Question: Chemistry Pop Quiz
I know we’ve spent a lot of time collectively studying Biology lately. It is in fact an endlessly fascinating topic, especially when we dissect the functions of our biological urges and those of others.
However, we haven’t really been paying attention to the elements, and how they function. Yes, we’ve had some volatile experiments in the past, as well as certain solutions that just didn’t crystallize no matter how long we left them over the Bunsen burner. What are our observations? Can we alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements?
Class, we’re overdue for a pop quiz in Chemistry. Please put away your books and take out a #2 pencil.
1.) What is the half-life of love?
2.) When does attraction become inert?
3.) Is the natural state of indifference a liquid, gas or solid?
Goggles are recommended during this test and any lab-work as I cannot guarantee something will not splash in your eye. Please remember to document all lab-work. You will need to show all equations and work in your answers. There are no extra-credit but this will be graded on a curve.
Please answer via email or comments.
This test is timed.
Answers, part 2: What is your ordinary superpower?
-The Time Bandit: Somehow I’ve managed to learn how to squeeze extra hours in the normal, human, 24-hour clock.
-Super G: I have the power to get violently angry about things that only ever happened in my head.
-The Claw (AKA Mrs. William Peterson): I can scratch out someone’s eyes with my nails. The claws can be used for sensual or defensive purposes….or both…(Ed note: The nails and hands in question are truly beautiful, no kidding.)
-The Perfector - I make sure there is no detail overlooked and everything is just so. Sometimes I am my own enemy because an imperfect thought could lead to a mistake. There is no room for error in a perfectly edited life. My Kryptonite is criticism and my best defense is my stubbornness. I highly dislike being referred to as anal retentive, please choose your words wisely. Unwavering persistance is what ultimately leads me to perfection and is my secret weapon.
-Needy McGrabby: The nicest little squid you’ll ever meet and promptly forget. Finder of snacks, polisher of shoes, whose kindness makes the insecure bolt.
-Directron the Movinator- I stopped overanalyzing things and had to play Tetris to keep my mind occupied. I found I had an ability for this and a superb sense of direction. With these two forces, I can use them for good: by helping people move.
-The Clod: Extra-ordinary clumsiness!
-My superhero name is Dylan Schwartz and my superpower is being a Schwartz every day of my life without imploding upon myself.
-Halloween: Every day I am someone else, dressed as someone else, behaving like someone else. It is the freedom to not be me.
Answers part 2: What are you made of?
-Not your average sugar and spice… more like Cheetos and Yellow-tail.
-The pure love of God made grossly manifest. Also, smoothies and pasta.
-Guts.
-Strings. All people are musical instruments.
Answers, part 2: What does space smell like?
-Blue.
-Klingons.
-Suffocation.
-Olives. Space smells tangy and pungent which is a little bit scary to me because I love olives.
-There’s no air in space so you can’t smell. Sorry, I’m a dork so I take this literally.
-Burnt snow.
-Meatloaf.
-Fresh snow. Like, a snow-cone before the sugary goodness is added.
Answers: What is your ordinary superpower?
-I’m the Second-Guesser. Actually, I’m not; she’s my evil twin. But because we look alike, people mistake us for each other. She shows up in town, and spreads worry, doubt, general unease and confusion. I’m constantly trying to stay one step ahead of her and when I can’t, I’m left to right her nefarious wrongs. We’re locked in an eternal struggle against each other.
-Radioactive Worry. I can make my worry grow and grow. My challenge is to use my powers for good instead, and apply them to make my worries mutate into something beautiful and positive and possibly glittery.
-The Amazing Non-Sequitur: His lateral thinking ability allows him to connect two completely unrelated thoughts! Able to leap large gaps in logic with a single noun! He can derail a train of thought with merely a word! He will trap you within your own confusion!
-Pi Girl: I have the ability to explain math to people who don’t usually get it.
-Jason: While having no known superpowers to speak of, I do posses the uncanny ability to create amazing superpowers for spectacular superheros. My superhero name is comic book artist.
-The Age-Defying Robot: I have the ability to convert exhaustion and English muffins into high octane fuel.
-The Seductress: I make goals and always reach them. Although I have every ability to do this on my own, sometimes I have to do a little extra on my part, to convice Fate to put in a good word for me.
-The Amazing Scheming Duo (Not to be confused with the Amazing Following-Through-Getting-Stuff-Done-Duo): In their ever-changing brainstorm, the Amazing Scheming Duo generates the rumblings of ideas on the horizon. You will see the most electric flashes of brilliance, but beware: you may find yourself swept away in their flood of enthusiasm for the esoteric and ridiculous. Approach only when wearing galoshes. (Ed note: Tagline submitted by the editor to the duo for review and approval, and is approved by 50% of the Duo at this time. Full approval is pending.)
-After six years of graduate school, my superhero power is whatever a human being can possibly do with one professional degree, two graduate degress in unrelated fields, and a bunch of science education and electronic music courses that had nothing to do with his degrees in the first place. Also I have the uncanny ability to pick advisors that will have deleterious effects on my career and mental stability.
-The Excellerator: I love to play with Excel because I’m a numbers-dork. I guess I would say I’m Excel-lent. (Ed note: The Excellerator was suggested by yours-truly as an option for a name, and he preferred this.)
Question: What is your ordinary super-power?
What is your ordinary, everyday super-power? What are you doing, every day, that can be quantified, and named? This isn’t asking what you would do. We already know you would fly, shoot lasers from your eyes or seduce women without consequence. The pages of pulp novels are already filled with these stories. Yours is as-yet unwritten and unrecognized, because the unsuspecting public most likely doesn’t know you exist. This question is asking you to out yourself and what you do.
So…are you in, or are you out?
Answers Snarl Traffic, Generate Additional Questions: page C2
I found it interesting that so many people chose food scents without hesitation, regardless of the time of day or the environment in which the question was asked. It made me think of those who believe we all came from the same energy and matter that has always existed through time, and who believe everything shares every atom that makes up anything at one point or another. It is their belief that we all come from nothing and return to nothing. Since people answered that another form of the nothing (space) smelled like a familiar and home-like scent, does it mean we aren’t afraid, and that nothing is place we call home because it is where we came from and to where we will eventually return?
This possibly generates an additional question, which can be read several ways: Are you afraid of nothing?
Answers: What does space smell like?
The answers:
-Cold, like the first chairlift to the top in the morning. And maybe lonely too.
-A freezer.
-Outer space has the same smell as a blizzard in the night-time. Icy and dirty.
-David Bowie.
-Cotton.
-My grandma’s lasagna.
-Stale Cheetos.
-Rock candy.
-By the time your nose gets out of the suit, your brains have already been halfway pushed through the hole that USED to be your nose after the cartilage collapses. In other words, space smells like your nose imploding and your brains getting forced through said implosion.
-Trust me on this one, space smells like a green bean casserole.
-Cinnamon.
-Bubblegum.
-Freesia.
-The absence of patchouli.
-3-in-1 oil.
-My head exploding because there is no air in space.
-Sulphur
-The smell you smell when you’re not smelling anything at all.
-Hydrogen, because it is the most plentiful element in the universe.
-I’m really not a good one to ask what something smells like since I usually can’t smell. It could smell like french fries which is usually the only thing I think I ever smell, but then Melissa usually corrects me by telling me ‘No, that’s pollution from the smoke stacks.’ However I am certain I know what space sounds like, THE UNQUIET VOID.
-Space is a vaccuum, it does not smell like anything.
-This question is too weird and I don’t deal with this abstract shit.
-Placenta.
I’d like to add an addendum. If asked what I would want space to smell like, as opposed to what I thought it actually did smell like, I’d have to say: boy. Perhaps this off-shoot question will be revisited at a later date.
Question: What does space smell like?
The question:
The inspiration for this question came directly from boingboing.net several weeks ago. The below information was not shared with the responders until after they answered, to avoid creating a bias in their answers.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/20/astronaut-describes.html
On NASA’s website, ISS Science Officer Don Pettit describes the “smell of space” — long a staple of science fiction stories.
‘Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn’t quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces. It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as “tastes like chicken.” The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.’
