Alex Speed

I'm sorry, what is up with the deluge (no pun intended) of ancient history conspiracy theory and upcoming pole-shift worrier accounts I am suddenly seeing on the other social media site. Absolute garbage.

I use this. Noticed that yesterday as well.
firesmoke.ca/forecasts/cu...

I think things like photoredox chemistry, photochemistry without catalysts, carbene applications, preparative radical chemistry, etc, have been or are going to be really complicated by the max of 3 people per prize. We even saw that with cross-coupling, which sort of turned into a survivor's game.

Dunno if you learned about the significance of the stars over the altar while there, but it's a neat story:
www.ap.smu.ca/~turner/stjo...

I always thought Arduengo, Bertrand, and Breslow would be a good trio. Now Breslow is no longer with us, I dunno who I'd throw in there.... there are a lot of clever applications for carbenes, but a lot of players in application too. I think metal alkylidenes are too distinct to be in the same tent.

The back of my had, with several raised welts from nettle stings, mainly along the knuckles.

Note to self: next time I pull up a gladiolus corm that's growing next to nettles, wear hand protection!

Yup, and here I am wishing I had a 2 TB hard drive on my laptop, rather than a 1 TB hard drive......

Granted, in the 90s, the idea of general AI seemed very far off. 30 year ago me thought there would be humans on Mars in the 2020s, and if you'd asked me for my wildest dream of what a PC would have been capable of, I probably would have come up with something with less specs than a cheap smartphone

Haha, good. Because even though I don't believe in Roko's Basilisk, I'd feel bad to be the first person to introduce somebody else to it :)

and are now working less well. (Ie we are actually encountering MORE mac to PC issues with latest upgrades, multi-factor authentication is more onerous, software is less likely to sync, and social media is full of far less interesting content). I miss mIRC from 2000, and seamless software from 2010s

Instead of "Roko's basilisk", we can call it Rocky (soil) Basilisk.
Sorry, I could probably come up with something more clever if I thought longer.

For the reason that I use a lot of technical words, I don't typically use autocorrect. There are some cases where it would even change the intended meaning (like replacing alkyne with alkene). I was commenting with a student, computers hit a sweet spot some time ago, with working well (1/2)

Funny last week, in my organic chemistry class, I mentioned "Breaking Bad", and got a bunch of blank stares. 10 years ago when I started as a professor, that show was the primary vehicle by which the average person had heard of organic chemistry.

I'll just have to have a Gibson instead.

Autocorrect underlining "of", in broken jar of olives.

Again with this:

Broken jar of olives, with pieces of glass everywhere.

Not the most fantastic start to my morning. Little tiny shards of glass over my kitchen floor, including one in my foot, which I did not feel.

Autocorrect underlining "their" in red, in an e-mail that says: "interrupt their reading".

Autocorrect suggesting I replace their (which is used correctly) with they're or there, which would not be correct.

Autocorrect gaslighting me again.

My biggest ethical struggle. Pigs are the most efficient mammal at converting anything into meat, but they are also charismatic, individuals, and adorable.

If you know me personally, you will know I have many pig decorations around my office and home.

Random fun fact: 20+ years ago, I got to put on some scrubs, and see a few different surgeries. I had an interest in medicine, and some strings were pulled. I suppose in another life I could have been a doctor, but I don't have the right skills. Still, I will never forget getting to see that!

Here was me thinking that silicone cookware was the one safe polymer on heating.....

Haha, might steal that!

Is it correct to say an imine is "enolizable" if it has alpha protons? I guess an aza-enolate is a thing, so it seems fine to me to say that.

I'm going to try and spot Tiangong at some point, but I suspect it will be more challenging!

Probably mostly in the attitude, as long as it's not super reckless. Back before websites, I think we just relied on a sign at the DNR office, or at the local paper mill. Funny, my dad was in the forestry industry, and would have enormous fires to burn yard waste.

www.google.com/maps/@44.074...

That's fair. Funny story, I had the fire department called on me as a teenager. They were basically "yeah, there's a time of day you can't burn, and this is it" and I was like "oh, sorry I did not know", and then the fire was put out. Granted, that was not in the middle of an extreme drought.

I'm curious with this one. A huge bonfire is egregious, but I could see credible confusion with the province-wide (except for Annapolis county) announcement of the fire ban being lifted six days ago, then coupled with the more recent announcement. Of course no excuse not to check daily conditions.

I've seen so much of this with synthesis. People who don't understand synthesis claiming they will "solve synthesis", then publishing things that aren't even wrong.

Here it is flying "over" the Burke-Gaffney Observatory. It was considerably harder to spot tonight!

What's kind of funny is the ISS was almost directly over Boston (my home for 9 years) at this point in its orbit, and I'm watching it from Halifax. So close, yet so far away. The ground distance from Halifax to Boston is about 660 km, compared with the ISS altitude of currently 408 km.

FWIW, In the 1000s of (AI-free) papers I have saved on my computer, I found 41 references to "tetrel", and 0 references to "adamantogen".
For comparison, there are >200 references to "pnictogen" (which might be biased, because I am a pnictogen chemist), and >5000 references to "halogen".