Saint should get two points for honesty! In fact, here ya go! Two "I feel stupid and I'm sharing it with all of you because you bored me" points. You know, because I've been there. *G*

So, it goes under the Bay?

One to Saint (along with a TMI pt too!) and a half a one to Cap'n brian for an appropriate use of the vernacular
It's Amino world without Chemists

You just took a point away, then! Good thing I gave her two! :^P

My bat eats TMI points, as I recall, so it's all good. Points for me, points for Jack.

Still waiting to see how it comes out, though. Either the tab got stuck somewhere or the acid in my stomach destroyed it. I might never know.

I don't know if the acid in your stomach's strong enough to dissolve what I presume to aluminum (or aluminIum if you're British) (a little help from the biochemists out there, or at least the chemists?), so it could just be sitting there in your stomach or intestines... could make for a cute x-ray someday :)

-There's someone in my head, but it's not me.-

A typical, healthy stomach has an internal pH of 1 - 2, which is *more* than sufficient to dissolve aluminum. However, under normal circumstances, food only stays in the stomach for 3 - 6 hours, and I'm not sure if that's long enough for a soda tab to be completely dissolved. Sounds like one of those frosh chem problems I was so glad to leave behind. Anyone else want to contribute? I'm actually curious now!

Cheers


*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto

If it helps for anybody's calculations, I just attempted to weigh a soda tab. Unfortunately, my balance isn't sensitive enough to register something so light. But just from feel, I'd say it's probably 1 - 2 grams and certainly less than 5 grams.

Cheers

*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto

Weight is not everything, one also needs to know the size of the surface of the tab, because the greater the surface the faster the tab will be "consumed".

One of my favourite related tales is about treasure hunters bringing up cannonballs from sunken 16th or 17th century sea vessels. Centuries of lying in saltwater had eaten microscopic holes into the cannonballs so they still appeared solid but now had an enormous surface. When brought up to the air they would corrode, i.e. rust, so fast that they would become red or even white hot. Chemistry is fun.

Huh.

Okay, but what was the reactive agent? I mean, fine. Chunks of iron left in seawater for 400 years suddenly reacts with oxygen (oxidation, duh), but where's the kinetic energy (heat) coming from?

The heat comes from the oxidation process, every such process generates heat. Or in other words, oxidation is a really slow version of things being on fire. Hence, if the surface of the thing oxdating is big enough, enough heat is generated for you to actually feel the heat generated in the oxidation process.

That's an exothermic reaction, right? Every once in a while I can remember information from my school years. :)

Half a chemistry pt to our theatre guy and a whole 2 pts to peegee!
It's Amino world without Chemists

I know Saint's not British (at least, I think she isn't), I was just feeling a little goofy when I typed that :)

-There's someone in my head, but it's not me.-

it would have been amusing if it had been magnesium. Remember back in high school chemistry how we put magnesium in HCl and watched it fizz? Remember what that gas it gave off was?

I once watched a dumbass light his on fire. Exploding hydrogen + acid + magnesium ribbon = run like hell.

So Saint swallows a piece of magnesium, then burps near an open flame and does a Godzilla imitation, screams and all...

It's well we cannot hear the screams
we make in other peoples' dreams.
--Edward Gorey

Ohhh - a chemistry pt to the engineer! Actually I've used that as a demo for Middle school students. Put zinc in a flask with HCl, and stick a test tube over the fizzing piece of zinc. Hold the tube inverted and then stick a match in it. It makes a tres cool 'pop' (the tube won't explode as long as it's open on one end). Then diagram the equation on the board. Tends to wake them up and get their attention.
And, of course, our great Dane is correct, the surface area is a critical factor. What you've got is an inbalance between the thermodynamics of the situation (can the Al tab be dissolved) and the kinetics (how long will it take?). A practical analogy of this is to take a glass of water outside and see how long it takes to evaporate. And take an identical glass of water and pour it on the ground (concrete or something that won't absorb water, that'd be cheating). Since the surface area is much greater, the kinetics are changed.
/ end chemistry lesson
It's Amino world without Chemists

*sigh*

Missed you missed you! (I'd say the rest of the nursery rhyme, but I think Mr Man would mind)

Glad to find you 'round these parts, Apple.

Jon and IG get points for missing me. :^P

IG, glad your dress was a hit. Yes, the CareBear shirt is a must have. Um, I forget what else I was going to mention.

Jon, you have no idea how close I was to you. Bwahahahahahaha! And, if you don't tell Mr Man, I won't. *grin*

And, you know, ignore how stalker-like I sound in this post. *grin*

Oh, c'mon, I missed you, too.

It's just that I miss a lot of people, and some of them are (I'm sure) still here, waiting for inspiration to strike or something interesting to come up. I had just assumed you were taking a breather, not that you had left the building.

But hey, welcome back.

I'd've said I missed you, but I still talk to you every so often on Messenger, so... but for a while there, when I hadn't seen you on, yes, I missed you as well. (No, I'm not looking for gratuitous points, I don't even have a frootbat to feed them to, having preceded the frootbats. "Matt has no frootbats. Matt needs no frootbats.")

-There's someone in my head, but it's not me.-

Well, I guess giving out points for missing me is kinda selfish, anyway, so 2 points for everybody!! No, I mean, you all have to share the two points. :^P

Now to sit back and watch the frootbat free-for-all. *grin*

I thought it was hysterical. Not only was I the only person in the audience under 65 (it seemed) - I was the only one singing alone who knew all the words. Sigh.

It reminds me of the time my friend and I went to this great restaurant in a restored turn-of-the-century building which had an entertainer who specifically did songs from that era. Anything from 1890 to 1925 was sung and he was always trolling for requests. Adding the age of my friend and I together still made us the youngest people in the room AND yet we were the only people to make successful song requests. Anyone else requesting kept missing the cutoff date.

Turn out your light Mr. Mooooooon Man.
Go and hide your face behind a clouuuuud.
Can't you see that couples want to spooooooon, man?
Two is company, and three's a crowwwwwd.

Ah, good times. Good times.

The Eileen
Take the road not taken - the leaves crunch that much louder!

Yeah. Sigh.

Nothing quite so depressing and shameful as being the only guy in the bar.

Is it just me, or is this site having its death rattle?

Nah, there's just a loose bolt in the air conditioning. Here, lemme get that. (*quarter twist*) There, right as rain!

(Being the only person in the bar sucks. Being the only guy in a bar...)

Er, and you might not want to jar that door too much. Security systems were set, passwords were forgotten, experiments left unchecked. Maybe I should just brick the thing up and plead ignorance. You haven't noticed any... radiation leaks or anything, have you? Um, no reason! Just making conversation!

Yeah, it's been a while since there's been a new front page post, but then again this blog is a lot more poster friendly than most. You could also get distracted by the back pages if you were so inclined. Not that I do that or anything. (*cough*)

I'd say it's just a summer thing. One of my two part-time jobs ends this week, and several-- uh, projects-- should be wrapped up within the next ten days or so, so I'll have more time to play around here, okay? I'm sure other people are just as busy. Let's not have the place condemned just yet.

Note to self: keep more of an ear out for crazy people's conversations.

I still think it has a faithful readership, but without the site goddess supplying our daily intake of fresh and wholesome quotes. I still hope its just a summer drought and not slow, painful death. Hey, maybe our site goddess is on a holiday somewhere without internet access or in a place where people don't talk much. I can still hope, can I ?

If being the only guy in a bar is depressing, just take solace in the fact that you might be the designated driver...

Yeah - she's been on a business trip and I even gave her a great IP post to do, but she's ignored it. Well I'm still going to try, she does like IP, it's just that she's busy. Of course y'all could bug Benjy who can also do stuff...
Hint, hint
It's Amino world without Chemists

We have an auxillary backup Site Diety here!

BENJY! Where'd ya go?

It's well we cannot hear the screams
we make in other peoples' dreams.
--Edward Gorey

I bet Benjy just felt a chill wind, as if someone walked over his grave... ;^)

What exactly IS malathion?

And why do you know this random fact?

Also, are you Asian? I'm pretty sure it was you who responded to my desperate Chinese food postings.


shenme shenme shenme - It's a cat!

is an insecticide. Here's a link.

and which random fact? The egg peeler or the malathion? I saw the egg peeler on an infomercial and the malathion because I live in CA.

And yes I am Asian. But I only really know Cantonese food well, specifically Hong Kong style.

I think I read your post wrong. I thought you said "CIA official," so I pegged you as some sort of conspiracy nut. But really you're just Californian. See what a bigoted East Coaster I am?

Asians. I miss Asians. And aet.


shenme shenme shenme - It's a cat!

You miss Asians???. What kinda society do you live in? Cause in Northern (and Southern too for that matter) Calif. I'd say they're about 30% of the population. (I may be a little high, that's just among the circle of people I interact with).
It's Amino world without Chemists

Um, plenty of people of Asian descent around my neck of the woods. My last job, there were actually more people speaking Mandarin in my immediate group than spoke English. I always knew when Chinese New Year was near, though.

I feel bad for anyone who doesn't have a Chinatown accessible, the cuisine and sights are really spectacular.

UMR's got a fair number of foreign students in proportion to its student population (I don't know what the numbers are, but it's respectable - not huge, mind). Some of the big groups include the Chinese, the Turks, and the Indian students. A lot of Turkish students, relatively - we're apparently a very big school for aspiring Turkish engineers.

-There's someone in my head, but it's not me.-

No, but anybody rememeber the Doctor Demento song "Gettin' High On Malathion"?

Now there's an oldie but goodie.

It seems that an unreasonable percentage of infomercial products have to do with eggs. Are eggs really that inconvenient? Are there really people sitting around thinking... "I want an egg so badly, but I just can't figure out HOW!" Is there someone out there who actually needs that microwave egg-cooker? Or an egg-piercer? (shamefully, enough, I own an egg-piercer, but I have never used it)
In my experience microwaved eggs are just not good. Not good. Avoid.
Oh, and Hypoxic, why do you have so many eggs to peel?

Years ago someone explained that nylon and albumen are structurally very similar and proposed a theory that microwaving egg protien might denature it into a form closer to nylon than standard cooking.

Of course, she might have been pulling my leg--I was 12 at the time. Does anyone with a Chemistry background have a professional opinion?

Was that a call for Chemistry Man?
Proteins are long chains of amino acids (about 30 different types). Nylon (there are a few types) is a repeat sequence of ONE type of molecule and it doesn't even look close to what an amino acid looks (or more importantly acts) like.
So the short answer is that that person was armed with just a leeeetle bit of knowledge, but took it and twisted it and made a conclusion that was wrong. And how many times has that happened?
It's Amino world without Chemists

So I haven't yet bought the egg peeler. But if I ever have the need to peel multiple eggs I'll be sure to buy one of those things.