Re: Rickover rolling over.
If you wanted to have a play around with desktop machine analysing what's in your marmite, you'd probably have more fun with a desktop mass spectrometer, maybe linked up to a chromatograph. Desktop HPLC-MS was definitely a thing 20+ years ago, I suspect it has been nicely refined by now. It's a long time since I worked as a chemist, so I wouldn't know.
Well, I've never worked as a chemist. But it's one of those technology things. The Marmite interest came about after being a student and seeing all the THC t-shirts and posters. I realise Marmite is a bit more complex though. And then there's just the way I sometimes justify why I 'need' things. Like I still want a portable XRF machine, so I can advance from 'That's a rock!' to 'Why does this gold have so much Fe in it?'. Or slightly more practical applications, like is this drinking water going to poison me? Where I know just about enough to recognise elemental dangers, but not hazards from organic compounds.
Plus I'm a bit of an information junkie, so like watching videos like NileRed, or this chap-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0qhMhYxuk
who was using thin film chromatography to identify stuff. It's one of those things I've been pondering, ie going from the theory that if steps are completed correctly, your product should be X to proving it. Plus some semi-crossover things, like Raman spectroscopy given I roughly understand that principle from using Raman amps on fibre networks. Or just this kind of video-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxbOQ1FhqdQ
Where Sir Martyn Polikaoff explains to me what the Y in a YAG laser is all about. Which is the Internet going back to it's roots, and sharing academic knowledge, with anyone who's curious able to learn new things*. Or back to the topic in hand, why floating windmills might be a neat intellectual exercise, but practically, they're pointless because just making it float doesn't solve the cost or intermittency problems. Plus being an engineer, was almost immediately pondering inertia, reaction wheels and the ability to keep your expensive floating windmill where you want it. And especially as when you're chasing offshore wind, your toy is going to get battered by it, plus the accompanying waves.
*also why being called a science 'denier' can get frustrating, when I love science. Especially when I'm being told by people who're just regurgitating memes told to them by supposed 'experts'. Which is why our political elites still happily promoting 'renewables' instead of nuclear. They have even less excuse as Arts students should know something of history, and why we swiftly abandoned wind power as soon as we had better performing alternatives.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
