Alyx Woodward (obsolete) @Alyx@computerfairi.es

oh pfft I typed "p. 6" when I'm on Page 7

whatever, just...add one in your head for the previous three toots

"but I didn't choose it" dun dun DUN!

I mean, pretty safe to guess Lomax's parents made the kid do it, but since this is a sci-fi webcomic I figure that the safe guess isn't the right guess

anyway of course Lomax sucks as a student (just like we all did!) and Rodgers sorrowfully suggests that Lomax has given up. Lomax tries to shrug it off: "oh I'm just not good at studying."

Rodgers: "but why are you a science major then"? oh, so this isn't high school? and there's only one science major at this college? "the science major" (well I think that's not unheard of actually, sounds like some Evergreen State College write-your-own-portfolio crap though)

bleh

fine, page 7

https://www.parallaxcomic.com/comic/page-07

so it's the talk alluded to at the end of the previous page, except there's a bit of confusion because the teacher, Rodgers, referred to Lomax as a "new kid" on page 5 but now he's talking about Lomax's grades as though he's been dealing with Lomax for a while. maybe he's just looking at the kid's record as a transfer student or something...eh, whatever, but it feels like a slight inconsistency

when Kara was much younger we had a PowerPC 6100 that also had a 486 PC in it running off a daughterboard. that thing was sweet

"are there any good FOSS android apps" shit of course not

yeah, I know, famous last words. this stuff is difficult!

ok realized my bio was kinda out of date and fixed it

think now with Chara (and Azzy and Frisk) firmly bonded, we're probably basically where we're gonna be, as a #pluralgang

well that's neat I guess! I'll try to remember this, if I ever have to make oxazoles...which seems a bit unlikely

in this particular _Organic Syntheses_ reaction, though, the 1,3-dipole is a strange beast indeed, an amide of N-aminopyridine, obtained by amidation of N-aminopyridinium iodide with the methyl ester of N-t-butoxycarbonylglycine. sticking a pyridinium group onto the amide nitrogen unbalances the usual charge distribution in the amide group and converts it to a 1,3-dipole, it would seem!

the "dipolarophile" is an unsymmetrical alkyne here. cycloaddition yields a substituted oxazole

in this class of reaction, a "dipolarophile", usually an asymmetrical alkene or alkyne, i.e. one with an electron-donating group on one side of the multiple bond and an electron-withdrawing group on the other side, reacts with a "1,3-dipole", a molecule that has a chain of three atoms and a definite difference in positive-negative polarity between the ends of the chain. to pick a very commonplace example, the so-called "click" reaction, the 1,3-dipole is an organic azide, R-N=N⁺=N⁻

ok didn't do my usual stuff yesterday. well, I'll do it right now

first, _Organic Synthesis_ roulette. and the word of the day to plug into the orgsyn.org search box is..."powder"

aw jeez it's a strange one

http://orgsyn.org/demo.aspx?prep=v95p0112

another "2+3 dipolar cycloaddition". this is a large class of chemical reactions, of particular use in synthesis of five-membered heterocycles

let's continue I guess

https://www.parallaxcomic.com/comic/page-06

not much goes on here. Paul Rodgers' physics-teaching cousin here acknowledges Lomax, Lomax is mortified of course and calls Rodgers an asshole (well, I mean, he IS a white physics teacher, I'd call that playing the odds), and then goes on with the lecture

Lomax tries to sneak out at the end (not smart enough to hide in the crowd huh kid) but gets hit with "talk to me before you leave". dun dun DUN!

CS₂ is poisonous, volatile, extremely flammable, and unavoidable impurities in it make it reek. thumbs down

the reagent is N-trifluoromethylthiosaccharin. saccharin is the cyclic imide of o-sulfobenzoic acid and that imide nitrogen is highly acidic. so saccharin is a good leaving group (cf. the similar compound phthalimide) and so this CF₃S- compound is good for achieving electrophilic trifluoromethylthiolation of a number of substrates (electron-rich aromatics, the alpha position of ketones, etc.)

eh, pretty special purpose, but neat. synthesis is kinda ugly (uses carbon disulfide. ew!)