Idle Analytics

8:20am YZrO2 dental platelets. Puts tension on the tooth and closes the cracks. Thanks for the life story about how you made the process. He ultimately gets some phase and site that he wants. Many many years from application, but a good idea.

8:40 Ag clusters on TiO2. At least this is a science talk, as opposed to Mr "I'm an engineer, mechanism doesn't bear mentioning." RCT mentioned 10 minutes into the talk. This is a negative result, but I guess negative results need to be reported more.

9:00 Pulse laser deposition of double functional perovskites. Magnetic field effects capacitance in La2NiMnO6. Wait, T_c is the Curie temperature? Who says that? "Superexchange"? This is the lowest attendance I've ever seen for an invited talk. I'm dying. People are walking out, they can't have another talk to go to [it was in between starting times]. Bailing.
Caught the end of Diebold's talk. Standing room only! Stuffy as hell in here, there are at least 100 people. No surprise, it's STM from molecules on TiO2. [Alex says she covered DFT that showed subsurface vacancies are energetically favored over surface]. Emphasizes importance of doing stuff on both rutile and anatase.

9:40am Omg it's a sauna in here. O_bridge manipulation by STM, but who cares I'm hot. Flirty languid girl from PEC is in the audience. Actually, there's another good looking chick. What's going on here? Ok, way to treat us like morons, guy. I think we know what a time constant fit is. Who the hell is running this session? It's going to end up 20 minutes late. Since when is TiO2 a topic? Mechanism is lowering energy barrier for vacancy by charge mechanism to below the thermal barrier.

10:00am (actually 10:12) TPD of O2 physisorbed on TiO2. Saturates at 1.5 ML. Kink in the integrated TPD signal at the chemisorption limit. (2 O2 molecules per vacancy at low temp). Is this really new? How could nobody have done this yet? O2 dosed at 25K shows O2 desorption with photon stimulated desorption.

11:00am Tungsten coated fibers by ALD for electronic smart shirts. Making regular fibers like cotton conductive. 4-point probe measurements of fiber network. Large probes to contact many of the fibers. Wow, this guy is just putting glass slides on the fibers and using alligator clips for his measurement. Loading more weight on the glass slide lowers the resistivity until all fibers are in contact. Reversible for W-coated fibers, but not for ZnO fibers. neat.

11:20am Co capping on low K contacts w/ CVD SAMS. Trying to solve metal atom diffusion. Very slick presenter. Why is the ALD only putting down 1/2 angstrom per cycle. Why won't it all react? Odd. XPS shows no Cu 2p level after 2 mins of cycling. Pretty good selectivity for capping Cu, but only 3:1 for Cu to SiO2. He has to passivate a lot to get the selectivity better. Interminable XPS and RBS follows.

11:40am XPS chemisorption transitioning to steady-state film growth. I'm too tired for this, it's quite disorganized.

2:00pm Stroscio, zero mass carriers in graphene. --Aside: people in the audience think it's HILARIOUS that there's a 5 x 10^12 nm run on Wednesday. Me too, actually; I don't think any of these cream puffs is running a 5K.-- sp2 state bonding of graphene means that there's a simple hamiltonian of Bloch waves (no diagonal entries) in the tight-binding calculation. Graphene can be made by simply heating SiC to 1300K (induced furnace method). Multilayers form, but are actually decoupled? First layers are essentially doped by Si levels, but by 10L it is practically undoped graphene. The Landau levels due to the Hamiltonian are E_n ~ sqrt(|n| B), n=0, +/- 1, ... levels are clearly visible on STM in a 2T field, even with the multilayers. The difference between the first and second Landau level is much bigger than in a metal, which is why NIST cares about it. Spectra are amazing, there's no conductance off the landau levels except residual from the lorentzians from the previous levels. Very large MFP, tau~0.4 ps. high mobility carriers. The layers decouple because of the layer misalignment. Moire effects are seen on STM prove the misalignment. Very small potential variations even if the graphene goes over a bump. Amazing.

2:40pm Oh good, a grad student subbing for an invited talk. This is very humdrum stuff about tailored catalysts. Why is this an invited talk. Ok, the guy next to me is snoring WHILE HE'S AWAKE. Plasmon resonators stuck onto other nanoparticles to aid in photon capture. Huh. Well, that's the first non-banal thing he's said.

3:40 Kelvin prove w/ cantilever? He never defines Fermi level pinning. Can't explain discrepancy between kelvin probe work function and sts work function. "something we don't understand yet." Right. No hypothesis, guess, anything? InAs(110) is unpinned, InAs(001) 4x2 is pinned.

4:20 Adsorbates on graphene. Potassium deposited on graphene. sites in the middle of a cell, maintains symmetry (A and B sublattices act the same). Same w/ Xe buffer layer. Self-energy part of photoemission. Very low coefficient of friction measured by hysteresis loop area by dragging a tip across the surface. H bonds asymmetrically, changes the kink in the photoemission. Measures resistance with photon flux! He floats one side of the graphene and bombards with photons. H makes it an insulator, even though there's still a Fermi surface. That shouldn't happen. the mean free path has to be less than the fermi wavelength. Anderson localization, where you have mobile electrons, but the domains are so disordered that it becomes an insulator with a variable hopping distance. The quasiparticle model breaks down. Good system for many-body interactions.

I guess I feel fortunate that I rarely meet people without a real education. I spend nearly all my time on a college campus, or with friends and family who have all been to college, and are all more or less reasonable and informed people. Although some pseudo-intellectualism occasionally pops up, I've found that educated people can be swayed by good arguments. I am only aware of Glenn Beck because of the awful clips that are being ridiculed on blogs or being parodied on Colbert.

It was a bit of a shock to the system to be at a recent event with my extended-extended family. That is, not my grandparents, cousins, and uncles, but a further removed branch with great uncles, second cousins, and their children. While enjoying a wonderful view from under the roof of a nice outdoor bar, several of these people began to ridicule the president. My liberal spidey-sense began tingling.

A few choice quotes. "I am SO glad we didn't get the Olympics. That guy thinks he can do anything." "Did you see what he said about Fox? He has a press czar, or something." "All the blacks voted for him because he was black. Did you see them out there? [aping a stereotypical black voice] 'oh, I dunz wants to vote for Obama, all dat is good.' " "Man, what an idiot [Obama is]."

OK, so these people hate the president, I get it. Fox News (aka, the Ministry of Truth) has only about 3 million viewers (less than 1% of the population), yet it seems that when you find one, you find a bunch of them. They are vehement and unthoughtful in an interesting way. This is especially true of these particular people, who appear to be devotees of Glenn Beck. The cognitive dissonance here is rather interesting. They all believe themselves to be nonpartisan freethinkers, and yet they all think the same things, and agree with the Republicans 100% of the time.

They use smokescreens, though. They regularly call GW Bush a "jackass". See? That proves they are nonpartisan (even though they voted for Sarah Palin, opposed the stimulus, opposed health care reform, oppose moving Guantanamo inmates to the US, etc). They are "not racists", even though they listen to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who say that health care reform is Obama's attempt at getting reparations (how is the idea that Obama is surreptitiously trying to steal the white man's money not racist?).

I was, at one point, cornered by what appears to be the ringleader of this viper's den, who was also the homeowner. He loves Glenn Beck. Interestingly, he is a very productive member of society, an autodidact who builds huge houses (his own home was lovely).

But his lack of education has made him two things: impressionable and paranoid. Glenn Beck appears to prey on these traits. Demagoguery rarely can take hold with educated people, since they have learned to investigate critically, evaluate sources, and detect nonsense or ad hominem attacks. But among those without much education, an insinuation coupled with a half-truth is easily convincing. And how.

I was unaware of this, but apparently there is a widely believed conspiracy theory involving the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, JFK's assassination (though he kept mentioning Sirhan Sirhan, who killed RFK 5 years after JFK was killed), the devaluation of the dollar, and the establishment of a unitary world currency. Their claims are an odd mishmash of half-understood macroeconomics (in this case, the man owned a business, so he "just knows" how things work), delusions of a shadowy organization that owns the Federal Reserve, an odd belief that said shadowy organization is all-powerful but also somehow rigorously beholden to the constitution, and a deep seeded fear of rapid inflation and the destruction of the United States (naturally). Of course, all of the points are easily debunked, but that isn't the point.

I told the unhinged man that Glenn Beck had poisoned his mind (his retort was that I needed to "grow up". Did I mention ad hominem attacks?). He obviously takes his beliefs seriously, since he claims to have gone down to the bank and tried to cash in his in his gold certificate (they were withdrawn from circulation in 1933, after which it was illegal to hold them). They treated him like the nutcase he is, and he ridiculed their attempts to pacify him. (Attempting to disarm a raving, possibly dangerous, man. How silly of them.)

The number of actual falsehoods stacked up quickly. The Fed was established to earn interest for the 9 families that own the Fed, since the treasury is not allowed to charge interest (The Fed rebates the interest to the Treasury Department every year. Its board is made up of government appointees.). The Fed was established in a closed-door meeting (it was enacted by Congress in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913). He believes health care will fail because it's support is at "30 percent" (it's a plurality of 47% in favor of how Obama is handling it), which he reveled in. He thinks that any amount of deficit spending, by the government or individuals, will inevitably end up with the collapse of society (many countries, including this one, have run up massive debts while remaining solvent and even running eventual surpluses to pay down the debt).

Is there a way to combat this? Is it even worth it, with such a small (albeit vocal) group? I don't know. But since when do conspiracy theorists come out with their insanities during social gatherings? If the man wants to be a raving lunatic while he's at home, then that's fine, though I pity his wife. But don't invite people over to proselytize your regurgitated lies. It's just rude.

*Update: Whoa, did I understate the support for health care. As Timothy Noah points out today,

A tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that support for "a government-administered public health insurance option similar to Medicare" hovered just below 60 percent during the previous three months. A September New York Times/CBS News poll found more support than opposition to the public plan even among Republicans.

1. At approximately 11:50am (estimated from timeline), suspect attempted to forcibly open the patio door. This failed because of a dowel in the door track preventing its opening. He/she left a palmprint, and the door was opened hard against the dowel.
2. Undeterred by the alarm company sticker, the suspect broke and entered the eastern-most window on the north side of the house (in the back yard). Familiarity with the system may have prevented him from actually opening the window, which would have tripped the alarm. However, this is unclear, as he also attempted to open the patio door, which almost certainly would have tripped the alarm. Possible that he was aware that police would not respond in a timely manner.
3. The two flatpanel monitors and the 24" imac were unplugged and removed from their desks. Note that there was no evidence of rushing here, as the connectors were fully unscrewed and removed. Camera and camera bag nearby the desk taken. This is likely the first action taken.
4. Contents of desk drawer with jewelry, office supplies, nail polish emptied out, apparently indiscriminately.
5. Alarm tripped at 12:05 pm when suspect opened door to garage. Alarm sensor probably assumed not be on that door, as the sensor was placed on the other side of the door. This probably surprised the burglar. Door to garage left opened, no items taken.
6. Top drawer in bedroom nightstand, on the opposite side of the house pulled out and upended. No items removed. Cup with loose change removed to bed, not emptied. No other items disturbed. Ibook laptop near nightstand not taken, either because it was unwanted or unobserved. Rest of the room untouched, including a conspicuous jewelry box. This indicates that haste was made, and likely the room was entered after alarm was tripped.
7. Police called by alarm company at 12:08 pm. Officer was routed to the address.
8. Playstation 3 removed from entertainment center. The controller for it was collected from other side of the room by the suspect. This may indicate that it happened before alarm was tripped. Universal remote nearby was also taken, presumably because television was about to be removed.
9. Officer that had been dispatched to the house diverted to a domestic dispute. Another officer dispatched; time of this unknown.
10. Suspect attempted to remove flat-panel tv from wall, but was prevented from unlatching it from the mounting hardware by a padlock. Television was then forcibly pulled out from the mounting hardware. Threaded metal inserts in the TV were ripped out and found on the floor by me. DVI cable also ripped out, indicating perhaps that the suspect was desperate by this point. In this process, the mounting hardware was wrenched into the drywall, causing a hole in the wall.
11. 17" monitor removed from one of the back bedrooms. Cable was removed without damage, but was likely not screwed in anyway. Time of this unknown.
12. Front door opened, tripping another sensor, as recorded by the alarm company. This is the likely exit point. Removal of items done in the front of the house, in the light of day. Size and weight of items (including a 47" TV and at least 100 pounds of merchandise) indicates that they had to be transported to a car or other nearby destination in multiple trips, or possibly by two people.
13. Outer security door closed by suspects, who then left the scene.
14. 12:35pm second officer arrives on scene at the same time as me. This is 30 minutes after the original alarm.
15. Questioning of neighbors occurs. Resident of the adjacent house reports she was at home all day, saw a white car two hours earlier. Claims she did not hear glass break or see anyone removing a giant TV into a car within the last hour.

Unanswered questions:

• Why would someone knowledgeable enough not to open the window, so as to prevent the alarm, first try to open the patio door, which would definitely trigger an alarm?
• Relatedly, why did the burglar choose, not the window next to the patio door, but the window that was farther away to break into? That window was a less convenient entry point, and just as loud to break.
• How many people were there?
• How could so much stuff be moved out of the house without any neighbor observing? Both adjacent houses have residents who do not work. How was it that smashing a window was unheard by the next-door neighbor?
• How much time elapsed between the alarm and exiting of the house? Why was the jewelry box untouched? Was the search of the back bedroom interrupted by the alarm? If so, who tripped it? A second person would have had to be there to trip the alarm, in this case.
• With two neighbors who are always at home, and with the alarm stickers clearly posted, why would the burglar be confident that he would be unobserved a) smashing a window, and b) taking a huge amount of stuff out through the front door?
• How long did the burglars watch the house to know that it is vacant during the day?

One hypothesis that is consistent with the facts is that the neighbors were the perpetrators. They were known to be in the vicinity, had knowledge of the occupancy of the house, knowledge of the merchandise, and would have had no problem moving the items out quickly to their house, less than 20 feet away. They could deny having heard anything. If caught, they could say they were investigating. They are quite familiar with the police response time, as well, as the police have responded to their house multiple times in the past few years. They gave irrelevant, possibly misdirecting, information to the police when questioned. They will have observed the 3 false alarms that have occurred since the last break-in, and knew the time it took for us to arrive.

To assert this would be a reckless accusation. I just point out that it is consistent with the facts. Moreover, statistically speaking, I am led to believe that, often, one knows the person who committed the crime.