My teammates' messages are coming to me in Chinese. Is that

[RichardAlexander]

A lot of the team messages I'm getting are

snap:: 1~? and then a string of Chinese characters. Is it supposed to look like that, and I'm supposed to do something with the characters to find out what it says? Or is it supposed to be something else and my computer is turning it into Chinese?

I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be actual text, one thing Google Translate gave me was "Synthesis of mercaptans and fumaric acid is very complicated."

[CatchersMitt14]

A lot of the team messages I'm getting are

snap:: 1~? and then a string of Chinese characters. Is it supposed to look like that, and I'm supposed to do something with the characters to find out what it says? Or is it supposed to be something else and my computer is turning it into Chinese?

I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be actual text, one thing Google Translate gave me was "Synthesis of mercaptans and fumaric acid is very complicated."

They're snapshots. Turn on panels.

settings, scroll down to game settings, set panel interface to yes.

[RichardAlexander]

Huh. Thanks

[DoomYoshi]

That's actually hilarious since mercaptan is the chemical in your fart that makes it smell. It shouldn't be too tough to do a dehydration with that and fumaric acid. You'd just need to mess around a bit to get the reaction conditions right.

First you need to collect a bunch of mercaptan. I suggest farting into deionized water for a while until the color changes. Then you should have enough to begin experimenting.

[DirtyDishSoap]

That's actually hilarious since mercaptan is the chemical in your fart that makes it smell. It shouldn't be too tough to do a dehydration with that and fumaric acid. You'd just need to mess around a bit to get the reaction conditions right.

First you need to collect a bunch of mercaptan. I suggest farting into deionized water for a while until the color changes. Then you should have enough to begin experimenting.

How much useless knowledge do you have?

[King_Herpes]

No offense, DY but the last time I took your advice to fart into a bottle it didn't end well.

[mrswdk]

Well now it's the Chinese telling you to fart in a bottle. So go fart in that f*cking bottle.

[DoomYoshi]

That's actually hilarious since mercaptan is the chemical in your fart that makes it smell. It shouldn't be too tough to do a dehydration with that and fumaric acid. You'd just need to mess around a bit to get the reaction conditions right.

First you need to collect a bunch of mercaptan. I suggest farting into deionized water for a while until the color changes. Then you should have enough to begin experimenting.

How much useless knowledge do you have?

Organic Chemistry isn't useless

[Thorthoth]

That's actually hilarious since mercaptan is the chemical in your fart that makes it smell. It shouldn't be too tough to do a dehydration with that and fumaric acid. You'd just need to mess around a bit to get the reaction conditions right.

First you need to collect a bunch of mercaptan. I suggest farting into deionized water for a while until the color changes. Then you should have enough to begin experimenting.

How much useless knowledge do you have?

Organic Chemistry isn't useless

DY = fart aficionado...

[King_Herpes]

Well now it's the Chinese telling you to fart in a bottle. So go fart in that f*cking bottle.

Nobody over here is bending the knee to China, Gary.

So until that day, my farts will go where I please. Meanwhile don't make me send one in your general direction.

[mrswdk]

Well now it's the Chinese telling you to fart in a bottle. So go fart in that f*cking bottle.

Nobody over here is bending the knee to China, Gary.

So until that day, my farts will go where I please. Meanwhile don't make me send one in your general direction.

Fart where you like your farts smell like elderberries.

[DoomYoshi]

If we could capture some of that, we could figure out which chemicals give it that elderberry scent.

I've been thinking of doing this synthesis even easier, by using GM e. coli transplanted into the colon which can produce fumaric acid and then react with the mercaptan. We could probably modify this somewhat to give a more useful scent, like elderberry odor. The only problem is that I can't find any elderberry jam to even have a clue. Is that a real fruit?

Either way, it's good news. You no longer need to fart in a water bottle, but if that becomes Monocle magazine's trend of the year next year, you can thank me.

[King_Herpes]

Okay now I'm back to believing that this is a good idea.

Between mrswdk's compliments and sweet mother science's factastic truths, I am fully back on deck.



All thanks to China.

[DirtyDishSoap]

That's actually hilarious since mercaptan is the chemical in your fart that makes it smell. It shouldn't be too tough to do a dehydration with that and fumaric acid. You'd just need to mess around a bit to get the reaction conditions right.

First you need to collect a bunch of mercaptan. I suggest farting into deionized water for a while until the color changes. Then you should have enough to begin experimenting.

How much useless knowledge do you have?

Organic Chemistry isn't useless

Doesn't exactly answer my question but okay.

[DoomYoshi]

That's actually hilarious since mercaptan is the chemical in your fart that makes it smell. It shouldn't be too tough to do a dehydration with that and fumaric acid. You'd just need to mess around a bit to get the reaction conditions right.

First you need to collect a bunch of mercaptan. I suggest farting into deionized water for a while until the color changes. Then you should have enough to begin experimenting.

How much useless knowledge do you have?

Organic Chemistry isn't useless

Doesn't exactly answer my question but okay.

Well, I have a high reading speed, and I'm a voracious reader. I'll read everything from Dissent (a communist magazine) to the American Conservative and Reason (distinctly not communist magazines). I also try to read regional non-American news as much as possible (South China Morning Post, Der Spiegel, Haaretz, al Jazeera). I am also way over-educated for my job. I sit in a truck and have no responsibilities so I read more. Add to this an above-average memory and I really do store it all up. You can name a topic and chances are that I've spent at least some time studying it either formally or informally.

[DirtyDishSoap]

Topic:

Dreams.

Go.

[mrswdk]

Any solid evidence out there on the sort of impacts that hot desking has on staff productivity, morale etc., compared to assigned desks?

[DoomYoshi]

Any solid evidence out there on the sort of impacts that hot desking has on staff productivity, morale etc., compared to assigned desks?

This one I have informally tested in a classroom setting. Usually I would randomize my seat on random.org before going to a lecture and I would very much disturb the entire class by re-arranging the seating. People like to sit in the same spot all the time and you wouldn't believe the chaos that I caused by this behavior. That isn't solid evidence, but I have a feeling that it would lower productivity and morale. Letting people pick their own seating is terrible, as nobody can be trusted to do anything with any rational thought, and they also can't be trusted to do it randomly. If it is centrally assigned, it might be more space efficient, morale be damned. People's brains become less good as they repeat patterns and get into habits. At all times in every way you should as a human being try to be breaking your patterns. As a good boss, you would want that to happen for your workers. As an evil "the man" kind of boss, you don't want your employees to have to reinvent the wheel everytime they do something so you want indoctrinated rigid thought patterns.

Topic:

Dreams.

Go.

Ecclesiastes 5:3,7 gives a general impression of dreams "A dream comes when there are many cares, and mark the speech of a fool. ... Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore, fear God." However, revelations from God come through dreams (Numbers 12:6, Job 33:15-17, Jeremiah 23:28, Acts 2:17). This might seem contradictory and in fact one can observe many cases where dreams are a type of prophecy (usually with proper interpretation, as in Genesis 40:8-23, 41:1-36; Daniel 2:16-30, 4:1-37) but we also have examples where dreams are mere delusions or fabrications (Jeremiah 23:25-32, 27:9, 29:8, Zechariah 10:2). Part of the difficulty is in the evanescent and delusive nature of dreams themselves (Job 20:8 and Isaiah 29:7-8). So, what are we to do of this? Luckily, there is a test in Deuteronomy (13:1-5):

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

There are many famous dreams like Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech and Jacob's Ladder being probably the two most famous.

[iAmCaffeine]

I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be actual text, one thing Google Translate gave me was "Synthesis of mercaptans and fumaric acid is very complicated."

Sorry but this cracked me up.