30,000!

So as you may notice by the view counter on the right, I’ve broken 30,000 unique hits! Thanks to all the viewers out on the internet, and to the subscribers or RSS feed readers!

I’m interested to see how many people subscribe or use the RSS feed, comment below.

Note: any people that fill in the website field when making a comment, and it looks suspect or like a spam website, won’t have their comments approved.

PS: Sorry to anyone in the past that hasn’t had their comments approved, I just am a little cautious when approving, just in case the URL contains malicious code.

Why McMaster Carr Sucks

So as a Canadian, I typically find myself ordering parts from both within Canada and the US, and at times needing to order something specifically from the US due to availability. Having used Digikey and Mouser, McMaster Carr would also be on the list of companies that I send my dollars to, but this is not so. Several years ago McMaster Carr changed its policy on Canadian orders, stating: “Thank you for your order. Unfortunately, due to the ever increasing complexity of United States export regulations, McMaster-Carr can only process orders from a few long-established customers in Canada. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this causes you.”

Frankly, they don’t regret the inconvenience, nor do they regret the loss of customers apparently. An ‘export regulations’ change might as well mean you can add Canada to the list of terrorist nations, so I can’t order some food grade tubing, metal shaft couplers, or worm gears.

I might be in a slightly snippy mood because I spent 3 hours over a crappy drill press to make a low precision shaft coupler to try out an idea of mine.

Happy new year!

So its now 2010 on the east coast, and I must wonder what is in store for us? Positive things, negative things?

Questioning the science behind Avatar

So the thought occurs to me, while they tried to develop the science and technology within the Avatar universe accurately and within the laws of physics with some artistic license, they made one mistake that I have to pick on.

The Avatar wiki set up probably by fans  (which quote a book regarding the Avatar canon), the article on Pandora states:

Pandora’s atmosphere is a poisonous brew of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, and even a small percentage of hydrogen cyanide

Now in the film, all you have to do to survive in the native environment is wear a mask that [I suppose] filters out the ammonia, methane, excess CO2, and other trace toxins. Practically though, you have other mucous membranes that are exposed (read: down there). If you have a mucous membrane exposed to an atmosphere with a partial pressure of NH3 and HCN, some of those substances will have to dissolve into the water on that mucous membrane. Last I checked, even a little bit of ammonia can irritate the heck out of you, and HCN can kill.

What happens if you sweat? Water droplets begin to absorb NH3 and all of a sudden you are covered in 1M ammonia with a mix of HCN? What about the other parts down there? While its plausible that you could survive for a short time using only an oxygen mask or pack to filter out only the toxins (since its been established that a partial pressure of oxygen is present, just the other toxins make it impossible to live), prolonged exposure as shown in the movie during various outings or combat scenes just don’t make sense. Metals corrode under exposure to things like ammonia, (copper and brass turn bright blue thanks to the copper-ammonia complex formed for instance), and living tissues that are even the slightest bit moist will be exposed to the ammonia.

While I enjoyed the movie, the CG and 3D were wonderful, and they made many people happy – as a chemist, the fact just sticks out at me, and while in the movie it was never really stated that the atmosphere contains NH3/HCN, it was stated that its only bad to breathe the stuff in, whereas its perfectly fine to have a oxygen source and go bathing in it.

Heck, rivers and streams would be partially NH3 and HCN containing, I would certainly not like to get caught in the rain there.

Anyway, </rant>.

Coming up next….

So I’ve been busy with another semesters final exams, and I’ve been cranking on getting projects done after I finished my last exam. I’ve got a how-to video on extracting acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin pills, and subsequent experiments to do using this acetylsalicylic acid.

On a related note, I now despise my computer and Adobe Premiere CS3. Dear santa, buy me a Macbook pro with Final Cut pro. Adobe Premiere Pro crash count at the time of this blog post is up to 36.

Seriously though I have a few more things planned, and if my attempts at videos fail due to Adobe software being buggy, I will try to publish illustrated guides. I have some organic and some organometallic reactions to show though.