07:49 – The euro game of smoke and mirrors continues. There was concern that Greece would be unable to pay off more than €3 billion in bonds that are coming due this month, thereby forcing Greece to default (again), but Greece was able to get off a €4.1 billion bond auction last week of three-month t-bills. The problem is, it really is all smoke and mirrors. The bonds Greece has to pay off this month are held by the ECB. The t-bills that Greece sold last week were bought by Greek banks, which borrowed the money to buy the t-bills from–you guessed it–the ECB. In effect, the ECB provided Greece with a bridge loan to carry Greece just long enough to get the next installment of the bailout, which is by no means guaranteed. Talk about the Walking Dead.
We continue to build and ship science kits.
15:33 – I’m re-ordering components for the science kits, and as always our costs are going up. I just had to post a notice on the biology kit page that we’re increasing the price of that kit from $170 to $185 as of 1 October. I hate doing that, but we simply can’t absorb these increases. The current price of the kits is based on components ordered and paid for back in February, and the costs have increased significantly in the last six months. Sometimes dramatically. One component, fortunately not one of the more expensive ones, has more than doubled in price since February. The government keeps reporting that inflation is low, but that’s sure not my experience.
Meanwhile, I’m about to make up three of the nastier solutions that are in the forensic science kit. All three of them are essentially pure concentrated sulfuric acid, with 1% of something added: diphenylamine (diphenylamine reagent), ammonium metavanadate (Mandelin reagent), or formalin (Marquis reagent). If you’ve ever worked with concentrated sulfuric acid, you know that it’s a dense, oily, viscous liquid. So I’m considering how to fill the bottles for the kits.
One method I considered and ruled out was to buy an auto-burette, which is basically an automated bottle filler. Each press of the pump dispenses the volume you’ve set on the device. Using it is quick and easy, and it’d be worth while if I were filling 500 bottles at a time, or even 200. The problem is, there’s a significant amount of time and effort required for set-up, tear-down, and clean-up. Using an auto-burette to fill 30 or 60 bottles at a time actually takes more time and effort than doing it manually.
I could just fill the bottles manually from a beaker, but concentrated sulfuric acid is difficult to pour into a narrow-mouth bottle without spilling it. The kits will include only 5 mL of diphenylamine reagent and 10 mL each of Mandelin and Marquis reagents, but we’re using 30 mL bottles for all three of them because the 30 mL bottles have wider mouths than the 15 mL and smaller bottles. The solutions are so thick and viscous that it’s almost impossible to pour them into the 15 mL and smaller bottles.
But before I decide to pour from a beaker, I think I’m going to try using a 10 mL serological pipette with either a pipette bulb or a pipette pump. It’s not that I’m worried about getting too much liquid in the bottles; rather I’m concerned about dispensing too little. It’s pretty tough to judge 10 mL let alone 5 mL in a 30 mL bottle. I could dispense by weight, but weighing each bottle to make sure it meets a minimum weight is a pain in the petunia. With the pipette and pump or bulb, it should go pretty quickly. Just suck up liquid from a beaker until it’s above the 5 mL or 10 mL index line, as appropriate, and then let it run into the bottle. The only thing that concerns me is the viscosity. The liquid may take too long to run out of the pipette. Oh, well. The only way to find out is to try it.
The government keeps reporting that inflation is low, but that’s sure not my experience.
It’s been masked by the fall in housing costs, and the fall in energy prices. Also, there have been some drops in beef prices as ranchers reduce herds because of the drought. Expect all food prices to spike shortly.
In addition, I wonder if the system they use for pricing groceries is done via the UPC barcode, or by someone going in and buying a basket of standard items from the shelf. If the latter, they may not be getting the true costs. For example, I recently bought some chili (for hot dogs at the beach) and the can had a lot more head room than I remember. I checked it later against a can I had in the pantry and the quantity went from 11 oz. to 10 oz. Same price, 9% less. It did have a different UPC. I’ve seen similar changes in other packaged foods.
I bought some Lean Beef Chili last night at Walmarts. $2.38 per can !!! That will be $3 at Safeway. I distinctly remember paying $1.50 per can a year or two ago and thinking that was a lot of money then.
Greece had a 6.2% contraction of their economy in the 2nd quarter:
http://www.watoday.com.au/business/world-business/greek-economy-shrinks-62-in-q2-20120814-245eh.html
That is an absolute freaking disaster. People are seriously getting hurt there. I have no idea how people have any faith in the government whatsoever. Greece is not the Walking Dead, it is the laying down and dying dead. Would the EU allow Turkey to take over Greece right now ? Turkey has been desiring Greece for a long time, crises make good opportunities according to Raum Emmanuel.
The pain for Greece has not yet even begun. It’s already a third-world country now by most measures, and it’s going to get a lot worse.
Hi Bob,
I would try filling the bottles with a wash bottle (cutting the tip as necessary for good flow) and measuring the amount by weight. Put the bottle in a plastic weighing boat to catch any drips.
Cheers,
Rod Schaffter
I read a handy shopping tip on line today from a Venezuelan that I thought I would pass along. First he made the point that when inflation is high you can sometimes find the best prices in the stores that sell the least as they still have the old stock on the shelves. Then he went on to give a practical example. He used to shop for expensive brands of rum in the stores that did all there business selling to the poor, who couldn’t afford the high-end stuff so it sat on the shelves marked with the old price.
Is this stuff real?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-21/us-republican-candidate-under-pressure-over-rape-comments/4211578
Farewell Phyllis Diller.
“You know you’re old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes and you’re barefoot.”
Miles_Teg, it’s like I keep saying: The rest of the world should get down on their knees daily and be grateful that the United States (even before we were the United States) took the religious whackjobs who were not suited to live amongst decent folk.
Phyllis Diller—another fine atheist.
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, 1 January 1999: “We were not created by a deity. We created the deity on our image.” Quoted later, in the November 2001 issue of A&U magazine: “Religion is such a medieval idea. Don’t get me started. I have thought about every facet of religion and I can’t buy any of it.”
Steve, there’s an Australian creationist called Ken Ham who we encouraged to migrate to the US. Why? Because there are so few whackjobs here per head of population that Ken was really lonely. We sent him to the US where whackjobs are commonplace and he’d have lots of company. A fine humanitarian gesture, don’t you think? An added benefit was that his move to the US raised the average IQs of both countries.
Chuck, yes, PD *is* a good atheist.
Tiny Town’s Little League team made it to the World Series, but bombed out against Texas yesterday in a stunning defeat.
Meanwhile, remember the mayor I told you about, who increased the trash pickup days and put more people back on the payroll to do it, while sidelining the robot truck? Here is his comment to a local TV station yesterday:
“This only happens once every few hundred years. This is the first time New Castle has ever went to the Little League World Series,” said New Castle Mayor Greg York.
http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/sports/new-castle-rallies-around-little-league
I leave you to draw your own conclusions. But damn people around here can’t speak English. It is grating. The TV station refers to Tiny Town as “small city”. I don’t know, Tiny Town seems to have a better ring to it.
Then there’s the American from Tennessee interviewed by BBC this morning as the bass singer who can hit the lowest note in the world: “I’ve sang all my life.”
Chuck, I thought you were trying to be anonymous. You’ve just named your home town and made it easy for Men in Black to find you and haul you off to Florence for 50 years for all your misdeeds. That is, if the obsessive fans don’t get you first… 🙂
Yeah, it’s for real: “From what I understand from doctors … if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”
Some people are idiots, others are uneducated. Congresscritters seem to be both.
That’s what I love about Australia: less crazies, and the politicians, bad as they are, are nowhere near as bad as US congrespersons.
I’m sure Ron Paul wouldn’t have said something so stupid.
That’s a brilliant idea! I’ll give it a try. Thanks.