Monthly Archive for July, 2007

Dry “water”

Despite it’s boring name, Novec 1230 (C-6 fluoroketone) is a really fascinating chemical. It’s liquid at room temperature and looks and acts very much like water. But it’s not wet! It’s also generally very little reactive, so you can sink your LCD in it while keeping it powered on! You can also sink books in it, and it appears that the liquid doesn’t get adsorbed or make any damage. I don’t know why it doesn’t wet, maybe because of very high surface tension? Anyway, that makes it perfect for putting out fires without damaging the interiour like water does. And unlike other halogenated fire suppression agents, like halon, it doesn’t deplete ozone! Finally it appears to be non-toxic and easy to handle. Hm.. Could someone send me a sample? :D

Novec 1230

The interrobang‽

It’s not uncommon to see “!?”, “???” or even “!?!?”. While not formally allowed, it’s still an easy way to express a question in surprise. But, hey, there is a better solution! Back in 1962 the typographist Martin Speckter got the brilliant(?) idea to superimpose an exclamation point on a question mark – and by that invented the interrobang! What‽ I’m already addicted to the interrobang :) If you don’t see it, it’s probably because the character unfortunately isn’t included in all fonts (why could that be?).