exchemist

Today I was the “cantor” at Sunday mass for the Ave Regina Caelorum…..and learned we can call on a new guest soprano to help out from time to time, a pretty young woman by the name of Liberty, with a lovely (and clearly trained) voice. I had no idea this could be a girl’s name. I rather like it - and her - I must say.

6 minutes ago, KJW said:

But that's the whole point. Trump needs to shift everything over which he doesn't have control to where he does have control, by any means possible, even if it means resorting to sophistry (such as likening drug trafficking to an armed attack on the US).

But does that allow Trump to wrest Constitutional control of voting away from the states?

Trump has already said he wants Republicans to take over the voting in 15 places. Presumably that means swing states. On the other hand, with the recent strong swings against the Republicans, the swing states may not be enough, and Trump probably knows that.

What can the states do if the Supreme Court decides the judiciary doesn't have the authority to decide on matters of foreign relations?

Surely a proven instance of foreign interference helps Trump make his case, regardless of the particular details. And if it doesn't, then foreign interference can be manufactured.

What good is delaying the midterms? Trump needs a resounding Republican victory. And he needs that victory to have the appearance of legitimacy.

I share your fears.

I am no longer confident the Supreme Court (or should that be Chicken?) is effective any longer. They have been due for weeks now to issue their judgement on whether or not Trump's tariffs are constitutional. I think they know damned well they are not, but are afraid to issue the judgement because of the damage that would do to Trump and his administration, both internationally and domestically (unwinding illegal tariffs would involve compensating the affected importers).

In any case, the enforcing of court orders requires in the last resort the use of the US Marshals........which is an agency reporting to a certain Pam Bondi. So good luck with that, if and when a showdown with the courts arises.

It also looks as if the role of ICE is gradually being expanded beyond its original remit of rounding up illegal immigrants. I note in particular the alarming presence of ICE to provide protection to Vance during his attendance at the Winter Olympics, in Italy. WTF? They seem to be morphing into a new arm of state security, outside the systems, controls - and training - of the normal security services and answerable to no one. They have already established a reputation for killing citizens with impunity. So the fear factor is being ramped up. What next? Brown shirts and diagonal leather straps across the chests?

7 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I am a fan of raising weights for potential energy. There are no storage losses and requires less space than water. Just wish I could find how it compares to other storage methods for energy loss during reuse.

I have never understood how this can work at scale. It seems to me the mass of such weights cannot remotely compare with the mass of water that can be given extra gravitational potential energy by a couple of reversible pump/turbines in the space of a few hours.

I think, though, I would expect the losses to be lower than with pumped storage, as there won't be losses to turbulence and "slippage" through the turbine. It will be just a matter of the efficiency of the electric motor/generator running in forward and reverse directions, which you also have in a pumped storage setup.

5 hours ago, TheVat said:

To my regret, I saw it on tv, early seventies. I recall they would show huge boulders hurtling over people and it became obvious it was the same boulders i.e. they just used the same clip over and over.

1960s special effects were pretty primitive.

18 minutes ago, studiot said:

Yes that is what I wanted to discuss.

Computer programs are very good at pattern recognition, when asked for a particular configuration to search for.

So for instance they are good for fingrrprints, Xray defects etc.

Indeed. I don't know how diagnostic AI works but I imagine it may look for patterns in the data: X-ray pictures, blood analyses, physical examinations and so forth, and then provide the doctor with an assessment of probabilities of different conditions, or something like that.

In this sad case, I imagine the doctor would then have had to make a decision to dismiss cancer from the list of possible conditions presented to him or her in black and white. This would be psychologically hard to do - and to justify in retrospect - if the AI came up with a probability of, say, over 20% for cancer. So maybe it might have prompted an intervention.

7 minutes ago, studiot said:

Would AI be any better (more likely) to pick this diagnosis error up considering how rare (less likely) the cancer condition was, since AIs are normally programmed to yield the most likely answer ?

Case in point

BBC News

Hmm, I think this may be misunderstanding how diagnostic AI works. These are, to my understanding, not LLMs.

10 minutes ago, Linkey said:

https://www.politico.eu/article/friedrich-merz-is-right-to-reject-germanys-nuclear-phase-out-says-iea-chief-fatih-birol/

For me, this was rather not mistake but a crime: the closure of atomic stations has lead to an increase of oil consumption and buying the oil in Germany, and in fact this means that Germany is now funding the Putin's war in Ukraine (exchange with Saudi Arabia). And it is very possible that the decision to close the stations was payed by the Putin's lobby (as an example, Gerhard Schröder has been working in Russia for a long time).

Clean Energy Wire

Merkel took that decision in 2011, in the wake of the Fukushima accident and long before Putin's invasion of Crimea. At the time, Germany had not yet given up Russia becoming a civilised trading partner. It is true that, even at the time, many other countries thought it a misguided over-reaction, given the climate change imperative (not to mention the absence of earthquake risk in Germany!).

But there is no evidence of any "payment" to make this decision, so far as I am aware. This looks to me like just more of your (very Russian, trollish) obsession with conspiracies.

38 minutes ago, toucana said:

Known as a "Fifths Tuning" because you are tuned in perfect fifths from the bass string upwards. Some tenor banjo players recommend using C.G.D.A instead - they say the fingerings flow slightly more naturally if you are playing fiddle tunes.

Presumably because GDAE is how a violin is tuned, I seem to recall from when one of my brothers used to play.

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

I didn't know that was the painting which inspired the famous novel by Bulwer-Lytton. So that's a "TIL," for me. I remember reading a story about it in the library when I was young, and then later Robert Harris's fine 2003 novel which got into the volcanology quite a bit for a novel. It was Harris who really impressed upon me the horror of a pyroclastic flow.

Yep, it was quite the turkey. And there was something so dull about it that it couldn't ever be one of those campy party movies.

Oh so you actually went to see it? We didn't. We just laughed at the posters for it on the Underground, on our way to and from school.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Added to my list, too. I was also introduced to famous eruptions in late sixties, partly by a cheesy US movie about Krakatoa (which Americans my age may recall had a humorous geographical error), and also a story about Pompeii. I remember my 12 year old mind being blown that people over 2000 miles away in Alice Springs could hear the explosion of Krakatoa.

Haha I remember that one: "Krakatoa, East of Java". 🤪

I was at school at the time and we laughed at the idiocy.

15 minutes ago, Genady said:

The story of that convict, with a bit more details (he was jailed again later) is mentioned in the Krakatoa book.

Ludger Sylbaris - Wikipedia

That’s interesting. Seems the story of him being on death row is untrue. Also I was wrong about the number who died: 30,000 not 20, 000. Lacroix, who was among the first on the scene, took dramatic pictures of the aftermath which Holmes reproduced in the book, including the sinister “spine”, turdlike, of almost solid lava, which was extruded up to a height of I think ~ 100m afterwards, though it soon crumbled. It even glowed in the dark, creepily, for a bit, I think. You can visit Sylbaris’s cell among the ruins.

I found Martinique, being part of France, orderly and good to visit. I tried my first ti’ punch there - something I often make at home now in the summer. Needs rhum agricole, which I buy in France - Bacardi no good at all for it. We also tried sugar cane juice, on the beach. Very good and with far more flavour than I was expecting. (But you will know all this, being in the Caribbean yourself.🙂)

1 minute ago, studiot said:

I have two copies of Holmes classic.

The first written I think written prewar which does not mention plate tectonics (though it did speculatte about continental drift) but it has so much useful information that is still correct that I keep it

The second from the late 60s when Holmes had becme a convert and rewritten many things, including adding early tectoniic material.

A really good modern book by Clive Oppenheimer from Cambridge University Press provides probably the most comprehensive history of eruptions on Earth.

Holmes also contained a dramatic account of the 1902 eruption of la montagne Pelée which destroyed st. Pierre in Martinique, which made a great impression on me. At that time, the term he used for what we now call a pyroclastic flow was une nuée ardente. I think it may have originated with that eruption.

Some years ago I climbed the mountain with my wife and son, as far as the 1st crater rim. Bizarrely, she was rung up by her uncle in Paris, just as we reached the ridge. He had no idea where we were.

The ruins of St. Pierre are a sombre reminder of the tragedy. 20,000 people perished. I think only three survived, one of them, ironically, a condemned convict in a deep cell in the prison, who subsequently earned a living by showing off the scars on his back from the burns.

They never had the heart to rebuild, establishing a new capital at Fort de France.

27 minutes ago, Genady said:

Did it have an explanation of plate tectonics then?

Yes! That was why my mother, then teaching geography at the local girls' grammar school, bought the book. Plate tectonics was the new thing. She was quite excited by it and so, having a scientifically-minded boy's interest in volcanoes, I read parts of the book myself.

Of course the detailed understanding of how volcanoes arise behind subduction zones has progressed hugely since then, but the principle was already there.

33 minutes ago, Genady said:

... about this legendary but entirely unknown to me until now event. A good book, too.

I remember reading an account of this in Arthur Holmes's Principles of Physical Geology, as a teenager in the 1960s. At that time Anak Krakatau was quite small, still. Now, I gather, it has grown to adulthood and has even suffered a collapse rather like that of its parent, though not as dramatic.

17 minutes ago, HbWhi5F said:

I still don't know how to find comp. of liquid mix (LiqA in diagram).

it is not possible to be get the value (from the infomation in the book). or I got the question wrong ?

He is my guru

The question tells you A and B are pure liquids, not mixtures. Why are you asking about the composition of liquid A, then?

On 6/14/2025 at 2:40 AM, sethoflagos said:

Now that the tone of the discussion has calmed a little, I recommend reading this paper: The future of frequency response in Great Britain

It's quite short and not too technical, and deals with the critical consideration of grid stability.

The meat of the analysis is in this paragraph:

To be clear, R here represents staged interventions by the grid to maintain frequency within statutary limits in response to imbalances, I, between generation and demand.

In my day, 20% of UK average load was met by three stations (Ferrybridge, Eggborough, and Drax) strung out along just 15 miles of the Aire Valley at the heart of the grid. 14 turboalternators churning out 8 GW This centre was bolstered by a similar capacity generated by a string of somewhat smaller stations (Rugeley, Drakelow, Castle Donington, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, High Marnham, Cottam, and West Burton) on the Trent Valley. Between them, their huge combined angular momentum provided the cental 'flywheel' of the system, to which all more remote generation units were forced (by physics) to follow in both frequency and phase. The resulting high value of E_n resulted in exceptionally low fluctuations of grid frequency, and consequently very rare need for direct intervention by the grid. Hence, the historically excellent stability and reliability of the UK grid.

As the paper referenced suggests, the transfer from coal to renewables will greatly reduce the rotational kinetic energy of grid supply. Essentially, it will become dominated by the considerably smaller nuclear component. And hence, if grid stability is to be maintained, there is going to be a far greater reliance on grid intervention, R. And key stages of this must activate within one second of notice. This is the real challenge to be faced by the transistion to renewables. Everything else is simple in comparison.

I've only just read this. Would it be a silly idea to run a couple of vast flywheels, just to add "ballast" to the system? One could even simply retain a couple of these big turbo-alternator sets, unpowered, and spun up and maintained to 50Hz off the grid.

1 hour ago, HbWhi5F said:

Given:

p°A = 450 mm Hg (pure component's vapour pressure), °B = 700 mm Hg, = 600 mm Hg

Let xA and xB are mole ractions, So xB = 1 − xA

Using Raoult’s law: Total Vapor pressure = mole fraction of component A in it's vapour and liquid phase times the Vapour pressure of pure component A + same thing for B

P = xA·p°A + xB·p°B

600 = 450xA + 700(1 − xA)

600 = 700 − 250xA

xA = 0.40

xB = 1-.4 = 0.60

Partial vapour pressures:

pA=pA^0 * xA (Parital pressure of a component = vapoyr pressure of pre component times it's mole fraction)

pA = xA·p°A = 0.40 × 450 = 180 mm Hg

pB = xB·p°B = 0.60 × 700 = 420 mm Hg

pA and pB are vapour partial pressure, ie the pressure exerted by them on solution

Vapour phase composition:

pi = yi * P (partial pressure of a component = the ratio of it's vapour phase the vapour phase of the other component) times the total vapour pressure on solution

yi=pi/P

yA = pA / P = 180 / 600 = 0.30

yB = pB / P = 420 / 600 = 0.70

Yes exactly. So there is a greater mole fraction of B in the vapour phase than there is in the liquid phase, because it has a greater vapour pressure than A. In other words, B is the more volatile component. And you can work out the mole fractions in the vapour phase by multiplying the vapour pressure of each component by its mole fraction in the liquid phase.

So I don't see why you think there is a problem.

For a physical picture of what is happening, you can consider the molecules on the liquid surface, as it is from this layer that molecules escape to create the vapour phase. 40% of them on the surface are A and 60% of them are B.

But in pure liquid form, molecules of A have less of a tendency to escape than the molceules of B. That is what a lower vapour pressure of A than B implies.

So in the mixture, not only are there only 40% of A molecules in the surface layer but also, they have less of an intrinsic tendency to escape. Hence we get 30% A and 70% B in the vapour phase.

This is the principle behind fractional distillation. In the fractionating column, the mixture is made to evaporate and condense repeatedly as it rises up the column, each time creating a mixture with a higher proportion of the more volatile component. So that at the top of the column you get the more volatile component in almost pure form. (I once worked at an oil refinery🙂)

17 minutes ago, HbWhi5F said:

@exchemist updated my answer

Also did i get the definations right

and the question ?

Just do what I asked you, and make a new post showing your reasoning.

I’m going to get up and have my breakfast now (it is 0730 in the UK) and then I can come back to this for you. Let’s take it step by step without the distraction of AI and get the logic clear.

14 minutes ago, HbWhi5F said:

@exchemist Given the context of the question AI is right but If I got the definattion right, it is not possible to be get the value (from the infomation in the book). Either I got the question wrong or the definetion.

Ok the conceptual problem is -

We got ratio amongst vapours

and ratios of the components amonst their phases

How are they connected ?

---

It should be something like -

Let V and L be phase of Vapour and LIquid in the solution

V/L = 0.30+0.70/L=xA + xB

1/L = 0.40+0.60

1/L=1

L=1/1

V/L=ya/xa

If you want to learn, you need to forget AI and work the problem out yourself. It sounds to me as if you have not done that. If you had, you would not be asking this question. Look up Raoult’s Law - then calculate for yourself the first part of the problem and show me how you did that.

Then we can talk about the second part.

1 hour ago, HbWhi5F said:

I worked same solution but why is AI saying it's liquid phase composition ? It's -xA and xB are mole fractions of each components - Vapour-liquid phase ?

What liquid composition did you get?

8 hours ago, HbWhi5F said:

xA and xB are mole fractions of each components - Vapour-liquid phase ? why is AI saying it's liquid phase composition ?

Henry's Law : p = KH x “partial pressure of as in vapour phase (p) is proportional to ole fraction of gas (x) in solution” and is expressed as:

Raoult’s Law: A=xA pA∘

pi = yi P total - this is the ratio of 2 components in vapour phase

AI Solved -

Given:
p°A = 450 mm Hg
p°B = 700 mm Hg
Total vapour pressure, P = 600 mm Hg

Let xA be the mole fraction of A in the liquid phase.
Then xB = 1 − xA

Using Raoult’s law:
P = xA·p°A + xB·p°B

600 = 450xA + 700(1 − xA)
600 = 700 − 250xA
xA = 0.40

Therefore:
xA = 0.40
xB = 0.60

Partial vapour pressures:
pA = xA·p°A = 0.40 × 450 = 180 mm Hg
pB = xB·p°B = 0.60 × 700 = 420 mm Hg

Vapour phase composition:
yA = pA / P = 180 / 600 = 0.30
yB = pB / P = 420 / 600 = 0.70

Final Answer:

Liquid phase composition:
xA = 0.40
xB = 0.60

Vapour phase composition:
yA = 0.30
yB = 0.70

I am not interested in debating AI output.

How do you work it out?

3 hours ago, HbWhi5F said:

@exchemist

The functional group written on the end is considered as the "base" group I think

I am having to guess at your meaning but what I think you may be trying to ask is which substituent is allocated position number one in the numbering convention.

It is normally done by choosing position 1 to give the lowest numbers for the other groups. So in the first example the left hand NO2 group is a poor choice since you then get 1, 3 nitro , 4 chloro, total 8. Similarly if you choose the right hand NO2 as position 1 you get 1, 5 nitro 2 chloro = 8 or (going round the other way) 1,3 nitro 5 chloro = 9, even worse. By choosing Cl as position 1 you get 1 chloro, 2,4 nitro = 7, which minimises the numbers.

3 hours ago, Linkey said:

https://kimgriest.medium.com/real-reason-the-american-middle-class-is-disappearing-901cb78ababf

So these 1% welthiest are the "nobles", while maybe the FED bankers are "monarchs".

I specifically asked you about the democracies in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands and by what mechanism this "elite" of yours controls candidate selection. You have not answered that, preferring instead to continue to give examples from the USA.

If you make a criticism of "western" democracies, you cannot just base it on cherry-picked examples from the USA.

25 minutes ago, Linkey said:

Very simple – the real rulers of the USA and the Western world in general (financial elite) do not allow smart and honest people to start a serious political career, because a smart politician can become a threat/competitor for these rulers. So only bad candidates can participate in elections, and so the voters do not have a good choice.

I have two questions relating last US presidential elections:

1) Am I right that the US mass media like CNN and Fox News supported Disantis instead of Trump, stating that Disantis is “a young and smart Trump”, “let it be the Trumpism without Trump”, “the approval rating of Disantis is increasing while the rating of Trump is decreasing”?

2) I saw the presidential debates between the candidates; Haley said there that Putin is a murderer. Disantis always said that he plans to stop supporting Ukraine. Logically this means that Haley must had hated Disantis, but instead they rather were “friends against Trump”. Am I right?

These statements need support.

Whom do you think constitutes your "financial elite"?

And by what mechanism do they - whoever they are - prevent "smart and honest people" from becoming elected representatives in the UK, Germany or the Netherlands, for example?

On 1/24/2026 at 4:41 PM, TheVat said:

Mostly music I'm trying to convert to a piano arrangement, or piano pieces I foolishly think I might be able to learn. ( A lot of such "watching," the video portion is unnecessary for me. I just go to YT because it's free and no signup required.) Also, home renovation/repair instruction videos, or bits about structural engineering and architecture.

Occasionally will watch a news clip (where video footage matters enough) or a John Oliver clip - his show goes up on YT a week or so after its HBO release. Minnie Driver clips are okay, provided they don't remind me of that dreadful puddle of treacle she was in with David Duchovny's dead wife's transplanted heart. She's adorable but... just no.

And of course the usual porn involving albino gorillas and St Bernards on unicycles. (Just checking to see if anyone is still awake after the first two paragraphs)

If you like Minnie Driver, this is quite funny. I'm coming to the conclusion she is rather a good sport and would be fun to meet: