CH302 Random Musings February 1, 2007 1. I am having hair cutting issues. It is complicated—to begin, I hate having someone I don’t know cut my hair and force me to feel like I need to be having a conversation. So after one uncomfortable conversation too many 25 years ago, I watched a late nigh infomercial that changed my life—and bought a Flowbee. For those of you who don’t know what a Flowbee is, it is a device you attach to a vacuum cleaner that chops at your hair like hedge trimmers while the vacuum sucks the hair up in the air (The pictures explain it all) Brilliant in its simplicity, I have been Flowbeeing my hair for 25 years. I haven’t had an uncomfortable conversation with a hair stylist for a quarter century. In the process, that $50 investment has saved me about $5000 in cheap haircuts. Of course that saved money has been spent on other infomercial products, none of which have ever worked. So I have only broken even financially. Now the problem with why I have stopped Flowbeeing. I am going bald. Everyone who goes bald comes to know if in different ways. Sometimes you can just look in the mirror. But if you are tall, and you bald on top of your head, you only really ever know it from the occasional photo taken while you are sitting on the floor playing with your kids. Or in my case, the most common way comes when I am Flowbeeing my hair. When you Flowbee, you hear a kind of growling sound as the hair is cut. A very satisfying growl. But as I have grown more bald, the growl I should hear as I run the Flowbee over the top of my head has grown silent. An ever widening silence that I can no longer bear. And so I can’t bring myself to Flowbee anymore. Except that I do have hair that keeps getting longer and longer, and then my wife accused me over the holidays of starting to look like my brother who is really bald and grows what little hair he has left really long. My God, I was doing the same thing. So I went to get my Flowbee and couldn’t find it, gone. Evidently thrown out with a bunch of boxes during the holidays. So what to do? I can’t let a stranger cut my hair. I can’t start looking like my brother. It is a quandary without a solution other than to buy a new Flowbee. But spend $50 to remind myself I am going bald? I don’t think so. And so I stand here, immobilized. 2. Anyway, the results of quiz 2 are in and as a class you have continued your fine performance from last semester. The average was about 80% for the class and the most missed problem still was correctly answered by over 70% of you, so the scores will stand as posted. Good effort (though things will be getting harder so control your overconfidence.)3. About 10% of the class still has not signed up for the HW Service and another 20 of you incorrectly filled out your scantron for the first quiz. So things to do if you have not seen an accurate Quiz 1 score on the HW Service: • For those of you who have not signed up for the HW Service, please do so ASAP. If you have tried and cannot it is likely because you are entering the wrong unique number or are using a name that someone else has taken. E-mail Mazen if you are having problems registering, but do try to join the team soon. • If you believe you have signed up incorrectly (you’ll know this because you can’t access your scores), fill out a regrade request letting Mazen know the problem and he will advise you on how to fix the problem. • For the 20 of you who bubbled in an id number or a version number incorrectly, you have until next Thursday in class to download the regrade request form from the web site, fill it out and turn it in ASAP. 4. A comment on complaining about unfair questions on quizzes and exams. Be aware that I value fair exam and quiz questions and quite enjoy watching a class of 500, try to rip apart the HW Service questions because ambiguity or error makes a problem unfair. So it is fine to e-mail me if you believe that is the case for a question on a quiz or test. Do make sure you provide a rational explanation for your concern—the better the argument the more likely I will listen, and whining is a definite turn-off. In some cases I also will look at the general statistics for the class to determine if a high percentage was similarly misled. No hard feelings though- if I consider your concern and then decide a question was fair and say so, that will be the end of it. 5. Just a note that the videos for my lectures are now up including all those back to the beginning of the semester. To access, use ch302tth and the course unique, 53015. 6. There is a quiz next Tuesday. For those of you who can’t believe I am having quizzes in back to back weeks, I apologize but ask you to blame Austin’s decision to shut down a city for a week so you could go sledding. It forced me to compress the schedule. 7. Question types for quiz 2: • Writing an equilibrium expression given a chemical reaction • Calculating the K for a reaction given equilibrium concentrations • Calculating an equilibrium concentration given initial concentrations and a K value • Calculating an equilibrium concentration given initial concentrations and a K value (quadratic solution) • Comparing Q and K to determine the direction of a reaction • LeChatelier’s Principle problem (changing concentration) • LeChatelier’s Principle problem (changing temperature or pressure) • Calculation to relate ∆G to K 8. Neal was telling me just the other day that he is chomping at the bit to write 20 question types for the Chapter 9 material to post as soon as possible. 9. Sadly there is not a direct correlation between any of last year’s quizzes and this year, so it is best to study directly from Neal’s questions. 10. Where are Dr. Laude’s Office Hours? I know it is a pain, but with the number of students attending my office hours varying between 1 and 200 on any given day, it is hard to find a room that is just the right size. Besides, I like having my office hours in my office where I can host intimate gatherings of upwards of 30students. But when those tests and quizzes roll around, intimacy goes out the
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