Category Archives: Current Events

Note to Larry King

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Note:  The rest of you please go about your business. This is a private letter  to Larry King.

Hey old buddy,

I heard that you was getting ready for yer, what, eighth deevorce? Dude, you really need to think about puttin’ that horse out to pasture. I can understand one or two. Hell, I been deevorced myself. But eight? Sssshoot! It only takes two points to make a straight line. Ain’t it gettin’ a might pricey? Don’cha ever wanna retire from that damned station in Alanta?

Here is what ya do. Ya go into yer back yard and dig up some of that money ya got buried back there and ya git yerself a condo and a dog.  A fella like you prob’ly needs a mastiff or some other big dog. Whatever. The dog will love ya no matter who else you may be fooling around with that month. Catch my drift? Git my meanin’?

Okay then. ‘Nuff said.

Your pal,

Th’ Gaussling

Drill baby dr … what was the question?

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I keep seeing video footage of citizens who have been asked to comment on the recent plan to open up offshore oil exploration. President Obama and his crew have read the tea leaves and have concluded that, in addition to advancing alternative fuel technologies and markets, it would be useful to open up offshore drilling, at least a bit. Invariably the people who appear on air seem to concur that we need to find and tap the petroleum resources under the sea floor.

Rarely one hears an interviewee who will openly say that we should reduce petroleum consumption, or at the very least, its growth rate.

Here is my question. Why are we so anxious to tap all of our resources as soon as possible?  Isn’t oil in the ground a little like money in the bank? Oh, I forgot. We are not a savings culture.

Obviously, the new exploration emphasis is to support a decent growth rate in consumption. A high throughput of fossil carbon and energy is needed to sustain the profitability of certain large public corporations.

As I see it, the problem with public corporations is that they are run on behalf of what are essentially absentee landlords. The stockholders demand a good return on their investment or they’ll bail. Can’t blame someone for that. So, management runs the corporation in a way that affords maximum profit rather than maximum sustainability. As a result, in the same manner as absentee landlords, management drifts into the mindset that they can justifiably milk the resource to depletion for fast cash. If cash is king, fast cash is divine.

The market is very much like a stomach. It cannot plan. It only knows that its hungry or not hungry. It seems to me that an organ with a bit more wiring should be in charge of energy resources.

Schneier on Security

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Over at CNN.com there is an excellent post by the security expert Bruce Schneier. Finally, somebody has spoken what must be said. Schneier, by the way, was the one who invented the Blowfish encryption algorithm.

“Security theater” refers to security measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security. An example: the photo ID checks that have sprung up in office buildings. No one has ever explained why verifying that someone has a photo ID provides any actual security, but it looks like security to have a uniformed guard-for-hire looking at ID cards …

Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we’re doing the terrorists’ job for them. –Bruce Schneier

My take on Schneier’s thesis is that the public, i.e., the teeming masses, must not allow the many arms of government to further tighten its grip on our liberties. Liberties once taken are hard to recover. The combination of media sensationalism, advanced information gathering, and authoritarian reflex is driving the USA into a permanent security state. A mature and thinking public must buffer the exaggerations and sensationalism that is broadcast into our homes every minute of every day.

Counterterrorism is also hard, especially when we’re psychologically prone to muck it up. Since 9/11, we’ve embarked on strategies of defending specific targets against specific tactics, overreacting to every terrorist video, stoking fear, demonizing ethnic groups, and treating the terrorists as if they were legitimate military opponents who could actually destroy a country or a way of life — all of this plays into the hands of terrorists. –Bruce Schneier

By closely following the exploits of a handful of radicals as though they could bring down our civilization, we legitimize their efforts as being worthy of our sustained attention. These are low frequency high visibility events.  Unfortunately, lingering and repeated gawking at sensational events against a constant buzz of soaring narrative is what television does best.

PETN in his BVD’s

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History will record an underwear bomber and a shoe bomber. Luckily for the passengers of one transatlantic flight, the anonymous martyr on board was incompetent. Like the shoe bomber before him, this murderous buffoon failed to plan for a reliable means of triggering his bomb.

PETN, or pentaerythritoltetranitrate, was found to be the explosive agent used in the attempted inflight bombing of  Northwest Flight 253. This is a relatively common and powerful explosive in the category of aliphatic nitrate esters. It is a colorless powder that can be used in mixed and cast explosives or as the pure material. Like many detonable materials, it does not need to be placed in confinement to produce an explosion. PETN becomes unstable above 71 C, a fact that limits its suitability for some applications. My references do not clarify what is meant by unstable, but the material could be prone to chemical degradation above this temperature which would adversely affect its quality.

Other aliphatic nitrate esters include nitroglycerin, BTTN or 1,2,4-butanetriol trinitrate, EGDN or ethylene glycol dinitrate, and PETRIN, the trinitrate analog of PETN. A nitrate ester has a C-O-NO2 linkage and differs from aliphatic or aromatic nitro compounds which have C-NO2 linkages instead.

Nitrate esters are made from an alcohol or polyol and nitric acid. Nitro aromatics like TNT are made by acid catalyzed nitration of reasonably electron rich aromatic compounds like toluene or phenolics. The oxygen in the C-O-NO2 ester linkage confers some extra measure of instability to the molecule.

PETN is commonly used in Primacord, an explosive cord comprised of a PETN core inside a thin fabric or plastic sleeve. Primacord can be used as a blasting agent itself or it can be used as a fuse or delay line to trigger other explosives from a central point.

PETN is an explosive with a high brisance value. That is, it produces a shock that has a shattering effect on materials. In fact, brisance is quantified by the “sand test” which measures the production of fines from the shattering of 200 g of 30 mesh Ottawa sand. After the test, the sand is re-screened and the finer material that later passes through the screen is weighed. The greater the mass of fines, the greater the brisance.

Explosive         Sand Crush (g)   Heat of Explosion (cal/g) 
Black powder         8                                    684
Lead Azide            19                                  367
Comp C-4             55.7                            1590
TNT                      48                                1080
RDX                  60.2                        1280
Nitroglycerin         51.5                           1600
AN                               nil                                346
Picric Acid              48.5                           1000
PETN                         62.7                            1385
Source:  Cooper & Kurowski, Introduction to the Technology of Explosives, 1996, Wiley-VCH, p76-77. ISBN 0-471-18635-X

Pentolite is a composition prepared from a 50/50 blend of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and PETN with wax as a bonding agent and plasticizer. There are many blends of explosive materials. The composition is adjusted for the application.

The job of an explosive is to do PV work on objects. It does this by generating an abrupt pulse of heat and a large number of small gas molecules like N2 and CO2. The detonation velocity of PETN is ~ 8 km/s, so that a relatively small number of PETN molecules in a small volume are converted rapidly into a larger number of  gas phase molecules, all seeking to occupy the molar volume of 22.4 L/mol. 

The prompt generation of many moles of hot, small molecules results in the expansion of decomposition gases which forcefully press against the surroundings. The gases resulting from the 8 km/s detonation wave in the bulk solid explosive expand and compress the nearby air into a shock front that expands approximately spherically. As it does this the gases cool and the shock dissipates.

Explosive Power is a measure of an explosives ability to do work. Explosive power = Q x V,  Q = heat of explosion and V = volume of gas generated. The Power Index of a material is the ratio of explosive power to that of picric acid times 100 %. The power index of PETN is 167, TNT is 119, and RDX is 169.

CT scan abuses. Who is actually in charge of the use of X-rays?

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The latest news  about CT scan abuse and the subsequent excessive radiation exposure to the public is very disturbing. A recent issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine features 2 articles describing their findings in regard to the use and possible misuse of CT x-rays. There is no point in my regurgitating the details of the two articles. The reader can study the articles without my noisy input.

What I would like to point out is that this is a case of faulty administrative control over the exposure of patients to hazardous energy. Who is the gatekeeper for access to a CT scan-  the primary care doc or a consulting radiologist? If it is the primary care doc, is he/she up to speed on the exposure/dose details? Does the primary care doc know the dose and variability in radiation exposure for a given workup? Does the dose vary with the model of CT scanner? How much resolution is really necessary, anyway? Does half the dose give half the resolution, or is there some other law relating transmitted energy to resolution?

Maybe the gatekeeper should be the radiologist. The radiologist should be able to calculate a radiation dose and speak knowledgeably about the details of the risk. But should the radiologist be in a position to second guess the primary care doc? Does anybody provide feedback to the primary care doc as to the wisdom of a given CT scan? Doesn’t sound like that would work very well.

So, who is really the gatekeeper in regard to the merits of any given CT scan given to the patient? But more importantly, how the hell can it transpire that radiation exposures are far higher than anybody apparently realized??? Radiation technology and radiation biology are mature sciences now. And presumably, radiologists are trained to pay attention to these kinds of details.

Where the HELL were the radiologists when these instances of excessive exposure were accumulating?? Isn’t that why we train them … to provide expertise in the use of ionizing radiation in medicine??  Were they busy? Did they have something else to do besides monitoring the use of radiation on actual patients?

Could it be that people in the CT business are more captivated by the industrial light and magic of imagery and special effects rather than the grubby details of dosimetry?

Heads on a Stick

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As one of those poindexters who actually likes to watch Book TV on C-SPAN-2, I blundered into an interview of Naomi Prins. The host was Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Prins is presently a Senior Fellow at Demos and has had careers at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns.

Prins has a good deal of interesting insight into how securities are engineered from subprime loans and stamped with ratings. What stands out is how artificial securities are as an asset. It’s like putting a step ladder on a canoe. The view is good, but evenually you’re going to get wet.

Securities are synthesized from dung and straw, drenched in investment sauce, and then nestled in decorative tins by white gloved MBA castrati to afford a “product”. Naturally, banks and ratings agencies assure us that the rating on the security is meaningful. After all, who is more sober and conservative than a banker?

Perhaps investment banking as it is now practiced should be regarded as a pathological condition- a form of predatory, sociopathic behavior worthy of a psychiatric profile? Investment banking is a profession dedicated to the proposition that the mere repackaging and skimming of the wealth of others is the desired outcome. It is a bubble industry specializing in puffery and deception.

My libertarian friends assure me that the free market place is the most natural and efficient form of economic intercourse. Of course, the problem is that there isn’t a substantially free market anywhere. We have regulated markets because some people invariably game the system at the expense of others, resulting in a convulsive discharge of legislation.

One could take a Darwinistic view and say that the victims of investment shenanigans are to blame for being greedy and uninformed. There is truth in caveat emptor, but one of the reasons we have civilization is to buffer out the harshness of life. How do you protect the greedy and uninformed from the greedy and deceitful? It is the eternal problem.

The most despicable part of the 2008-9 financial collapse is the lack of accountability on the part of the skunks who invented and promulgated the unstable investment devices.  Their heads should be impaled on sticks and planted in the financial districts for all to see. Figuratively, I suppose.

Flight Profile of Cactus Flight 1549

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The YouTube video below is a reconstruction of the flight of US Airways Flight 1549, referred to as Cactus. It is interesting to note how the pilot acted to conserve his altitude by careful energy management. After the dual engine flameouts the pilots established an optimum glide to maximize flight time. They did not bank the aircraft anymore than they had to- banking without power consumes altitude. While one pilot was flying the airplane the other was consulting the manual for emergency restart of the engines. The captain evidently knew right away that the only option for maximum survivability was to set the plane in the river.

Near the end the pilots found themselves coming in a bit fast so they brought the nose of the aircraft up and porpoised ~250 ft or so before locking on 130 kts indicated for their glide to the surface. They were mindful of bringing the aircraft to the site of the accident as slowly as possible. KE = (1/2) mv^2. 

Note how he dips the tail in the water first while keeping the wings absolutely level. This brought the aircraft into the water along the longitudinal axis and thus averted a cartwheeling accident. The engines become powerful drag devices once they are in water.

The Passing of Irwin “Ike” Klundt

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I just received the sad news that my friend, boss, and mentor, Dr. Irwin “Ike” Klundt died in Tucson, AZ, of cancer. Ike retired in the early 1990’s as VP of Sigma-Aldrich. He was an organic chemist from eastern Washington state. He joined Alfred Bader in the 1960’s (?) and helped build Aldrich into what is is today. He started the Aldrichimica Acta and appeared in it many times in the capacity of awarding a prize to honor prominent chemists. Ike also managed the publication of the catalog and invented the Aldrich “Coffeepot” Kugelrohr.

I first met Ike when I taught for a year at Ft Lewis College in Durango, CO. He was an adjunct prof and I was a visiting prof. Ike was loved by all and was a useful hand to have around for the department.

Ike was a good hearted soul who enjoyed the company of others and actively worked to help younger chemists develop their careers. He loved the science and business of chemistry and the people who worked in this field of ours. Ike was forced out of Aldrich soon after Bader was given the boot as the once entrepreneurial company began to behave like a normal publicly traded company- you know, the ones that eat their young.

The chemical field is poorer for the loss of Ike Klundt. He was one of the human beings of the trade and he will be missed.

Republican swine riled over Obama Nobel Prize.

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It is embarrassing to watch Republicans lift the soggy, fetid moss they’re hiding under long enough to stage a mini pageant of mock righteous indignation on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. What a bunch of knuckle heads. They’re always angry about something. 

Is the Prize Committee trying to encourage the cause of peace? Sure they are. Is it premature? Yep, but it is done. Let’s take it and make it work for peace.  Somebody needs to try promote peace without the use of mechanized infantry or drones packing hellfire missiles or cluster bombs. Modern warfare is a form of pornography that gratifies the deepest and darkest of bloodlusts. We need to recalculate the guns vs butter equation.

2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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Congratulations to the international trio winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry-  Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz, and Ada E. Yonath. The three chemists won the prize for their fundamental work in characterizing the structure and detailed function of the ribosome.

I sat in on a talk at the Organic Symposium this summer where the speaker showed a bit of the work of Yonath.  The ribosome work is simply stunning in its detail and experimental prowess. Hackers like myself can only watch from a distance and admire the work.