Search results

Catastrophes related to climate change are observations at this point in time and no longer predictions. Observations can hardly be called fear mongering, unless one believes that all news is fear mongering. Some examples: increased frequency of weather related disasters, year round opening of...

Those two statements are perfectly consistent. In fact on the scale of 41kms, one could approximate the Earth as flat and only be making an error of 0.066 km, which compared to the scale of 41km is an error of 2 parts in 1000. This just shows a lack understanding of continuity on Keenan's part...

Lending a book out to a friend after one has finished reading is a legitimate use of the purchased good. Once one has read the book, the book has nearly no personal use-value anymore and has some exchange-value remaining. There are many examples of friends who share books, movies, and music in...

Fred Singer is a quack. Don't believe anything he says until you see a confidence interval and the data it was calculated from. I can wave my hands just as vigorously as him, doesn't make me or him right. Hand waving is not science, its magic.

I remember reading that precise temperature measurements didn't begin until about the 1980's and that is when the "cycle length vs temperature anomaly" graph stops plotting data. I have two fundamental questions: what is the magnitude of the error bars on that graph and how is the "temperature...

Yup, and like herm... it wasn't so bad for me mind you. Just went weak at the knees and lost sight for a moment. The chemists warned me to keep it under a fume hood, but when you are carrying it somewhere...

Whoa! 8O I think it is natural to move on to chemicals from coffee. I remember some thing I heard but never bothered verifying: that there is a ton of chemicals simply in the aroma of coffee. So naturally you end up talking about caffeeine and that goes naturally to chloroform...

Back when I was doing materials science I tried dissolving some polymers in chloroform. I accidentally got a whiff of it at one point and was not very happy about that.

Haha, I did something similar with Coca Cola one time. I drank a can and then noticed that my teeth felt a little chalky. I decided to call them up to see what this was all about. They asked me a bunch of questions about the various serial numbers and then sent me a coupon for a free case. Maybe...

Hahaha! Touche.

Yeah, its a pretty short but intense ride down the rollercoaster of psychosis.

Ah, a chemical structures guy, eh? Take a look at Salvinorin A, the whackiest hydrocarbon drug out there (most drugs I know of are alkaloids). I used to have a chemical model of caffeine in my Studentzimmer (dorm room) back during my undergrad.

I am not really sure, but it doesn't really bother me either. :) Probably manufactured, since it contains such a random assortment of chemicals. Just sometimes I want my caffeine in a cool form, and I don't like cola very much, and haven't found a good place to but iced coffee.

I felt that way about Red Bull and related drinks for quite some time. Then I developed a bit of a taste for it. Now I have one after the German course I am in, to wake me up a little.

Beans, beans, the musical... drink?

Well, its a complicated situation, mate. The beans traditionally used in espresso do contain less caffeine in them, and because of the amount of espresso normally drunk the total caffeine content in one serving is less. So, you just have to be careful how you say espresso contains less...

Not true. While one normal serving of coffee has more caffeine than one normal serving of percolated coffee, the caffeine content per volume of espresso is much higher than that of percolated coffee. Also, where you are drinking less volume you are digesting it faster and subsequently will...

Believe me, I tried a lot of things to get good tasting coffee out of that Moka, causing an explosion was just one (accidentally of course). Most of the pressure is built up from the small holes in the screen. I am pretty sure that the water can defuse faster through the grounds than the through...

I stopped doing that in the Moka because it tasted awful there... I think it may depend on the machine or its age.

I am not entirely sure, but I think I saw some espresso machines like that in Bonn Zentrum. If I pass that store again I will let you know... if it doesn't slip me...