Notices by kæt (chiffchaff@mastodon.social)

@goatsarah @josephholsten Yes, as I understand it that's right. No way yet of getting enough neutrons in there. If someone manages that, I'll definitely take a grainy photo of that element in a suit and tie and make it Periodic Table employee of the month. At the moment I just feel bad like the way your heart sometimes sinks when a band says "here's some new material" and I know I *should* be enthusiastic.

@goatsarah @josephholsten The periodic table is at a wonderful point at the moment when period seven is finished. So it looks lovely.

I definitely think the pope of chemistry needs to say to the elements "okay, we're done" the way kids are dispersed at the end of a party when everyone's getting tired and silly.

(A genuine island of stability would be amazing, and I'd say "game on" if anything happened to have a half-life of >1s, say).

@josephholsten @goatsarah A cerium-based one? How exciting! Cerium is one of those slacker elements when it comes to applications and people always say "self-cleaning ovens" as if that's sufficient justification to occupy a slot in the periodic table. I've known a few folk with self-cleaning ovens and they've never been a cerium catalytic one.

@goatsarah Oh yes! I do that too. When you need your brain to go up a few floors from "sludge" to "tired".

The only thing with caffeine for me, I think, is keeping the differential there, separating the land from the water etc, and not letting my just general consumption rise to the point of tolerance.

Most advice out there on *when* / *which* activities need it is total nonsense as I'm guessing you've found.

@goatsarah For example, kids in particular can be shocked out of loops by surprises (good or bad). There's no real deep psychology to it, it's just an unexpected input that breaks the loop. While folk are thinking of it in terms of naughtiness or deep psychology that is counter-intuitive but it's unsurprising when you think of it mechanistically. Without a frame shift it's going to seem refractory.

@goatsarah I have ADHD (not just from usual clinical diagnosis, but also ten years of prior counselling, as there will be replyguys saying it's a fad).

You're right about the terrible, terrible advice. It seems to come down to many people treating a neurological problem as psychological.

When you say that, people assume you're trying to get out of "trying" or avoiding blame, but actually it makes things easier to come up with strategies to beat it, 'cos the problem is simple and mechanistic.

@goatsarah @christineburns Ah right. Afaict from a bit of googling, the cables which land at Tarifa are HVDC, the ones in Gibraltar are AC.

@goatsarah @christineburns wikipedia suggests it's DC. Not that it's sourced. If you have better info, I'll change it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain-Morocco_interconnection

@goatsarah What a hilariously strange test! "Classification Four: Probable", apparently. I think that means I get to wander the planes until I meet Peter Ustinov and lots of cats.I hadn't realised my genitals were made of maths.