dryan

I've heard of Pirahna Bath being quite dangerous.

(Peroxymonosulfuric Acid)

http://yarchive.net/chem/piranha_solution.html

The last post in that thread is a must read.

Since it was thought it's cool to have a pH scale of 0 to 14, and pure water in the middle of it.

Yeah, but 10M HCl has a pH of -1, and 10M BaOH has a pH of 15, so the scale from 0-14 only works for dilute acids and bases (less than 1M)

Or if you're using XP, Start Menu -> "Set Program Access and Defaults", second column about half way down.

It worked. I guess neither one was set as default, so it opened in both. Go figure.

When I click on a link in Outlook, both IE and Firefox opens the page. Any way to fix this?

http://yarchive.net/chem/piranha_solution.html

An interesting (and scary) read.

I've got a similar question:

For a serial cable, can the computer detect when two of the pins are connected? In my case, I want to connect two wires to a spst mometary switch so that a program can detect when it is depressed.

I have a voltmeter (multimeter); how can I use this to test AA and AAA batteries?

If I am correct, simply touching the leads of the voltmeter to the contacts of the battery would almost always give me a reading of 1.5 volts.

I think by adding a resistor, I can get a correct reading. How do I calculate what value resistor I need?

Chemistry is a heck of a lot easier than history. The latter is only memorization, and none of it makes any sense or follows a pattern.

I got to hear a lecture from Michio Kaku at the National Science Bowl last year in D.C., where he gave a good analogy for understanding the theory of a multidimensional universe.

The number of dimensions is inconsequential, to me at least. The theory behind it is more important.

You can read that analogy at his website:

http://www.mkaku.org/articles/hyper_and_toe.shtml

Theraputic or reproductive is wrong?

Keep in mind, with theraputic cloning, you aren't growing an entire human. You grow a dish of stem cells that will specialize into a needed type of cell. You just need a cheek swab of the person to be cloned and an empty embryo (which is a possible moral dilemma, but not IMO).

I assume you know this, but haven't read any other threads on cloning.

hmm i find xp a bit 'kiddy'

XP Home is.

XP Professional isn't, from what I hear.

Theraputic human cloning can potentially cure dozens of diseases and problems, including heart disease, liver disease, Parkinson's, diabetes, paralysis, blindness, and baldness.

I don't know anyone who approves of reproductive human cloning.

I got this t-shirt for my birthday that says:

TIME IS AN INVENTION

I get people asking me what this means, so what do you think? How should I respond to their inquiry?

I wonder if h4x0r counts as a second language...

Thanks apathy, I tried emphasis that a salt bath is necessary. A saturated NaCl solution is easy to make and works flawlessly.

I did some work with a model hydrogen fuel cell car last year, which operates by the electrolysis and synthesis of H2O. In that instance, however, we used a proton exchange membrane (PEM).

http://www.humboldt.edu/~serc/animation.html

Using a proton exchange membrane for these processes are much "cleaner" than other methods - there is no burning involved in the synthesis and no electrolyte dissolved in the water; the catalyst takes care of those things.

However, the cell only produces ~2volts, so a stack of cells in necessary in powering most devices.

If I were guessing, I'd say the dish was plastic.

If I were doing electrolysis and I didn't want to use batteries, I'd get an old AC adapter for some computer peripheral that has an output of 6v (this may be what mike is saying).

Put the two ends of the wires in a salt bath.

Personally, I'd just use batteries, because it is much safer. Electrolysis can be performed at 3v (two batteries), but will go a lot quicker at 6v.

My favorites:

The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra: An n-th order polynomial has exactly n roots in the complex complex.

For example, [math]x^4-4[/math] has 4 complex roots (Two real, two imaginary).

And of course,

The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus

http://archives.math.utk.edu/visual.calculus/4/ftc.9/

Wait a second, what if they meant 5-15 parts A by volume. Uh oh, now we're in trouble.

Ba(OH)2 --> Ba2+ + 2OH-

Correct, but by putting (s) and (aq), it tells the reader that the material is in the solid form or in the aqueous form.

Has anyone seen Saved!? From what I've heard, it makes fun of conservative religion dealing with homosexuality. And it's supposed to be incredibly funny.

On a side note, I'm going up to Chicago this weekend to help my sister move into a new apartment. Right now she lives in Boystown, and there is a Gay Pride Parade scheduled for Sunday and it goes by a block from her apartment. This should be ...interesting.

Actually, WOW! It looks better than I imagined.

*downloading*

I'm not installing the "feedback agent," however, I hate things like that.

It happily loads bookmarks,cookies,etc. from the browser of your choice, or none at all.

It downloads files automatically to you desktop opposed to asking you where to save them, but this is easily disabled.

My all time favorite for converting audio files, ripping cds, burning cds, and more is Easy CD-DA. It's got a clean interface (drag and drop/file browser) and works extraordinarily well. The demo has a 3-second nag when you launch the program, and it isn't bad at all.

The program converts between wav, mp1, mp2, mp3, mp4, m4a, aiff, ogg, aac, ape, flac, vqf, & wma.

However, I'm looking for a good program to save streaming media.

I feel left out, I don't use mozilla/firefox, so I can't use the AdBlock.

I use IE6 and Opera7.

I posted the pictures a few days ago, and they were deleted, too. I wasn't sure what happened. (Maybe they were too large and were moderated/deleted?) It wasn't until I read one of YT's posts that keyed me in on what happened, and I decided to repost.

Downstream: 2920 Kbps

Upstream: 121 Kbps

I'm on comcast cable. It looks like I'm capped at 3000kbps and 128kbps.