June wrap-up and playlist

Well, today's the last day of June! Kind of sad, but the summer's just getting started!

To finish it off, here's a playlist of all the songs I've posted for June in one convenient place for listening! Enjoy :)

P.S. It's theme is seafoam, because it's differentttttt

The Shins are my favorite

The Shins are probably my all-time favorite band, so I thought I would finish off the month of June with a remix of Sleeping Lessons done by RAC. Surprisingly, RAC actually stripped down the original a little and gave it a bit of an acoustic vibe (at least for the first minute and a half or so). He also added some great accompanying female vocals, which really rounded out the song (in my opinion).

So here's the last song of June, everybody! Get pumped for July :)

Camping indie

Hey, y'all!

This song reminds me immensely of camping, and for that I love it. Except it does talk about sand in sleeping bags as a good thing, which is extremely incorrect on the most fundamental of levels. Either way, here's Old Pine by Ben Howard.

P.S. This isn't the full song; the real song has a long, super calm intro, so if you're into that, look it up on YouTube or some shizz.

Urinal Theory

I haven't posted to the main wall of this blog in soo long, omg. I've been shirking my responsibilities as a fetch loyalist, and for that I sincerely apologize.

I also apologize for the fact that this is the second post in a row that's going to be about urinals. Yeah, so apparently they're what I think about in my spare time?

No, not really. Anyway, in chemistry class we had this super awesome TA... let's call him Joey (since that's his name). He was kind of the coolest TA ever, and one day he was trying to figure out a good way to explain crystal field theory (CFT). You know, standard gen chem.

Well, somebody in our class came up with an amazing analogy to explain CFT, later referred to as Urinal Theory. It's actually a great explanation, and it kind of covers orbital filling as well. Christine and I argued about who came up with it (I feel like I pitched the original idea, but Christine insists she had some part in its generation), but it doesn't really matter, since it's really a brain child of the entire class. 

Also, it's pretty easy to understand (even for women... I'm sure you can figure it out, even though it doesn't directly apply to you).

Okay, so let's get into it!

Imagine, you are in a class at college and you have an overwhelming desire to urinate (stay with me, please). You bolt out of the lecture hall, and find the nearest bathroom, which has ten urinals. Look below for a really bad diagram. Oh, and if the images look low-res, that's because they're really high-res. Click on them to make them look prettier!

Beautiful, right? Now, the reason there are ten urinals is that each urinal represents a slot for an electron. In this analogy, you are the electron. Cool, right? And in this example, we're only talking about CFT in terms of d-orbitals (hence the ten urinals/electron slots). For more information, here's an image showing the s-, p-, and d-orbitals (in order from top to bottom).

So yes, here's an updated diagram with the energy axis as increasing to the right:

As you can see, all the urinals are roughly equal in effort from the electron, as they are at the same energy level. Oh, I forgot to add this: energy is distance in this analogy.

Now let's consider the possibility of another electron/person occupying one of the slots. According to the unspoken rules of urinal etiquette, you must leave one urinal in between you and the other person (let's assume for simplicity that the first five people to use urinals stay either on the even or odd urinals, so that the urinal gap between them is always an odd number). If this situation were to occur, these would be your possibilities:

So yes, as long as there is one urinal between the two people, each person is relatively happy. This is considered a stable state in terms of energy. Also, this would be considered high spin, since all the electrons are on either odd or even urinals (if I wanted to continue the analogy, I'd say that each even urinal has positive-spinning water when you flush or something like that, but that's stupid, so you're going to have to take my word for it). And when the alternating five urinals are filled, the sixth person has no choice other than to take one of the spots between two people (which sucks). So the order of filling would be 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, or something similar. The evens and odds can be switched around among themselves, but not with each other (segregation!).

Now, if for example there were six ligands coordinated to the atom represented by this situation, two along each axis (called octahedral coordination), some orbitals would be more affected by the repulsion of the ligands than the others. Specifically, the d_x²-y² and the d_z² orbitals are of a higher energy since they are the only ones whose lobes reside directly on the axes (on which the ligands are coordinated). So these orbitals are then at a higher energy than the other orbitals. One can think about this by splitting the bathroom into two smaller bathrooms, one farther away and one closer.

And that energy gap in between the bathrooms is determined by the amount of repulsion from the ligand. But it makes sense, right? When you walk into the bathroom and see other people occupying every other urinal already, you have to decide whether it's worth walking to the next bathroom down the hall, or if you'd rather just use one in the current bathroom.

Most likely, if the energy gap (ΔE) is larger, you'd decide that it's not worth going the extra distance to the second bathroom, unless you're like me and hate bathroom encounters with a hot and fiery (there's an STI joke there somewhere...) passion. This is similar to an electron's behavior when the energy gap is larger (often caused by more orbital overlap with the ligands): the new electron would rather share an orbital with another electron than expend the energy to get to the next empty orbital. This usually results in a low-spin situation, since each orbital holds two electrons of opposite spins (which cancel). 

However, if the bathroom is just a couple feet away, you're more likely to just put in the extra energy to go to the wonderfully unoccupied bathroom down the hall! This ends in what is called a high-spin case in electron terms, because one atom could have five electrons with the same spin in five different d-orbitals, none of which cancel each other out. For more information on electron spin and spin states, go here.

Well, that concludes today's potty mouth description of chemical phenomena! I hope this made sense... it's hard since you can only take an analogy so far, and I always want my analogies to be perfect (but they never can be unless I just say, "an electron is like an electron").

So, until the next time I stop watching Supernatural and decide to make a post!

Jacob

Music shame

Hey, sorry I didn't post yesterday... I was too busy BUYING A CAR.

Anyway, today's song is a really good example of something I call "music shame." For anybody who cannot figure out its meaning via context clues or common-knowledge definitions, music shame is the feeling you get when you like a song you know you probably shouldn't, be it because it's a remix of a song that is terrible, or because you see the artist as deplorable/a terrible person (yes, your browser wasn't glitching; both those links do go to the same link).

But yes, this song definitely falls into that category for me, and for obvious reasons. So here's Fred Falke's Remix of... The Other Side by Jason freaking Derulo. Yep.

Mashing up!

Today's a mashup day, for sure.

This one's from DJ Foxfire, and it's a mashup of a ton of great tracks, including ones from Avicii, Zedd, Madeon (omg), and Krewella. It's really well-done, and you can barely even notice song transitions and key changes. I loveee it. So yes, here is Time and Space by DJ Foxfire!

Flashback: Ella Fitzgerald

Yes boys and girls, that's right! It's time for yet another...

FLASHBACK ALERT!

This week's rehash comes from a song called Too Darn Hot, which was originally written by Cole Porter for his 1948 musical, Kiss Me, Kate. (Somewhat) more recently, the song was covered by Ella Fitzgerald (in 1956). So yeah, the song is old.

The original is great and jazzy, but to bring it into the 21st Century, RAC recently (as in, a couple days ago) did a remix of the Ella Fitzgerald version. So here it is! Enjoy!

Colour, not color

Ahhh I haven't posted for the last two days!! :( I was hiking and packing and going to a drive-in, so I was busy. But that's no excuse.

Here's a song that I really want to be released so I can start adding it to playlists... it's by The Colourists, and it's called Little Games, and I love it. It's got a really happy vibe to it, and the classic indie one-girl-one-boy singing arrangement that (for me, at least) never gets old!

I'll try to keep my posts more frequent...

A good remix

I ranted yesterday about remixes... actually, it was, like, two minutes ago. I just changed the post date so it shows that it was posted yesterday (since I forgot to post yesterday). I know, I just ruined the magic. Santa's not real either.

Anyway, I ranted a couple minutes ago about how remixes have to be improvements or changes unique to the original song. I thought I'd give an example, so it looks less like I'm just pulling this junk out of thin air. so here's a remix by probably one of my favorite remixers, TheFatRat. He's pretty amazing, and his remixes are very well-tailored to the original song, while still being drastically different. A remix can really breathe new life into a song, and TheFatRat does a great job at it!

So here's a great remix he did of The Knocks' Brightside. Enjoy!

Your remix is bad, and you should feel bad

Okay so I'm known to like a remix or two, but artists have to draw the line somewhere. I mean, if an artist wants to remix a song, they should ask themselves, "am I really going to make something unique to this specific song, or am I just going to make a song and overlay some indie song's vocals?" If it's the latter, they should just take a day off or something, because it's not worth it. That's not what remixing is for.

What brought this mini-rant on, you might ask? Well, I just saw that a pretty reputable electronic dance music publicity YouTube channel just posted a remix of Kodaline's Love Like This. It's a great song which I happen to love, and I probably did have some bias toward the original, but there was really nothing unique added to the song by the remixer (Fix8, if anybody's interested), which is really a shame.

So, just because I'm a little miffed, here's Love Like This by Kodaline. The original. The better one.

Feels like an indie remix day to me

RAC fur dayz ;)

 But seriously, this guy puts out so many remixes it's insane. "Fur dayz" is definitely an exaggeration, but if you were to play all his remixes on Soundcloud back-to-back, it would take over ten hours. That's pretty insane.

And even though I don't like all of his remixes, they're all very well-made and it's less of a quality thing for me and more of a I-don't-always-like-the-style thing. But, sometimes... it's perfect. So here's a recent remix he did of Joywave's Tongues featuring Kopps. Also, the singer's voice totally reminds me of Sam Halliday, lead vocalist from Two Door Cinema Club. Anyway, enjoy!

Poppy drummy

It's a poppy day today!

Today's track is Close Enough by Ghost Beach, featuring Noosa. It's a kind of psychadelic, drum-heavy, and fast-paced, but it's absolutely wonderful and very uplifting. It's also got some great vocal slicing, and I'm such a sucker for sliced vocals :) So anyway... here it is!

Oh, and happy Monday! First day of summer break!

Justicey vibes

Hey, all! Today's song is a pretty great glitchy electro track. The style reminds me a lot of Justice, from the drop to high-flying disco-esque synth on the quarter note the rest of the time, but I felt like it was unique (and catchy) enough to warrant a post.

So without further adieu, here's Origins by Milkman! Enjoy~

The badassifier

Okay, so I literally JUST found this song, and I really wanted to share it, so it's technically Saturday, right?

And yeah, I'm pretty sure that if you play this song in the background of any ordinary, mundane activity, it will automatically become at least two units more badass. Seriously, man.

So here's the Robotaki remix of Deadlock by TJH87 (apparently short for Timo Juuti & Hector 87). If you're interested, Robotaki also did a great (although very different) remix of 1901 by Phoenix.

Slappa da bass!

Happy Friday, everybody! Since it's the end of the week, I thought I'd post an awesome, dance-able tune for the weekend! It's not super recend (like four months old) but I still love it. It's super funky, and has some great slap bass. After all, who doesn't like The Knocks?

This is the RUNVS remix of Dancing With The DJ by The Knocks. I don't know who this RUNVS is, but I hope they make more music!

I don't even know what.

I've never really been able to describe Phonat's music... but I love it. He just released an EP called Identity Theft, which is really the first thing he's released in over a year... but either way! His music is super funky and kind of glitchy and just really strange in general.

When I try to think of similar artists, Lemâitre comes to mind, but it's not really a valid comparison... maybe Bobby Tank? I don't know. I like it. Here's Identity Theft, my favorite song off Phonat's new EP.

Flashback: Stevie Wonder

Happy Hump Day, all! I am currently procrastinating studying for a public speaking final by posting music! Yay, college.

Today's going to be the first of probably many a....

Flashback Alert!

So yeah, when I run out of super current music to play (or I want to space out more current songs so I don't end up doing Flashback Alerts in groups) I'll do a Flashback Alert and play a song that's a couple of years old (but is still super awesome).

This song is technically a rework/edit of an even older song, so it actually is a flashback, which is cool! Today's song is U-Tern's edit of Stevie Wonder's Do I Do. The edit is about two years old, but the original song was released in 1982. It's got a great disco vibe, and it really makes me want to dance... if only I could dance. #whiteboyproblems

Ukulele isn't always corny.

So Vance Joy's entire discography (which is currently a measly five songs) has been my on-repeat sing-along-at-the-top-of-your-lungs driving playlist for the last 2-3 weeks... I have no regrets.

But yeah, for those who don't know, Vance Joy is this super amazing indie ukulele/acoustic guitar artist who writes poignant lyrics and has an amazing and unique voice. Also, after a couple weeks of near-constant play, I'm not even tired of his songs (yet). So that's pretty cool.

Here's his most popular (and most upbeat) song, Riptide, but I recommend that everybody listen to his other songs. They're equally amazing, even if they aren't as upbeat or radio-friendly. One of them features a cello -- I won't tell you which, so that way it's a surprise.

Dancey Dancey

I'm done with Honors Chemistry! Weird... I'm going to miss that class.

Either way, today's song is more dancey, but basically just as chill as yesterday's song -- I guess I'm in a low-key music mood this week. But yes, this is the Monsieur Adi remix of Julian by Say Lou Lou. I feel like this would be the perfect night road-trip song... makes me want to go on an adventure!

Urinal: Decider of Character

...yep, it's come to this.



































I've recently come to the conclusion that a public bathroom is where one's true colors show (and usually not in a good way). I realized this when I was washing my hands one nondescript day, and I witnessed a professor (or some adult, most likely employed at the college) choose to not flush his urinal. So yeah, it's about to get a little ranty up in here.

Have you ever heard that phrase, "who you are is what you do when nobody's looking?" Well, I think that this applies greatly to college life, especially in respect to public (or dorm) bathrooms. I can honestly not understand what goes through a person's head when he or she decides to not flush the toilet/urinal. I mean, nobody would be thick enough to think, "well, I'll just leave my excrement sitting here in the toilet... I'm sure nobody will even notice!" I'm guessing it's more along the lines of, "I'm much more important than anybody else that uses public bathrooms ever, so I'll delegate the disposal of my defecation to an unsuspecting stranger, because my time is too valuable to spend a half of a second being considerate."

If either of those trains of thought represent what goes through your mind when you're in a public restroom (whether you're this guy or this guy), my advice remains the same:

Much love,

Jacob

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to my sideblog, Jacob's Infinite Playlist! Here, I'll be posting songs I like, since I have the ever-present desire to force my music upon other people.

I wanted to call it Jacob's Weekly Jam or something along those lines, but I feel like I may update more than once a week, so I left it more open ended. Don't want to offend anybody with misleading titles!

Anyway, I'll just be posting random songs that I like on here, so if you don't like music, stay on the home page... or just die in a pit, because if you don't like music, what's the point of living?

Okay, so today's song is the Skrux and Complexion remix of Cosmos by Clark Kent & Yinyues... what a mouthful! But yeah, it's very chill and kind of galactic. I like it.

Hair is the bane of my existence...

...as in, it's really hard to get hair right in vector art.

 Oh, and I'll never teach you how to make teeth, Christine, because what then would be my livelihood? A magician should never reveal the secret to his (or her) tricks illusions!

Also, I tried my best to correct your self-portrait:

Jacob

Week Ten!

So it's week ten of our ten-week spring term! This is how I currently feel about that:

Wanna know why? It's because...

Yep, that's right! All I have left is two speeches and three finals! Then I'm in the clear!!! And I'm pretty sure that for one of the speeches I'm just going to recite the fifty states in alphabetical order... high quality college learning experience, obviously.

Jacob