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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I haven't abandoned my interest in chemistry, just finding different ways of expressing it. And as over the winter I'd developed an interest in crystal growing, what with the lab-grown diamonds and other gems (most of which one way or another we've found means to synthesize, I merely want the high pressure environment and a few tens of thousands of dollars equipment. Actually, sapphires and rubies can be done with reasonably basic chemistry, it's the other gems that need the high pressure chemistry).
Anyways, looking at solvents, the problem with using water as a solvent (called the universal solvent, because it dissolves more substances than anything) is that crystals produced this way also tend to dissolve in water. It's ease and universality are also it's downfall.
Then there's Alkahest, a theoretical universal solvent first conceived by Paracelsus, which you can read about here:
Link: Wiki on Alkahest
That's a gold mine of a link that can take you any number of directions.
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Of course, smarter than me, you've already figured it out. There can be no such thing as a universal solvent, it would by it's nature dissolve the containers that were used in it's manufacture, the beakers and test tubes, stir sticks, the floor, and it would keep on dissolving until it's essence were used up...
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But in fact there is a Universal Solvent, one so obvious nobody, not even Paracelsus conceived it.
Time. And it never runs out and devours all things...
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I can find no reputable news sites to link to for this, so you'll have to do your own research.
But a curious tale nonetheless. First reported in 2016, the lede is that after the 2011 Tsunami that hit Japan, in which some 16, 000 people were killed/disappeared, Taxi Drivers started getting "Ghost Passengers", people who needed a ride home, usually from the zone of disaster, only to disappear before being dropped off. Some 7% (Skepticism is healthy!!!) of Taxi Drivers reported this. If indeed this is a real story (and in some ways I believe it is) than you could safely presume that number to be a great deal higher. Most people prefer to keep tales like this to themselves.
In any event, a curious look at how collective trauma and grief imprint itself upon our collective consciousness, and how we might deal with it. IN this there are echo's of "The Vanishing Hitch Hiker", wherein a driver picks up a hitchh-hiker only to have him or her disappear before they get home. This is often followed by the driver confirming the circumstances of the disappearance or tragedy by checking with the address given them by the passenger.
Everyone loves a good ghost story, and so you can see how this grew legs. And, who knows? Maybe there's something to it...
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And - despite my laughing at all the ridiculous shit Facebook is throwing at me, there's the very real concern - AI is still in it's idiocy stage, garbage in, garbage out, but soon - maybe a year, maybe 2 or three, the results are going to start to be indistinguishable from reality. An AI hallucination of the worst sort. And all the possibilities of the internet - already hard enough to find good information - all these things are going to be destroyed.
There will be a very big market for a carefully curated internet that deals in facts and realities, whereas of late it's become a cesspool of clearly deranged AI hallucinations. And a market for an internet that delivers human generated results.
On the upside, (and you'll see this from all the "Follow Me" posts I get) - there's going to be a reckoning coming for every "Model", "Influencer", "Artist" and "Pornstar" that's going to require them to get clothes, a personality, a job and a life.
That won't be a bad thing...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A curious phenomenon not entirely explained away:
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_jelly
& BBC on "The Jelly Mystery".
I'm intrigued with the history and references in poetry/literature, as well as it's reputation for showing up after Meteor Falls.
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An interesting article that examines the idea of money, and various other means of currency.
Interesting, because money is the biggest lie any civilization has ever bought into, bigger even than religion - certainly a lot more universal.