Fun with science at bookofjoe

This morning I had an idea for a cool science experiment that I could perform right here at home with things commonly found around the house.

Being the curious sort I went ahead and did it, in the process realizing that I had inadvertently stumbled upon the best ever way to describe exactly what it means to be a TechnoDolt™.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I wondered if an iron tablet — FeSO4,

ferrous sulfate, what people take when they're prescribed a dietary iron supplement — would be attracted to a magnet.

Stupid, huh?

Not to me, because I honestly didn't know what the answer would be.

So I went to my fridge, magnet central here at bookofjoe World Headquarters™, and pulled off the biggest, baddest magnets I could find.

Then I placed FeSO4 tablets on them and tipped the magnets to see if the iron tablets would stick.

No dice — they fell right off.

So, either I need stronger magnets or there's so little iron in the tablets that no magnet I could ever use would attract them or there's something wrong with my experimental design.

But if there is one true thing I've learned over the years, it is that being willing to be stupid and wrong and make a fool of oneself is a prerequisite for discovering wonderful things.

At least, it makes it more likely.

On February 4 I had a post entitled "An idea to get rich with."

A number of people commented and noted the variety of ways they were already doing more or less what Mr. Dim Bulb here had thought up.

But you know what?

There's an axiom in medicine that if there are many different cures for something, none of them are much good.

Why?

Because just as good money crowds out bad, a clearly effective remedy consigns the rest to the sharps box scrap heap.

For example, hiccups — there are a million and one ways to cure hiccups — because none of them are always effective.

If one worked you'd never hear about the others.

So with all the toolbar tricks, FireFox wizardry, AOL Wallets and the rest that people told me did just what I'd suggested I'd like a quick hack for.

Too many solutions means no solutions.

For your information, I do not know — nor do I care — what a toolbar is or does; I use Safari; I have no AOL account and never will, and so I say again what I said last month: give me a way to quickly create my own little secret key combination — on any computer, using any operating system and any browser — that on my command pops up, in a little one–time–only window, my credit card info so I can buy something on the spot without having to go get my wallet.

So easy it's impossible, apparently.

And now you know what it means to be a TechnoDolt™, by analogy to my little failed experiment.

Except that's it's not really a failed experiment.

Because it succeeded in showing me something I didn't know before.

Say what you will, I call that not failure but, rather, learning.

The terms on which I engage computers are precisely those on which I explored the magnetic space — very, very rudimentary.

I am not interested in computers at all — only in what I can do with them.

You can upgrade and tweak your tools and toys all you like but me, I'm about play and use.