Fill in the blank time: The Wisdom of Wally

This is from a recent Dilbert cartoon and the original had the word "sadness" although from my contact with people addicted to caffeine I would also consider "stupid" and "indifference" as appropriate substitutes.
Anybody got some other words for the blank?

OK... So this made me laugh

Link to Cartoon

And not that girlish giggle that I am known for but my rather uncharacteristic harsh, barking, mean-spirited laugh. The more I look at what is on the internet the more I realize how this cartoon is true.

So what CAN I do with my BSc when I graduate?

Here's some ideas for jobs for BSc grads that probably have positions available all the time.

Link to Science Jobs

So ... who has been talking about me ?

I guess to be fair the professor would have to be much larger and wearing a sweater - vest but really people this stereotype of the Science professor is just a stereotype. Some of us don't have labs in the basement or assistants with humped backs (got too expensive and wouldn't drink the juglone solution).









Link to actual strip

Chemistry Week

It has been an exciting time in the chemistry world ...

This week past we celebrated the discovery of element 118 (for real this time).

In honour of Chemistry Week (October 22 - 28) and Mole Day (Monday, October 23) I offer for your pleasure the following link to The Element Song.

Link to the Element Song

But that alone, of course, does not make you smile with the workload that you face. For that reason I am going to declare that for the first year students the lab report for the gas lab (#5) will be a voluntary submission. You will not lose marks if you do not submit a report for the lab. For the second year organic chemistry students I will declare the juglone lab (#5A) to be a voluntary submission with the same comment. If you do submit a report by the deadline then the marks you earn will be added as bonus marks directly to your lab mark. No late submissions accepted.

Now ... go listen to the element song again and see if it doesn't somehow sound "happier".

Have a good weekend.

CHEM 1013 Class Assignment #2

In the fall of 1989 I taught Intro Chemistry at Dalhousie University. The November 15 mid-term test had six questions of equal value and the following was one of them. The students in 1989 had 12 minutes to answer this question. As before, the class is expected to agree to a final answer for the question and all students that participate will get the same mark. The deadline for participation is midnight, October 22. Show all calculations and follow the rules of significant figures.

A 5.810g sample of an iron ore was dissolved in 20.00 mL of concentrated HCl (12.3M) then diluted with water and titrated with permanganate solution (51.42 mL, 0.11678M). If the mineral in the ore was Iron(IV)sulphide what was its % mass in the ore?

5 Fe(2+) + MnO4(-) + 8 H(+) --> Mn(2+) + 4 H2O + 5 Fe(3+)


BONUS: If the total volume of solution after the reaction was 523 mL what was the HCl concentration after the reaction?

CHEM 2113 Class Assignment #2

As before the class will work together to answer a question and the entire class will get the same mark as long as each student participates.

Answer end of chapter questions 4.57 and 4.58. Final answers will be assessed at midnight October 22.


You will need to be able to insert ISISDraw structures into your answers. The simplist route that I have found is to draw the structure and paste it into a regular drawing program such as Paint and then save as a bitmap. You can then treat the image as a regular picture. That is how I created this image. By the way, for a bonus find the number of bonding errors in the image. For superbonus marks draw the same image without any bonding errors and determine its formula. For ultrabonus marks [maximum mark on assignment (20/10)] find a better way to insert ISISDraw structures into these comments.