A great honor to have "When Carousels Dream" place third in the 5/17/2024 #FineArtAmerica contest "Circus" held by the Symbolism Group! Many thanks to group / contest administrator, June Walker, and to everyone who voted for my image. Congratulations to the other winners!!!
Welcome back to another round of organic chemistry with MDMRN.
Once again, I've taken my molecular model kit to craft a new molecule. This one, frankly, I was able to craft using the pieces of the previous ones I presented before. While I didn't say it last time, the green represents a halogen, in this case specifically chlorine.
A hint is that the production of these types of compounds has been banned in numerous countries, including the United States. It was, historically, found in electrical transformers.
Can you guess what type of compound this is? Let me know in the comments!
So, we're going back to organic chemistry everyone!
After my first post with my molecular model kit showing an environmental contaminant, I decided to post up another.
This one is a semi-volatile organic environmental contaminant that is commonly found in coal tar, mothballs, and mixed into creosote for rail ties. That distinct "mothball odor" is this compound! Fun fact - a human nose can detect the mothball odor before most standard electronic detectors of organic odors / vapors.
Can you guess the compound? Let me know in the comments!
I don't talk about work here a whole lot, but I'm a chemical engineer by education and have been doing environmental engineering work for the past 17 years.
So, I have an organic chemistry molecular model kit that I have kept at work for years. I, periodically, make contaminants I've seen at various sites across my 17 year career cleaning up the environment.
Do you know what this chemical is supposed to be? Leave a comment below with your guess!
So, I have talked about how I've been doing a side-by-side comparison of stats for Instagram and Pixelfed by posting the same photos on both accounts.
Well, my pics tend to fall into certain well defined categories. So, I have been sorting the photos into the following and comparing average number of likes: Cats, Food, Flowers, Manga, and Selfies.
Based on these broad categories, I noticed a few hings. More info in the following toots.
Since January 2024 - here has been the average likes per post for those categories:
Cats - 25 (Insta), 35 (Pixelfed)
Food - 17 (Insta), 8 (Pixelfed)
Flowers / Bloomscrolling - 22 (Insta), 24 (Pixelfed)
Manga - 28 (Insta), 5 (Pixelfed)
Selfies - 25 (Insta), 10 (Pixelfed)
Toys - 20 (Insta), 8 (Pixelfed)
So, a few patterns emerge. First, there is not a lot of people noticing my manga posts on Pixelfed. That's apparent.
Second, the Fediverse loves cats. More so than Instagram! Same with flowers / bloomscrolling.
Food, selfies, and toy posts tend to average about the same per post on Pixelfed. 8-10 likes on average.
On Insta, selfies, manga, and cats do best. On Pixelfed, cats, flowers, and selfies do best.
Basically, on either platform - you can't go wrong with cat pics or selfies.
Now, on Insta, part of the manga boost is that I've been kind of into Mangagram - sharing posts, interacting with posts, etc on manga. Then again, I don't see a lot of manga in general on Pixelfed. Maybe it's me!
Firing up the ole' FDM printer today to try printing one of these #Lucky13 figurines out! Using PLA since that's all I have at the moment. Perhaps Amazon can deliver me some PETG later.
They say today is Figure Friday. So, let's go to a tiny figure I have on my desk.
When I graduated kindergarten, this little puppy was sitting on the top of the cake. All through my childhood and into college, it followed me on my dresser the entire time.
Since I entered the workforce after graduating with my Masters, it has been on my desk since. It's a good reminder, I totally was a "Super Grad" from kindergarten. I could tie my shoes and everything.
(If you want to play with it locally and add more colours, just add them to the colours array and you can click through as many colours as you like. I wanted to keep it simple and hence it’s black and white.)
So, here's a Mr. Potato Head figure from the 1970s. It looks so very different than the current Mr. Potato head.
Oh, and that canon next to it I made when I was in college. Where I went to undergrad, all freshman engineering majors had to take a metal shop class and their final project was to make either a canon or a catapult. I thought the canon looked cooler.
A 3,000- year-old #sword made of firwood found in Lake Inkwil, Swittzerland. Most likely, it was a #toy sword for #children. The lake is known for its pile-dwelling settlement from the late Bronze Age (1,200–800 BC).