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.

The month of July has always held a special importance to me because of Independence Day where we celebrate freedom from tyranny by using explosives.  This historical month is also the anniversary of the creation of both Rogue Science and The Forum.  The Rogue Science website now celebrates its 11th anniversary online, and The Forum celebrates its 9th anniversary.

Celebrating freedom from tyranny and oppression takes on a more profound meaning with each passing year as our own government tumbles down the very chasm of despotism our Founding Fathers so nobly liberated us from 232 years ago.  I suppose in our modern world old fashioned ideas such as the right to bear arms, the right to remain free of rampant government intrusion into our lives, and the freedom to speak your mind without being branded a terrorist have no place.

Quite soon Independence Day will ring hollow, an ironic fedgov holiday in a nation where all fireworks, firearms, and chemicals are banned.  A holiday where we kneel before the godless altar of multiculturalism and liberalism to murmur prayers of tolerance, but only of state approved ideas.  Our great nation, and its independent people, are free to never question, never think, never stand out, never challenge, never disobey.  As long as we remain ignorant docile sheep the fedgov will leave us alone and herd us along to the slaughterhouse with minimal expense and expenditure of ammunition.  Oh how free we are, free to do only as they say.

I am still plagued by that most dreaded of afflictions called hope.  I am filled with hope for our nation and the world, at least until hope is outlawed by the fedgov.  I know things will get much worse for the people of America, our freedoms will be stripped away by each heavy lash of the fedgov's legal whip until our bare bone is exposed.  Once our nation is stripped bare of resources, its people ground under the heel of fedgov jackboots, and our streets spattered with the blood of uncontrolled violence, only then will the apathy evaporate and the people stand together to demand change.

Some of us have a lower threshold for tyranny than others.  Those of us who are not content to be treated as mere sheep for slaughter tend to penetrate the veil of the lies of advertising and media propaganda.  Someday, and soon by the looks of things, Rogue Science will be torn from the aether of the internet, banned under some false pretense or trumped up charge for disobeying a thought crime edict.  Years from now I hope the knowledge gleaned during the brief existence of this site will be put to good use abolishing tyranny and taking back the freedoms that are rightfully ours.

For now, Rogue Science is still alive and doing better than ever.  I have purified the code to make updating the site easier on me.  The entire site is now entirely structured by cascading style sheets and coded in XHTML strict.  I still use transitional because the google search forms are non compliant, but my code is flawless.  I improved many of the graphics as well, among other things.  For more about the changes read about my progress in the status report page.

Again, the content of the old site design is still accessible at www.roguesci.org/megalomania/index.html until I get everything ported over to the new site design.