American Drug War
14-Jun-08
Via octal
Baby Loves Banjo
13-Jun-08
“The concrete was on fire!…”
13-Jun-08
She wrote:
“…the basics: I’m 26 — old enough to engage you in intelligent discussion but young enough to still appreciate drunken mischief, adventures, and misadventures. I’m cute (so I’ve been told), petite and Asian. I pay the bills by working as an chemical engineer. I love traveling, rock concerts, good company with vino, and napping. I hate Vegas, egoists, and having to post here for a decent date…”
My response:
Hi,
I fear I’m too late to invite you out to Indiana Jones tonight. But perhaps we can go see “Kung Fu Panda”? Or “The Chronicles of Narnia”?
We have a lot in common, you and I. For example, you love napping. I love napping! I’m an Olympic-calibre napper, in fact. But it’s not all sloth at Chez Rasch. There’s gluttony too. You know who makes a really good burger? Dairy Belle, in Belmont. It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but hmmm..mmmh, they make a tasty burger.
I’m sad that you hate Vegas, BTW. They have Cirque de Soleil shows! And Penn and Teller! And those magical gay guys, before the tiger ate one of them. So I hope someday you give Vegas another chance.
What chemicals do you engineer by the way? Do you have any favorites? My favorite chemicals are perfluorocarbon and chlorine trifluoride.
You’re probably familiar with their chemical properties already, but I like perfluorocarbon because it’s so non-toxic and dissolves oxygen so readily that you can actually breathe it. It’s what the rat was breathing in the Abyss:
http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/01/movie-gadget-friday-the-fluid-breathing-system-from-the-abyss/
And I like chlorine trifluoride because it’s such a strong oxidizer that it will burn sand and asbestos tile:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time.php
If you look up “badass” in the CRC, there’s a picture of chlorine trifluoride.
As for pictures of me (along with a more extensive profile), you can find them at my okcupid profile:
http://www.okcupid.com/profile/crasch4
So…a movie perhaps? Or coffee? Or if you’d like a more active date, I’ve been eager to try out Sky High Sport:
http://www.jumpskyhigh.com/
If any of those appeal, let me know. I look forward to (maybe) meeting you!
Chris
——
I didn’t include this in my response, but I thought it was pretty cool:
“…During the liquid rocket propellant era, a major incident involving ClF3 occurred the first time a one-ton steel container was loaded with liquid ClF3 for bulk shipment. The container had been cooled with dry ice to perform the liquid transfer and help make the product safer to handle, since the ClF3 vapor pressure would only be about 0.007 kg/cm2 (0.1 psia) in the subcooled state. However, the dry ice bath embrittled the steel container wall, which split while it was being maneuvered onto a dolly, instantaneously releasing 907 kg (2,000 lb) of cold ClF3 liquid onto the building floor. The ClF3 dissolved the 30 cm (12 inch) thick concrete floor and another 90 cm (36 inches) of gravel underneath the spill. The fumes that were generated (chlorine trifluoride, hydrogen fluoride, chlorine, hydrogen chloride, etc.) severely corroded everything that was exposed.3 One eyewitness described the incident by stating, “The concrete was on fire!…”
10 annoyingly brilliant office interiors
12-Jun-08
Das Rad
12-Jun-08
1. You may be interested in my experiences with the Blackmail diet, on which I lost 20 lbs.
2. I haven’t tried it myself yet, but Once a month cooking seems like a good way to have ready meals available, without spending a huge amount of time in the kitchen.
3. The book Self-directed Behavior is a great resource for designing behavior modification programs.
4. How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, is the best general book on cooking I’ve found so far.
Why I’m voting Democrat
11-Jun-08
cmpriest posted this amusing, if somewhat unfair, skewering of the Republicans:
In the same spirit, here’s my reasons for voting Democrat:
Good thing we have copyright to encourage encourage artists:
Making Your Case for a Permit
If you do decide that a permit is the way to go (in other words, you’re going to use a tripod), one thing they will want to know is, “What will the photos be used for?” They may ask if they’re going to be used for commercial purposes, educational purposes, to be sold as postcards, etc.For example, on my recent trip to New York, we contacted the observatory at the top of 30 Rockefeller Center to request a permit to shoot the New York Skyline at dusk from their observatory (which would require me setting up a tripod). They had a page on their site for photo permits, and who to contact, etc. and so we followed their instructions. Unfortunately, we were turned down because we were going to use the photos in one of my books, which they felt was a “Commercial Purpose” so our request was denied.
We also contacted the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and they had a request for photography permit section as well, and they were pretty clear and adamant about the fact that both the exterior and interior of the Guggenheim were copyrighted, and tightly controlled. Despite several calls to the department that handles photo requests, we were never able to reach anyone, and they never called us back, so we were out of luck.