Lab tour

Will, no one else followed the "post only the banner on 10/4" and now I feel stupid. So on with the program.

This is the lab I work in. In you're not familiar with the first picture, it's an airbox which is a sealed unit where you work with air-sensitive chemicals. It's an all nitrogen environment and it's a pain in the ass to work with. You get used to it though...



Here are the deprotonated (minus one hydrogen atom) amino crystals that I posted the structure for here:



And a long shot of one side of the lab:


No, not impressive but cool to see if you haven't ever.

FREE BURMA

In light of my earlier post... I guess I can do something.

Quickies

I certainly would rather be writing in here than transferring online BioChem powerpoints to bullet-pointed Word files but school calls.

I did, however, want to share two quick things: a source and an article from that source. Since the article is, once again, outside my usual transportation scope, I wanted to provide an explanation. First, the site:

INHABITAT

The site is a feed and can be added to your reader program (if you have no idea what I'm talking about but would like to, comment and I'll help you out).

In their words:

Inhabitat.com is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.

Design to save us all. Making sustainability part of "the cool" is, simply, the only way to get it to catch. Make the coolest thing the most sustainable (or vice versa) and it happens, just like that.

I've always found minimalist construction and design the most beautiful. Aesthetics to me have more to do with working with what you have rather than brute force. For example: a domicile constructed into a hillside is far more beautiful than one that was built on the flat grave site of the same hill.

In the same vein, remodeling old structures and outfitting the inside with modern design elements appeals to me A LOT. There is a building here in San Diego that gutted an old, unused church to make huge loft condos.

So, it makes sense that this structure is, in my eyes, undeniably gorgeous:





Read the article for more information but contemplate this little nugget of happiness...

The embodied energy in existing materials has been diluted through an extension of the structure’s viability. Through reuse and adaptation the cost of demolition, trucking and land filling debris, the manufacturing, transport and installation of new structural materials has been eliminated. The result is a quiet lesson in “stealth green” - reuse brings both ecological and cultural advantages.

By not wrecking this building to create another, the whole renovation paid for itself. Let that sink it...

Back to the powerpoint

What I Want

-> I want a hybrid-powered Honda Element. The regular-powered one is great and gets good gas mileage but I want a hybrid version. The technology exists for this to be created.

-> I want a hydrogen reformer that runs off of the power of my car. I want to store a bit of water and have my engine my hydrogen from it and use it to augment my gasoline. I want it to be built by Mitsubishi or Fujitsu. Or Microsoft. The technology exists for this to be created.

-> I want a cheap, efficient multi-fuel transportation option. I want it to run off hydrogen or butane or methane or CNG and have batteries and hybrid functionality. I want to be able to charge it. I don't need a top speed any higher than, say, 80. Range is nice but not the most important. I want to be able to recharge it. The technology exists for this to be created.

-> I want a cohesive, comprehensive green energy solution for my life. I want to be able to call someone and have it installed top to bottom. I want to be taught exactly how it works and what parts of it are likely to improve over the next 5/10/20 years. I want solar cells and hydrogen reformers and I want to be able to work on it. The technology exists for this to be created.

-> I want to build myself a super-environmentally friendly house somewhere nice. The bank account does not yet exist for this to be created.

New Suzuki gives birth!

Very innovative...

Low-speed portable tool "PIXY ([pikushi])" of one person riding, uniting with this tool, it depends on automobile which makes movement as an automobile possible, is based on the sharing system type portable unit "SSC (s s sea)" lightly, it is easy to the person, concept of the new vehicle, " SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY ([sasuteinaburumobiritei]) "is proposed. In 2007 May from the economic industrial ministry it was announced it is put out with the "next generation automobile fuel initiative", it is the portable tool which produces the new city traffic where to also "the greatest in the world it paralleled easy car social" conception, possibility of new personal mobility and the sharing system is proposed.

Uhh right. There is something to be said about losing the beauty of a language through a computer auto-translator.

Link to article here

The Paradox of Choice

Some interesting insight from psychologist Barry Schwarz. The title of this post is the title of his most recent book.

Click here for his TEDTalk (20 minutes but well worth your time).

He postulates that the level of choice available to a citizen of an industrial country such as ours works against our well-being (to say nothing of our society or our planet) His four main points:

1) Massive propagation of choice creates regret and anticipated regret. If you have more options for each choice in your life, the best you can ever hope for is good enough for what you want. We delete the idea of "pleasently surprised" because now we have enough options so that we should never expect to be disappointed. Goes with #3.

2) More choice means a preoccupation with missed opportunities (AKA opportunity costs). If you buy one product or marry one person or choose one career, you forfeit the other options available to you. The more options that you forfeit, the more things you have to compare to what you already chose. This lowers your satisfaction with what you have (grass is greener).

3) An increase of choice leads to an increase of expectation. If you have 5 different types of jeans to choose from, it's likely you'll be slightly disappointed. As such, you have realistic expectations about how the jeans will work for you. If, however, you have 100 choices, you expect to find the most perfect pair of jeans possible, even if they do not exist. You are tampering with your ability to be content with what you choose. The best you can get is now just good enough.

4) When you're offered a myriad choices and your expectations are high and you choose something that is less than satisfying, you experience self-blame. Before this massive push towards consumer choice, if you were dissatisfied, it was because the market did not cater directly to you. Now the burden falls on you; if you choose the wrong pair of jeans, what's wrong with you?

I did a fairly poor job of summarizing his talk. If any of this resonates with you, watch his talk. If you think this is a pile of crap, watch his talk. I'll end up referring back to this paradox of choice a lot in the future I imagine.