Stulginess Abounds

[rain_gryphon]

The poisonous mud continues to erupt in Surabaya. I linked to another story about this on 14 July. What a bizarre calamity. It could probably have been capped if they'd acted immediately, but I'd imagine it's much too late to plug the hole now.

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Das Goof and I went to the Stoat Fair last Saturday. I can't see 'Bob the Builder' stuff now without imagining a big Lego swastika stuck on his helmet. Pictures and a report soon.

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I see where someone finally got arrested for the Ramsey murder. I'd been convinced all this time that her mother had killed her. Their lawyer was on the tube earlier having a good round of "I told you so", to which he's certainly entitled. He gloated less than I would have.

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I finally got my laser-etched Little Pony. They gave me one from the numbered lot, #37. It will be interesting to see if the plastic holds up over the years. I'm quite sure whoever formulated it didn't count on people burning patterns into the surface. There's probably been a certain amount of bromine and chlorine liberated in the vicinity of the laser marks, plus all the different short-chain organics.

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I used up my Mediaplay gift cards that I got so long ago at work to get the 1964 CBS "History of the First World War". Thirteen hours of original WWI footage with narration, from before the age when technology tempted documentary makers to its misuse by colourizing or adding CGI animations. It's hard to believe that a Big Three TV network used to actually produce content as good as this.

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1964 is almost as far in the past for me as WWI was for 1964. Computers and the internet are the major differences that strike me between then and now. The changes in people's daily lives between the beginning and middle of the last century seem more profound to me than those that took place between then and now. They had to adapt to automobiles, radio and television, air travel, and antibiotics. We tend to overlook what a world-shaker that last one was. My grandmother clearly recalled a time when if you got sick, you'd either be strong enough to fight it off, or else you'd die, and there wasn't a lot that could be done to influence the outcome.

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I forgot my Hershey bar in the car earlier. It completely liquified, of course. What's odd is that now that it's been indoors for some 12 hours, it's still liquid, even though it's at a temperature where chocolate should be solid. Experimentation seems called for.

Comments

[swift-fox.livejournal.com]

Speaking of MLP's...Rarity is out in normal sized form. She's in a bubble pack with a few other accessories and a DVD. I got mine at Target for $10 but I've heard she's also available at Rus R Toys.

*Hugs*

Swift Fox

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Woot! While I'm thinking about it, do you want the jewels for the tiara that have been coming with some Ponies? I'm not going to use them.

[swift-fox.livejournal.com]

Is that what those things are?? :)

Sure. :)

*Hugs*

Swifty

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Is that what those things are?? :)

Yep. Apparently if you buy the Pretty Parlour, you get a tiara with it that you can stick all those jewels onto.

[bluedeer.livejournal.com]

Stick the Hersheyt bar in the fridge and see if it solidifies. At Room temperature, it actually is melting , it needs to be colder than room temperature in order to solidify again.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I would have expected the solidification to be much more gradual, though. It wasn't just squishy - it was fully melted. I could hold the wrapper by one end and watch it run down to the other. Chocolate's more of a colloid or a suspension than it is an actual solid, and the different elements should begin to solidify across a range of temperatures. That range in a modern Hershey bar might be much narrower than I'd have expected from past experience with chocolate, including Hershey's.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that they don't mention the name of the company involved in the gas rupture.

Had it been Exxon/Mobil, or BP or some other large corporation, I'm willing to bet they would have put that name in the first paragraph, and several others further down.

Also, certain compounds "freeze" at a lower temperature than they "melt" at, so you can have both the solid and liquid forms at the same temperature.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The company's "Lapindo Brantas". They mention it in both articles. Would a headline such as "Lapindo Brantas Screws Up" actually convey information to a reader like "Exxon/Mobil Screws Up"? According to the first article (which seems to have gone missing now) they subcontracted their drilling out to a small local water-driller, who weren't at all prepared to cap a hole that blew out under pressure, and mud instead of gas at that.