I taught HS science for many years and it was impossible to mention “silicon” and not talk about “silicone” because, well, adolescent boys, and well, consumer society and the media.

I know adults who call that high-tech zone in the SF Bay Area “Silicone” Valley instead of “Silicon” Valley and are unaware of the difference. If they think about it at all, which would surprise me, they think computer chips are made from the same stuff as breast implants.

Silicon is an element. Number 14. It’s not really a metal. It’s not really a non-metal. It’s somewhere in between and was often called a “semi-metal” or even the much nicer “metalloid.” The pure stuff is light and brittle, but you can’t find the pure stuff in nature. In nature, silicon is bound up in rocks. The most abundant rock-forming minerals on earth are made of compounds of silicon and are called silicates. The simplest of these is called silica and you know it as quartz.

Silica is a compound of silicon and oxygen. So is silicone, by the way. But the atoms are arranged differently and thus the substances have different properties. Silica is tetrahedral, and these pieces interlock in a variety of ways to make crystals. Silicone is a linear polymer and it behaves more like a hydrocarbon plastic. In sci-fi, aliens are often made of silicon because the atom, like carbon directly above it, is tetra-valent (makes four bonds). The delightful Dr. Angela Collier (“does physics”) has a great YouTube of why such creatures wouldn’t/couldn’t work. Regardless, silicon is all around us in the earth’s crust. Nature put it there, and we clever humans have figured out some uses (like silicone, for example).

But the profoundest use of silicon is why we call it Silicon Valley and that’s in electronics. These days silicon is called a semiconductor because that property makes it special. It is sort of a conductor and sort of an insulator (non-conductor). If you get really pure silicon, you can then add other materials to change the conductivity, a process called “doping.” Computer chips are made mostly of doped silicon.

This is our world. Once we figured how to use semiconductors everything changed. The transistor was invented in the 1950s and by the 1960s the integrated circuit was ubiquitous. Now we live with semiconductor devices embedded into almost all of our daily activities. We live in a silicon world. To make chips we need really pure silica, which is all over the world in beach sands. But not all beach sands are created equally, and some sands are better than others as raw materials for chip fabrication. So even a super-abundant natural resource has supply constraints!

I found this picture on a Chinese website (China Silicon Metal Producers) which claims that China supplies 80% of the world’s silicon.

Silicon is the primary material in solar panels, by the way. It is also used in aluminum alloys which are used everywhere, particularly in automobiles.

I find it very scary to live in the Silicon Age. For all its benefits the downsides are too great. The mobile phone and social media, silicon-enabled technologies, are socially corrosive. The internet will never give you the joy of reading a good book, and the old days of the anarchic internet are gone, replaced by corporate gate-keeping. We are forced to adopt technologies we don’t need or risk being squeezed out of the global economy. To our TechBro Masters we are not customers or clients or patrons but simply “users” which is what drug dealers call their buyers.

I think the only sensible thing is to be a Luddite. Now, Luddites were NOT dumb reactionaries. They saw that automation would destroy not just their livelihoods but re-shape their entire way of life. They didn’t like the way technology was imposed upon them by their overlords. They were not anti-technolgy and in fact many original Luddites were technically skilled workers who understood only too well their precarious position in the capitalist world. (q.v. Understanding the Luddites, h/t Erik Loomis)

The printed word was once a technological marvel. Now it is “old school” and being replaced by LCD screens. They aren’t the same. The screen is it’s own thing. It is not a book, a paper, a pamphlet, a circular, a broadsheet, a bulletin, a newsletter, or a magazine. It is something else. That’s OK, I like new things. But they are NOT the old thing and do NOT “replace” it!

Let’s see if we can remember that.

The yuccas are blooming:

I’m not sure what species grows around here. Most likely it is “common yucca” or Yucca filamentosa, also called “Spanish bayonet” or “Adam’s needle.”

It most likely hybridizes with Yucca flaccida (“weak-leaf yucca”) and/or Yucca louisianensis (“Gulf Coast yucca”).

Nonetheless it is a common garden cultivar across the US although it is originally only native to the southeast. There are of course famous native Western desert yuccas like the Joshua Tree (Y. brevifolia) and the Mojave yucca (Y. schidigera).

The inflorescence, as you can see, is spectacular. It doesn’t last long but it is certainly memorable.

Ours are drip-irrigated but these evergreen shrubs can thrive without much attention. They have big root masses that look like giant potatoes or turnips. You can chop a chunk off and plant it and you’ll get one of these things very soon afterwards. Don’t plant them if you are lukewarm about them—they are persistent and nearly impossible to get rid of!

Once the flowers are done I’ll cut off the stalks which can get to six feet or more in length.

Yuccas were once classified in the agave family (Agavaceae) but now are placed in the order Agavoidae under the asparagus family (Asparagaceae).

Only tungsten has a higher melting point than rhenium. They are neighbors on the periodic table, in row (period) six, #74 (W, tungsten) and #75 (Re, rhenium). We know tungsten from its use in light bulb filaments.

Rhenium is used in superalloys. Most alloys and their constituent metals lose strength when they are heated. Temperatures don’t have to get near the melting point to cause structures to fail (case in point: World Trade Center). Superalloys operate in extreme environments like jet engines. They can get close to their melting points without losing integrity.

Annual world production is less than 70,000 kilograms with Chile a major source.

Here’s a picture of rhenium tubes from a place called Rhenium Alloys, Inc.

Turns out he meant the USA would surrender, not Iran! Wow, this is all so confusing.

You didn’t vote for this asshole, did you?

So we have a new deal. Like all the previous deals? If so, don’t count your chickens. The clowns running this shit show have done nothing but lie from the beginning.

If we do indeed have a deal, what are the details? I’ll bet there are few (Trump doesn’t like long memos) and not very detailed (Trump gets bored with details).

Before the war, negotiators were working on the uranium problem. No one is talking about that now.

Before the war, the Strait was open. It’s not open yet and it will be a while before it is, peace deal or no peace deal.

Before the war, 120 Iranian schoolgirls were alive. Now they are dead from an American bomb.

The United States shot off a lot of munitions. We lost some aircraft and suffered some casualties. We deployed the fleets far from home for far too long. We spent billions and plan to spend billions more.

For what?

The Middle East has been a thorn in the side of America ever since the Oil Embargo of 1973. Now much of the Middle East oil infrastructure is damaged and it will take lots of time and lots of money to get it back to full capacity. This damage is not limited to the enemy (Iran) but US allies (the Gulf States) as well. Those allies took the brunt of the Iranian response to the US and Israel. Ha-ha, suckers! The United States DOES NOT HAVE YOUR BACK.

Now the US specifically and the Americas more generally are the center of world oil production. OPEC is no longer in the driver’s seat. Venezuelan petroleum currently flows to US refineries, for example. “Drill, baby, drill!” is the national agenda and the resurgence of American oil power will usher in a new era of prosperity.

For oil companies, certainly. I’m not so sure about the rest of us. The country just fought a war and we have nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, we’ll be distracted by IPOs and waste more billions on shit tech that will only fuck up even more things.

Welcome to the New World Order.

Growing in the moist shade of the hops is this pretty little invader with the goofy name. The flowers are orange, as you can see, and they open in the day and close at night. Anagallis arvensis is also known as “Poor Man’s Weather-glass.” It is a member of the primrose family (Primulaceae).

It seems there is a new name for little Scarlet, no longer genus Anagallis but now genus Lysimachia. And some consider this plant to be part of the myrsine or marlberry family (Myrsinaceae). Others classify those as a sub-family of the primrose, Myrsinoideae.

We’ll let the professionals sort that stuff out! Botanists are of two sorts: lumpers and splitters. You see the same thing in ornithology. One day a bird is a species, another day it’s a mere variety. Or vice versa. One day it’s in this group, another day it’s in that group. It’s okay, that’s how it goes with science. When you learn new stuff you get new ideas. Taxonomy is a way of sorting it all out and in the process you gain a better understanding. The arguments are weird to outsiders but it’s not about the name of the thing but it’s relationship to the larger picture. That’s what the taxonomist is pursuing.

I like the groovy orange flowers.

Would you choose to go see a movie about a bunch of demented criminals who harvest organs from illegal aliens? Probably not. But sometimes movies choose you.

This is B-Movie HQ as I alluded to before. And when a film like this pops into your lap you give it a go.

Lowlife is twisted and violent but it has such fun with itself and such great performances from the entire cast that you get swept along from the start. Nicki Micheaux in the lead role as Crystal is terrific and she carries the story as an Everyday Jane caught in a nightmare.

Interestingly, the face of the movie spends the whole time in a mask. Ricardo Adam Zarate plays luchador “El Monstruo” who has to live up to his heroic image in front of all-to-real and very deadly villains.

Director Ryan Prows and writers Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson, and Shaye Ogbanna put together a unique and interesting film back in 2017. Here at B-Movie HQ Lowlife rates a definite keeper!

Here at B-Movie HQ we come across a lot of forgettable titles. So forgettable I won’t mention them. If you accidentally come across them, my condolences.

But there are good ones out there, too. Case in point: the taut 1960 British neo-noir The Criminal. The actor pictured is Stanley Baker in the titular role of Johnny Bannion.

Johnny’s a bad guy and he’ll sell out anyone and in the end he gets his. It’s a bleak tale but told with great style by director Joseph Losey. The prison scenes are particularly gripping. The dialog is hard-boiled and at times the accents (a lot of Irish actors are mixed in) are impenetrable, but you get the gist. It’s under a 100 minutes long and filled with strong supporting actors throughout which keeps you interested.

The movie only had a limited US release (as The Concrete Jungle) in 1962.

Here at B-Movie HQ we use the binary system. The movie is a either a ZERO (give it away to the local thrift shop) or a ONE (keeper).

The Criminal is a keeper.

The inimitable Patrick Boyle had this to say recently about rare earths:

“. . . which are used in basically everything from vacuum cleaners to fighter jets, but, mostly vacuum cleaners . . .”

Strategic minerals like the lanthanide series on the periodic table (the so-called rare earths) are indeed used in strategic things like weapons and satellites and submarines and such. But that means they are also used in washing machines and automobiles and laptops and all the rest of our tech goodies. Fancy steels and fancy circuit boards and other fancy things need fancy materials.

Gadolinium (Gd) is used in MRIs, nuclear reactors, phosphors, alloys, fuel cells, semiconductors, and other specialized applications. Worldwide production is about 500 tonnes annually.

This terrific novel is the final addition to the Angel Dare Trilogy. We’ve waited over a decade for this book and it did not disappoint.

Angel Dare is the creation of noir badass Christa Faust. The first book—Money Shot—introduced us to adult film star Angel. She gets in trouble of course, almost killed, and goes on the run. We pick up the action a little later in Choke Hold where Angel, still a fugitive, gets involved with the mixed martial arts scene. Bad stuff happens and she has to “get outta town” once again.

The Get Off has a big reveal. I’m going to spoil it: Angel is pregnant. That’s what happens with those MMA guys, I guess. This time she gets help from rodeo folks but it’s not nearly enough. Angel faces her greatest challenges as she goes all out to save herself and her baby.

This book has superb pacing, incredible action, and fully-drawn, sympathetic characters. Angel is forced to reflect on all her choices and her unflinching honesty (it’s a first-person narrative) propels the story. At the same time she has to hide the truth from everyone around her and she pays a heavy price for it.

This is top-notch crime fiction, or action-adventure if you prefer, or perhaps it’s best to just call it a noir novel. But it would be a mistake to assume it is just like all other “genre” reads. It’s not. The Get Off is really good. It’s about the struggle of an honest person in a corrupt world. It’s about identity, too. Angel (her stage name) has to call herself “Angie” and hide her past to survive. All of us have to hide something some of the time! Angel/Angie wrestles with the age-old “who am I, really?” question and she struggles with self-loathing when she thinks about all the violence that surrounds her. We all get the blues and we all have to face crises and dilemmas. Maybe not as gnarly as the ones Angel gets herself mixed up in, but we can certainly relate.

Of all the new titles published in the Hard Case line Christa Faust’s trilogy stands at the top. The only things close are the Ken Bruen/Jason Starr collaborations, but those, despite the mayhem, are wildly comic. Faust delivers the real hard-boiled stuff. It’s probably best to start with Money Shot and Choke Hold but if you can only read The Get Off as a standalone it will still work.

The late, great Glenn Orbik did the first two Angel Dare covers. Paul Mann took up the challenge for the latest book.