Quotation of the Moment

I enjoyed this comment from Conan O'Brien that he made during his final show last Friday.

All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

The bottle battle: McDonald's versus Burger King

In a previous post, I showed a picture of the Burger King milk bottle.

For comparison, here is the McDonald's milk bottle

(Photo courtesy of Paxton Holley's flickr page)

I think the McDonald's jug is a better design.  The center of gravity is lower, it has a base with a larger diameter, and it's harder to tip the bottle over.

MR Fluid Links

• Lord Corporation's intro to MR fluids
• Lord Corp's discussion of MR shock absorbers for cars
• Wikipedia's entry on MR fluids
• Liquid body armor

Preventing that crying over spilled milk

While on a holiday trip, we stopped at a Burger King.  We purchased milk for the kids, and a bottle is shown below.

One of the kids tipped over the bottle and the milk started to pour onto the floor.  I immediately reached for the bottle to stop the spill.  This was a mistake for two reasons: first, the act of righting the milk spilled more on the floor, and second, most restaurants replace spilled beverages for free.

I would imagine, that in 50-100 years, some beverages will be "spill-proof" and prevent such accidents.  Once a bottle is tipped over, some trigger will lock up a fluid.  The only current technologies that would "freeze" a liquid and prevent it from leaving the bottle are magetorheological (MR) fluids or electrorheological (ER) fluids.  It's not possible to use MR or ER technology right now, since those materials are not fit for consumption.

Jobs Report (January)

On January 2, a keyword "rheolog*" search on Monster.com found 24 jobs listed.  The majority of jobs appear to be with a medical devices company, which is looking for several people.  In fact, some of the jobs may be listed more than once.
In terms of experience, the requirements are as follows...

• None specified - 2
• Less than 1 year experience - 1
• Two years experience - 5
• Three years experience - 2
• Five years experience - 10
• Seven years experience - 2
• Ten years experience - 2

One of the jobs listed is at ConAgra Foods, which is my employer.  This job is in a different department where I work, and the rheological experience requested is in the grain area.

2009 Review

The three most-read posts this year were, as follows...

1. Rheology Research Center
2. Favorite Rheology Definition
3. UV-Curing Rheometers

Thanks to everyone who stopped by this year, and I hope to keep posting in 2010.

SNL gel/liquid sketch update

With the renewed attention on airport security, someone was bound to find the SNL sketch referenced here. (Thanks to The Daily Dish By Andrew Sullivan for the link.)

What Research Isn't

" 'Google' is not a synonym for 'research' "
Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol (page 98)

What Research Is...

• “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” 
  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Nobel Prize for Medicine)
• “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
  Albert Einstein
• “What is research but a blind date with knowledge?” 
  Will Harvey (Silicon Valley entrepreneur)
• “The outcome of serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.”
  Thorstein Veblen (economist)

Happy Birthday, Bingham

Today marks the 131st anniversary of the birth of Eugene C. Bingham, one of the founders of the science of rheology.  According to Wikipedia, he was also an advocate of the metric system and helped build the Appalachian Trail.