My View For Awhile: Research Edition

UPDATE: Check the comments for a Ham Radio comment.

I’m off to do some research on a couple topics.


It’s sort of weird to have been 19/52 on the upgrade list. But the plane is jammed with roadwarriors. I don’t think Cartier has more “diamonds”. There were so many priority boarders that I thought, “when everyone’s special, noone is”.

I want a new clerical priority deal, a new priest-traveller priority class. Maybe…

Kryptonite Class?

Vibranium Class?

UPDATE:

I am in Atlanta waiting for flight deux.

There is a cool patio at the club here.  When it cools off a bit I’ll go out there for the last few minutes of freedom.

Do you charge your phone outside of your house?  Perhaps at a public place or from a computer or anything connected to a network?   I once plugged my phone into an airline seat thingie to charge it and I got a message on screen “Do you trust this computer?”  “Whoa!” quoth I. “No!  DENIED!”  So, now I use these data blocker things everywhere.  They will let power in, but nothing else in or out.  HERE

No, you may not look in my phone.

I am told that there is WiFi for the whole of the flight now.  To think!

When I called my mother earlier, I reflected on what it was like to live overseas in the 80’s, what sort of communications challenges there were.  It’s all so very different now.

Click!

Someone wanted to know what I am reading.  It is a novel by Ross King called Ex Libris.  So, far it is pretty engaging.  I started chapter one as I buckled up on the last flight.  I have read a couple other things by King, including Brunelleschi’s Dome: The Story of the Great Cathedral in Florence and The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism.  The latter I read after I returned from my Paris trip some months back.  I wish I had read it before!  Now, when I visit the Musée d’Orsay, it’ll be with a new perspective and appreciation.

As you veteran readers here may have noticed, I like going to museums.

UPDATE

Time to get going again.

  

This is the part I don’t like so much.

  

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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23 Comments

  1. Ryan.Beggy says:

    What’s the “light” reading there? :)

  2. benedetta says:

    Oh yeah special numbers in the system are always fun for a laugh or two. Coding hijinx…

  3. dholwell says:

    In persona Christi class?

  4. Sconnius says:

    You father? You and all the other priests I’ve ever known, you guys deserve Adamantium Class.

  5. jameeka says:

    Avoid Atlanta!

  6. Kathleen10 says:

    Happy trails, Fr. Z., and God keep you safe.

  7. WmHesch says:

    Some guy on FlyerTalk made a “Kryptonium Medallion” tag as like a Diamond-plus badge. I’m sure it’s on Google images.

    Assuming that’s the new F Concourse SkyClub? Haven’t been there yet… My favs are B & C since they’re next to smoking lounges I can visit in between rounds.

  8. Maybe you readers could help me figure out how I can make a Kryptonite or Vibranium Medallion tag, etc. I’ll be someone knows.

    Hmmm… Unobtainium?

    Wow… how about Mithril? Do you suppose that would turn a few heads?

  9. Charles E Flynn says:

    Without that Smart Charge device, someone could gain access to beta versions of literal translations by Father Z of passages egregiously botched by the ICEL!

    [The fiends! The treacherous dogs! As Dr. Maturin would say.]

  10. Of Ham Radio interest… I wonder if I could do Echolink contacts from the airplane.

    Hmmm… have a program on both my laptop and my phone.

    Hmmm….. HERE and HERE (Mac)

    Maybe some of you this evening could hang out on WB0YLE-R (a node offered for our use by a reader/Ham), and do a little rag chewing. I’ll try to connect at some point or other…. discreetly.

    It would be pretty late/early in these USA, however. We depart at 2317. I wouldn’t be able to fire up for a while after that.

  11. Animadversor says:

    Cupertino Class? Loretto Class? If Cupertino, then copper tags. If Loretto, then gold tags with particles of myrrh and frankincense embedded.

  12. The Masked Chicken says:

    “Maybe you readers could help me figure out how I can make a Kryptonite or Vibranium Medallion tag, etc. I’ll be(t) someone knows.

    Sure, no problem. First, find some Jadarite: (may be obtained in Serbia), then react it with weak hydrofluoric acid at a temperature of 250 oC and 2 atm pressure, according to the reaction:

    Na2OLi2O(SiO2)2(B2O3)3H2O + HF (dilute, hot, pressure) ——-> Na2OLi2O(SiO2)2F(B2O3)3H2O

    This is the correct formula for Kryptonite (see, Superman Returns, 2008). The technical name for Kryptonite is: sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with fluorine, so this matches.

    Once purified, cut and carve the gem into a medallion.

    The Chicken

    P. S. Don’t tell DC comics that you have a stash of Kryptonite. They may try to claim it is patented!

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  13. LarryW2LJ says:

    Fr,, as long as you have internet access, you should be able to log on to Echolink from just about anywhere.

  14. HyacinthClare says:

    I’m absolutely with you on disliking the ubiquitous screens somebody assumes we can’t live without… the noise, the “entertainment” we simply must have to keep from … gasp … thinking? Or praying?

  15. Supertradmum says:

    Prayers, as those small seating areas are horrible…God bless your uncomfortable travels.

  16. Sconnius says:

    Chicken, did you lose a hydrogen atom somewhere, or are you (gasp!) saving it for later?

    Chem isn’t my strong suit, but I feel like there is a H missing somewhere.

  17. The Masked Chicken says:

    I did not work out the formula for Jadarite, since I did not discover it, and this looks more like geologist’s nomenclature than chemist’s, but the hydroxide part is, probably contained in the H2O, which is not water, but merely H and OH lumped together as a summary. If water had been included, it would have been as a ligand (bound water), which has a specialized nomenclature system in chemistry and would have the word, “hydrate,” appended to the name.

    Water is a really frightening substance, by the way. It goes by several names:

    Water
    Dihydrogen monoxide
    Hydrohydroxic Acid
    Hydrogen Hydroxide

    It is, in addition, 55.5 molar concentration, when pure. So, the next time you kids want to throw a tantrum, hold up a glass of water and yell, “Stand back, parental unit, or I shall drink this vile liquid composed of 55.5 molar hydrohydroxic acid. You know what that will do!”

    The Chicken

  18. robtbrown says:

    This is the correct formula for Kryptonite (see, Superman Returns, 2008). The technical name for Kryptonite is: sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with fluorine, so this matches.

    Now I understand the objection to fluoride in the water.

  19. KateD says:

    Sconnius – It’s the primary ingredient for The Super Sauce:

    https://youtu.be/eXxM3ZsRsVU

  20. The Masked Chicken says:

    “Now I understand the objection to fluoride in the water.”

    Did you know that they (The Feds) are cutting the amount of fluoride in the water supply by half? Maybe General Zod is pulling some strings.

    The Chicken

  21. Mariana2 says:

    Just ordered Ex Libris!

  22. bittergeek says:

    Perhaps Biretta Class? Only available to clergy in proper clericals, including hat or head covering as appropriate. (Headgear optional for those groups requiring a tonsure or shaved head.) One imagines the Fishwrap types struggling with the decision to either wear the despised cassock and biretta in a public place, where their progressive friends from the cocktail party set can see them, or wait an extra half hour and sit in a tiny cramped seat. Such an arrangement would also provide cover to faithful seminarians. “Is that a biretta, Transitional Deacon Latinate?” “This old thing, Father Feltbanner? It’s a long flight to visit family, and wearing it I get free upgraded seating and a selection of excellent single malts.” “Humph! Single malts, you say? Alright then, carry on. Your paper on the theological underpinnings of castanets in liturgical dance is still due tomorrow.”

  23. Mike says:

    Air France operates an A380 from Washington Dulles to Paris, which I had never experienced to date.

    Good news: It has a nifty business class upstairs with not-quite-flat-but-flat-enough seats. Some of these, I aver, should be reserved for weary clergy.

    Mixed news: No Wi-Fi at all! Then again, one fewer set of distractions.

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