Chemistry

The mechanisms behind chemistry are physics. Whether it's Schroedinger equations or more classical stuff (rare), it's all physics. However, the way chemistry is taught, it's all magic.



It's like knowing how to use Windows but having no way of knowing how it interfaces with the hardware, but being able to program. It's terrible. How does a hydrogen bond work? Why is an octet in the outer shell stable? All of these answers are basically "magic" in chemistry.

Gadgets are my hobby.

In addition to my normal Evo 4G LTE, a One X variant, I use a One V for podcasts, and I regularly play around with my HTC HD2, Evo 4G, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Chromebook, iPhone 3G, and my E71, plus the old devices I rarely use.

In the devices mentioned above, we have Android 2.3 to 4.1, Windows Mobile, Chrome OS, iOS, and Symbian. There's one OS missing: Windows Phone. Oh, and Blackberry. But to use blackberry, I need a real service plan, so I can't just play around with it.

Hence, I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick up a Nokia Lumia 521 soon, so I'll have tried all major smartphone architectures. My initial problems with Windows Phone were major: no copy and paste, not a true smartphone in terms of extending of major features based on outside programs, no installation of unregulated programs, etc. Now it has copy and paste. So, I'll give it a shot. For $130 at Wal Mart, what've I got to lose? Plus, I can have that coveted second number for my multiple girlfriends/illicit deals.

Sitting alone listening to love songs.

It's what I do. Paramore don't get much crap from people for some reason. They hit it big with Misery Business, Decode and The Only Exception, and they're not getting the kind of bullshit that Avril Lavigne gets. Whenever Avril gets brought up, people say "I liked her early stuff, but she sucks now. She sold out." Bull. Avril writes every bit as well as she always has, and her last record, Goodbye Lullaby, was an exercise in not selling out. Whatever. I just hate the double standard. Hayley sings worse than Avril, and writes music that's no better than Avril's, and her band is objectively less talented than Avril's. I think the only difference is that Avril writes conventional songs, you know, like, with chords and normal progressions, whereas Hayley writes weird ass songs in drop C# that will stick out like a sore thumb as being very 2010 in about 10 years. That being said, I love Paramore, and I have a large print of a photo I took of Hayley Williams on my wall as we speak, which was a hit on Reddit, back when Reddit had only been uncool for about a year. 3200 views y'all.

Anyway, the love song. It's probably the best rocking love song I've heard, and would appreciate any suggestions to the contrary. Still Into You.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi5ns8wl6C8]
Note to angry Paramore fans:

I know Paramore is a "band" and I try to keep that in my head, sometimes, except Hayley is the one signed to the contract, and she pays her bandmates from that. She also writes the songs, though Taylor has been helping her since Riot!, with help from Josh Farro for their first three records, and I think Jeremy has a credit on one of the new songs. We must note also that due to Paramore keeping a cohesive style in all four of their records and inter record singles despite the addition of York on Riot! and the departure of Josh Farro on the singles club, there is only one constant in the band's writing and production process, and it must be significant to have kept all the other variables at a minimum. And, as Jeremy left the band just before AWKIF, Taylor joined just before BNE, and the Farros left before Singles, there is only one band member who has been there the whole time. And we know who that is. Hayley Williams. "Paramore is a band," she says, but that's only because she says so. The rest of us know what it really is. Hayley Williams.

The street of two Luxembourgs.

This is the terminus of Rue Des Deux Luxembourg in Athus. It goes on, obviously, into Rodange, but Google Street View hasn't published its Luxembourg data. The two Luxembourgs are Luxembourg, the grand duchy, and Luxembourg, the province in Wallonia. The two were once one, but were separated in 1839 with the Third Partition of Luxembourg, Luxembourg's largest loss of land in a long history of losses of land.

This region of Belgium has been particularly fond of Luxembourgish, or as we normal people call it "weird ass German" but since world war two, the fondness for the German dialect has dropped sharply. I wonder why. Regardless, in Pays d'Arlon, basically the area around the Arlon arrondissement, though I would also put Virton and Bastogne in here, Luxembourgish is still used commonly, and some street signs are even bilingual! This in itself is another challenge since Luxembourgish has no standard written form, and tends to just be spelled phonetically.



The official flag of the province is also based in the neighbouring country, with the same colours in the same position, though this is rarely used. I wonder if it's not used for the same reason that Luxembourgish is falling out of favour. National pride, perhaps? Here's the one I've seen.



Interesting, no? I do wonder where this comes from, as it's also on Esch sur Alzette's coat of arms.



The one on the Luxembourg coat of arms is actually pretty different. I'll look more into this. And by the way, look at that coat of arms of Esch sur Alzette. How literal can you get?  There is this tower that Esch sur Alzette represents itself with, which, by the way, I've never seen, and I've looked, and it's on top of water, presumably the Alzette. If you didn't know, you could assume as much from the big Luxembourg things to either side of the tower. There wouldn't be a tower like that on the Moselle or the Petrusse...though, admittedly, it could be on the Sure, which, coincidentally has a massive castle in a city called Esch sur Sure. The coat of arms of that city includes a pig hiding underneath a dildo tree. Not a joke.

I don't even know what I wanted to point out here anymore.

You know, one day I'll tell the exceptionally boring story of how I came to be such a big fan of Luxembourg. Here's me and my dad in the capital like a billion years ago. I'm really attractive.

Call me old fashioned.

This is not a blog. This is some kind of website with news articles powered by a content management system that is optimized for blogs. Sorry, Skepchick, you're just the best example.



This is a blog. It's got an archive on the right, no blogroll, but that's not that important, though I do like them, and it has a title, then a headline followed by the text. Then, you know what happens when you scroll down? More headlines and more text.



And another thing!

How have we let blogs be taken over by corporations and large companies? Even "new" internet companies like Gawker and Cnet and stuff are bloated and shit. Blogs should be personal. And some personal blogs, like Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy, are now run by magazines! Eugh! Internet, what's happened to you?



Come on, dudes.

Call me old fashioned.

James May's Man Lab

 

 

I'd forgotten that this show existed. I loved the first two series, and hence, I'm pretty upset with myself for missing series three...particularly because they addressed one of my favourite subjects: bullcrap cryptozoology.

 

http://www.skegnessstandard.co.uk/news/local/skegness-sea-monster-revealed-to-be-bbc-hoax-named-susan-for-top-gear-presenter-james-may-s-man-lab-series-1-5039877

 

So, James May came out with a skeptical perspective, as expected by me, though he has, in the past, said some dubious things. Far from even entertaining seriously that there might be a Loch Ness monster, they accept that most of the photographs are hoaxes. While this is probably not true, and most of the photos are misidentifications, it's a warranted opinion that there isn't a monster in Loch Ness. All the evidence is consistent with there being no monster, even if there is, which is a possibility.

So, because they think that the Loch Ness monster photos are hoaxes, and they bring lots of money to the area around the Loch, they decided to do the same with Skegness, a resort town in England.

They created a needlessly elaborate contraption to film and hopefully put online to create a stir. And it did. It even hit the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2189371/Forget-Nessie-Skegness-Monster-Mysterious-sea-creature-spotted-bobbing-coast-beach-resort.html

 

Fantastic. This news is two weeks old, I think.