A Quickie Update
Posted by Paul on August 16th, 2007
So, I’ve been ignoring the blog a little bit. Or, rather, a lot. You understand, right?
Two things:
1. The ACS is coming. Lots of good talks. I previously floated the idea of a ChemBark BBQ, and after further thought, that will not be happening. It has zero to do with money. It has something to do with time/organzation. And it has lots to do with the fact that while 98% of you are probably great people, 2% of you probably can’t be trusted. That means if 20 of you were to come, there’d be a 33% chance of something really nasty happening to the Dawghouse. That’s too risky.
1a. Drinks or dinner at a neutral location is a much better option. Everyone’s got to eat, right? I’ve got no problems treating fellow 98-percenters to pitchers of beer in Harvard Square or whereever people fancy. And I have no idea what other meet-ups the blogosphere has planned. It’s probably easier if we combine forces. How does Wednesday sound?
2. I can easily see this semi-blog-hiatus continuing for a while. I realize that stinks, but those are the breaks. As Retread is gone for a spell as well, that will mean posting will be sparse. If anyone wants to join Retread in taking a turn at posting, feel free to send a prospective post my way. You needn’t use your real name so long as you keep the gloves on.
That’s it. And…commence complaining…now.
Updates:
Creepy Internet Meet-up details are here. Tuesday night, 11pm around the Convention Center. Wednesday evening, 7:30pm, in Harvard Square.
The special C&EN Boston blog is up. Nature’s Sceptical Chymists, Chemistry World, The Chem Blog, and Mitch are here too (links on sidebar at right).
August 16th, 2007 at 9:24 am
More importantly, Fraser Stoddart is moving to Northwestern, keeping along with his intentional policy of moving to new schools every few years.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:51 am
oh, just kidding about the “more importantly” part. barbeque is a very important aspect of my life. (I’m not going to ACS, but there’ll be a poster with my name on it. Say hi to the guy in front of it. He’s nice.)
August 16th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Okay, I can go drinking. Wednesday sounds just great actually. I can buy my own pitchers too. I’m not one of the 2%… I think.
By the way, you screwed up your math. 2% of twenty people makes about half a person. Like that guy in the Smiths song. You’ve got about a 50/50 chance of him coming.
August 16th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Sorry, both of you are wrong. But paul is closer.
Let’s say we have a pool of 50 people and we need to choose 20. What are the odds that we won’t get the one douchebag (2% of 50)?
On the first pick, we have a 49/50 chance, on the second pick we have a 48/49, third pick, 47/48, and so on.
In the end we’re left with a 30/50 chance that we have not picked the douchebag which is 60%, leaving a 40% chance that crazy shit will go down and the dawghouse will be wrecked.
It may be too late, however. Sorry Paul, love ya, but I think the blog has jumped the shark.
August 16th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Wednesday would be horrible for me, something earlier in the week would be much preferable.
Mitch
August 16th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Evanston is a very nice town…………….
ahem…
right.
August 16th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I think Paul is dead on. Darksyde assumes a finite pool (thus it gets harder and harder to avoid the 2% as you pick more an more). However, if we assume an infinite pool of readers (reasonable, given the overwhelming success of this site), then each of the 20 is exactly .98 probability, and (.98)^20 = .668, leaving 33% of the time to have at least of of the 2%.
August 16th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Wednesday does not work for me. Earlier in the week would be better. But, don’t cater to my needs. Besides, I’m not that interesting, so you won’t miss me. And, I don’t want to find out I’m 1 of the 2%.
August 16th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
“Lots of good talks”
Probably some body should take the initiative, and list the important talks so that it would be helpful to others (to the lazy ones like me). Then others would add to the list of those that they fee should not be missed. Of course I agree that it is of personal choice and area. But how about giving a try. May be in future the speakers can advertise their talks on Chembark.
August 16th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
feel
August 17th, 2007 at 3:55 am
In any case, you only asymptotically approach 33.2% — you’ll never get there, much less get down as low as 33%. And it must be strictly speaking greater than 33%, although highly unlikely that it’s as high as 50%. So, my statement stands. Both are wrong; Paul is closer.
August 17th, 2007 at 4:32 am
How is Tuesday night at 11pm? Too late? I think the poster sessions end around 10pm.
And 33.2% rounds to 33%, which is the correct answer.
August 17th, 2007 at 6:07 am
Totally off topic, but our department is looking for a new hydrogenation apparatus, and they are dreaming of buying one that generates H2 in small quantities through electrolysis of water. Does anyone have experience with such an apparatus, and/or know who’s selling them?
August 17th, 2007 at 10:00 am
You both are wrong because statistics can’t be applied to Wolfie’s personal choice. You can know how many of the readers of Chembark are jerks (2%), but with such a small sample, any conclusion you’ll make as to whether the jerk will come is moot unless you know Wolfie-like people personally or make an intelligent guess based on basic pop psychology. Therefore, my guess of 50% took those things into account and is very close to the truth. If you were doing the math right, then you would get 40%, but only if you were a poor social scientist. Unlike me: a social scientist extraordinaire.
Monday and Tuesday are poster sessions to which everyone goes, so Wednesday would be a better bet for people showing up. I cannot stay out too late during ACS since I sleep 8 hours a day and most of the sessions start very early in the morning. Besides, after seeing all the posters you wanted on Monday, are you really going to stick around until after the poster session finishes on Tuesday? Go ‘professor style’ and skip the Tuesday poster session (or be there only for half an hour) so that we can start drinking earlier. People presenting a poster can show up later. You can’t see everything at ACS anyways.
August 17th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Norwegian - The hydrogenation apparatus we have is the H-Cube from Thales. General concensus is that it is great.
http://thalesnano.com/
August 17th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I rarely understand much, but it seems you have a lot of work to proceed from the third to the first author. Let him do that !
August 17th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Re 13 and 15: If the H-cube is of interest, make sure you go with the stainless tubing version - the basic PEEK tubing one limits the kind of substrates you can put through this thing. Also watch for a scaled up version “coming soon” (although Thales announced an ozonizer version of the H-Cube a couple of years ago and it is very much vaporware for now).
August 17th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Hi Paul - depending on where/when it is, I’d be interested in meeting up. (And I’ll try to bring along a few other NPG editors/bloggers…)
August 17th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Eugene, I personally only know one other person extraordinaire, except from you, in the world. His name is Pierre Dulaine, Dancer Extraordinaire, who became famous with the extraordinary documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom”. You all need to see this. The associated Hollywood film is not nearly that interesting.
August 17th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I think I’m part of the 2%.
August 17th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Luckily, not being a chemist, I will not make an appearance at ACS (actually I just forgot that YOU HAD TO SEND YOUR ABSTRACT IN BEFORE THE PREVIOUS CONFERENCE STARTED.
August 17th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Before you close-up shop, can we get a quick update on the Nobel odds this year? October 10th is coming up and I want to get in on the early action. Also if we could have a running debate about the favorites? The committee this year looks theory and biophysics heavy. Harry Gray? After last year maybe they can give it to a chemist again.
Herman
August 17th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I am deffinately a 2% person, and I won’t show up either. I once smoked TWO cigaretes at the same time in a hospital elevator while drinking gin & diet coke. I was pretty lonely.
Herman
August 17th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
You should do some detox, as they call it in your contry.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
You should call it country, as they do in our country.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Tuesday would be great!
There is a potential chance to drink before the poster session and also after the poster session. You guys must learn to maximize your alcohol consumption at ACS conferences. Now where are those photocopied ACS sci-mix tickets.
Mitch
August 17th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Tuesday…good. Say when and where. Who cares when the poster session ends. I sure don’t. The ACS convention is just a continuous blur anyways.
August 17th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Actually, a good trick with the sci-mix tickets is to say that you forgot your materials at home, and they will print out another batch for you. But, it really doesn’t matter since the Sci-Mix beer is so awful, two tickets is more than enough. At the last meeting I was accosted just before throwing my beer away, so I gave the rest of my beer to some drunk assistant professor who clearly didn’t mind getting strange peoples’ saliva in his quest for inebriation from Coors light.
August 18th, 2007 at 2:12 am
I am not sure whether I would be able to join you all on Tuesday night as I will be giving a talk on Wednesday on my work on Palau’amine (Of course it the last talk of the day so not sure as to how many would show up for the talk; hence not terribly worried…but I am worried about getting drunk and having hang over next day). Anyhow, wish you all nice time. Is there any way to recognize you all.?…..Would you all be displaying your blogging name or the actual name?
August 18th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Usually, the hungoverness will dissipate by four p.m. if you drink a lot of water and eat well, no matter how much you drank the day before. You may have to miss other talks earlier in the day though.
Now that you mention it, my name tag will not say ‘Eugene’ on it, but I’m sure that I can at least recognize what Paul looks like.
Also, I thought I saw a small scale benchtop pressure reactor that made hydrogen gas by electrolysis of water from a famous company (Parr maybe?) for a very reasonable price and was thinking of getting it half a year ago. They advertised in CEN news. Definitely, checking out the Paar website is a must just in case. I can almost swear that we had this ‘pressure reactor’ theme half a year ago as well.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:05 am
Eugene:
Thanks for the info, and as such it takes only couple of beers for me to get the dizziness the next day. Anyhow, I would like to meet you, and others. My badge name would read as Sivappa Rasapalli. Probably that would help. My blogging did not go as well as I thought, and so I am not as familiar as you all. But I would like to just get the feel of the belonging to the blogosphere.
August 19th, 2007 at 5:55 am
OK…here’s what I think I’m doing:
Tuesday night: Late drinks (~11PM) at the Prudential Center (Convention Area). If you guys start early and I join late, that’s cool. There would be a very good chance that I’m there before 11, but can’t be certain.
Wednesday night: Harvard Square, 7:30ish. Join your least favorite chem blogger as he consumes his dinnertime comestibles.
If this sounds good, we can work out locations. I’d suggest John Harvard’s Brew House for the Wednesday night shindig since it is close to the T (subway) and the lab, the food is relatively inexpensive, and there are a lot of tables.
August 19th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Harry Gray is TEH MAN. Seriously, folks. Although, as always, I’m pitching one up for those astrochemists. Tak Oka.
August 20th, 2007 at 6:41 am
H-cube has a lot of fans at our place too, though you are tied into the catalyst cartridges and relatively small scale? We have a hydrogen generator (Chrysalis from Matheson TriGas) attached to an old school gas burette system (Radleys glass) that gets a lot of use for standard intermediate scale reductions, if all you’re trying to do is avoid hydrogen cylinders in the lab.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Thank you, mother, you are definattely an educated person.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
OK, if anyone’s interested in meeting for drinks, just come to the Sheraton Boston (right next to the convention center, map) in the Sidebar & Grille (it’s in the lobby, here). Drop a note (here or e-mail) if you think you might come.
Wednesday night, you can come for dinner or drinks at John Harvard’s Brew House in Harvard Square, 7:30pm. It is a one-minute walk from the Harvard T stop (subway), on the corner of Dunster and Mt. Aubrun Streets (map here).
If you know that you’re coming to either of these but are worried about finding it, e-mail me and I’ll give you my cell number just in case.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:00 am
I’ll be there. I’ll start when I get bored with the poster session at 8:15 (OK, maybe more like 9:15).
How shall we identify? I’ll be the guy drinking beer by himself, trying not to make eye contact with anyone (especially girls).
August 21st, 2007 at 12:30 am
Yeah, and I’ll be wearing a purple NYU polo shirt, black pants, and a matching Kevlar vest.
I’m not sure how many people are coming tomorrow night, but I’ll definitely be there at 11, hopefully earlier.
August 21st, 2007 at 10:58 am
I’m staying in Cambridge, so the meeting on Wednesday at Harvard Square is best for me. Hopefully I’ll see you there!
August 21st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Sheraton Boston tonight sounds good after the poster session. Tuesday, right? I won’t stay long, but I might show up on Wednesday as well. If Sheraton Boston is not on Tuesday but already happened on Monday after that drinking thing with 8 beer tickets… well, then I’m screwed unless someone gives me a call.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:19 pm
now i see that wed evening is the PHYS poster session i want to go to…
August 21st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I thought that Kevlar vests go best under clothes - wearing Kevlar on top of other clothes is usually a fashion faux-pas.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:27 pm
OK, if anyone’s interested in meeting for drinks, just come to the Sheraton Boston (right next to the convention center, map) in the Sidebar & Grille (it’s in the lobby, here). Drop a note (here or e-mail) if you think you might come.
You know the meeting is at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, not the Hynes, right? Its a bit of a trek from the meeting (near South Station) over to the Prudential center.
August 21st, 2007 at 4:57 pm
McPostdoc, I don’t think any of us really want to go to the Barking Crab (the only option down here). It’s nice, but we’ll get weird looks when we break out the whiteboard.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Take the Sheraton shuttle (bus #2) from the BCEC. You’re on you own after 11PM, however.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Boycott the ACS meeting. Those guys are evil incarnate. They’re doing everything possible to destroy the American chemist.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I do boycott it, but I can’t hold out for too long because the evil bastards have everything under control and if I want to make a living, I need to come to some of these things. So, I boycotted the one in Chicago and I’m pretty sure I’m boycotting this Spring meeting too.
Fight the power Dan! Stick it to the man (and to Katherine T. Hunt). I’ll be with you every once in a while.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:00 pm
They are stupid. They have not accepted my talk but only offered me a badly lit poster (in Washington). Boycott them. They are way too much political.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
MRS is better. I said it before.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:43 pm
My complain is that the ACS meetings are excessively big and crowded to be enjoyable - the good stuff is there but is diluted with tons of low-grade stuff. I hate mobs and $4 sodas and exorbitant downtown hotels even if my company is paying for it and I usually come back tired and depressed, good chemistry notwithstanding.
I think it would be a lot better (and more cultured) if the national meeting was split into several smaller sub-conferences organized by the chemistry divisions, maybe all at the same place but run back-to-back. There is no good scientific reason why the conference must be done and over with within 4-5 days, such mammoth action excludes lots of cities simply because they don’t have a sufficient-sized convention center. It the ACS meetimgs could be spread out over 2 weeks it could be more pleasant experience.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Wrong Milkshake. You’re wrong. I don’t have to formulate a cogent argument because of how right I am. Just rest assured. You are wrong and I am right.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:25 am
man, i’m lame. sorry i didn’t show up to any of the meetings. i hope people had fun!
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:25 am
Don’t worry about anything - It has been our experience that even the most obstinate people who thought they were right find themselves mistaken. They suddenly develop an urge to repent - and sometimes we let them. Such is the albino monk gift of persuation, Kyle.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:26 pm
ACS is always a smorgasbord. Attend Gordons and CHI conferences (to name two) for more intimate gatherings.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
So. I showed up to John Harvard’s at 10pm on Wednesday and everyone had already left. Or Paul and Josh had left at least, and I don’t know what any of the rest of you look like. I guess that’s what I get for going to the poster session, but come on people. When you come to the Hub, you gots to bring yo’ drinking shoes.
Maybe I just should have come out Tuesday. Does anybody who was there want to tell me what went down? Did anybody go?
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:25 pm
TheEdge:
You seem to have just missed us. We were there until 10 (not sue of exact time). Paul, Kyle, Eugene, and Dude were there when I showed up around 8pm. ‘blinded me with science’ was there too. Over all, I had nice time there. It was Paul who recognized us; I did not have any of identifying them in that mad rush either.
Thanks to Paul and others for the get-together.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Do you mind elaborating a bit?
August 24th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
check the kyle’s http://www.thechemblog.com/ for soem details.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Well, I didn’t want to stay out too late… since there were talks every day at 9 a.m. that I had to go to. Plus, I already had a few beer by the time I got to Harvard (and everyday starting Monday actually). I still can’t believe I met someone I knew from an undergrad university there. What are the odds of that? Then again, I met someone at the convention who knew me as a little kid who got bad grades in elementary school, so I don’t know which one is more impressive.
Plus, Harvard has this booth thing right outside the Metro that sells foreign news and they had a copy of this foreign magazine that I heard about from a newspaper that I read regularly. I wanted to read that for a long time since you can’t get it where I am and it looked really colorful and promised to tell me about the ‘five stages of love’. So I was also hoping to get on the metro so that I could start reading. I guess we should have stayed later, but on the plus side, I apparently now know more about how love works.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I bet I just couldn’t identify y’all. Sad Christmas. I overheard two gentlemen discussing the ACS meeting as I walked towards JH’s. I kind of wonder who they were now.
Out of Town News is fantastic and constantly living on the edge of closing. Thank you for giving them some business, Eugene. Harvard Square would feel really empty if it ever closes.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:19 am
It was great seeing everyone. And sorry about busting out of there so early, Edge.
August 27th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
No worries, Paul. I should have just called to find out what everyone looked like when I couldn’t find you.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Sorry but is this blog still alive or are you considering restyling or starting a brand new one?
August 31st, 2007 at 9:40 am
R.I.P
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Eugene, the very simple thing that all psychoanalysts have told you : you should have fucked more women. period.
September 4th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Please wolfie, learn how to post while drunk properly. Also, we missed you at the ACS; are you coming to the next one?
September 5th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Interesting. Paul’s judgements vary, non-properly. But his Ph.D. is still missing.
September 5th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
And, to tell you, NO, I will not come to any ACS meeting, unless someone invites me.
September 5th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Paul, drunk or not, I want to see you with a JACS article that proves you would have been better than Dalibor Sames (please cite with pages, issues, facts, and so on)
and of course, real happenings after your predictions
September 7th, 2007 at 12:30 am
RIP dear Chembark…
September 8th, 2007 at 9:43 am
There really is something quite liberating about vacationing from blogging.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Yes, but when you go on vacation, you should get someone to water your plants. I submitted a post a week ago to keep this blog alive (and as a cheap publicity stunt for my blog), but it looks like Paul stopped checking the email address as well. However, I’m leaning towards the explanation that this is not just a ‘vacation from blogging’, but a real vacation on our host’s part.
He’ll be back…
September 8th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
When I went on holiday, I announced the precise day when I’d have got back.
September 8th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I was wondering why Joe Sadighi had vanished from the MIT web-page - here’s the reason.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....cruits.htm
September 10th, 2007 at 5:06 am
There is indeed something liberating about ignoring the blog for a bit. This includes not checking my ChemBark e-mail, so apologies to those who sent mail to this address. It will take me a couple of days to catch up. The first order of business will be to get Retread’s latest installment posted.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:35 am
“‘I need to take my turn,’ said Sadighi. ‘If I let this chance go by, I would look back and regret it very much.’
Combat in Iraq is a possibility that he has accepted, Sadighi said. ‘I do feel a sense of duty to do this,’ he added.”
Heyzeus. I mean… Jesus. Well, on the plus side, that means I don’t have to feel a sense of duty about going to Iraq now that my spot is taken. Phew.
Just wondering though, are there any special provisions in any university to freeze your tenure clock or give you back your tenured job if you go to serve your country? For example: a really long serial murderer case jury duty or war.
September 10th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
In Sadighi’s case, he wasn’t going to get tenure, which probably went into his decision-making…….interesting question, though. I mean, some universities push back the tenure clock a year when a pre-tenure female professor has a child.
September 10th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Didn’t Sadighi have tenure already? I’m sure his web-page stated that he was an Associate Prof.
September 11th, 2007 at 7:33 am
he got associate professor without tenure–the next step is assoc. with tenure
September 11th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Thanks, Paul. I thought some body (from the 2% bad guys that you expected at ACS) had a hand in the silence that intervened.
September 11th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
79: I’ve never heard of “associate professor without tenure”. Becoming an associate professor typically means you have been granted tenure. At least everywhere I have been (which has not included MIT).
September 12th, 2007 at 8:56 am
I guess it’s different depending on the school, but that’s what was in the announcement in the school’s paper *shrugs*. I don’t have intimate knowledge of the tenure process…
December 13th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Hi there…I Googled for cheap hotels boston, but found your page about A Quickie Update…and have to say thanks. nice read.
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:27 am
Hello…Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Saturday .