Archive for the 'Housekeeping' Category

Happy Veterans’ Day, Gentlepersons.  Here are some items for your consumption:

– I recently registered for the Spring ACS National Meeting in New Orleans.  My talk will probably be the worst disaster to hit the city since…uhhh…nevermind.  In all seriousness, I look forward to the four days of wall-to-wall chemistry, since I really didn’t get the chance to consume that much in Boston.  It will also be interesting to see what’s going on with the reconstruction efforts following Katrina.  I assume that all of the debaucherous elements of the city will have been restored by April.  Is anyone else going?

–  The Crimson got to this story about a month late.  Someone’s moving to MIT…or not (?)  I really don’t get why there is any confusion here; the people being quoted are seemingly the ones who should know exactly what’s going on.

–  Later this week, Prof. Dr. E.J. Corey will sell and sign copies of his newest book in Harvard’s historic chemistry library.  I wonder if he’ll take personal requests.  “Professor Corey, could you please make this one out to ‘the greatest chemist of all time’?  Thanks.”

–  Retread has passed along the next installment of his Rip Van Winkle series, and I shall post it in short order.

Thanks for reading,
Rudy Paul 

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).

One last piece of housekeeping before we move on to the Official ChemBark ACS Fall ‘07 Preview Post:

Two people have contacted me about the possibility of advertising on ChemBark. As you know by now, I really don’t like the idea of having ads on this site. I don’t want to be perceived as having conflicts of interest when writing, holding down a second job, or personally profiting off a site that the rest of you contribute to as well. Still, it seems kind of silly to turn down money when it could go to something worthwhile, much like Kyle has done over at The Chem Blog. So, if any of you care, feel free to weigh in on the idea of ChemBark’s running ads. There are two options:

Option #1 — No ads of any sort on ChemBark.

Option #2 — Ads on ChemBark, with all proceeds (after I report the money as income and pay taxes on it) going to the Reeve Foundation.

Why the Reeve Foundation? Well, it’s a charity that is run well and has a mission that I ardently support. Also, I don’t want to get into arguments about what charity should get the money. If you don’t like the Foundation, vote option #1.

Option #2 involves a little trust on your part. First, you’d trust me not to smear advertising feces all over the place and ruin your reading experience. Second, in order to keep this operation completely legit, ad revenue would go into my pockets as income, I would pay taxes on it, and then you’d trust me to cut a check to the Reeve Foundation. I’d scan the checks and post them here. It’s simply too hard to set up a tax-free charitable operation and worry about all of that legal junk and paperwork.

If option #2 wins, I’ll eventually come up with some sort of advertisement policy. All ads would clearly be labeled as such. No popups. No ugly text lists. I’d start by waiting for advertisers to contact us as they are now. If a vendor or some author wanted to put a 100×100 box on the sidebar for a month, that’d be cool. Buying ads on specific posts would be an option too. We might even have an option for cheap classified ads if people wanted to sell old technical books or run personals in search of hot chemical romance.

That said, if the level of support falls too short of unanimous and enthusiastic, it ain’t happening.

Monday: Rip Van Winkle post #5

Wednesday: An introspective essay that will set the record for longest and boringest post of all time.

Friday, maybe Thursday: An investigative report.

Next Monday: The worst contest in the history of the chemical blogosphere. The winner will get to name Ed the Dog’s new girlfriend.

After That: Detailed analysis of the news out of Princeton. I’m hoping that I won’t have to write this post because you all will have covered the issue inside and out by then. It only took 48 comments to get on the right track, but pertinent data is missing (edit to add: and some of the info people have posted is wrong). Finally, the analysis so far has been severely lacking. Some key points have been brought up, so keep working on it…

I’m very excited to announce what is shaping up to become a regular feature on ChemBark: The Rip Van Winkle Files.  These posts will be penned by “Retread,” a commenter who recently rediscovered his chemical roots when he stumbled upon the chemical blogosphere.  If you pay attention to comment threads at Totally Synthetic and here, on The Wall, you may already be familiar with his story.

I’ll let Retread introduce himself properly; his first post is below.  Given his participation in what was perhaps the most exciting environment for organic chemistry in history and his unique story, I am really looking forward to these posts and his perspective on the modern chemistry “scene”.  As far as my participation is concerned, I am merely a messenger—Retread sends me his essays and I post them, uncensored, in all their original glory (with minor HTML reformatting).

For those of you interested in following the series, his posts will be filed under “The Rip Van Winkle Files”.

Enjoy.

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For any curious parties, the first batch of Chemical Ed magnets went in the mail today. There are still plenty of these puppies available—send in your SASE today.

In other blog housekeeping news, there are a number of items in the March 26th edition of C&E News that deserve discussion, including the Priestley Medal address and Beth Halford’s piece on racial diversity in chemistry. I’ve added these to the official ChemBark To-Do list. The 3/26 issue also had a letter to the editor (sub. req’d) in which Max Taitel had the following to say:

Programs like “NOVA” do great service in presenting the tremendous contributions of scientific endeavors to everyday lives. They follow in the great tradition of the late Carl Sagan who appeared some 20 times on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson to describe the wonders of the universe to that audience. We need to reaffirm the good side of science in the eyes of the general public, without denying some of the downside, and perhaps be able to someday revive the DuPont slogan “Better Living through Chemistry.”

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A recent chemistry blog described a student chemist’s frustration in overhearing a couple trying to decipher the ingredient label in a supermarket. Maybe the ACS Education Division staff and the ACS Division of Chemical Education could work with school and industry people to create internships where a student chemist could work on the supermarket floor to give hands-on interpretation about the chemicals listed in food products.

Unless some other chemist was blogging about running errands, the writer was referring to my post on a husband and wife who were having trouble purchasing folate at CVS. As you would have guessed from the previous post on Percy Julian, I am in complete agreement with him that we need to do a better job of convincing the public that life would stink without the chemical industry. Just today, the NY Times ran an article with the headline “Some Suspect Chemical Mix in Pet Food” about the recent mass pet death. (You see, chemicals = death = bad.) That said, I hope the suggestion about putting chemistry students in the aisles of supermarkets was made with tongue in cheek.

Also, many thanks to the person who alerted me to the letter; I completely missed it. Whether it be from a randomly placed magnet or a mention in our profession’s top news magazine, it’s always gratifying to learn that a few people actually read this blog.

As it currently stands, ChemBark is an unpopular site with no chance of ever being respected by the chemical community. The time is ripe for change. As a result, we have decided to rip off the best blog in all of chemistry: Org Prep Daily. Expect posts on synthetic procedures, lab dos and don’ts, and tips on how to get a job in pharma. We’re gonna put the Secret Milkshake out of business. Welcome to ChemBark Prep Daily!

It’s Christmastime at ChemBark, and we’ve tweaked the theme a little bit to be more festive. Ed the Dog has even agreed to wear the Santa hat we bought for him. Good boy!

When the holiday season approaches for our lab, we all contribute to a central gift fund and purchase presents as tokens of our appreciation for our janitor, the office staff, and George. Here was this year’s gift to the Big Guy:

It’s a 12″ wall clock with his face in the center, surrounded by rings of the names of all the subgroups and students in the lab. The main obstacles of giving customized gifts are finding acceptable hi-res images and deciding upon the gift early; you can’t leave the decision to the last minute when you’re at the mercy of the shipping industry. Whenever we order one of these personalized items, I can’t resist buying one for myself. That’s why a GMW Clock graces my fume hood:

My favorite lab gift of all time was what we got for him two years ago. We designed a group logo and had it put on a nylon briefcase–something that he could actually use on his travels:

To satisfy the minimum order requirements, I had to order three bags. While this was annoying at the time, it turned out to be a blessing. Not long into the next semester, George saw me and said that John Deutch (former director of the CIA and one of George’s old colleagues at MIT) saw the bag and insisted on having it. I don’t know exactly how that works, but Deutch got his way. Fortunately, we had a spare to replace it.  Now, owning one of these bags puts me in pretty elite company: Whitesides, Deutch, and Bracher.

So…is anyone else busy buying lab-related gifts for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus?