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Barney Grubbs

@barneygrubbs.bsky.social
1.6K followers 2.3K following 609 posts

chemist he/him north central long island linktr.ee/barney.grubbs

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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Dealt with jet-lag this morning by trying to come up with a Pleco-assisted translation that does this one & its amazing graphic justice—maybe “Please embrace society / Step to the pisser when you pee” (but open to suggestions from people who actually know the language)
A sign over a urinal at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou reading: “GUANGZHOU INTERNATIONAL CAMPUS
贴近文明
靠近方便
Please step closer.” A line drawing appears to show a figure urinating on the floor in front of the urinal with the stream bouncing back toward it.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
closest I think I’ll ever get to teleportation—was in one room one second with the nurses than back in the recovery room the next
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Local football squad appears to boldly stand in opposition to the Neolithic Revolution
A large digital football scoreboard reading, “Stony Brook, Home of the Seawolves. EVERYONE wants to eat FEW want to hunt! Pre Practice, Period: 0 Emphasis Approach. Kehoe Family Scoreboard.”
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
fucked around and got a triple-flavored fermionic lepton possibly exhibiting double-beta decay
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
That's even better than the generic southwestern turquoise silver slide I was imagining
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
bolo tie?
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
we did a couple in pasadena in 79/80 where we all knelt in rows with our heads down in a central hallway & I’m not sure anyone understood the point at the time—just seemed like a weird version of an earthquake drill
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I’m hoping we’ll at least get another rare photo of Banjo the elephant out of it
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
atomic city version of rc & a moonpie
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
keeping an eye out for Mr ³²Pibb
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
rumored to be one of the three little birds (along with rodan & gigan)
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
felt even further over the hill when I saw our campus poster slingers had replaced Bob Marley with MF DOOM
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Finally got around to figuring out the overhead document camera for the stereochemistry chapter.
A lectern on a stage in a large non-rectilinear concrete lecture hall with two models of tetrahedral carbon atoms with four different substituents, each a mirror image of the other, displayed on the screen.  The same two models of tetrahedral carbon atoms with four different substituents, each a mirror image of the other, under a document projector on the lectern with a water bottle, carbon dioxide sensor, and a laptop partially visible.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
maybe a smooth death sax combo called David Sanguisugabornn?
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Scoop: This afternoon NSF will formally announce its four 'Frontier Initiatives', and a suite of other changes in a public letter. These Frontier Initiatives (left) are identical to OSTP's 'Grand Research Challenges' that we have been reporting on (right). www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
We saw a couple on the median strip once late at night on the northern edge of Eapañola, New Mexico. Slowed down because we saw eyes reflecting in the distance but slowly realized they weren’t where deer or coyote eyes would be. Beautiful but terrifying
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Iris suspects Zola of frivolity
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Jeffrey Mervis @policyhound.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
What's it like inside the new NSF headquarters? Scroll down to logbook to find out why you're unlikely to find out. www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
ScienceAdviser: Sex reversal could land frogs in hot water
Today in Science and science: Digital twins aren’t ready for primetime, a new idea for treating jelly stings, and more
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Today we have an evening home football game that meant closing a bunch of the central parking lot at 5 am, so of course they decided it would be Faculty & Staff Appreciation Night.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I probably got on a list because I kept reporting official email messages because all the links were masked as stupid e2ma urls instead of direct university addresses.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Not sure how useful the ABRP app is for general navigation, but they are doing it right
Map of north-central New York and Southeastern Ontario showing Lake Ontario. Map showing Merida, Mexico, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with the Gulf of Mexico in between.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I have built the envelope generator, VCF, stereo matrix mixer, and a couple of other modules and they are very enjoyable to build and use (and the build instructions are very clear). About to order a pcb+panel one of these (once I get my surface-mount courage up).
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
If you find yourself in downtown Philly, Iffy Books (S 20th & Pine) might have everything you need. Helped the kid move in for her 2nd year at haverford on saturday & took our time coming back. (and found out at work today that Marlon James is doing a reading at Stony Brook tomorrow night)
Items purchased at Iffy Books in Philadelphia on a coffee table. Schedule of events at iffybooks.net, brown paper bag with “Iffy Books” stamp, FM radio transmitter kit, several small perf boards, a small breadboard, three piezos, and a hardcover copy of Marlon James’ The Disappearers.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
should be a great tribute to Dolly Parton on the Honky Tonk Radio Girl show on @wfmu at 8 pm east coast US time tonight (but streaming everywhere) wfmu.org
wfmu.org
WFMU-FM 91.1/Jersey City, NJ; 90.1/Hudson Valley, NY
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
They've got another paper w/ more detail -- up to 1 g of olivine (but typical scale is 0.25 g): doi.org/10.1021/jacs...
doi.org
Chelation-Driven Chemistry Controls Dissolution Pathways for Facile Critical Mineral Recovery from Ultramafic Resources
Abstract. The efficient recovery of critical minerals, such as nickel (Ni) and manganese (Mn) from the subsurface, is of vital importance, given their role
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
looks like there’s a preprint (but all the experimental details look to be in the SI, which aren’t showing up on my phone): chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10....
chemrxiv.org
Engineered Fluids Unlock Coupled Geological Hydrogen and Critical Mineral Recovery from Ultramafic Rocks | ChemRxiv
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
If a bunch of collaborative 90-second field recording/synthesizer tracks seems intriguing, check them out here (or on bandcamp)
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
all Nat, no cattle
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
somewhere along the line I got taught: “Always do just as you oughtta / add the acid to the watah”
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
atomic cthulhu made me remember the entertaining Charles Stross short, “A Colder War” www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/cold...
infinityplus.co.uk
A Colder War - a novelette by Charles Stross
Roger isn't a soldier. He's not much of a patriot, either. He's just scared when 20 pages of sheer terror land on his CIA desk.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
EVERY TOUCHPOINT
 a person in a mole costume with labcoat, safety glasses, and maybe a giant blue cosplay test tube offers you a furry fistbump.
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
On the day that Barbara Synder, Douglas Girod and Ronald Daniels and the @aau.edu capitulated to the Trump administration, it's worth looking back at history. First. The Red Scare. @aau.edu was there to bend the knee to Senator Joe McCarthy and HUAC. 1/ www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
insidehighered.com
How Elite Colleges Aided Censorship During the Red Scares
Powerful organizations during the Red Scares crafted a world where “academic freedom” was conditional on political allegiance.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
there were plenty of unverifiable stories in the 90s about various alkyllithiums & other pyrophorics getting thrown in Beebe Lake next to the Cornell Chemistry buildings (& upstream from the old Ithaca Gun superfund site, so probably wouldn’t have done much additional damage.)
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
if it’ll make things better, I will work harder to get the film on the next home movie night (been enjoying the soundtrack for awhile)!
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
player piano roll is going to run away with this one
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
could probably use a board like this one with a photoresister connected across the trigger jammed up against the light inside the main opener unit (though there are probably better ways if you’re serious) www.sparkfun.com/wav-trigger....
sparkfun.com
WAV Trigger
Create rich, immersive audio with this high-fidelity polyphonic player, capable of mixing up to 14 stereo-quality tracks simultaneously with low latency.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
not sure how well it would fit, but the inquisition bit from Mel Brooks’ History of the World Pt 1 made an impression on me and my friends (who were probably way too young for any of it at the time) & still holds up as a parody of big old hollywood song & dance numbers
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
they probably have associate profs making $66,000 & are trying to avoid inversion
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
it has turned into a much more exciting match than it seemed like it was going to be at the start
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Iris is as interested in the football as she was in the hurling. (She’d much prefer Kerrygold or actual Mayo)
an aging gray-muzzled blue heeler/beagle mix stares past the camera while the GAA Football final plays on a tv in the background. Kerry currently up by 2 points 1-06 to 0-07.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
bsky.app/profile/clan...
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
knew she had studied chemistry but hadn’t realized she worked with Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (the learning of which distracted me from trying to make an ill-advised Iron Lady joke)
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
In battle there is no thaw!
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Limerick ran away with it (and Galway’s sponsor placement made it look like everyone was named Papa John)
A lanky ginger cattle dog mix hides behind a laptop on a gray couch showing the GAA hurling final just before Limerick’s goal.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Learned some python from Chris Johnson & Ben Lear’s Coding for Chemists book & promptly misapplied it to see what a randomly seeded 4-voice midi version of Terry Riley’s In C at 12,000 bpm would sound like through an absurdly oversized amp.
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Frotz on my phone and a bunch of games downloaded from IFDB have gotten me through more than a few long flights (though more of the newer games are web-based & don’t work without wifi)
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
2.64 skanohertz
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Reposted by Barney Grubbs
Lipshultz Group @lipshultzsbu.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
a successful beach day (most) of the organic chemistry groups along with a PhDs vs Candidates volleyball match! (a few injuries, no deaths) @GustafsonLab @jillalty.bsky.social @barneygrubbs.bsky.social @qjbruch.bsky.social Prof. Katherine Aubrecht and Prof. Matthew Parkers Group
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Rising for the Moons over My Hammy
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Barney Grubbs @barneygrubbs.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
The dogs are unaccustomed to this much sudden yelling.
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