Category Archives: CounterCurrent

Memo to Jeb Bush

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Hello Mr. Bush. We hear that you are considering a run for the US Senate. We do not know each other and it is unlikely that our paths will cross.  But if you do indeed win a seat in the Senate, then you will be in my life, though somewhat indirectly. You seem like a nice fellow. Let me offer a few thoughts.

Consider that the entire GOP franchise has been badly damaged by your brother, his handlers, and by groups who have perverted the meaning of conservatism. Your brother and his people have presided over the creation of entirely new species of corruption, incompetence, and forms of malfeasance that will take a decade to untangle.

A large fraction of citizens are angry over Bush II arrogance and its willful disregard of good civics. Americans want to move past the Bush epoch: A Bush III period is not welcome.

That being said, it seems that redemption of the family name may lie squarely on your shoulders. Please consider that the direction of this redemption may not be in Washington. It may be elsewhere and may take the form of more humble activity.

Sincerely yours,

Th’ Gaussling

The Beano Chronicles

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Being a scientist, I am interested in natural phenomena. And, being a gastronaut,  I am naturally keen to explore the distant reaches of the food universe.  Generally my voyages into multidimensional food space are uneventful. But now and then I encounter foodstuffs that push back. Food that does pressure-volume (PV) work on the internals.

Some foods are capable of generating many moles of gas phase product that is appreciably insoluble in the digestive fluids. The result is an inflation of the gastric spaces and prompt notice to the brain of distress.

Fortunately the good folks at Beano have a commercially available product that in my hands or … ahem … elsewhere … makes a dramatic difference in the discomfort level associated with certain legumes. The secret of this wonder of science is alpha galactosidase. When taken before the first bite of PV generating foods, it causes a drastic reduction in the inflation of the large intestine. This enzyme aids in the hydrolysis of troublesome saccharides that are otherwise left to travel from the small to the large intestine where the gut flora go to town.

All the legume eater has to do is to chew 2 or 3 Beano tablets right before the first spoonfull of chili or pintos. In my half dozen live fire beano tests and one frightening control experiment, I have to say that I am a believer. I am grateful and my family is even more grateful.

Science for the betterment of mankind. Ya gotta love it.

The Chemical Entrepreneur. Part 2.5.

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There are as many ways of starting a chemical business as there are people starting them. Entrepreneurs range in profile from smooth talking slicksters to sober, ROI-calculating engineers. Entrepreneurs can also be rather unruly folk. It is not automatically true that business founders are inherently talented at designing and running orgainzations. In fact, they are frequently poor at it.  But, successful founders are usually highly focused and are able to attract resources.

A common motivation for starting a business is that the founder is possessed with existential certainty that he/she can operate a business venture better than, say, a former boss or rival. A business founder may be a free spirit, refractory to sensible advice, or may be a solemn Harvard MBA operating by the book. It is not uncommon for a founder to have had several previous failed ventures prior to a successful one.

And make no mistake, the sense of power that a founder feels in the execution of a business plan can be as addictive as heroin or crack. Once a person has had the experience of successfully gathering resources and then allocating them to leverage progress to a goal, they are forever changed. Whether or not they continue the role of managing funds or personnel, their eyes have been opened to the real meaning of power.

Power is the ability to allocate resources.

No matter what kind of chemical business one wishes to start, it is crucial to understand that it will require the accumulation of some kind of resource that you can apply to a problem. That resource can range from your technical reputation, 30 days net of commercial credit, VC monies, or a chemical processing plant. It is all a form of leverage toward the greater goal converting streams of goods and services into streams of cash.

Try to get cash flowing from sales as early as possible. Choosing a Market-Pull activity is the best way to do this.

A chemist starting up a business is able to choose several kinds of general business activities.  If you want to be a consultant, you must determine the boundaries of your knowledge and then find demand for that expertise.  If you are truly an expert in a field, then more likely than not you know who might buy your services.

If you choose a Technology-Push approach, try to target customers who are willing to be early adopters.

A chemist may be well situated to start an operation offering analytical services. In that case, the enterprising analyst needs to know about underserved demand out in the marketplace. You need to offer a service that prompts people to send a purchase order to you.

If your startup is a one-act pony, it is critical that the pony actually be able to jump through the flaming hoop as advertised. Try to avoid one-act pony business plans.  Find Market-Pull products to pay the bills while your Technology-Push products are under development.

A chemist is in a great position to get into formulations.  While this might not be strictly a “chemistry’ activity, the walking-around-knowledge of chemicals that a chemist might have probably well exceeds the basic chemistry knowledge of many “experts” in the formulations business. However, a chemists general knowledge may not be applicable for direct application to formulations. A formulator must accumulate specialized knowledge and analytical methods for the materials they handle, including things like rheology, cloud and pour points, fungal contamination, and miscibilities. The level of infrastructure for doing formulations can be dramatically less stringent than chemicals manufacturing as well, requiring less startup capital. That said, formulations may be in demand at the large scale. Puttering around at only the less-than-drum scale may have no future.  Again, to be a formulator you need to know what is in demand.

Remember-Sometimes it is dumb to be too smart about things. Be customer oriented. Be honest about strengths and weaknesses.  Learn the difference between smart and cagey. Dick was a cagey businessman. Don’t be a Dick.

Fine chemicals manufacture has many success stories.  Alfred Bader started his Aldrich empire making what we now call Diazald. Bader was extremely customer service oriented and I believe this was the key to his success. He visited laboratories and asked workers what they needed. If the request was reasonable, he would put the material in the catalog collection. If the chemist-entrepreneur desires to start a catalog fine chemical company to sell reagent chemicals and widgets, then I would advise making a study of that business arena.

An understanding of the regulatory compliance world is critical as well, especially relating to the Toxic Substances Control Act, TSCA. A company may have to start out as being a provider of ‘R&D Only’ products. To freely sell commercial quantities of specialty and fine chemicals, a substance must be on the EPA’s public or confidential lists. If not, then permission must be granted by EPA. This will require a special filing which discloses its manufacturing and/or use process, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), fugitive dust and corresponding controls on exposures to workers and the environment, vapor releases and method of control, a disclosure of how much of the New Chemical Substance (NCS) gets into the environment, any and all available toxicity data, a Safety Data Sheet, physicochemical data, waste NCS disposal, batch size and yearly production. For less than or equal to 10,000 kg per year a Low Volume Exemption (LVE) can be filed. This is an abbreviated version of a Pre-Manufacturing Notification (PMN) filing which will be examined in greater detail and will take much longer for EPA to complete. EPA has the right to require the submitter to collect certain kinds of toxicological data at the submitters expense. These tests are standardized and are performed by certified labs.

Most advisors to entrepreneurs will say that the prospective businessperson is well advised to put down a written plan. This is important on many levels. The act of writing a business plan is useful to the entrepreneur in several ways.  It causes the writer to focus his/her ideas and energy as well as to clarify the goal and how to track towards it. A well written business plan is critical if you need to attract funds to get the operation started. Investors and bankers need a document to study and to bring before others for analysis and buy-in. Just gotta have it.

Starting a drug company is going to be quite difficult for a few isolated chemists to do. It is a complex and insanely expensive and risky business that requires a wide diversity of players to be on board and committed. Somewhere you have to get an MD or MD/PhD, finance people, former pharma executives, regulatory affairs peoples, etc., on the board to add gravitas to your plan. A whole circus of expensive prima donnas. Sounds like a nightmare to me.

Slippery Slope for India

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Beyond the horrific reality of the dead and injured in Mumbai from last weeks terrorist attack is the uncertainty of ramped up state tensions between nuclear India and nuclear Pakistan. Pakistani’s weary of home grown terrorists and foreign instigators can sympathize with the fear and revulsion felt by Indians who are stunned by the event. But citizens of Pakistan are indignant about accusations of state involvement in the attack.

Given the weakened condition of the government in Pakistan and the sensitivity from chronic conflict with India, it is hard to draft a rationale describing what benefit the government of Pakistan might have in such dirty dealings.

We must trust that India can take a lesson from US experience with the attack-retribution reflex and find a way to prosecute those who planned this savage crime through police work rather than invasion across borders.

Link-O-Rama

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Interested in building an astronomical observatory in your hometown? Have a look at Observatory 101.  No pictures, but because I know the parties in the article, I can certify that there are excellent bits of advice for those keen on building a community observatory. Remember, square buildings are easier to construct than round buildings. It’s a rectilinear world.

What does it take to be in the upper few percentile in life? No, really. What does it take? See what Malcom Gladwell thinks about it. Plan to set aside 10,000 hours.

Tired of people incessantly humping your leg wanting this or that? Check out this USB accessory. If this is too much for your puritanical sensibilities, try the USB aroma therapy gadget and chill out. Check out ThinkGeek. Lots of cool stuff.

Are you torqued about the Lieberman situation? I know I am. So yell at somebody about it.

Quit whinin’ about yer pathetic cell phone coverage and get ta buildin’ yerself sumkinda antenna to boost the gal’ durn signal.

Blanchard sells gold coinage for those flush with cash.  Load up on Krugerrands.

Need the straight dope on radioisotopes? Check out the list of monograph at the link.

Self-Regulating Nuclear Power Reactor

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Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) company has announced the commercial development of their Hyperion Power Module.  While there are numerous reports on the internet, it is more useful for curious and tech savvy folk to read the patent application (US 20040062340) for a detailed description of the device. While the idea has been knocking around for 50 years, it took the inventor, Dr. Otis G. Peterson, to work out the control issues for a safe, self regulating system.

The reactor uses the hydride of a fissile actinide like U-235 (as UH3 powder) at ~5% enrichment in U-238 to serve as a self-moderating nuclear pile. The marvels of chemistry, namely chemical equilibrium, play a large role here because the hydrogen content (as hydride) varies as a function of temperature. An increase in temperature of the UH3 leads to loss of hydrogen from the U to another hydrogen storing metal. Loss of hydrogen moderator leads to loss of reactivity and a downturn in heat generation. But the downturn in heat generation favors the return of hydrogen (as H2) to the uranium to make hydride. This causes the reactivity of the system to increase, so the rate of fission and heat generation rises as a result.

The system eventually reaches a steady state temperature where the rates of hydrogen gain and loss from uranium become equal and the rate of heat evolution reaches a steady output.

According to Table 1 of the appln, at 5 MW thermal the U-235 critical mass is 30 kg and at 50 MW thermal it is 215 kg. The table also discloses that at a loading of 30 kg U-235 the energy content is 78 MW years and at a loading of 215 kg U-235 the energy content is 540 MW years.

Of course, this is a patent and not a peer reviewed publication. But it was developed at Los Alamos so one would suppose it should have some credibility. The patent suggests that the reactor would be buried underground while in service. It is unclear if that is for shielding or security, or both.

Pre-Crime Division

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Good lord. The erosion of liberty continues to accelerate. Consider the case of Chambers v. United States.  SCOTUS is weighing in on the case of a defendant who failed to appear for confinement and was subsequently charged with committing a “violent” crime under the Armed Career Criminal Act.  The justices listened to arguments as to whether the act of failure to appear for confinement is an aggressive or a passive act and whether it should contribute to a felony escape charge.

“Deondery Chambers, who pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, had prior convictions for drug distribution and for robbery and battery. He challenged whether his conviction under an Illinois escape law for failure to report for confinement was a violent felony that supplied the third predicate conviction for enhancement of his sentence under the ACCA.” [Laurel Newby, Law.com]

The attorney for the defendant asserted that failure to appear does not constitute a violent crime. However-

“Assistant to the Solicitor General Matthew D. Roberts argued, however, that failure to report carries the risk of violent confrontation between the defendant and police officers who may come to bring the defendant into custody. He compared it to burglary — an enumerated offense under the ACCA — calling it ‘purposeful, violent, and aggressive in the same way as burglary.'” [Laurel Newby, Law.com]

To his credit, Justice Scalia commented in a very reasonable manner-

“Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out that Chambers was serving his sentence only on the weekends. “[I]t’s not common sense that the person who has been guilty of a crime so gentlemanly that they only made him report to prison on the weekends would confront the policeman with violence when he comes.”

“This guy doesn’t sound to me like Jack the Ripper. He really doesn’t,” Scalia said. [Laurel Newby, Law.com]

Obviously the defendant is not a choir boy. He must serve his sentence and suffer some consequence for failure to appear. 

“Statistics show that the number of robberies increases during the holiday season,” Chief Justice Roberts pointed out. The audience in the courtroom laughed.

“There is no indication, Mr. Chief Justice, that any further robberies were committed [by Chambers] during that period,” Hochman said.

“Well, there is no indication he meant to spend time with his family over the holidays,” the chief justice retorted.” [Laurel Newby, Law.com]

What makes the situation so disturbing is the glee with which an aggressive organ of the state exhibits in asserting that a passive violation can be equated to a jail escape and can thus carry the threat of a felony conviction. Most disturbing is the comment by the Assistant to the Solicitor- “failure to report carries the risk of violent confrontation between the defendant and police officers who may come to bring the defendant into custody“.

What!!?? Because there may be future risk to a police officer, the defendant should be charged with a felony? Excuse me?? This sounds like the movie Minority Report.

There should be a consequence for Chambers inaction, but the assertion that it was a type of violent act is wildly out of line and sets a terrible precedent for civil liberties.

Mass Media and the Monoform

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Some essays by Peter Watkins caught my eye recently. In particular, the essay about what Watkins refers to as the Monoform is especially well written and worth reading-

“The MONOFORM is the internal language-form (editing, narrative structure, etc.) used by TV and the commercial cinema to present their messages. It is the densely packed and rapidly edited barrage of images and sounds, the ‘seamless’ yet fragmented modular structure which we all know so well. This language-form appeared early on in the cinema, with the work of pioneers such as D.W.Griffith, and others who developed techniques of rapid editing, montage, parallel action, cutting between long shots/close shots, etc. Now it also includes dense layers of music, voice and sound effects, abrupt cutting for shock effect, emotion-arousing music saturating every scene, rhythmic dialogue patterns, and endlessly moving cameras.”

Watkins builds a case for the notion that what people see and hear in the media is the result of a type of editing philosophy that has become common over much of the world. In large part because of the precociousness of American media. What we see and hear is always a type of presentation put on by people who want to emphasize particular aspects of events in a manner that satisfies their need to supply a stimulating stream of imagery.

I think most of us have always understood that the mass audio visual media (MAVM) have always had a show business flair, but that the persuasiveness of editing was always secondary to content. Watkins suggests that editing is what primarily influences viewers in terms of the sequence and stimulus provided by well chosen cuts. It is an interesting viewpoint and one worth considering.

X-Ray Emission from Office Supplies

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The recent (re-)discovery of x-ray emission from unwinding scotch tape under vacuum makes me wonder how this phenomenon might be used. It would be interesting to see the emission spectrum. No doubt the physics boys at UCLA are pumpin’ out patents like pellets out of the back end of a rabbit.

The researchers report that duct tape does not provide the same effect as 3M Scotch tape. From the International Herald Tribune–

The tape phenomenon could also lead to simple medical devices using bursts of electrons to destroy tumors. The scientists are looking to patent their ideas.

And finally, there’s the possibility of nuclear fusion. If the energy from the breaking adhesive could be directed away from the electrons to heavy hydrogen ions implanted in modified tape, the ions would accelerate fast enough so that when they collided, they could fuse together and give off energy — the same process that lights the sun.

Good God. We’re extrapolating this finding into solutions for the energy crisis and cancer already!

The UCLA folks say that the Russians reported x-ray emission from tape in 1953, but nobody believed them. Could be a novelty-buster.  Hmmm. I wonder if my Post-It notes will emit x-rays in vacuo too?

I’ll wager that at this very moment, a group of industrious Poindexters at two or three national weapons labs are trying to weaponize triboelectric x-rays. Project BIG STICKY.

Here is a “Novelty Buster” for the public domain– What would high Z additives in the tape composition do to the x-ray output? Seems to me that the heaviest atom naturally in Scotch tape would be silicon in the release backing layer. What if they grafted some heavy metal bearing monomers (metal chelates with a vinyl or other monomer moiety) into the composition somewhere? Would that affect the output spectrum?

The Bush II Surge. What does that remind you of?

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Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Bush II’s celebrated military surge in Iraq roughly approximate the higher troop strength recommended by General Eric Shinseki in the first place? Doesn’t this lead in the direction of validating his assertions about troop strength? It seems to me that the merit of greater troop strength was evident several thousand years ago to a great many iron-age war lords.

I have heard little or no discussion of this point by the main stream show ponies yammering on the tube.