Something cute on auddie's blog.

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Comment on this post, and I'll send you something handmade for Christmas. Returning the favour isn't required, but it will be nice if you do. I'll make sure that my gift reaches you within the next 365 days. And if you comment, do post this on your LJ/blog so your friends can do it too!

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I didn't say what i'll make though. Ha!

DON'T PANIC.

Just realized that, when people say, 'all parts until A', it can either mean that A is included, or that A is not included. But each time I point that out people don't get what i mean and get extremely irritated.

I wonder why everyone tells me different things regarding what is to be tested on physical chem.

Thought about colours yesterday.

I remembered how charmaine once said that she'd take that blue pill if she were in the matrix, and i said that that wasn't very moral, and then she said we could still be very moral in a matrix illusion. Thinking back, is physical truth very important? I know moral truth certainly is - how humans should behave towards each other and stuff - but is the truth about your physical surroundings important? I mean, if it is, then why doesn't the Bible spam us with scientific knowledge already?

Then I thought, would you say colours are an illusion? Cause colours are not a primary property of objects themselves, but rather, the effect of light bouncing off objects into our retinas. Since they're not actual properties of these objects, would you say that we're living in a mild, matrix-like delusion? Would it be more moral then to not be able to see anything?

And then I thought, what would our physical surroundings be like, if we take colours out of the equation? What does it mean to be totally unable to see anything? If black/white/ transparent comes to mind, they would still be considered colours right? We probably can never imagine true colourlessness. Then I thought, the concept of colours is so integral in the human perception that we can never grasp the concept of true colourlessness/sightlessness?

Forgive me, I am obviously bored.

Yesterday, some people were encouraging me to convert to using atomic species balance to do mass balance, because it's the easiest method. I kinda disagree, since my mind automatically jumps to extent of reaction when I look at a mass balance question.

The thing about atomic species balance is that it is just SO reductionistic! It reduces reactions into abstract components (a.k.a atoms) and disregards the nature of the reaction in its calculations. It's kinda like saying, 'a painting is a lot of chemicals on a piece of paper'. It's true, but it does not really describe to us what a painting is. Similarly, i think atomic species balance does not provide a good feel of what is happening in a reaction, unlike extent of reaction.

(Let us, for the sake of simplicity, ignore the fact that there are now more ways to make a painting other than spreading chemicals on a piece of paper.)

I think I'm probably just bitter about losing 2 marks to a failed degree-of-freedom analysis. Haha.