09:06 – Thirty days and counting to the deadline on the forensics book. As always, we’ll make the deadline, but we’ll be using every minute available before then to get the book ready to roll.
I finished work on the glass and plastic analysis group of lab sessions yesterday, and I’m well into the group on revealing latent fingerprints. I am going to drop one of the lab sessions that covers developing latent prints with silver nitrate. When I wrote the original draft, silver nitrate was selling for $0.70 to $0.80 per gram. Right now, it’s more like $3.50 to $4.00 per gram, and who knows where it’ll be a year or two from now. Given the amount needed, that’s simply too expensive to include in a kit. It’d be one thing if it was really needed, but silver nitrate development of latent prints is similar enough to other development methods that it’s an easy decision to leave it out.
13:30 – I just ordered 100 grams of ninhydrin crystals for $70. That’s enough ninhydrin to make up 15 to 20 liters of working solution, which is probably a year’s supply for a typical forensics lab, and enough for 150 or more forensics kits.
You know, I wish you’d stop saying things like that. Inflation in the US is essentially non-existent. We have many official government reports saying so, and if we cannot trust our wise and capable leaders, whom can we trust?
Our money says “In God We Trust”.
Yes, but on one occasion that was corrected to “In Gold We Trust”, although of course the mint claimed an error and withdrew all examples they could get their hands on.
I know which one I’d rather trust.
It’s a typographical error. The correct motto is:
In Gold We Trust
Darn, our host chimed in before I could. Must learn to type faster…
No, I’m completely serious. The US Mint actually issued a coin or note with “In Gold We Trust” on it.
I’m curious…is there a particular forensics textbook you would recommend?
According to http://www.usmint.gov/historianscorner/?action=coinDetail&id=29554 , the 1989 US Congressional Coin is inscribed “In Gold We Trust” but the image clearly says “In God We Trust”. Sometimes makes me think that the people at the US Mint are a bunch of monkeys. And then I wonder about the rest of the US government. And then I wonder about the rest of our elected and self-appointed leaders. But that way lies anarchy!
Actually, although the name of the book is Illustrated Guide to Forensic Science Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture, the truth is that there’s a reasonable amount of lecture material included. Enough so that the book should suffice for a standard/honors high school forensic science course without any supplemental material.
I suppose I could talk to my editor about changing the name to Illustrated Guide to Forensic Science Experiments: Mostly Lab, Quite a bit of Lecture, but I suspect they’ll want to keep the series titles consistent.
It’s in the contract that O’Reilly/MAKE will allow us to release the forensics book under a Creative Commons license, so anyone who’s interested will be able to see the entire book before they decide.
About ninhydrin. I wondered what it was for so I Googled it. Dusting for fingerprints.
I’ve often wondered if dusting for fingerprints permanently mars a surface. I suspect my house was broken into at least once before I bought it in 1985, amongst other reasons because there are some surface with a grey/white smudging. If you dust a surface for prints can the surface be returned to its natural colour easily?
I’d like to see the book before I buy. A few days ago you said to send my e-mail address. Here it is:
E (underscore) H (underscore) Tersono (at) NetSpeed (dot) com (dot) au
Those crazy Australians:
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/chainsaw-and-samurai-sword-used-in-neighbours-clash-over-loud-music-20120502-1xygh.html
Another hot one here in the Midwest. We have had torrential rains the past few days–until today, when it is really hot and super-humid, a couple months ahead of schedule. Weather these days is so wild and unpredictable compared to my earlier life here. Yeah, there were unexpected tornadoes once a decade, and the occasional heavy rain for a few hours, but having it recur for days on end, with temps completely out-of-line with averages, one has to conclude that outside of the global warming/cooling debate, the weather is definitely changing dramatically from what used to be consistency.
Twice I have had houses where the heating/cooling system had to be redone, and I was never successful in getting the contractors to install what I wanted (they would do it for additional cost and the complete removal of their warranty). Back when I was a kid, my dad had it done to our house with very good results. And that is to create an air intake duct from the outside, that sucks air right at ground level, into the house. Dad used the old coal bin door as the intake. This was back in the day before anybody had whole house air-conditioning. If you have ever camped laying on the ground, you know that the air right at ground level is substantially cooler than air a foot or so above it. In that house, the circulating fan was turned on as the sun went down, and by about 10pm, the whole house was comfortable–even on the hottest days. I just checked the ground level temp outside, and it is 69°F, while the ambient air temp 6 feet above that is 83 F. It is supposed to get down to 60 F tonight, but I’ll bet that the temp right at ground level gets closer to 50.
It is 81 F inside the house, and still too early for me to consider firing up the central air, because I am stingy. Tomorrow is to be the hottest day in this stretch; I might have to resort to turning on the air, although I will be away most of the day. A temp of 83 in Tiny House really becomes unbearable.
One building I worked in had a system similar to what I described. There was an outside grating at ground level next to the building, which was on a temperature controlled damper, and was designed specifically to reduce energy costs. Only problem is that–when the building was built–the establishment next door was a Holiday Inn. Everything worked fine while the Holiday Inn was there. But that was torn down to make way for a branch bank. They put in a driveway for the drive-up tellers, and on Friday afternoon, we were about asphyxiated inside the building by the cars idling, waiting to deposit paychecks. Solution? Seal up the grating. So much for energy efficiency.
That building was designed by I.M. Pei by the way. Indianapolis is filled with his work, thanks in large part to the generosity of the Eli Lilly Foundation–although the building I worked in was a TV station. I have worked in 2 I.M. Pei buildings, and generally the HVAC in his buildings suck. Building sealed tight, and if anything went wrong with either heating or cooling (several times a year), people had to be sent home. The studios and control rooms had back-up systems, so we could continue working there.
“It is 81 F inside the house, and still too early for me to consider firing up the central air, because I am stingy.”
Well, I’m profligate, I leave heaters/fans for hours at a time and leave computers running for days, weeks, even months on end. You’d like my sister though. She has a nice full home heating/air conditioning system but resists the temptation to use it unless things are getting very uncomfortable. That’s because 91) she’s naturally like that and, (2) her skunk of an ex-husband blew so much of their money on booze and gambling she has to watch her pennies. OTOH, I don’t care, within reason.
MrAtoz wrote:
“Those crazy Australians…”
And don’t you forget it.
A welcome sight at Birdsville, Far SW Queensland:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-04/sign-outside-the-birdsville-hotel-stating-the-outside2c-inside/3757758
Ninhydrin is actually a chemical development method. It produces purple stains that are difficult to remove from non-porous surfaces. Dusting involves the application of a fine powder that adheres to the oils present in fingerprint ridges. Fingerprint powder is easy to brush or vacuum off. So easy, in fact, that it’s easy to destroy latent prints while attempting to dust them.