit because I don't know where those photos are going to end up. Anyone can grab them and do what they want with them. As well, recalling something once it has been on the Internet is impossible (low traffic, password protected, or encrypted sites may be an exception, since the information may not have been noticed and copied). My principal concern with Blogger is that I can't edit my image collection. Once I have uploaded an image, it is there permanently, but I have no ability to remove it. I can always hide the link, but the image is still there. Yeah, I know, I can get some picture sharing account, but I am inherently lazy and don't want to manage / integrate / merge disparate sites. So what are Blogger and Google doing with this hoard of images they are collecting and storing? Image nabbed from here .

Being like most people, having extra money wouldn't be terribly objectionable to me. I decided to see how much some of my little treasures are worth. I have a lot of books, some quite old and possibly collectors' items. I did my search on eBay since this is the be all and end all of flea markets. First I looked up The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments . There were numerous listings, many with the keyword rare in them. It seems to be worth about $2.79 on the open market (maybe a copy autographed by Mr. Wizard would fetch more). Next I looked up Practical Electricity , a wonderful volume from 1923. Hmmm ... no luck. Next I tried a few titles I am sure set off alarm bells at Homeland Security Headquarters: Shrapnel Shell Manufacture , High Explosive Shell Manufacture , and Cartridge Manufacture . Three volumes dating back to World War I (published between 1915 and 1916). There were no listings. Then I tried a Science Fiction anthology originally published in the 1940s (although...

... the more they stay the same. While this may be true in a lot of cases, it is not true when it comes to chemistry sets. I find modern chemistry sets astonishingly dull and safe. There is no glassware to be found. No glass test tubes, no glass tubing, not even an alcohol lamp. When I had my first chemistry set, of some 30+ years ago, it came with glass tubes I was expected to heat up and bend or to draw into fine tipped pipettes. The chemicals found in chemistry sets today are bland. No more dangerous than baking powder - maybe less so. Kids love foul smelling gases, bubbling / frothing concoctions, colour changes and, of course, flames and explosions. The two pages are reproduced from my favourite children's chemistry book titled The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments . They are from the second printing in 1962. These experiments would never get into a modern children's chemistry book (I know because I have a bunch). I tried to make chloroform, but I don't think I was ...

Okay, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want: a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything. What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them. Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to. A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys. But most of us, if we get married these nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man. When a couple has an argument nowadays, they may think it’s about money or ...

While I do not own a gaming console, nor have I ever owned one, I am aware of them. Nintendo's newest one is called Wii. The question is how to pronounce it? Given that there are two consecutive vowels, and the general rule is to make the first vowel long, along with the fact that the Wii features a novel wireless controller interface, I would assume it to be pronounced "Why". Lately, I noticed that articles on the Wii give the pronunciation as "wee". This makes sense, since, in Japanese, the "i" is pronounced as a long "e". We find this in words like sushi (sue shee) and sashimi (sah shee mee). As well as names like Megumi (meh goo mee) and Hitomi (hee toe mee).

Have you ever noticed that boiling water is quieter than cold water? Over the years, I have noticed that when pouring boiling water into the sink (for example, when draining pasta), the noise is noticeably quieter and softer than when I pour cold water. I always pour into a stainless steel sink, not a plastic or ceramic one. To me it makes sense because the density of water at 100 o C is 958 kKg/m 3 versus 999 or 998 Kg/m 3 for water at 10 or 20 o C respectively. That makes boiling water about 4% less dense than cold tap water, or ... maybe I am the one who is dense because no one else ever seems to hear the difference. As usual, I have no published science to back this up. It is something I have never seen documented anywhere. But it is something I have observed and this is my best explanation. You can explore the density of water at various temperatures and salinity here . Image nabbed from here .