I Want To Know! Why is it so hard to find good information on the Internet? I don’t mean information in general, but good quality information that you can actually use to make a difference in your life. There are numerous useless facts and theoretical equations spread out on millions of websites across cyberspace, but there are pitifully few websites that actually tell you HOW to do anything.
If you are like me you have spent far too many hours trolling through newsgroups and bulletin boards looking for cold hard scientific facts only to be inundated by pedantic morons armed with theoretical mumbo jumbo and impressive sounding words, but absolutely no practical skills or solid information.
The pedantic moron now rules the Internet. You know them well, perhaps. When you ask a question they puff out their chests and start typing away to display their brilliant, but utterly useless, grasp of science. They know molecular orbital theory back to front, they can recite all the gas laws, and they can even convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius, but they don’t actually know HOW to do anything. What they know is theoretical ivory tower knowledge gleaned from wikipedia that will not actually work, but that won’t stop them from reciting their future (imaginary) Nobel Prize lecture. Minus any sort of experimental conditions of course.
You are here because you want know-HOW, not know-THAT. The amateur scientist, citizen chemist, hobbyist, experimenter, student, mildly curious, or whatever you choose to define yourself wants RESULTS. You want to know how to MAKE things, to BUILD things, to REACT chemicals, to know HOW to do something. You want knowledge you can sink your teeth into.
Too bad science, especially chemistry, is evil. It’s not of course, but the ignorant think so, so it must be. This is why the desire for know-HOW makes you a Rogue Scientist. Your own government will not trust you with the tools of chemistry because of what they fear you might do with those tools. Build a bomb, make drugs, cure cancer: all evil actions. Just try to buy a modern chemistry set and see what you get: Food coloring in water. Just try to call up a commercial chemical supplier and buy dangerous chemicals like aluminum foil: Not going to happen. Rogue Scientists operate chemistry labs in their garages and basements making soap, brewing beer, extracting herbs, and doing whatever else they want to do. How dare they.
It is of vital importance to inspire scientific literacy and for society to understand and embrace all facets of science. Young minds need to be INSPIRED to choose a career in chemistry. Endless tedious equations will not accomplish that. Now that merely owning a flask in some jurisdictions can make you a criminal, and chemistry sets are utterly worthless, why would any sane mind go into a field that is so mind numbingly boring? An entire generation of potential scientists will be lost because the government and safety groups want to protect you from yourself. It is time for the citizen scientist to take back their rights to chemical experimentation by force. You will have to make your own chemicals, you will have to learn for yourself, you will have to make an end run around those ignorant laws and build your own chemistry lab.
Chemistry is all that stinks and burns. Chemistry is life. Chemistry is all around us. Chemistry is not math or equations or computers. If you are not physically making something with chemicals, it’s physics. Someone once told me all chemists are tradesman, glorified chefs, and I was deeply offended at the time. For a year I lamented over this statement until I accepted the truth of it. The true chemist will be in the lab, concocting potions and pushing the frontiers of knowledge. The chemist is certainly more evolved than a tradesman, but he still gets his hands dirty, he is an artisan or a master craftsman if you will. I am an artist, my canvas is the molecule, reagents are my paints, and transforming chemicals is my masterpiece. Making chemicals is my passion, it is my career, and it is my job. All the theories and mathematical equations in the world are utterly useless unless you get in the lab and MAKE something.
The rallying cry of the Rogue Scientist is I want to know! I want to know how to build, to create, to design, to manufacture, to make. The pedantic need not apply.
Last Update: February 26, 2008
What’s the greatest nation in the world? Donation. During the first week of February 2008 the host of Rogue Science briefly shut the site down due to excessive server usage. They politely requested that I upgrade to a dedicated server, or close down the site. What ever shall I choose? Unfortunately for me and my wallet the cost of the next tier of service is significantly more expensive. Besides desperately scrambling to keep the ship afloat by minimizing resource use, I have been trying to set up a donation system the past few weeks.
I should have done this a year ago when I first thought Rogue Science could use a little support. I don’t want to rely on donations to keep the site open, but the alternative, no more website, is far worse. Now every day I worry the site could get booted, the sheer volume of users keeps crashing The Forum database because the current server can’t handle the traffic, and I am down one of the best moderators a website could have because of nbk2000’s Canadian immigration troubles.
The Time of Transition is still ongoing. Ever so slowly the Rogue Science website is being upgraded to the new design and organizational structure. What is left of the old site can still be accessed at www.roguesci.org/megalomania until I get everything ported over.
If for some reason you want to remain informed as to my progress on the website, I have been keeping a sporadic log of changes on the status report page. This is as close to a blog as I am likely to ever get.
