07:35 – We’d be ready to build more chemistry kits, except for one thing. Each kit includes a 30 mL bottle of 0.1 M IKI (iodine/potassium iodide) solution. I’m now waiting for iodine to dissolve.
Iodine is very poorly soluble in water, something like 300 mg/L at room temperature. That changes if iodide ions are present in the water. Molecular iodine–a neutral molecule made up of two iodine atoms–reacts with an iodide ion to form a triodide ion, which is extremely soluble in water. IKI solutions contain iodine and iodide ions in water, with the iodide ions typically in at least small excess. The solution we supply is 0.1 molar with respect to both iodine and iodide, which means there’s no excess iodide. That solution is made up of 12.69 grams of iodine and 16.60 grams of potassium iodide per liter.
The problem is, iodine is tightly controlled by the DEA because it’s used by illegal methamphetamine labs. I do have some on hand, but I try to reserve it for situations where I really need elemental iodine. Accordingly, I’ve been buying an IKI solution from one of my vendors that contains 22 grams of iodine and 40 grams of potassium iodide per liter, then adding iodine crystals to bring it up to equimolar, and then diluting to give an IKI solution that’s 1.26% iodine and 1.66% potassium iodide. But iodine dissolves very, very slowly in that 2.2%/4% solution. By “slowly” I mean a week or two with frequent swirling. So, right now, there’s a one-liter volumetric flask sitting on my lab bench with a few grams of undissolved iodine sitting in the bottom. Fortunately, I already had some of the IKI solution made up, but not enough for 30 kits. So I’ll probably bottle that and make up how ever many kits that IKI solution will cover.
The really annoying thing is that although iodine dissolves very slowly in a dilute KI solution, it dissolves quickly in a concentrated KI solution. If I were making up this solution from scratch, I’d dissolve 16.60 grams of potassium iodide in about 20 mL of distilled water and add 12.69 grams of crystal iodine. The iodine would go into solution within a few minutes.
In fact, I think that’s what I’ll do. The stuff in the volumetric flask, when it finally dissolves, can be used for the next batch of kits. It’s not like anything is going to be growing in a 1.26% solution of iodine. And as to my supply of crystal iodine, I may just do what someone suggested a week or so ago. Order it on eBay. I see that there are several vendors offering ACS Reagent grade iodine crystals in 250 g or 500 g bottles for reasonable prices.
[quote=”RBT”]The problem is, iodine is tightly controlled by the DEA because it’s used by illegal methamphetamine labs.[/quote]
Another inanity of the nanny-state. Like when I go to the drugstore to purchase Pseudophedrine HCl I have to show driver’s license to be scanned in. All the while they are importing it in shiploads (obsolescent crude oil tankers) to repurposed tequila distilleries in Mexico. Unbelivable!
Reminds me of the aftermath of the RFK assasination when I had to show same and enter purchase of .22 LR rounds in a leder at K Mart. Does one think that in the subsequent years any police official suppoened 2o years of ammo purchase records at K Mart? Fast and Furious, anyone?
Back in the days of paper records, maybe those purchase records were never subpoenaed. In the era of electronic records, I would be astonished if those and many other records were not repeatedly combed, with or without court order, with or without subpoena.
I had to show my driver’s license twice to get prescriptions for drugs containing codeine.
Once wasn’t enough? And that was for Children’s Tylenol with codeine.
It must be the low-hanging fruit theory, like when we see cops stopping people (us) for a defective directional light or reg expired by one day, and guys are flying by us at 100 and/or weaving in and out of the lanes while throwing human heads out the windows. Naturally they grab us.
Can’t locate or get up the ballz to arrest a biker krew with a meth lab out in the northwest Rhode Island swamps, but by jiminy they’ll make sure they ID us six ways from Sunday for a kid’s bottle of pills.
And like the Testicle Squeezing Authority goons at the airports, busting all the time on little old ladies in wheelchairs, octogenarian war heroes with the Medal of Honor around their necks, and little kids on crutches. But they can’t stop any number of weapons, explosives, contraband or narcotics from getting into the cargo holds or otherwise of those same aircraft. Tests are done with this all the time and it’s a complete joke. The more honest airline people will tell us this, that it’s all just a show for the rubes and bumpkins, and then they get fired.
Stop me now before I keep posting far into the night with all these tangents…
SteveF wrote: “In the era of electronic records, I would be astonished if those and many other records were not repeatedly combed, with or without court order, with or without subpoena.”
I’m sure there’s an app for that!
An insanely great app?
The amount of stuff available these days during “discovery” for trials is practically overwhelming. Think businesses kept copies of every paper memo sent by anyone in the organization before computers? These days, they definitely keep all email from anyone to anyone, and I have seen that going back 8 years, so they may keep it indefinitely.
Same with medical records. Everything is now entered directly into computers in both the office, the hospital, the ER and OR. No more dictating or writing indecipherable scribbles onto a medical chart.
No physical filing space is needed anymore, which is a plus. All those records are probably good for both sides, as it can pin down exactly who did what, when. I did a lot of work on a case where a company sued another for a few million because they were not happy with the product that was delivered. Whoops! All the email flying back and forth appears to indicate that the unhappy campers doing the suing, had provided pictures and drawings to a third company to reverse engineer the equipment in question and thus duplicate proprietary technology. The counter suit is for hundreds of millions and will bankrupt those who reverse-engineered, if found guilty. Without all those emails, the reverse-engineering probably would never have been discovered.
It pays not to be greedy when you do shady things.
However, just as with the paper, electronic records can be hacked and “lost”, altered, forged, etc. I can imagine all sorts of newfangled mischief afoot as the usual suspects, miscreants, felons, lawyers, …but I repeat myself…work their wiles inside Big Data, etc.
No, it pays not to create a trail (paper or electronic) when you do shady things.
However, just as with the paper, electronic records can be hacked and “lost”, altered, forged, etc.
I find it particularly odd that in all incidents involving some crime where a police officer is involved there is dashcam video of the entire incident. However, when the officer is involved in a crash, where the officer is at fault but denies such fault, the video system in the car is suddenly inoperable. Probably made that way by the officer.
Same as when officers have confiscated video cameras (illegally) where evidence of the officers suspect actions have been recorded, the offending video file no longer exists. But clever recovery software finds the video still on the memory media. It is obvious the officer erased the video which is evidence tampering and is a federal crime.
Dave B. says:
It pays not to be greedy when you do shady things.
No, it pays not to create a trail (paper or electronic) when you do shady things.
Frankly, I think that is positively impossible in this day and age. In that particular case, there were scores and scores of emails from more than a half-dozen people involved in carrying out the alleged reverse-engineering, summary minutes of meetings where it was discussed, emails and records at the company doing the reverse-engineering, photos and videos of the equipment in operation in the possession of the company doing the reverse-engineering, billing records for the reverse-engineering, travel and expense records that confirm–in writing–the purpose of trips as related to activities of the reverse-engineering, shipping records that showed equipment was moved from place to place to facilitate the reverse-engineering…on and on.
In today’s big corporations, nobody can work alone, and there WILL be records of what went on–most likely plenty of them. In this situation, the company who produced the equipment that was supposedly reverse-engineered, was not in the US. Thus, they knew nothing of the activities that were happening in the US, related to the reverse-engineering. And they might never have known about it. Only because the greedy US company sued over a few million, did the foreign company get access to the evidence that seems to indicate slam-dunk wrong-doing.
So, IMO, it may be ironic that wrong-doing never gets uncovered, but if it is happening in a company that is big enough to be required to keep records, there WILL be an electronic trail.
One of the very interesting things to me, coming out of all this, is that–prior to the housing collapse and economic woes that started in 2007–the US company had planned to use the equipment to run 2 fabrication lines that would operate 24/7, and there was great urgency to get that done, because of then current orders, just prior to 2007. The collapse in demand has been such that they never constructed the second line, and today, they only run 1 shift on 1 line a few days a week. The scale of the set-back this country has had to deal with financially, is mind-boggling.
Yes, Chuck, there WILL be an electronic trail, but my point was that the trail can be tampered with, esp. as it is bigger and more complex and there are that many more opportunities to tamper with it. In your example, yes, the trail was there and it was apparently complete and could be used as court evidence subsequently. For cases SINCE that one, I would anticipate and presume that nefarious types could and would find ways to circumvent an accurate electronic trail and also circumvent or disable security controls. That case would be a nice illustration for a bad guy or guys on what to do and not do in their operations.
On Ray’s point with the cops, yes, data can be recovered from that media, and yes, the cops routinely disable the phones, the cameras, etc., and attempt to wipe them when they know their bad behavior has been so recorded. The smart thing for people who want to be able to avoid this sort of counter-strike is to have a line open to a home device that is also recording the event. Blueshirt thug wipes the phone, no problemo, you’ve got the whole thing sitting on some kind of drive back at the house. At that point, alert the media, an attorney, etc., and Bob’s yer uncle.
The smart thing for people who want to be able to avoid this sort of counter-strike is to have a line open to a home device that is also recording the event.
Or have a camera with two memory cards. Have the camera record to one. When the cops demand the card give them the other card with nothing on it.
It has been ruled multiple times that police cannot stop anyone from filming them while in a public place. As long as the person filming is not obstructing the investigation or creating a hazard. Refusing to stop filming is not a violation because the police have no such right to issue such an order.
I was photographing the federal building in downtown Knoxville. The rent-a-rambo comes running out and tells me to stop photographing and to hand over my memory card. I told him to pound sand as I was on public property. He started to reach for me and I stepped back and told him that if he touched me or my equipment I would have him arrested for assault. He thought for a moment and then said he was going to call the police. I said fine, I will wait. The police arrived and told him that I was right, I could take photographs from the public area, and there was nothing he could do about it.
They will try to do what they think they can get away with, all the time, and they will also lie a lot. But be careful, because some of these guys will lay hands on you and drop you to the ground with a knee in your kidneys and a choke hold or whatever, and the others will back them up with their stories and claim you did all kinds of stuff to provoke it. It is all very new to a lot of them, what can be done with technology these days, and it ain’t all on their side of the fence, either.
I’ve had uniformed, armed federal employees (not feebs, not marshalls; the unionized federal equivalent of mall security) tell me I couldn’t take pictures of a federal building or even of the river because the parking lot was in the picture. Me being me (which is to say, a true American who doesn’t allow civil servants to encroach on his rights; known to “civil” “servants” as a unreasonable and aggressive troublemaker) I told them that they had no legal grounds to stop me and that there weren’t enough of them to physically stop me. Then I took their pictures, gave my camera to my girlfriend, and told her to go to the car and go home. “If any of them try to stop you, scream ‘rape’ and I’ll come and rescue you.” Unfortunately, that was the wrong thing to say because she freaked out and the rent-a-cops got hostile. Fortunately, one of them had a lick of sense and de-escalated the situation with only a few more threats of arrest, no actual arrests, no confiscation of cameras, and no dead rent-a-dumbasses.
Amusing side note: In New York, citizen’s arrest is allowed for any “offense” — doesn’t have to be a felony or even a misdemeanor. If I’d known that at the time, I could have arrested all three of them for crossing the street to harass, intimidate, and threaten me. While armed, no less.
I don’t discount the possibility that electronic records could be messed with. But the coordination to make that happen would involve the voluntary cooperation of a lot of people–including tech-savvy folks in the IT department,–all of them knowing they are doing something illegal, but still agreeing to do so.
Take the case I mentioned. A production management guy decides the reverse-engineering needs to be done. He could not do that himself; design engineers needed to be informed, a company willing to produce reverse-engineered equipment needed to be found, a place made for the installation of the equipment, massive communication about tech details–this was a huge undertaking. Personally, I do not think it would have been possible to even begin covering tracks on something that big.
Enron was on the cusp of electronic records. They tried to cover their tracks, but it only made things more evident and worse for those directing the cover-up. Plus, these days, it is the people involved in the cover-up that are punished most severely. I just don’t think it is possible to cover all the electronic tracks that are made these days. And when only half of them are covered, it just makes the act of cover-up stick out all the more.
Google is proving that you can take pictures of almost anything from public property. Stand in–or drive down–the street and take pictures of anybody’s house–that’s proving to be okay in most places. I don’t know SteveF’s encounter with cops protesting taking pictures of a parking lot was all about. If you can see the parking lot from public property, you can take pictures of it. If you can see a Coca-Cola plant from the street, you can take pictures from it from the street or sidewalk. There is no expectation of privacy–even on private property, if it abuts public property. In the jurisdictions where I have lived, even peeping toms were on okay ground if they did not leave public property, like a street or alley. And some of the Google cases have indicated that taking pictures from the street is not an invasion of privacy, even if you can see in a window where the shade or curtains have not been drawn.
This all reminds me of a rock concert we videotaped for TV when I was in Chicago. This guy came into the TV studio where we were taping with his girlfriend. There were TV cameras all around and shots of the audience were part of the program. The guy’s wife saw the show, together with the guy and this girlfriend she knew nothing about. He sued the station. And lost.
But, like every other politically correct thing, it caused repercussions. We had to start putting a sign at the entrance to the station on days when we had a studio audience, noting that you might be on television. We also had to begin getting signed releases from everyone in the audience after that episode, too.
Edit: of it from the street; not from it from the street
There has been a disturbing trend for police to try to stop people from taking pictures or video in public places. Much of it has to do with police not wanting to be videotaped doing their jobs. Although some of it is done in the name of homeland security.
My little incident was in 2002 or 2003 and “You have to understand the concerns about terrorism, sir.” Right. Because me taking pictures of my (very attractive) girlfriend, some of them with a nice shot of the river in the background and, oh yah, a part of an utterly forgettable federal building and its parking lot, is exactly what a terrorist would do. I call bullshit, and did, in fact call bullshit, with skeptical laughter thrown in for free. Government employees (can’t honestly call them “workers”) get very upset when you question the importance of their very, very serious work for the people.
I’d like to take pictures of the outside of a police station in a small city. Not because it’s a police station, because it used to be a railroad station, and I’m a model railroader, and I’d like to build a model of that railroad station.
Not to mention how baffled the police would be by a middle aged guy taking pictures and measurements of the outside of the station. I think I’ll just work from existing photos.
Aw, Dave B, live a little! Go take the pictures and the measurements while wearing a caftan, sandals and one of them cute headgear thingies they all like to wear. When the SWAT shows up, bark at them in some kind of ersatz guttural Arabic as you reach for your nice shiny cell phone.
A 40-something dude just did a bit of that up here, only it was just the cell he whipped out and pointed at the state police who were chasing him through the woods as a B&E suspect. The trooper fired seven or eight shots at him, allegedly, and missed them all. The guy wouldn’t stop and pulled the cell again, whereupon the trooper fired one shot which hit him in the lower back. When they ran up to check on him they asked why oh why did he pull the cell phone out like that, again allegedly, and he allegedly said he wanted to die, so possibly suicide-by-cop, who knows. Only survivors of the incident are the state police, of course. Suspect of non-violent burglary died enroute to the hospital.
Note the woman reporter’s very germane question here:
http://www.wcax.com/story/18004982/vt-state-police-reveal-details-in-officer-involved-shooting