Category Archives: Humor

Gaussling’s 9th Epistle to the Bohemians. The Cardinal of Chemistry

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In the fabulous world of industry there are many, many job descriptions held by many, many people. The practical consequence of this is that there are a great number of channels in which the river of your career can flow. Opportunities come and go like eddies in the stream. We advance and sometimes retreat.  Our enthusiasms can reach flood stage or can reduce to a trickle in draught. Our intentions can be muddy or clear.

In the end, though, all rivers run into the sea. Careers can flow narrow and fast or broad and slow. But the unique social status and circle we enjoy in this stream of time is eventually lost into the brackish waters of retirement. 

For academicians and industrialists alike, a PhD buys a seat as a lower level dignitary- a prince. For the academic prince, with hard work and luck, one rises through rank and tenure to become a lord or cardinal living the courtly life of intellectual privilege under the glow of eternal admiration. A prince of academe has but to walk into a classroom to gather the attention and fear of post-pubescent underlings. Through midterms, they hang on your every word. You are golden, and every year brings a new crop of young admirers.

In industry, the fierce hydraulic pressure of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately constantly tips the crown from your head. An industrial prince or princess can be expected to labor in a more diverse variety of capacities. Negotiating raw material prices, feasting with customers, or building a corporate trebuchet. Ominously, an industrial prince may find him/herself in oversight of activities that might one day be filmed by helicopters from a safe distance up wind.

An industrial prince can find himself suddenly in full battle dress swinging an axe from a wounded horse. The Viking warlords of mergers and aquisitions will storm the palace with their corporate siege engines and announce a restructuring of the kingdom. Programs throughout the principality will be halted. Serfs will lay down their scythes in the field and let the barley rot where it stands. Lesser princes will be sacrificed to Odin and upper middle-age cardinals will be sent to the moors in the north to live in sanctuary with the Brothers of Eternal Consternation.

What remains will be a thinner core of chastened cubicle-courtiers huddling behind the organizational battlements. Survivors of the siege. One day the new archbishops and cardinals will arrive in their red silk vestments during the antiphon, bearing their strange implements and unfamiliar liturgy. Thus begins a new age.

Spandex- Chemistry’s Gift to Mankind.

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A trip to Las Vegas serves to remind one of the very important contribution that chemistry has made to the well being of mankind. I’m not talking about pharmaceuticals or some such pedestrian material. I refer to the marvel of Spandex/Lycra. This form fitting wonder fiber continues to serve our collective betterment. It makes me proud (*sniff*) to be in this field of chemistry where our labors can make such a difference. God Bless this Land, this America!

Mole Day in the USA

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Happy Mole Day greetings from Th’ Gaussling! I’m presently in Las Vegas to serve as Parade Marshal for the Mole Day Extravaganza on Las Vegas Blvd. I’ll be riding in the honorary parade marshals car behind the Radio City Rockettes and the MIT chemistry faculty as we make our way through the ticker tape and the cheering throngs. The parade starts at 6:02 this evening and will progress to the wee hours.

Lead Couture

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In case any of my dear colleagues in the blogosphere are in the market for a lead brasserie or heavy metal codpiece, there is one supplier of goods meant to protect those delicate regions from radiation. By way of style, I’d put the design in the 19th century Amish or Mormon settler category. But, that is beside the point.  This habillement de mode de plumbum [thanks BabelFish!] is meant to protect the more tender regions from ionization.

Geriatric Body Art

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The number of young adults walking around with piercings, tatoos, and those curious discs in their ear lobes continues to grow. Whereas tatoos were once popular only among cannibals and sailors, todays suburban tatoo fashionistas come from all walks of life and sport technicolor displays of fantasy art that make a point of in-your-face incongruence. And with much of it on locations where the wearer can’t view it themselves.

I can’t help but imagine rest homes of the future where geezers and codgers will dodder in their twilight years, festoons of ear hair sprouting over gaping holes in their pendulous ear lobes like Amazonian witch doctors. The urine scented hallways will be populated with crones and the occasional geezer sporting once provocative tats, now blurred with age, protruding from private locations and shared only with the floor nurse.

It seems to me that the tatoo money would be better spent on a round of antibiotics after a trip to Phuket. At least it would have been a genuine experience of life on the edge rather than just an illustration of one.

Astronomers Vote for Revised Unit of Humility

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28 July, 2008. Malibu, California.  The annual Astronomers League meeting ended Sunday with a vote to ratify a new definition of Humility that will be sent to SI, or Système Infernal, for a vote by the international body. The annual gathering of astronomers in Malibu is a week of splashing in the surf by day and bowling and darts by night.

In recent years there has been a dispute as to the actual definition of the Sagan, a unit of professional humility. Some astronomers had claimed that it is measured on a linear scale while others have insisted upon a base 10 logarithmic scale. 

A plenary meeting of delegates from around the world deliberated on this matter during the week and voted by a slim majority to define the scaling of the Sagan as logarithmic. Dr. Skip Thurne, Official Parliamentarian and Grand Nite Astronomer said “We feel it is appropriate to define this most important measure of professional respect and humility for the cosmos based upon an exponential measure. The unbounded wonders of the universe are so vast, and we humans are so infinitesmally small, that an exponential scale signifying our insignificance is most meaningful.”

Mathematicians Discover New Digit

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26 July, 2008. Sznorkl, Hungary. Officials at the Hungarian Institute of Advanced Enumeration revealed today that a new digit has been discovered. Director of the Institute Prof. Edvard Glomjardocz and expeditionary mathematician Stanislas Malu announced that the new digit would be named “számjegy” and would remain where it was found, between digits 7 and 8.  A Roman character representing the new digit has not been decided upon as of this date.

“The impact of this discovery is only just beginning to dawn on the science and mathematics community” Dr. Malu said. “Of course, many tools in our daily world will have to change. We’ll need to devise new keypads for cell phones, calculators, and computers. Rulers and speedometers for our automobiles will have to be modified as well” Malu said.  “We’re going to have to recalculate pi in base 11. This will keep us busy for a while,” he added with an impish grin. 

“Counting with our fingers will no longer work,” Malu cautioned, “but mathematicians have never liked that habit anyway.”

The news was not uniformly welcomed, however. Wolf Farkas, President of Bandwidth at Intel was troubled by the development. “As of this time we are not sure of what this means for our binary and hexadecimal logic operations. If we have to retool, this will get very expensive. Investors are going to take it in the shorts,” Farkas warned. “We’ll have to see how this plays out.”

Stock prices jumped at the news, however. Those with the most to gain from this discovery are manufacturers of tape measures, calculators , and computer keyboards. Both Wal-Mart and Home Depot stocks jumped 6 % in anticipation of upcoming rush to upgrade. Landfill operators and trash haulers expressed concern, though. Lars Erickson, Director of Plastic Waste at Rubbish Management Systems said “Somebody is going to have to pick all of those little calculators out of the trash.”

Scientists in Search of Disease for New Cure

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25 July, 2008. Drainsville, Ohio.  Scientists at the Institute for Chronic Insolence at The Ohio Philistine University published a landmark paper in the upcoming August 1, 2008 issue of Science. The paper reportedly reveals a series of drugs thought to be active against an as yet unknown condition.

Dr. Anandathujana McDivitt, research director of the Petulance and Peevishness Therapeutics Division and coauthor of the paper, explained to the press on Thursday that the new agents have many built-in features that should make them active against something. “These new drugs have as many as twelve pharmacophores each. For heavens sake, they should inhibit or activate something. Early indications suggest that chronic chafing may be treatable with the new medicines,” McDivitt stated. But she cautioned that they are looking for “more interesting diseases” to treat with their new medicine.

Dr. McDivitt said that collaboration with some of the major pharmaceutical houses has revitalized their interest in a treatment for petulance and peevishness.

Gas Coalification Plant to Open in 3Q2012

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22 July, 2008. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  Officials from Saudi Acidic Industries and Aniline de Rhone et Compagnie de Toasteur met in Riyadh for a signing ceremony marking the start of a new joint venture between the two companies. The new entity is to be called Groupe du Damné, or simply GD.

The new JV will be the first to commercialize gas coalification, or the conversion of LNG and syngas to coal. The technology package is under license from Sasshole PetroZoot Ltd., based in Johannesburg, South Africa. GD headquarters will be located in Lyon, France.

Development of a coalification miniplant unit for the capture of stranded gas on ocean platforms is under way. GD has also disclosed that a new asphaltene process using coalification-related technology is underway to meet the increasing demand for pot bottoms and tar.  GD Asphaltenes expects to have several licenses signed by 2Q2010.