Michael Clark Personal Stuff » Miscellaneous

Technetium – Tc

Michael Clark I — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:20:35 +0000

The element of the day is “Technetium.” Sounds cool, like technology. Too bad it really means “artificial” from the Greek word technêtos. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

38.107.179.241 12/Feb/2012:06:57:32

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Molybdenum – Mo

Michael Clark I — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 03:47:23 +0000

Molybdenum! How do you pronounce that? Molly-b-denim? Is the “b” silent? Molly-denim? Maul-lib-din-em? 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Niobium – Nb

Michael Clark I — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:09:20 +0000

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 react with oxygen, carbon, the halogens, nitrogen, and sulfur. The metal is inert to acids, even to aqua regia at room temperatures, but is attacked by hot, concentrated acids, and expecially by alkalis and oxidizing agents.” 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

The Green Pizza Box

Michael Clark — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:50:14 +0000

It’s not what you’re thinking of: 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Talk about thinking outside the box.

Glass Doesn’t Flow?

Michael Clark — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:46:06 +0000

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. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Zirconium

Michael Clark — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:05:02 +0000

Aah, the fake diamond element. Zr. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Junk Mail Received During the 2008 Primary Season

Michael Clark — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:56:36 +0000

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. (The other two candidates received a few votes, Douglas J. Denneny got 1,508, and Lori. P Alexander 638.) 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Lesliey Byrne

My household received 14 mailings that were “Paid for by Leslie Byrne for Congress.” Topics included:

Ending the Iraq War (7)
Generic pro-Bryne (4)
Negative ads about Mr. Connolly (3)

I also found it interesting that most of her ads mentioned her web site, although none of the attack ads on Mr. Connolly did. I give Ms. Byrne credit for attempting to harness the power of the web.

Virginia Women Vote!, a project of Emily’s List

My household received 6 mailings that were “Paid for by Virginia Women Vote!, a project of EMILY’s List and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.” Topics included:

Negative ads about Mr. Connolly (5)
Generic pro-Bryne (1)

I do find it interesting that the Virginia Women Vote! materials used the same photograph of Mr. Connolly that Ms. Byrne’s materials used. Were there no other photos of him available?

Gerry Connolly

My household received 17 mailings that were “Paid for and authorized by Gerry Connolly for Congress.” Topics included:

The Issues (gasp! A politician talking about more than one issue!):
- End the Iraq War/military (1)
- Pro-Abortion (1)
- Education (1)
- Economics (1)
- Change (3)
Negative ads about Ms. Bryne(5)
Endorsements:
- Gov. Kaine (2)
- Caitlin Connolly (the candidate’s daughter) (1)
- A mailing from the “Prince William Democrats for Change,” a made up group of people that has no web presence at all. Google can’t even find any record of this “group,”, made up of Hilda Barg, John Jenkins, Earnie Porta, Frank Principi, Paul Nichols, and Kathleen Seefeldt.
- And finally, another mailing from a bunch of Fairfax supervisors decrying Ms. Byrne’s negative ads. Sharon Bulova, Penny Gross, Cathy Hudgins, Gerry Hyland, Jeff McKay, and Linda Smith.

Mr. Connolly never mentioned his web site in his ads. What was he scared of? I don’t think I want someone representing me in Congress who doesn’t quite understand how the web can work hand-in-hand with traditional methods of ~~annoying~~contacting the citizens you represent.

Dominion Virginia Power Quote

Michael Clark — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:13:38 +0000

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 as of July 1st). The meaning I instantly read was they don’t want to seek permission to increase our prices, they’d prefer they could raise prices without asking first. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

A Great Survivor Season Shot to Heck

Michael Clark — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:09:32 +0000

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. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

It’s all a matter of perspective

Michael Clark — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:42:40 +0000

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: 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

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 the car, gas was $3.239 per gallon. Whew!