That's the stuff I was exposed to on Tuesday.
The good news is that it appears it is extremely odorous. Worse than H2S. According to the RSC, only 0.5g were spilt, leading to concentrations on the order of 10 parts per billion. The smell was very strong in a volume of air about 10,000 cm metres. It would have been detectable over a volume possibly ten times that.
1 part per million would only have contaminated 68 cu metres under ideal conditions. Only 1/360 of a mole escaped.
This was enough though to cause people to flee the buildings because of the overpowering stench. Enough to cause rashes on some, headaches and dizziness amongst others.
The not so good news is that P(C3H7)(C2H5)(C6H5) is a relatively new molecule, and no studies have been conducted as to its toxicity. Breakdown products when exposed to air, water, and UV would include Phenol and Benzene. Carcinogens. Fortunately not dangerous at that concentration.
Friday, 27 November 2009
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Hate Crimes in the USA - 2008
The FBI reported the following hate crimes involving actual physical violence in the USA in 2008:
Against Catholics, just for being Catholic:
1 Aggravated Assault, 3 simple Assaults.
Against Protestants, just for being Protestant:
3 Aggravated assaults, 3 simple Assaults.
So we're looking at 10 victims who were violently attacked, just for being Christian.
Much has been made of this in the Catholic Press.
To put this in context though...
Muslims suffered the following injuries, just for being Muslim:
5 Aggravated Assaults, 30 simple assaults. 35 people. Three and a half times as many.
Jews suffered the following injuries, just for being Jews:
25 Aggravated Assaults, 58 simple Assaults. 83 people. Over eight times as many.
As for non-Trans gay people:
5 Murders, 6 rapes, 232 Aggravated Assaults, and 501 simple Assaults. 744 people raped, murders, or violently attacked.
Data on Trans people wasn't kept - until the recent Federal Hate Crime laws were passed, the FBI wasn't allowed to count hate crimes against trans people. But we know just from newspaper reports that at least 19 were slain.
Against Catholics, just for being Catholic:
1 Aggravated Assault, 3 simple Assaults.
Against Protestants, just for being Protestant:
3 Aggravated assaults, 3 simple Assaults.
So we're looking at 10 victims who were violently attacked, just for being Christian.
Much has been made of this in the Catholic Press.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the increase may be due to the Church becoming more vocal on life issues such as abortion and homosexual unions.
As the Catholic bishops take a stronger stance, he said, it filters down to the laity, and as more traditional Catholics become more vocal, they become targets for those who disagree with them.
“Unfortunately, it spills over into violence,” he said, adding that it’s just going to get worse before it gets better.
To put this in context though...
Muslims suffered the following injuries, just for being Muslim:
5 Aggravated Assaults, 30 simple assaults. 35 people. Three and a half times as many.
Jews suffered the following injuries, just for being Jews:
25 Aggravated Assaults, 58 simple Assaults. 83 people. Over eight times as many.
As for non-Trans gay people:
5 Murders, 6 rapes, 232 Aggravated Assaults, and 501 simple Assaults. 744 people raped, murders, or violently attacked.
Data on Trans people wasn't kept - until the recent Federal Hate Crime laws were passed, the FBI wasn't allowed to count hate crimes against trans people. But we know just from newspaper reports that at least 19 were slain.
Phosphine
Yesterday, I came home early from my office at the Australian National University.
At about 2:30, a powerful and pungent odour started to permeate the PhD students room at the College of Computer Science. One rather like that of the solvents used in rubberised fabric. It soon became much, much worse, and the students started leaving. I stayed around finishing off "just one more thing" as the stench became overpowering.
Bad Move.
The smell was still pretty awful outside. But nowhere near as bad. I felt a little dizzy, but otherwise had no immediate ill-effects.
Our building is next to the Research School of Chemistry. We still haven't been told exactly what went wrong, whether some equipment broke down, or there was some operator error... we're used to the odd evacuation due to fires or sometimes explosions. But we had no warning, the usual safety alarms weren't sounded telling us to evacuate.
It appears that phosphine, or a compound of phosphine that releases phosphine when exposed to water, was released, and in large quantities. By the time the smell becomes apparent, it's already a toxic dose, and the smell in our room wasn't just bad as it was in the rest of the building, but overpowering.
The odour becomes detectable at 1-3 ppm. The concentration I was exposed to was at least an order of magnitude greater than that, possibly 2. Fortunately only for half an hour: it's the time of exposure that's most important, rather than the concentration. It's not cumulative, and there are no long-term effects unless poisoning is acute.
Symptoms become apparent within 24 hours after exposure. I have a raging headache, but no nausea, no dizziness, and at worst a mildly sore throat and slight cough.
The safety system appears to have completely broken down though, and the RSC still hasn't told us much apart from the fact that Phosphine compounds may have been involved. Usually they go to great lengths to preserve our safety for even the most minor accidents, but now no-one's saying anything.
The symptoms I have are extremely mild, indicating no appreciable danger. At worst, it might give some anomalies in my next blood tests due in about two weeks.
I'll be drinking plenty of water though to ease the strain on my system and help flush it out. And maybe an aspirin or two, the headache is getting a bit worse now, 27 hrs after exposure ceased.
At about 2:30, a powerful and pungent odour started to permeate the PhD students room at the College of Computer Science. One rather like that of the solvents used in rubberised fabric. It soon became much, much worse, and the students started leaving. I stayed around finishing off "just one more thing" as the stench became overpowering.
Bad Move.
The smell was still pretty awful outside. But nowhere near as bad. I felt a little dizzy, but otherwise had no immediate ill-effects.
Our building is next to the Research School of Chemistry. We still haven't been told exactly what went wrong, whether some equipment broke down, or there was some operator error... we're used to the odd evacuation due to fires or sometimes explosions. But we had no warning, the usual safety alarms weren't sounded telling us to evacuate.
It appears that phosphine, or a compound of phosphine that releases phosphine when exposed to water, was released, and in large quantities. By the time the smell becomes apparent, it's already a toxic dose, and the smell in our room wasn't just bad as it was in the rest of the building, but overpowering.
The odour becomes detectable at 1-3 ppm. The concentration I was exposed to was at least an order of magnitude greater than that, possibly 2. Fortunately only for half an hour: it's the time of exposure that's most important, rather than the concentration. It's not cumulative, and there are no long-term effects unless poisoning is acute.
Symptoms become apparent within 24 hours after exposure. I have a raging headache, but no nausea, no dizziness, and at worst a mildly sore throat and slight cough.
The safety system appears to have completely broken down though, and the RSC still hasn't told us much apart from the fact that Phosphine compounds may have been involved. Usually they go to great lengths to preserve our safety for even the most minor accidents, but now no-one's saying anything.
Phosphine is the common name for phosphorus trihydride (PH3), also known by the IUPAC name phosphane and, occasionally, phosphamine. It is a colorless, flammable gas with a boiling point of −88 °C at standard pressure. Pure phosphine is odourless, but technical grade phosphine has a highly unpleasant odor like garlic or rotting fish, due to the presence of substituted phosphine and diphosphine (P2H4).
...
Phosphine is highly toxic; it kills at low concentrations.
...
Inhalation
Inhalation is the major route of phosphine toxicity. Odor is not an adequate indicator of phosphine's presence and may not provide reliable warning of hazardous concentrations. The OSHA PEL of 0.3 ppm is within the range of reported odor thresholds.
...
* Symptoms of phosphine intoxication are primarily related to the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems and may include restlessness, irritability, drowsiness, tremors, vertigo, diplopia, ataxia, cough, dyspnea, retrosternal discomfort, abdominal pain, and vomiting.
...
* Phosphine interferes with enzymes and protein synthesis, primarily in the mitochondria of heart and lung cells. As a result, effects may include hypotension, reduction in cardiac output, tachycardia, oliguria, anuria, cyanosis, pulmonary edema, tachypnea, jaundice, hepatosplenomegaly, ileus, seizures, and diminished reflexes.
...
Toxicity that occurs after inhalation is characterized by chest tightness, cough, and shortness of breath. Severe exposure can cause accumulation of fluid in the lungs, which may have a delayed onset of 72 hours or more after exposure
The symptoms I have are extremely mild, indicating no appreciable danger. At worst, it might give some anomalies in my next blood tests due in about two weeks.
I'll be drinking plenty of water though to ease the strain on my system and help flush it out. And maybe an aspirin or two, the headache is getting a bit worse now, 27 hrs after exposure ceased.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Science, Ethics, and Climate Change
Robert Tracinski covered the "Climategate" issue from the start, and his summary of the situation is still the best one - albeit made with a jaundiced eye.
I haven't looked at all the e-mails, though there are now searchable databases of them on the web. There's a lot of data there. But I've looked at enough to form some conclusions.
The majority of them admit an innocent explanation. Even some of the ones most publicised as egregious evidence of misconduct.
I can even accept as plausible, even most probably true on the balance of probabilities, that the data excluded from some of the graphs due to artificial date cut-off points was genuinely misleading, painting a faulty picture that would have been seized in by political rather than scientific opponents.
BUT.....
YOU PUBLISH IT ANYWAY.
You then explain *why* the data isn't comparable, what the systemic errors are, their source and an estimate of what the true situation is. You don't suppress inconvenient facts.
There appears to have been a culture of scientific corruption. They already knew what the answer absolutely had to be, based on years of experience, not all of which is easily explainable (and they may even be correct). They knew that any appearance of a situation contrary to the one they knew had to be the case would be misused to muddy the waters, purely for political reasons. They knew this. Absolutely. Totally certain. So they omitted this misleading data, because it was important. Because Large Issues were at stake.
And that is wrong. Because no scientist can ever be sure. If your theory is so wonderful, it must be able to withstand challenge. If the data is ratty, you publish it anyway, along with your explanation of why it's misleading. You don't "lose" it, nor suppress it, nor attempt to stop it from falling into that hands of those who would misuse and misinterpret it. Because *you may be wrong*. Those who you think are scientifically dishonest may actually be correct, and the data that you have is the only Truth there is. That thus and such a measurement was recorded (possibly incorrectly) from such and such a location (which may not be the actual one), at such and such a time (which again may be mis-recorded). That is the data. If it gives a misleading picture, you say why, and also propose an experiment which would show that your contention of a systemic error is correct.You don't just pretend it doesn't exist.
On my blog, I am a strong advocate for a particular position regarding biological sex and gender. In the process of elucidating this position, I've come across a few articles, a few data points, that apparently contradict a position I *know* to be true. So what do I do? I publish them, along with an explanation of why they are misleading. Well, mostly I do. Sometimes I can't come up with an explanation for them which is very probably true, or even true on the balance of probabilities. Then I *change my opinion to fit the facts* and publish.
This can be painful. It can complicate a lovely, simple, beautiful picture I've spent years painstakingly building up. But that is what we have to do, like it or not. In fact, we should be *more* sceptical of data supporting our position, and *less* sceptical of that which undermines it, just to try to balance our inherent bias towards "our position" because we're human.
They failed at doing this. Rather than being sceptical scientists, they became unconscious advocates of a view they knew to be true, regardless of the facts. They became exactly what they accused others (possibly with considerable justification) of being.
They became a horrible example of how easy it is to descend the road to perdition. A lesson to us all - and me in particular. I can easily imagine myself falling into the same trap.
That's why I give links to all the data I base my conclusions on. So that others can check. Because when it comes down to it, my trust in myself is - has to be - limited.
In early October, I covered a breaking story about evidence of corruption in the basic temperature records maintained by key scientific advocates of the theory of man-made global warming. Global warming "skeptics" had unearthed evidence that scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to manufacture a "hockey stick" graph showing a dramatic-but illusory-runaway warming trend in the late 20th century.
But now newer and much broader evidence has emerged that looks like it will break that scandal wide open. Pundits have already named it "Climategate."
A hacker-or possibly a disillusioned insider-has gathered thousands of e-mails and data from the CRU and made them available on the Web. Officials at the CRU have verified the breach of their system and acknowledged that the e-mails appear to be genuine.
...
These e-mails show, among many other things, private admissions of doubt or scientific weakness in the global warming theory. In acknowledging that global temperatures have actually declined for the past decade, one scientist asks, "where the heck is global warming?... The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." They still can't account for it; see a new article in Der Spiegel: "Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out." I don't know where these people got their scientific education, but where I come from, if your theory can't predict or explain the observed facts, it's wrong.
More seriously, in one e-mail, a prominent global warming alarmist admits to using a statistical "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures. Anthony Watts provides an explanation of this case in technical detail; the "trick" consists of selectively mixing two different kinds of data-temperature "proxies" from tree rings and actual thermometer measurements-in a way designed to produce a graph of global temperatures that ends the way the global warming establishment wants it to: with an upward "hockey stick" slope.
Confirming the earlier scandal about cherry-picked data, the e-mails show CRU scientists conspiring to evade legal requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, for their underlying data....
I haven't looked at all the e-mails, though there are now searchable databases of them on the web. There's a lot of data there. But I've looked at enough to form some conclusions.
The majority of them admit an innocent explanation. Even some of the ones most publicised as egregious evidence of misconduct.
I can even accept as plausible, even most probably true on the balance of probabilities, that the data excluded from some of the graphs due to artificial date cut-off points was genuinely misleading, painting a faulty picture that would have been seized in by political rather than scientific opponents.
BUT.....
YOU PUBLISH IT ANYWAY.
You then explain *why* the data isn't comparable, what the systemic errors are, their source and an estimate of what the true situation is. You don't suppress inconvenient facts.
There appears to have been a culture of scientific corruption. They already knew what the answer absolutely had to be, based on years of experience, not all of which is easily explainable (and they may even be correct). They knew that any appearance of a situation contrary to the one they knew had to be the case would be misused to muddy the waters, purely for political reasons. They knew this. Absolutely. Totally certain. So they omitted this misleading data, because it was important. Because Large Issues were at stake.
And that is wrong. Because no scientist can ever be sure. If your theory is so wonderful, it must be able to withstand challenge. If the data is ratty, you publish it anyway, along with your explanation of why it's misleading. You don't "lose" it, nor suppress it, nor attempt to stop it from falling into that hands of those who would misuse and misinterpret it. Because *you may be wrong*. Those who you think are scientifically dishonest may actually be correct, and the data that you have is the only Truth there is. That thus and such a measurement was recorded (possibly incorrectly) from such and such a location (which may not be the actual one), at such and such a time (which again may be mis-recorded). That is the data. If it gives a misleading picture, you say why, and also propose an experiment which would show that your contention of a systemic error is correct.You don't just pretend it doesn't exist.
On my blog, I am a strong advocate for a particular position regarding biological sex and gender. In the process of elucidating this position, I've come across a few articles, a few data points, that apparently contradict a position I *know* to be true. So what do I do? I publish them, along with an explanation of why they are misleading. Well, mostly I do. Sometimes I can't come up with an explanation for them which is very probably true, or even true on the balance of probabilities. Then I *change my opinion to fit the facts* and publish.
This can be painful. It can complicate a lovely, simple, beautiful picture I've spent years painstakingly building up. But that is what we have to do, like it or not. In fact, we should be *more* sceptical of data supporting our position, and *less* sceptical of that which undermines it, just to try to balance our inherent bias towards "our position" because we're human.
They failed at doing this. Rather than being sceptical scientists, they became unconscious advocates of a view they knew to be true, regardless of the facts. They became exactly what they accused others (possibly with considerable justification) of being.
They became a horrible example of how easy it is to descend the road to perdition. A lesson to us all - and me in particular. I can easily imagine myself falling into the same trap.
That's why I give links to all the data I base my conclusions on. So that others can check. Because when it comes down to it, my trust in myself is - has to be - limited.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Rfc 1149 - CPIP - A Practical Implementation
From the BBC :
Earlier implementations on UNIX showed relatively poor performance :
Script started on Sat Apr 28 11:24:09 2001
vegard@gyversalen:~$ /sbin/ifconfig tun0
tun0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:10.0.3.2 P-t-P:10.0.3.1 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:150 Metric:1
RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:88 (88.0 b) TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)
vegard@gyversalen:~$ ping -i 900 10.0.3.1
PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms
--- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics ---
9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 3211900.8/5222806.6/6388671.9 ms
vegard@gyversalen:~$ exit
Script done on Sat Apr 28 14:14:28 2001
For routine, regular data transmission of large files between two fixed points no more than 100km apart, bursts of data via carrier pigeon (or more conventionally, motorcycle courier) remain competitive with optical fibre. They make use of existing infrastructure rather than requiring massive investment.
It would be interesting to see where the crossover point occurs in various countries and circumstances: the smaller the files, the longer the distances, and the larger the list of addressees, the less advantage physical data transfer accrues.
A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom.It was on April 1st 1990, that rfc 1149 was written. This rfc specifies a protocol for IP over avian carriers, CPIP (carrier pigeon internet protocol).
Winston the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data.
Telkom said it was not responsible for the firm's slow internet speeds.
The idea for the race came when a member of staff at Unlimited IT complained about the speed of data transmission on ADSL.
He said it would be faster by carrier pigeon.
Earlier implementations on UNIX showed relatively poor performance :
Script started on Sat Apr 28 11:24:09 2001
vegard@gyversalen:~$ /sbin/ifconfig tun0
tun0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:10.0.3.2 P-t-P:10.0.3.1 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:150 Metric:1
RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:88 (88.0 b) TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)
vegard@gyversalen:~$ ping -i 900 10.0.3.1
PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms
--- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics ---
9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 3211900.8/5222806.6/6388671.9 ms
vegard@gyversalen:~$ exit
Script done on Sat Apr 28 14:14:28 2001
For routine, regular data transmission of large files between two fixed points no more than 100km apart, bursts of data via carrier pigeon (or more conventionally, motorcycle courier) remain competitive with optical fibre. They make use of existing infrastructure rather than requiring massive investment.
It would be interesting to see where the crossover point occurs in various countries and circumstances: the smaller the files, the longer the distances, and the larger the list of addressees, the less advantage physical data transfer accrues.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Friday, 20 November 2009
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
The Line
Click to enlarge this story of two young women.
From subnormality.
I've been told in various comments on my blog that I feel a sense of responsibility about matters of injustice. That I always did. I suppose that's true. But it all comes down to this : Which side are you on?
And I'm not facing the guillotine.
From subnormality.
I've been told in various comments on my blog that I feel a sense of responsibility about matters of injustice. That I always did. I suppose that's true. But it all comes down to this : Which side are you on?
And I'm not facing the guillotine.
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