#51237
12/30/2001 10:49 AM
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OK. This has to do more with chemistry than words, but the words I quote below have bothered me now for one whole day and I need some help here, so, if you understand chemistry or related areas, I will be very appreciative for some explanation.
I read:
Using dry ice to displace oxygen from food storage containers is a very straightforward affair. To prevent leaching plastic chemicals from the container into your food over a long period of time I recommend lining the bucket with a food grade plastic, mylar or brown paper bag before filling the bucket with your product. Be sure to wipe any accumulated frost off of the ice and wrap it in a paper towel or something similar so you don't burn anything that comes into contact with it. Put the dry ice at the bottom and fill the container. Shake or vibrate it to get as much density in the packing as possible and to exclude as much air as you can. Put the lid on, but do not fully seal it. You want air to be able to escape.
Here's my confusion over the above linearity, which loses me just about every, single time. You're putting food into some kind of container, right? You're lining that container, say, with mylar, as suggested, right? That's to keep the plastic from leaching into the food. That makes sense. But why do you wipe the accumlated frost off the dry ice? What big deal difference would it make to have a little bit of carbon dioxide frost on the dry ice? You're going to wrap the dry ice in a paper towel anyway, so what's the deal about wiping it off?
I know this doesn't have to do with any particular word, so I hope you won't mind my bringing this up, but I am very puzzled over these directions above.
Thanks for any help here over this frosty query,
LabDuba most dangerous proposition
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#51238
12/30/2001 2:25 PM
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What big deal difference would it make to have a little bit of carbon dioxide frost on the dry ice?
Parbly wouln't make a difference if it were carbon dioxide frost. Onliest thang it's parbly dihydrogen monoxide frost an that stuff's deadly.
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#51239
12/30/2001 2:41 PM
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So, if it's the parbly dihydrogen monoxide frost (read, "deadly") that's the problem, why wouldn't the paper towel (or something stronger) solve that problem?
And, while we're at it, if you spray carbon dioxide out of a cylinder across a table top, does it really roll across the plane and then fall off the table like a waterfall? Is this true, as my daughter's boyfriend told her last night, or is this a case of a teenage boy trying to pull the wool (waterfall) over a gullible girl's eyes?
Best regards,
DoubtingDub
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#51240
12/30/2001 2:54 PM
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if you spray carbon dioxide out of a cylinder across a table top, does it really roll across the plane and then fall off the table like a waterfall?
Try it sometime and see for yourself.
Ya gots ta get up perty early in the afternoon to pull my wool over the ice.
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#51241
12/30/2001 3:15 PM
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Dear Faldage,
I do not have any cylinders of carbon dioxide around here, so I can't try the experiment, though I would love to see carbon dioxide waterfalls, I must admit.
You wrote:
Ya gots ta get up perty early in the afternoon to pull my wool over the ice.
Don't s'pose that wool would be any protection against that parbly dihydrogen monoxide deadly frost, would it?
Best regards,
LabDub Gonna be a linear thinker any day now, me in my lab playin' Gilbert and Sullivan on my little radio...or is that Cole Porter?
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#51242
12/30/2001 5:08 PM
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Dear WW: The instructions tell you that the food will keep better if oxygen in excluded. The solid CO2 evaporates, and the CO2 gas pushes air containing oxygen out, and refrigerates food. It warns you not to have solid C02 in contact with food, which could cause "freezer burn". If there were a lot of moisture in the air, it might condense on the solid CO2, and much later when solid CO2 is gone make a puddle that might contaminate the food.
Seems a lot of work and expense ;for a mere bucket of food.
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#51243
12/30/2001 6:49 PM
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I once used the phrase the dry ice bins in a poem, meaning ice bins that were empty and dry, but it read as bins for dry ice. So I had to put a hyphen in ice-bins for clarity's sake. And if you were intending the other meaning, bins for dry ice, I guess you'd have to put a hyphen in dry-ice. Dry ice bin(s) without a hyphen seems to be semantically-challenged, it just can't stand alone. Ah, the quirkiness of the English language! 
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#51244
12/30/2001 7:50 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
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or is that Cole Porter?No, no DubDub, a colporteur is a guy who runs around selling bibles. Now if you're talking about some cold Porto, I'll be right over with my glass.  You can go to a bicycle shop and obtain - for about twenty bucks - a tire inflater that uses carbon dioxide cartridges. So, you can do the waterfall experiment AND have a way to pump up your bike tires quickly, AND stop an assailant in his tracks by yelling, "Freeze, sucker," then uh, well, freezing him. 
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#51245
12/30/2001 9:08 PM
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Dear Geoff,
You bring the cold Porto, whatever that is, and I'll get the cartridge, and we can wax poetic over the waterfalls.
Best regards,
WordWoozy
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#51246
12/30/2001 10:31 PM
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Egads!! A word-related post?? How dare ye? Good point on your dry ice bins; and excellent solution. Was the hyphen your idea or your long-suffering editor's?* ~~~ * Not to imply WO'N's editor would be any more challenged than any other. All editors are long-suffering. Trust me on this one. 
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#51247
12/31/2001 12:30 AM
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Egads!! A word-related post?? How dare ye?Oh, I get a little daring around here every once in a while! Good point on your dry ice bins; and excellent solution. Was the hyphen your idea or your
long-suffering editor's?* Mine.
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#51248
12/31/2001 7:54 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
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You bring the cold Porto, whatever that is, and I'll get the cartridge, and we can wax poetic over the
waterfalls. Akshully, WW, I've got both of 'em (although Porto is best served at room temperature) so I'll supply them if you supply the poetic wax, OK?
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#51249
12/31/2001 11:14 AM
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Dear Geoff,
I've got the poetic paraffin, so it's a date!
Another chem. question from LabDub. What's this series?
paraffin: Chemistry A member of the alkane series.
Alkane is a new word to me, and it sounds interesting. Any truly interesting distinctive features here?
Best regards,
WordWax
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#51250
12/31/2001 12:59 PM
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Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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You guys are gonna have a waxing party? How kinky.
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#51251
12/31/2001 3:12 PM
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"paraffin: Chemistry A member of the alkane series. " Carbon and hydrogen can make very long chains. When there are no double bonds, the chains are called "alkanes". The long chains with no double bonds do not readily react with reagents at ordinary temperatures. That is what "paraffin" means. It has "parus" affinity for reagents.
Where there are double bonds in the alkenes, useful reactions can be caused to occur.
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#51252
01/01/2002 3:39 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
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You guys are gonna have a waxing party? How kinky.
Hey, we can't let you and Betsy have ALL the fun!
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#51253
01/01/2002 4:03 AM
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Posts: 2,605
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a waxing [poetic] party - kinky
Perhaps also involving the ars(e) poetica?
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#51254
01/01/2002 6:59 AM
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Posts: 4,189
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a waxing [poetic] party - kinky
How 'bout a quatrain? where's the Gutter Police? haven't seen 'em around here in awhile
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#51255
01/01/2002 3:01 PM
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Ironic isn't it please, tsuwm, don't ask me to define irony again, OK?, hearkening back.......lots of elipses just for you, that we've gone the 180 from frozen carbon dioxide to so much heat here?
Best regards,
WordWicked
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#51256
01/01/2002 3:07 PM
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"waxing" reminds me of ancient gag by one of the Marx brothers or one of their friends making fun of archaic "wax" meaning to grow, in a cliché "wax wroth" meaning "become angry". Something like this: " They all waxed Roth, until he got mad and waxed them all."
I didn't bother trying to find exact quote, it's too old.
Surprise! I did look, and found this,
Fraught thought: In the
Marx Brothers' movie
Horse Feathers,a
secretary says: "The
dean is furious. He's
waxing wroth." To
which Groucho
responds: "Is Roth out
there too? Tell Roth to
wax the dean for a
while." The question
today is: What's
waxing? (Old word for
"growing" - now usually
means "putting wax on
e.g. floor, legs -T.)
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#51257
01/01/2002 3:09 PM
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Posts: 2,605
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What she says. From the subliming to the sublime.
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#51258
01/01/2002 3:38 PM
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Posts: 13,858
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Dear WW: I just thought of a usage of "alkane" you have seen hundreds of times. Many gas pumps are labelled according the the "octane" rating of the gas. In the old days, "knocking" caused by premature ignition of gas-air mixture made a loud noise, and caused loss of power. The petroleum chemists then postulated that a straight chain of eight carbon atoms saturated with hydrogen, named "octane" would be the perfect fuel, and batches of gasolene were to be compared with this. Later it turned out that the straight chain was not the best, but the "octane" rating term is still used. I guess a lot of the newer pumps no longer mention it. If desired, more and better info at: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question90.htm
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