Ian Vander Meulen

Just finished coding & graphing a dataset 10 min ahead of a meeting. Does this teach me to do better next time, or that I can get away with regular last-minute rushes?

I suspect the latter.

Philosophy major? I couldn't hack it. Philosophy minor? Just right. The "partially-examined life" is still plenty rich.

This felt better than it should have.

Going to get the "bilingual bonus" yet

Convocation was more fun than I imagined it would be. I'm especially glad my kids prepped me to have fun with dress-up 🙂

Now it's Dr. Dad forever and always.

"No matter how hard I work, every year it seems more difficult to get by"

Agree: 64%
Neutral: 19%
Disagree: 15%

Innovative / Oct 27, 2025 / n=2500 / Online

Headline reads: Altman says ChatGPT will soon allow erotic for adult users.

You gently run your hand through the rack. You can feel it—pure cotton, rich wool, Irish linen. The plump buttonholes are handsewn; the buttons attached with a firm shank. You flip the price tag over. It's affordable

You buy the jacket and go home, which is only 15 mins away. Your apt is $600/month

Was my first CEW experience, but will not be my last. Thanks to the folks who let this chemist cosplay as a toxicologist the last few days ❤️

YouTube video by Lisab0923 Forever-Canadian.ca because the only independence Alberta should have…

We’re not there yet.

We still have 21 days to reach our 300,000 signatures. Please, take a moment and sign the petition. It’s up to you now.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6NW...

#ForeverCanadian

Too late, Batman. Once this Tylenol floods the city's water supply, my wiki won't run out of editors ever again

All *this* is a bit much.

Time for a comfort watch.

A donut tower with a sign that says "Finally Done", with a "p" and "h" in place of "F". There is also a steel bucket of punch labelled as "tailings samples".

Grateful for gracious, supportive friends ❤️

Evergreen

So, Silksong is good.

Very, very good.

Twitter had me addicted checking the feed. BlueSky has me feeling like Duolingo - I *should* check, but it feels like more work.

Why? Just me?

Data I've worked with don't show discernible impacts in water, but analytical biases in my methods *have consistently ignored volatile fractions*, but that was usually justified by previous toxicity identification evaluations. Are volatile acids still (relatively) benign airborne? I'm not sure 🤷‍♂️

I haven't finished chewing on it yet, but I find Figure 4(a) particularly fascinating. The authors find elevated C7H6O2 (a benzoic acid analogue) downwind of Suncor pond 2/3, but not downwind of Syncrude Mildred Lake operations. What is the atmospheric half-life of NAs? Are they depositing?

Oil Sands Facilities Are an Emission Source of Naphthenic Acid Fractional Compounds to the Atmosphere The oil sands (OS) region in Canada hosts one of the world’s largest unconventional crude oil deposits in the form of bitumen, which, when extracted, generates substantial tailings/wastewater that are...

This paper is *fascinating* to me. At my PhD defense 2 months ago, someone asked me if naphthenic acids are volatile, and I answered "probably not" for a bunch of reasons. I guess I need to eat my hat.

dx.doi.org/10.1021/acse...

Look around, the case for more, not less, liberal arts education remains stronger than ever.

The episodic character of cable broadcast also forced succinct step-wise concrete character developments to fit in those 20 min slots, while still leaving lots of room to "show, not tell." The live-action ATLA definitely falls towards "tell, not show." Exposition heavy.

Thanks to Doug Muench, Christine Martineau, Jason Ahad, @dwmcmartin.bsky.social, and John Headley, as well as our industry partner.

Longer story, atreatment wetland can (i) drop concentrations, (ii) make the mixture more polar, and (iii) drop average molecular weights of mixture classes. These are all consistent with decreasing toxicity in treated tailings. Other folks have related exciting tox data, but that's their story.

My last dissertation chapter is now out open-access.

An oil sands operator gave us access to a pilot-scale treatment wetland on their mine site, and we monitored naphthenic acid fraction compounds (NAFCs). Long-story short, the treatment strategy works pretty well.

dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.je...

Canada Is Top Preferred Oil Supplier for G7 Nations Ipsos poll reveals Canada's strong position among G7 allies, Middle East gains ground in G20 countries as U.S. drops across regions

www.ipsos.com/en-ca/canada...

It's wonderful that Canada holds a privileged position among our allies. There are good reasons for this. We only supply "ethical oil" as long as we commit to continuous improvement and learning for effective reclamation. Stewardship isn't free.

Thank you to @dwmcmartin.bsky.social & John Headley for your steadfast support throughout. I couldn't have asked for better supervision.

Proud to say I successfully defended my PhD thesis today.

A mixed-breed puppy at 6 months of age.

A mixed-breed puppy at 4 months of age

A mixed-breed puppy at 2 months of age

Update - he's gotten big. Probably 40 lbs by 6 months. But Pippin's a (mostly) good boy.

When did www.howcanishareit.com get nuked? It hasn't been usable for me for ~6 months at least, and it was a great resource.

"Wolf of Theseus" was genuinely amusing

Scientific Research Makes Life Better Even If You Don’t Understand It Basic science research can seem complex, frivolous, and meaningless, but it makes our daily lives better even we don't understand it all.

www.forbes.com/sites/marsha...