09:19 – I just shipped the first chemistry kit of the new year, what I hope is the first of many kits we’ll ship this year. In 2011, we just dipped our toes in the water, selling only one type of kit. In 2012, we’ll have several new kits on offer, starting with biology and forensics, and my goal is to sell at least 500 kits in total for the year 2012.
We’ll introduce the biology kits this spring, to correspond with the biology book being published for Maker Faire. Between completing the book at the end of this month and when the book is published, we’ll be putting together a starting inventory of biology kits, but we’ll also be working on the forensics kit and documentation, which we intend to begin shipping at around the same time, in time for summer session and early orders for autumn semester. Over the summer, we’ll be working on writing documentation for and designing an AP Chemistry kit, which should be available this autumn.
At that point, I plan to begin working on “lite” chemistry and biology kits, for homeschool students who won’t go on to major in a hard science in college but need a standard science lab course. Those kits will be designed to offer a less rigorous but still useful exposure to lab science, and will sell for around 75% of the prices of the more comprehensive and rigorous kits. Call it $120 shipped versus $160.
Meanwhile, I’m still shooting images for the vertebrates chapter. I’ve found that using Live View heavily really drains the battery, so I always keep the spare one charged.
Just out of curiosity, will you be devoting a section of the new bio lab book to picking out a microscope? I find that question pops up a lot on some of the homeschooling lists that I am on. When we covered biology with my son two years ago, I did find it a bit of a challenge figuring out the balance between the bare minimum of what I should have in a microscope and what I could reasonably afford…
Yes, we spend a significant amount of space on that, trying to point out what’s important to have, and why, and what’s just nice to have.
The other problem is that it’s almost impossible for a lay person to pick out a good microscope among similar alternatives, and it’s impossible for anyone, including an expert, to know if a microscope is excellent, good, mediocre or bad without actually using it.
I keep trying to convince people on the WTM forums to buy National Optical, which of course costs a bit more than other brands. National Optical scopes are made in China in a factory that NO owns, but even then they hand-inspect each microscope that arrives here in the US to make sure the QC is up to par. Other Chinese-made microscopes of whatever brand, are a crapshoot. The same factory can turn out a truly excellent unit and literally the very next unit will be garbage. And there are a lot more garbage units than good ones. Of course, the average homeschooler buyer has no idea whether the scope is good or bad, because he or she has nothing to compare it with.
I believe this is the microscope that RBT uses: National Optical Model-161. It’s a bit pricey for most people.
I’m certainly looking forward to the biology book, although the taxonomic changes are going to drive me nuts. All my textbooks are 40, 50 and 60 years old!
Yeah, I use a National Optical model 161-ASC.
Taxonomy changes?
Taxonomy is just a rumor. You can put several biologists in a room, list ten species, and not a one of them will agree with either of the others about which belongs where.
Yep. That one would pretty much be out of the price range of most homeschoolers I know, myself definitely included. Two years ago when I was shopping for microscopes I tried to find other families willing to split the cost of a good microscope three or four ways, but I had no luck. I’m sure some homeschool co-ops pool together their resources for a good one, but it’s tough when it’s just you. It’s difficult justifying blowing several years’ curriculum budget for several kids on just one item for one kid.
Well, my basic advice for someone who’s on a tight budget is:
1. Buy a monocular model. Otherwise, you’re spending much too much on the head.
2. Insist on separate fine and coarse focus adjustments, whether on separate knobs or coax.
3. You can get by with 40X, 100X, and 400X magnification unless you intend to do microbiology (or AP Biology), in which case you really need the fourth objective for 1000X (and a 1.25NA condenser).
4. A mechanical stage is the single most important upgrade, if your scope doesn’t include one as standard.
The National Optical models 131 (400X, about $230 with mechanical stage) and 134 (1000X, about $345) are excellent choices in the budget class.
For some unfathomable reason poisonous mushrooms found their way into a meal prepared by a professional chef:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-06/fatal-mushroom-meal-cooked-in-commercial-kitchen/3760704
I wouldn’t even consider gathering my own mushrooms, even if I was an expert, which I’m not. I just buy what I need at the supermarket.
How’s it unfathomable? It’s an accident, fercryinoutloud! It’s statistics.
Some guy, with all good intent, went out and picked what he thought were good shrooms and sold them to a chef. He was wrong. They weren’t good. Shit happens. Perhaps he’ll be more “insightful” in the future.
So whaddya wanna do about about? Pass a law?
Do nothing, but why would you spend time picking mushrooms which may be poisonous when you can just buy guaranteed safe ones at the shop.
Perhaps it was murder, like I’ve long suspected the Tylenol poisonings were? A fourth person was there, didn’t eat the mushroom meal that was cooked specially for the staff to enjoy, and is in good health, while two people are dead, and one only made ill. If I played a cop on TV I’d be asking some hard questions to Mr. Fourth Person, right about now.
Deathcaps are pretty innocuous looking ‘shrooms. That’s their danger. They look much like edible mushrooms, and often the emerging caps are mistaken for edible puffballs. There are ways of identifying Deathcaps, but when I was in my Euell Gibbons phase I just avoided picking any mushrooms that looked like one, just in case. I prefer Morels, anyway.
Oh, and people haven’t been poisoned by foods they’ve bought at grocers? Some food poisoning cases by foods purchased at stores in North America in the past couple of years has included: fruit juices, cheese, spinach, lettuce, strawberries, mung bean and alfalfa sprouts, and various and sundry meat products. Some mushrooms at grocers ARE picked in the wild, and can’t be successfully grown commercially, such as Morels.
If you grant that the cause was an accident in the true sense of the word, as happens from time to time, what’s the solution?
Laws, more laws — and yet more laws and their bureaucratic overhead ? At whose expense?
Let’s focus on the solution, not the problem.
Where did I advocate a ban on picking mushrooms in the wild?
The things that bothered me about this is that it’s not an efficient use of time to go off looking for mushrooms in the wild. If it’s treated as a recreational activity fine, but if you’re busy it’s easier to go to the supermarket. There are plenty near the club involved.
Secondly, if I’m preparing food for others then I feel a responsibility to make food that’s safe to eat: I’d never forgive myself if friends or family died because I’d taken shortcuts.
The key difference is at a grocer you have an entity with some real assets to sue. 🙂
You mean “your survivors have an entity with some real assets to sue”, don’t you? 😉
The point is that that the grocer has an incentive to be careful.
What an interesting bunch of recent posts here!
I will be sure not to pick strange shrooms while walking barefoot over broken Pepsi glass at the supermarket in the middle of the woods for fear a family of grocers might sue my ass for thinking about suing them.
Lordy.
Can we now get off the subject of mens’ bare feet?
And nasty little fungi?
Well, I’m sure Bill and our host can regale us with stories of non-male, non-foot bare bits they’ve seen.
Please, we’re gentlemen. At least Bob is.