Tag: Pique the Geek

One of the more revolutionary innovations in lighting is the Light Emitting Diode, or LED.  This cutting edge technology was first discovered 103 years ago!  However, only comparatively recently have LEDs been either efficient or cheap enough for wide use.

LEDs operate just like any other diode, allowing an electric current to pass, for the most part, in only one direction.  They are built by placing into contact a P-type (positive) and an N-type (negative) semiconductor and passing a current from the N to the P materials.  In the case of LEDs, when the electrons and holes recombine, light is emitted.  In most diodes, heat is emitted.  Actually, LEDs do produce some heat as well and this becomes important for reasons to be discussed later.

After the food contamination incidents over the past couple of years, the Congress has put forth a revamp of food safety law in the United States.  This bill bass the House back in 2009 and was tied up in the Senate until last week.  The Senate passed its version (with amendments) and so it has gone back to the House for either passage of the Senate version or to head for a conference committee for resolution.

This act (S. 510) has created an outcry from both the extreme right and some “back to nature” types on the left.  Herein we shall examine some of the key provisions of the proposed law and make some judgments.  My personal feeling is that it will die before the Congress completes action on other, critical legislation like the tax issue, unemployment benefits, the federal debt ceiling, and funding the government, but who knows?

I have done quite a bit of research on this legislation and find it, for the most part, a pretty good thing.  It is designed to be proactive in that it stresses prevention of the production and distribution of contaminated or adulterated food rather than just merely reacting to an event after it occurs.  Certainly, there are reactive provisions as well, but prevention is the primary focus.

The legislation specifically applies to the following operations (from the summary posted http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill… (This is from Title I [Improving Capacity to Prevent Food Safety Problems] of the bill):

…each person (excluding farms and restaurants) who manufactures, processes, packs, distributes, receives, holds, or imports an article of food permit inspection of his or her records if the Secretary believes that there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to such food will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

Note that farms and restaurants are specifically exempted.  This becomes important later.  There is also a part that delays implementation for small businesses until a later date, the specifics of which I have not been able to find.  It is a long bill.  Each operation specified above has to pay a $500 annual registration fee and comply with the recordkeeping requirements.  The thrust of the bill is to require such establishments to conduct proper hazards analyses and implement controls to reduce the probability that contamination or adulteration will occur.

In the kitchen, oftentimes we desire to thicken a sauce or a broth without significantly changing its flavor.  There are several ways to do this, and the physicochemical principles behind them are quite different in many cases.  One way of thickening things is just to reduce them (i.e., boil them down), but that often involves chemical changes that alter flavor.

Other ways of thickening things including adding small amounts of rather bland ingredients that cause the sauce or other material to become thicker without extreme heating, or to create a complex emulsion that thickens materials due to physical rather than chemical changes.  We shall examine some of both this evening.

The concept of “small business” being damaged by increasing the progressive tax rates on what is purported to be them has not been presented correctly.  Keith Olbermann did a pretty good job a couple of weeks ago, but since his show is necessarily fast paced, the point did not make its mark as well as it might have done so.

That is no criticism towards him, because he is one of the “good guys”, but on a TeeVee show there is just not time enough to examine all of the documents that need some detailed explanation.  It he were to go into the detail that we are about to find, his show would be canceled for being extremely boring.

That is the one advantage that I have.  I can show exactly where the fallacies lie, without the restriction of a three minute treatment.  I will admit that he does indeed have a face for TeeVee, and I have one for blogs or radio.

First, please do not get me wrong.  I am a strong supporter of solar power, either to charge your car battery or to run cities.  Before we start, get the idea that I am opposed to solar power out our your mind.  But solar power has it limitations.

Lately, the SOBber on the Fox “News” network (soon to have to be distinguished from The SOBber of the House of Representatives) has been adding solar generators to gold and food stashes as a way to survive the coming apocalypse in his repertoire of advertisers.  I shall not use the name nor the website for the particular backyard solar firm to which his adverts refer, but will start by stating that the claims are, to say the least, overblown.

Before we start, very happy birthday wishes to the former Mrs. Translator!

Most of us think of nickel as the well-known United States five cent piece.  Actually, this coin is really 75% copper and only 25% nickel.  This alloy is ideal for coinage, since it is essentially noncorrosive and hard enough to resist wear in handling.  But that is only a minor use for this remarkable metal.  By the way, the U.S. five cent piece is not the first U.S. coin to be called that.  More on that later.

You handle nickel every day much more than you know.  It is present in many things that we use all of time, but it is rarely recognized.  Please come with me on an examination of a truly wonderful and useful material.

Most people think of mercury as nothing but a toxic nuisance.  Actually, that is far from the truth.  While mercury is toxic in many situations, modern life as we know it would be essentially impossible without that element.  It is also a material known from antiquity, and has drawn the interest of learned folks since then.

Mercury is unique in that it is the only metal to be a liquid at room temperature.  Actually, it is liquid from around minus 39 degrees Celsius to around 360, so it has a almost a 400 hundred degree liquid phase.  That is also sort of odd, since many metals have much longer liquid ranges.

Let us investigate this unique material, and see how it impacts our lives.  You might be surprised.

Most people never give concrete a second thought.  This is a mistake.  Concrete is one of the most versatile and widely used building materials known, and it has been known for a long time.  Concrete like materials have been unearthed in ancient Egypt, and the Romans made extensive use of it.  Concrete structures over 2000 years old are still in use today.

Roman concrete is very different than modern concrete, and it did not weather well.  Thus, Roman structures were often faced with stone or brick to increase durability.  This defect has been overcome with modern materials and production techniques.

Welcome to the third to last xx/xx/xx year in our lifetimes  Only next year and 2012 until we wait another 88 years for one.

Now that I have gotten your attention, actually MOST plastic bottles are not evil from a health and safety perspective, but the way that we use them certainly is evil.  I did say MOST, since by far the greatest number of plastic containers are made of polyethylene (PE, recycle code 2), polypropylene (PP, recycle code 5), or polyethylene terephthalate, (PET or PETE, recycle code 1).  These materials are not very apt to leach harmful materials into the contents.

Some plastics, notably polycarbonate (PC, recycle code 7 [7 is a catch all for “other”]) are apt to leach out harmful materials, particularly bisphenol A, strongly suspected as being an endocrine system disruptor because of its potential to mimic estrogen.  Polycarbonate containers are clear and usually thick, while PE and PP are translucent.  PETE is also clear, but usually quite a bit thinner than PC.  Just look at the recycle codes on the bottom.

We have been talking about sustainability recently, and one of the resources in most jeopardy is fresh water.  In the United States the freshwater problem is becoming more and more significant, and in many parts of the world it is already desperate.  We shall look at some of the methods used to purify nonpotable water tonight.

First of all, we need to understand what kind of water we are purifying.  It ranges in quality from surface or ground freshwater, requiring only minor treatment to eliminate microbes that might cause disease (the vast majority of drinking and industrial water in the United States comes from these sources), all the way to seawater, with lots of intermediate kinds.