The element of the day is “Technetium.” Sounds cool, like technology. Too bad it really means “artificial” from the Greek word technêtos.
Archive of posts filed under the Miscellaneous category.
Molybdenum – Mo
Molybdenum! How do you pronounce that? Molly-b-denim? Is the “b” silent? Molly-denim? Maul-lib-din-em?
Niobium – Nb
The element of newbies, Nb? I’d never heard of this before. “Niobium is a rare, soft, malleable, ductile, gray-white metal. It has a body-centered cubic crystalline structure and in its physical and chemical properties it resembles tantalum. It must be placed in a protective atmosphere when processed at even moderate temperatures because it tends to [...]
The Green Pizza Box
It’s not what you’re thinking of: Talk about thinking outside the box.
Glass Doesn’t Flow?
Wow, I just unlearned something, glass actually doesn’t flow. See Does Glass Flow?, from the Corning Museum of Glass. Also, the Wikipedia discusses this at The Physics of Glass.
Zirconium
Aah, the fake diamond element. Zr.
Junk Mail Received During the 2008 Primary Season
The local Democrats held a primary back in June to decide who should be their candidate for Congress. Leslie Byrne vs. Gerry Connolly. Here’s a summary of the political junk mail that accumulated in my crate. It seems like a huge waste of effort. The final vote tally was Connolly: 14,233, vs Byrne’s 8,196 votes. [...]
Dominion Virginia Power Quote
In my most recent bill from Dominion Virginia Power, there was a letter from President David Heacock that opened with this sentence: “We are never eager to seek permission to increase prices for our customers.” The meaning he is hoping we will pick up on is that Dominion doesn’t want to increase prices (18% raise [...]
A Great Survivor Season Shot to Heck
The best Survivor season ever has just been shot to heck with that witch Parvati winning. Dang. Leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Amanda played a much better game.
It’s all a matter of perspective
On one of the forums I read regularly, a contributor from England has this to say while we were discussing the increasing cost of webcasting: Here we have all kinds of environmental taxes etc. Currently fuel costs Eur. 1.55 per liter = 5.87 euro per gallon = about $9.40 per gallon Yesterday I filled up [...]
