Grr:

"The Crack Combo".... sounds like a combination that won't last long.

The American Heart Association just posted this and tbh, I LOLed.

I was at an event, and among the hors d'oeuvres were these little tiny fish and chips. 3 chips, a little piece of battered fish, and a dab of tartar sauce. So good!

A Magnolia framed by the entrance to the murder tunnel.

Something interesting today. We dissolved a compound in CDCl3. No dramatic colour changes, but it does not show up in the 1H spectrum. Only a couple of minor byproducts. In dissolving the same mixture in C6D6, it shows up clearly, along with the byproducts. I would expect the radical to be (1/n)

Ah yes, the ear-splitting 11:11 pm "Everything's OK" alarm.

The moon partially behind clouds:

I spent about an hour looking for my glasses, to find them in my laundry basket. Yikes.

Given the weather, I had not expected to see the moon. It's really striking! And the perfect angle for me to notice it from where I sit on my sofa!

2 modest proposals that would make my life much easier in ChemDraw: 1) The ability to turn off "interpret chemically" and "display warnings" globally. 2) If you turn off "interpret chemically" for an atom, it automatically turns off "display warnings".

Well, that sounded ominous, a boom and my lights dipped off then back on!

Not so fun afternoon of cleaning my glovebox, as a bottle of a thiophene compound decided to vigorously polymerize. But at least it looks nice and shiny now!

Given the dramatic increase in pigeon activity in my neighbourhood, I resorted to buying this. Do you think they will be stupid enough to fall for it? I have my doubts.

Found this in old correspondence. Who remembers the Star Trek Cards in the bags of chips? I got all of them! Fun memory, I used to go to the local park to look for discarded Star Trek cards, because most chip-eaters did not care about them, and people who didn't care about Star Trek were litterers.

TIL the fleet maintenance facility on Canada's West Coast is called "Cape Breton", and the one on the East Coast is called "Cape Scott". Honestly had an "AI, you're drunk" moment when it came up in some of my searching.

Those are bright reactions! In my experience bright usually means bad, but still cool to look at!

Looks like somebody was studying for my exam. They have neater boardwork than me!

Revisiting some fun childhood TV memories, randomly rediscovered the Ray Bradbury Theatre:

Man Who Threw Molotov Cocktail At Sam Altman’s Home Claims He Was Following ChatGPT Recipe For Risotto https://theonion.com/man-who-threw-molotov-cocktail-at-sam-altmans-home-claims-he-was-following-chatgpt-recipe-for-risotto/

My hopes for a neat word wilted:

Zapping something with a lot of photons!

It took me an embarrassingly long time to get "Absorber of UV light" on the NYT crossword.

Now I'm sitting in my office all teary-eyed. Watching the distance record for the moon mission!

I've seen a few comments on Jeremy Hansen being a rookie astronaut, and how unusual that is for a flight to the moon. In fact, as a Apollo history buff, that was not unusual. Of all the Apollo missions, 10 and 11 were the only ones where the entire crew had flown in space before. (1/2)

My office Hoya has 14 umbels that are flowering or about to flower! That might be a new record for me!

Grr:

Very cool. I did not catch this was a night side image, but should have by the fact the stars are visible ;) Very different photographic technologies and sensitivity compared to the Apollo missions!

I'd estimate I write over 1000 words every day, between e-mail, social media, other work, and my writing for fun. I love writing, so one thing I've been very resistant to doing is ever using an AI writing tool.

The Artemis astronauts are already further from the Earth than anyone has been in my lifetime! As an Apollo buff, so cool to listen to them.

Sweet, first time I've had a paper pass 100 citations!

Spotted while reading a review.

I'm losing my mind: received an e-mail regarding some course stuff for booking final exam, acted on it, and now the e-mail has disappeared, and I can't find it anywhere (ie not in trash, archive, etc). Are disappearing e-mails a thing? Did I imagine the e-mail?

Here's a day that sticks with me. It was a sweltering, miserably hot day in the lab. Also the first e.r. > 90:10 we ever saw from DAP chemistry. I was sitting watching the peaks come off. The minor enantiomer elutes first, and when I saw the second peak go up and up was a very good moment!

Dreaming of trains... here's a shot from northern New Brunswick when I took the Via 14 last summer!

I read in the evenings to relax. Feel like a re-read, but not sure what to tackle? His Dark Materials I-Robot short stories the Algebraist Three Body Lord Valentine's Castle Something else? I recently re-read Asimov's Robot books, Octavia Butler's Parable books, and Swiss Family Robinson.

Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone

A bit moodier colours than some of my recent photochemical reactions:

Whether you pronounce it as ligand, or ligand, Spelling bee is just full of indignities today:

As a Maritimer, I am offended. (I did get the very obvious -to me at least- pangram first).

Did not know St. Patrick's day was fireworks-worthy in Halifax?

"No, we're not confused or lost, campus really is this wet!"

Debating on the wisdom of starting on a total synthesis.

I would have been very ashamed if I did not get one of the spelling bee panagrams today.

Me: "Wow, my foot hurts" Also me: "Hey, I've walked 3000 km in this pair of shoes!"

This is not a green LED! Experiments in using a laser dye in one of my catalytic systems.

"Your files are synced".... Pauses syncing, then resumes "haha, just kidding, actually nothing's been syncing all day, and last night"

Hey, at least the Dow is above 50,000 right?

Loss of $3.7M scholarship program will put a 'massive strain' on Nova Scotia graduate students, says former recipient www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/...

Somehow it's been exactly 20 years since I went on my one and only visiting weekend to grad school.