Basically, all legal free speech is allowed. We will assist the authorities in dealing with illegal speech. You are each other’s moderators. Have fun. And don’t forget to MAGA at nuclear levels.
Citizen U
Day 66 – DYSPROSIUM.
OPEN THREAD 20200111
Published
The U Tree 
Could there be any other for tonight’s musical interlude?
Now, that’s a crowd!
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I should note that the little stuttering out-of-time riff at the beginning of the piece is YYZ in Morse code. YYZ is the airport code for Toronto.
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Another…..just because….
RIP, Professor.
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Dysprosium is yet another lanthanide rare earth. It has the most honest name among all the rare earths, being named by its “discoverer” Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran after the Greek dysprositos (δυσπρόσιτος), meaning “hard to get” — after he isolated the oxide in 1886. The actual metal wasn’t isolated for over 70 years afterward.
We can insert the usual lanthanide stuff here — found as a mixture, mischmetal, yada, yada, yada…..
Dysprosium’s magic powers are quite unusual, but in line with its rare-earth heritage — its oxide is more magnetic than iron oxide, it is a neutron sink for reactor control rods, and — of course — it can dope LEDs and lasers.
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And, now, another flashback to tin — this time, it’s ancient tin.
When regarding prehistory, one generally attempts to apply a framework to help make sense of it all. After all, different populations did different things — often, right next to each other — at various times. One of the most enduring frameworks — and one that everyone can benchmark to, even as they write scholarly papers claiming that the entire framework is bunk, is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-age_system : Stone Age; Bronze Age; Iron Age.
Moreover, the Stone Age is generally divided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Ages — old, middle, and new stone ages. In the Paleolithic, you might whack something with a pointy rock; in the Mesolithic, you might reliably make pointy rocks; in the Neolithic, you may be getting fishhook rocks from miles to the south and dagger rocks from miles to the east — each made by renowned artisans. Culture was spreading in Europe, with the corded-ware and bell-beaker pottery styles…..which included such niceties as burying the dead in individual graves with burial goods. Copper goods were produced in neolithic times, as bronze is not just copper. And with the surge of technology, there was a surge in population — at the end of the stone age, there were more than 30 million people on the planet.
Nations, however, were just a fad — found in places like Mesopotamia and Egypt. At the time, as through most of history, Europe was a patchwork of defended cities with bandits on the highways. Your average landsman could have arrows, daggers, spears, clubs, and axes whose performance was on a par with manual equipment today. He’d have allegiance to some civic protection society who would deal with roaming bands of bandits.
There is an arc of tin that runs from China through Laos, but the tin used in Europe and the Middle East came from very few sources. First was Erzgebirge, on the border of Germany and the Czech Republic today — known to be producing in 2500 BC. Cornwall, Brittany, and Iberia had their own mines by 2000 BC. Kestel (Turkey) [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kestel ] operated from 3290-1840 BC. And that is pretty much it.
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And, then, there’s
with strangely altered lyrics…..
Little Greta does her fav’rite speeches
On the climate ev’ry day.
All day long she plays the same old songs,
And she believes the things that they say.
Other girls just like to walk around
And act like they’re humans too,
But she just pontificates all of her talking points,
‘Cause that’s all that she wants to do.
She sings along with all the saddest songs,
And she believes the stories are real.
She don’t need no science ’cause of the strength of her feelz.
It’s only climate bullshit,
Only climate bullshit.
It’s only bullshit,
Only climate bullshit,
Only climate bullshit.
Seems to me she’s in a fantasy.
She’s livin’ in a world of her own.
And we all agree that she’s a mystery,
Because she’d rather be all alone.
Ev’ry guy will do his best to try
To put that bullshit out of her head.
Forget all the songs,
And just dance to the science instead.
It’s only climate bullshit,
Only climate bullshit.
It’s only bullshit,
Only climate bullshit,
Only climate bullshit.
It’s all because of that bullshit
That we’re slowly driftin’ apart.
But it’s only there to hurt us,
So you shouldn’t take it to heart.
Bullshit, only climate bullshit.
Only bullshit, only climate bullshit.
[Repeat]
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Very nice! Fire up that video, peeps!
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I thought this plce was for uncivilized ruffians to be themselves.
Or is that just a ruse to keep real riffraff out?
Sort of like a Keep Out – Radioactive Contamination sign instead of No Trespassing.
If this is really a ruffians’ lair, y’all gonna need to up yer game.
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So, say something transgressive you want said…..
I put my climate bullshit lyrics here. They’d be climate bulls**t lyrics over there.
I love the camaraderie over there. I don’t have to overthink politeness over here, which makes it a nice joke-sharing platform.
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Shhhhhhhh! 😉
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