The Detroit News Electronic Edition

On April 8, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press converted to three day a week publishing, and are selling electronic editions every day.

Since the switch, I have been setting my laptop on the kitchen counter and reading the "paper". First, I like the electronic edition more than the paper edition. I don't think I want to get the paper one any more. It would be nice if I could read the paper on my iPod, but I can't. Other sites work better on my iPod. The iPod works pretty well on the couch in the evening.

The best thing about the electronic version is that I can read it in ten minutes. So fast. So easy. Great download speed.

The worst thing is that the Detroit papers have cancelled a lot of the content that I want to read. That is one reason I can read it so fast. For example, the political columnists and brand-name advice columnists are gone. Of course, I could find these guys on creator.com.

I suppose I could just put a link to them on my home page.

My dilemma is whether I should switch to another electronic newspaper like the electronic New York Times or the electronic USA Today. These would have more feature stories, but then most of those stories are available for free, and there would not be any local coverage. Not there there is much Southgate Michigan coverage anyway.

I have been paying $10-12/month for news, and I don't think electronic delivery is a problem. I would rather be able to read several different newspapers rather than being restricted to one paper. Also I don't like paying for this lite version of the Detroit News. I feel like a fool.

!!See my follow-up posting!!

The Lemon Jolly Rancher - We Mourn Its Passing.

Sadly, the Hershey's company has withdrawn my favorite, the sour lemon Jolly Rancher. 

Being Easter I hope that someday, it will Rise Again!

Why do they always discontinue my favorite products?  Where is my Vanilla Flavored Decafe Taster's Choice? What happened to the medium-sized Nerds candy?

Here is a memo from Hershey's:

Thank you for contacting The Hershey Company. Your comments about JOLLY RANCHER hard candy are important.

We are sorry to disappoint you, but JOLLY RANCHER hard candy in the lemon flavor is currently not available. This product is not being produced for nationwide retail distribution at this time and we are unable to provide you with details as to when and where you might be able to obtain this product. We apologize for any inconvenience and assure you that your comments will be shared with our Marketing Department.

Your interest in our company is appreciated.

Jean Saldutti
Consumer Representative
005038582A

(click here for the original citation)

 

One blogger said to try to console yourself with lemon Altoids. I may try that.

General Dynamics

Following up the on the preceding post on the fictional company Veridian Dynamics, I find out that defense contractor General Dynamics bought Veridian in 2003. Veridian was an computer services company based in Michigan.

Wikipedia claims the drawing at right was a logo for General Dynamics in 1960. This strikes me as a possible hoax on Wikipedia. I wish that this flying boat was a General Dynamics logo even if it was not. General Dynamics has run some strange ads that have been as whimscal as this; perhaps it was an ad and not a logo.

The 2009 logo for General Dynamics is below. I can't find a higher resolution graphic than this.

I suppose someone at General Dynamics is mad about the Veridian Dynamics satire, but the lawyers at Disney must have checked it out first, and Disney lawyers as supposed to be tough. I suspect most of the people at General Dynamics think it is as funny as I do.

[[Link to next Veridian Dynamics Post]]

Veridian Dynamics

Veridian Dynamics seems to be related to the purchase of Veridian by General Dynamics -- see my next post.

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Everyone likes Dilbert and its satire on corporate life. Dilbert has been around forever now, and I am about to cancel my newspaper anyway.

Veridian Dynamics is a better parody of office and corporate life. It is the company on the ABC series Better Off Ted.

I love the commercials for Veridian Dynamics that they run on the show. They look like real commercials, but are just a little twisted. The satire is subtle enough to be funny to me, and I think that may be the end of its commercial appear. I was encouraged to see that they gave it a website.

The jokes on their website don't compare to the deadpan dialog from Portia de Rossi, who has displaced Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock as my favorite self-absorbed TV executive. Her character, Veronica, is delightfully self-absorbed.

I also like that they have two lab-coat-clad chemists on the show running experiments with test tubes. We don't get too many chemists on who aren't probing crime scenes or cooking drugs. Although real chemists don't use test tubes much anymore.

Veridian Dynamics seems to be related to the purchase of Veridian by General Dynamics -- see my next post.

What I need is a Veridian Dynamics coffee cup. Seriously, it would be a great inside joke.

[[I made myself a cup!!. See this post.]]

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People who like Veridian Dynamics may also like the the Multinational United site for the movie D-9.

My Brand-New Generation 3 Ipod Shuffle is Broken

My New IPod Shuffle Review

I got my new iPod on Sunday, and it is light and easy to use. It takes some time to get used to the menus which a voice-synthesizer reads into your ear buds. 

The bad part is the little control on the headphone wire. It is a three button switch for increasing volume, decreasing volume and for changing songs. By listening carefully to the menu, and clicking or double clicking one can pick the song you want from among playlists. 

My problem is the little control is broken. I could raise the volume, but I could not lower it. I was at the gym exercising, and suddenly the earbuds were screeching in my ears, and I could not turn it down. I pressed on the button until my fingers turned red, but even after repeated reinstalling still no luck. 

I called the Apple Service Line and actually got to talk to a person. He kept me on the line for a while, but is promising me a whole new iPod. The Apple guy would not send me a new cord. He said they wanted the old one back first, so I have to mail it to them.

I use my IPod Shuffle when I exercise. The little iPod is so light and easy to wear. I use it for podcasts while I weight-lift and listen to fast music while I run. On the bright side, the iPod syncs flawlessly with iTunes -- something that my Gen 2 iPods did not do so well. 

 It looks like I need to carry my big ipod around for a while. 

!!Click to keep reading. Lots more on the ipod shuffle gen3 saga above!!

European Coatings Show

This week was my  7-day trip to Europe. I flew to Amsterdam and visited a factory in Netherlands; drove down to Nuernberg; and then visited BASF in Ludwigshafen afterwards. 

On the business side, I got to meet company people in German and there are so many projects we needed to update. The European Coatings show was surprisingly well attended, and I got to meet several American customers, and a  zillion European  suppliers. It was larger than the American show, but not supergiant like the Plastics Show for example. 

On the personal side, it was nice to walk around the park in Netherlands, and to tour around in the Old City in Nuernberg.  The highlights were the Reisling and the Weis Beer.  I also had some good blanched aspargus, which they call spargel. Oh, and I got the upgrade to business class on the way home. Cheap BASF makes use fly tourist. 

Detroit House Prices

Detroit House Prices Reach Ridiculous Low



Living just 15 miles from Detroit, this data literally strikes close to home.

I understand that the education, crime, city-government and other issues that drive property values -- nonetheless, this is an alarming loss of wealth. With prices at this level houses are moving again. I wonder what will happen with prices so low. There have been communities revitalized by new blood drawn to cheap housing. That is searching for a silver-lining that may not be there.

I am more inclined to see this as the financial crisis striking the weak and vulnerable the hardest.

This is from Michael Perry's blog, who tapped the Michigan Realtor's for the data. I went to the realtor's site, and only found data for January. I don't know where Prof. Perry got his historical data.

Molecules with Silly Names

I came across a collection of silly chemical names while looking up something else. It was compiled by Paul May, who also has a book form.

There is a predictable blend of puns and profanity. I thought the example of penguinone was clever.

Penguinone
The structure drawing looks like a penguin. It's real name is: 3,4,4,5-tetramethylcyclohexa-2,5-dienone.




If you don't like this one, then you won't like the others. This is as good as chemical name puns get.

Southern Society for Coatings Technology Meeting In St. Simon's Island Georgia

I attended the Southern Society Meeting, and got to meet a lot of wonderful people. It was a nice location, and although it is tween seasons, it is nice to be outside in the sun. In fact, I got sun burned yesterday afternoon.

There were a few good papers on natural coatings, and the best was by Stuart Williams from Rohm and Haas, who gave the keynote. He hit many of the same themes that I did in my talk. He said R&H and "Ceres" were working on a bioroute to methyl methacrylate, which would be a big advance if successful. There is Ceres Company that does energy crops, and Ceres consortium that promotes environmental causes -- I don't know which it is. Getting a solution for propylene based building blocks is a major issue in the field.

This afternoon, we had a nice presentation on REACH, the European chemical regulatory system, that seems to be a far more complicated version of TSCA, or more accurately the Canadian DSL. REACH has worthy goals, but it is wildly expensive.

Happily I did get a few minutes to jog on the beach this afternoon, before heading to the awards dinner Tuesday night, and the 4:30 AM departure to the airport Wednesday morning.

Coatings in a High Petroleum Cost World

I worked on green and natural coatings for a year in 2004. It was motivated by raw material shortages at my old company Johnson Polymer, but there were a lot of raw material shortages that year. We were thinking about making industrial polymers (for coatings and inks) from agricultural feedstocks. The world learned in 2007 and 2008 that this was a bad idea, because the agriculture prices depended on petroleum prices, and actually we were not gaining freedom -- just a different kind of dependence.

This Tuesday March 24, I will present a paper on what I learned.

Platform	Details	Uses	Properties
Bio-monomers	Bio-acrylic from lactic or 3-hydroxypropanol, crotonic acid and esters furfuyl alcohol, itaconates, many others	Main polymer	Bioacrylic = acrylic Not all copolymerize well
Terpene/maleic & terpene/maleic esters	Dicyclopentadiene, limonene or similar copolymerized with maleic anhydride/esters	Main polymer, Thickener/ colloid	Hard, often yellow Limited supply
Proteins	Water soluble proteins: casein, soy protein isolate, whey protein concentrate, gelatine,	Main polymer, support resin	Can be tough, clear & crosslinkable. Pure grades are expensive.

Platform	Details	Uses	Properties
Starch/Dextrin	Used today and in the past >propoxlated, ethoxylated, etc	Modifier & thickener used in paper and in adhesive,	Highly modified grades address limitations in solubility and water resistance – at added cost
Natural polyesters	Vegetable oil polyesters, fumarates Used today and in the past	Main polymer	Great range of properties; Natural ones are hard to water-base
Polysaccharides	Aqueous solutions of carrageenan, xanthan, pectan, guar, agar or chitosan	Modifier, support resin, main polymer	Mainly thickeners; Chitosan – a biocide, used on paper
Rosin/tannin	Used today and in the past	Modifier, surfactant	Hard, yellowish
Others	Natural rubber, shellac, lecithin
Vernonia oil,	A naturally epoxidized oil Supply issues	Crosslinking coatings	Good toughness