Blue State Phase Shift

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Wow. Colorado became a blue state overnight. I wasn’t sure I’d live to see it. There is a big brooder nest of archconservatives in Colorado Springs as well as numerous Christian fundamentalist conservative organizations. The Springs has become a center of fear and loathing for frightened uberconservatives.  For a time they dominated the state government. Pity about the Springs. It is such a lovely place.

Boulder is famous within Colorado for being the states liberal, iconoclastic, and bohemian center. I’d say that characterization was true at one time. It was hit hard by the hippy movement in the 1960’s and in some ways never recovered. Today the town has become so ossified with wealthy and obstreperous gentry that the city has become one large home owners association of preening fussbudgets. The town has immobilized itself with municipal code to the point where only the very wealthy can build anything. Aspenization, some call it.

Jeepers. I remember when the Danskins movement hit Boulder. Those were the days.  Boulder fancies itself a laid-back, liberal Mecca, much like the Bay Area of CA, but in fact there is as much neurotic handwringing there as anywhere else.

So Colorado has a kind of dipolar condition wherein a political phase shift happens every generation or so. We have just witnessed a rebuke of Bush-Cheney conservatism and a switch to the blue phase.

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.

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.

Thermite Sparking

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Until recently I was blissfully unaware of the possibility of something called Thermite Sparking. It is a variety of the classic Thermite reaction, only it can happen inadvertently in the workplace by mechanical friction.

Thermite sparking is a circumstance wherein an aluminum part smartly strikes an oxidized iron component generating a momentary and highly localized spot of very hot metal. Normally, the thermite reaction is limited to the small mass of material in the impact zone and does not progress further.

What is useful to know is that aluminum and iron together constitute a sparking pair of materials and could serve as an ignition source for flammable liquids and vapor in the area. An aluminum cart or component could suffer an impact while in motion and provide an ignition source for a fire.

Sunday Link-O-Rama

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Wallstats.com has an excellent graphic display of the 2009 US federal budget. It is worth a look. The graphic also displays the variances for the 2009 fiscal year. It is useful for finding out what was padded and what was shaved.

What in the hell is going on at Blacklight Power? How does this stuff work? Does it actually work?

Jim Kunstler is not persuaded that the economic crisis has bottomed out. Bob Reich suggests that if they’re too big to fail, then they are just too big. Alan Greenspan found a flaw.

Aye laddie, the pipes. Here is a link to a mass bagpiping in Estes Park in 2006. Th’ Gaussling was actually in attendance that day: I’m the guy in the green shirt across the field. 700 Bagpipers in Calgary.  Red Hot Chili Pipers. Edinburgh Military Tatoo.

Then there is Everlasting Blort.  What else can I say?

Atomic Testing Museum

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Th’ Gaussling took a quick trip to the Atomic Testing Museum this week. It is located on Flamingo Rd a few blocks east of the Las Vegas strip. Before entering I was dubious, wrongly thinking that it would be a thin gruel of well worn nuke photos and a few trinkets. I was wrong.

The museum is meant to chronicle the activity of the Nevada Test Site just a few miles to the north. There are numerous video units showing various shots.

They have a substantial collection of diverse equipment used in nuclear weapons testing as well as models of a few actual nuclear weapons, notably the Davy Crockett miniature nuclear bomb. There is very little in the way of bomb design detail, but there is considerable detail in regard to radiation sampling from the burst, drilling equipment, dosimeters, GM counters, a mushroom-cloud sampling rocket, slide rules, nuclear rocket motors, down-hole test rigs, etc.

The museum has a modest theater with special sound and wind effects to simulate being in close proximity of a test shot. They do a decent job. If the wind was hot, though, it would be more realistic. But in general, the application of museum science is well done.

If you are in the Las Vegas area, I would recommend a visit. The nuclear legacy is a part of our national history.  The Nuclear Genie is out of the bottle, but the people who write policies and devise programs need pushback from an educated populace in regard to the stewardship of the nuclear inventory and its expanded use.

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!