ABC Wednesday Archives - Page 48 of 91

I is for inert gases

“Unlike noble gases, an inert gas is not necessarily elemental and is often a compound gas.”

This is true: part of what I liked about high school chemistry is that it was sexy. The idea of the Na hanging out there with an extra electron, hooking up with a Cl lacking one, and voila, salt! Hubba, Hubba, and all that.

But then there were those elements, gases who did not mess around with other elements, and I admired them too. After all, they were “noble” gases, virtuous, chaste.

Evidently, though, I must have mislearned part of this:

The noble gases and nitrogen often do not react with many substances. Inert gases are used generally to avoid unwanted chemical reactions degrading a sample. These undesirable chemical reactions are often oxidation and hydrolysis reactions with the oxygen and moisture in air. The term inert gas is context-dependent because nitrogen gas and several of the noble gases can be made to react under certain conditions.

Purified nitrogen and argon gases are most commonly used as inert gases due to their high natural abundance (78% N2, 1% Ar in air) and low relative cost.

Unlike noble gases, an inert gas is not necessarily elemental and is often a compound gas. Like the noble gases the tendency for non-reactivity is due to the valence, the outermost electron shell, being complete in all the inert gases. This is a tendency, not a rule, as noble gases and other “inert” gases can react to form compounds.

So, those six naturally-occurring noble gases, hanging on the right side (in every sense) of the periodic table – helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe), and the radioactive radon (Rn) – may not be as chaste as I had once imagined. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide IS considered inert, even though it’s not noble, and is used in wine bottling.

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

H is for “Happy”

Pharrell is overwhelmed by the experience of watching a simple idea—film yourself being happy—as it spreads around the world.

Pharrell Williams is a successful singer/songwriter/producer who was associated with a lot of hit songs in the past decade, including 2013’s “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, and “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke.

He wrote and recorded HAPPY for the Despicable Me 2 movie soundtrack, with a video featuring characters from the movie released that summer. The song was disappointing, commercially, in the US.

Then in November 2013, Pharrell decided to make a new video with “appearances by Magic Johnson, Steve Carell, Jimmy Kimmel, Jamie Foxx, Miranda Cosgrove, Janelle Monáe, and many others.” It had “received approximately 5.5 million views as of Christmas Day, 2013,” and over 140 million by now. In case you missed it, LISTEN to the 24-hour version of HAPPY.

For all his previous success, it was the breakthrough of HAPPY that made Pharrell Williams most emotional. “Pharrell’s reaction is the one many of us have had to the remixes of his video: he cries for a long time, overwhelmed not only by his success but by the experience of watching a simple idea—film yourself being happy—as it spreads around the world.”

The song even made news when some Iranian young people were briefly arrested for appearing in a remake of the video.

It was #1 for four weeks on the Billboard charts, starting March 29, 2014.

Here’s Rico and Rebecca’s JibJab version. (Rebecca’s my first niece.) It was used in this Daily Show with Jon Stewart segment.

LISTEN to Jeremy Green’s viola cover of HAPPY. PLUS Weird Al Yankovic’s parody, TACKY.

WATCH this Soul Train mashup:

Post by Carol Rosenthal.

BTW, song titles aren’t copyrighted. LISTEN to HAPPY by the Rolling Stones.

In honor of ABC Wednesday’s Leslie getting married to Lorne recently, LISTEN to HAPPY TOGETHER by the Turtles.

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

August Rambling: Deep dark secrets

I wrote this blog post about my ambivalence about blogging on the Times Union website.

The Hook-Up Culture Is Getting 20-Somethings Nowhere. On the other hand, Casual Love.

How we get through life every day.

Nixon’s still the one. And What We Lost 40 Years Ago When Nixon Resigned. See Harry Shearer recreate Richard Nixon as he preps and delivers his resignation speech. Plus George Will Confirms Nixon’s Vietnam Treason.

New Zealand’s non-partisan Get Out the Vote campaign. I don’t see such things often in the US. Sure, there’s get our SUPPORTERS to vote, but that’s a different animal.

Deep Dark Fears is “a series of comics exploring those intimate, personal fears that mostly stem from your imagination getting darkly carried away.” Read more about it.

Rod Serling’s closing remarks from The Obsolete Man episode of The Twilight Zone. “It remains profoundly prescient and relevant.”

All these in a 48-hour period: How games’ lazy storytelling uses rape and violence against women as wallpaper and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has come forward with several stories of being called “chubby,” “fat,” and “porky” by her male colleagues in Congress and Fark prohibits misogyny in new addition to moderator guidelines and Snappy response to sexist harasser in the tech field.

Modern Office with Christina Hendricks.

FLOWCHART: Should You Catcall Her?

Guns and The Rule of Intended Consequences.

What our nightly views might look like if planets, instead of our moon, orbited Earth.

Cartoon: Pinocchio, Inc.

Remember when I wrote about flooding in Albany this month? Dan explains the systemic reason WHY it happened.

Arthur makes the case against “the case against time zones.” I’m not feeling the abolition of time zones either, at this point.

Nōtan: Dark and Light principles of Design.

The jungle gym as math tool.

The disaster drafts for professional sports.

The Procrastination Doom Loop—and How to Break It.

One of my favorite movie quotes, maybe because it’s so meta: “That’s part of your problem: you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.” (Grand Canyon, 1991)

Seriously, Rebecca Jade, the first niece, is in about four different groups, in a variety of genres. Here’s The Soultones cover band – Promo video. Plus a link to her latest release, Galaxy, with Jaz Williams.

Tosy’s U2, ranked 40-31 and 30-21.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, 2004.

August 22, 1969: The Beatles’ Final Photo Shoot

Coverville 1043: The Elvis Costello Cover Story III, in honor of him turning 60.

4 chairs, 4 women; 4 women, no chairs.

12 billion light-years from the edge. A funny bit!

Don Pardo, R.I.P..

Lauren Bacall: always the life of the party. And cinema icon of Hollywood’s golden age, 1924-2014. A Dustbury recollection.

More Robin Williams: on ‘cowardice’ and compassion. Also, a Dan Meth drawing and Aladdin’s Broadway cast gave a him beautiful tribute. Plus, a meeting of Yarmy’s Army and Ulysses.

Jaquandor remembers little Quinn. Damn middle recording made me cry.

The Wellington Hotel Annex in Albany, N.Y. was… murdered in plain sight in front of hundreds of onlookers. “If I were a building, this is how I’d like to go.” Here’s another view.

SamuraiFrog’s Muppet jamboree: C is for Clodhoppers and D Is for Delbert (who evolved) and E is for Eric the Parrot and F is for a Fraggle and G Is for the Gogolala Jubilee Jugband.

New SCRABBLE words. Word Up has identified some of the new three-letter words.

I SO don’t care: one space or two after the period. Here’s a third choice.

The ultimate word on that “digital natives” crap.

Whatever Happened to the Metric System?

Freedom from fear.

Ever wondered what those books behind the glass doors of the cupboard might be thinking or feeling?

The New Yorker thinks Yankovic is weirdly popular.

Here’s a nice Billy Joel story.

Pop songs as sonnets.

House of Clerks, a parody of House of Cards.

Saturday Night Live Political Secrets Revealed.

This Sergio Aragonés masterpiece is included as a fold-out poster within Inside Mad. His priceless gift to all Mad fans shows over six decades of Mad contributors and ephemera within a mish-mash of Mad office walls. The only thing missing in this beautiful mess is a key. Doug Gilford will be attempting to label everything you see with brief (pop-up) descriptions and links to pertinent pages…

Hello Kitty is not a cat. You may have known that; somehow, I missed it.

You May Have Something Extremely Valuable Hiding In Your Change.

Improved names for everyday things

GOOGLE ALERTS (me)

I wrote this blog post about my ambivalence about blogging on the Times Union website. J. Eric Smith, who used to be a TU blogger, responds at length.

SamuraiFrog responds to my response to 16 Habits of Sensitive People. Also, per moi, he does his #1 songs on his birthday: 1987-1996 and 1997-2006, and 2007-2013. I’ll go back to this myself, eventually.

Dustbury on the theme song to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which a passage in Schutte’s Mass resembles more than slightly. He discovers a Singapore McDonalds product.

Jaquandor answers my questions about vices such as swearing and politics/American exceptionalism.

He also writes of buckets and the dumping of the water therein, which Gordon thinks hurts nonprofits. Snopes, BTW, debunks the claim that 73 percent of donations to the ALS Association fund executive salaries and overhead.

Do you know that ABC Wednesday meme I mention with a great amount of regularity? I think this recent introduction I wrote explains it fairly well.

G is for Zina Garrison

Zina Garrison claimed her third Grand Slam mixed doubles title at Wimbledon in 1990, partnering with Rick Leach.

From the Wikipedia:

Zina Lynna Garrison (born November 16, 1963, in Houston, Texas) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. During her career, she was a women’s singles runner-up at Wimbledon in 1990, a three-time Grand Slam mixed doubles champion, and a women’s doubles gold medalist at the 1988 Olympic Games.

She finished 1989 ranked a career-high World No. 4 in singles.

ZINA was a ZESTFUL person, who, when she was in the ZONE, could be a formidable player.

She lost to Martina Navratilova 21 straight times before beating her in the 1988 US Open, advancing to the semifinals where she lost to Gabriella Sabatini. You can see a clip of her talking about the victory HERE.

The highlight of Garrison’s career came in 1990 at Wimbledon. She defeated French Open champion Monica Seles in the quarterfinals 3–6, 6–3, 9–7 and the defending Wimbledon champion and World No. 1 Steffi Graf in the semifinals 6–3, 3–6, 6–4 to reach her first (and only) Grand Slam singles final, becoming the first African-American woman to do so since Althea Gibson. There, she lost to Navrátilová 6–4, 6–1 who won her record ninth women’s singles title at Wimbledon. However, Garrison claimed her third Grand Slam mixed doubles title at Wimbledon that year (partnering with Rick Leach).

The reason I thought about her is a news piece about how Zina is now coaching 18-year-old Taylor Townsend. They may be well-suited to work together because both dealt with eating issues. Zina suffered from bulimia after her mother died. Before Zina trained her, Taylor was asked by the tennis authorities “to sit out of the 2012 U.S. Open Junior tournament due to her [excessive] weight.”

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

F is for Floccinaucinihilipilification

I love the notion of the long word having a small meaning.

From Uncommon parlance:
“Floccinaucinihilipilification is the act of estimating something as worthless or without value. It has the distinction of being the longest non-technical word in the English language.”

So why do we have such a long word to designate so little?

“Apparently the term was coined by pupils at Eton from a line in the Eton Latin Grammar that listed verbs that govern a genitive noun: Flocci, from floccus, a wisp or piece of wool + nauci, from naucum, (a trifle) + nihili, from the Latin pronoun, nihil (nothing) + pili, from pilus, (a hair, or something insignificant) + fication.”

In case you’re having any difficulty with the pronunciation, go HERE. It just trips off the tongue, does it not?

I’m quite fond of the notion of the long word having a small meaning. It’s somewhat like the musical term hemidemisemiquaver, which means a 64th note, which is mighty short. And while I grew up with the American notation, I LOVE the word hemidemisemiquaver.

And speaking of notes, LISTEN TO:

Worthless from The Brave Little Toaster
Nothing From Nothing – Billy Preston. It went to #1 in 1974.

And yes, floccinaucinihilipilification is another one of those words that you ALMOST never see in blogs.

ABC Wednesday, Round 15