irony

now ain't dis some shit.

so my master's thesis in mechanical engineering was the enhancement of an organic solar cell using nanomaterials. organic photovoltaics (and any type of organic semiconductor) usually relies on "metastable" hydrocarbon chains that have the ability to conduct, or in other cases, semiconduct. the problem with them not being very "stable" is that they are very readily oxidized. my thesis did not focus on durability at all, but only in the enhancement. my cells were good for one test immediately after removal from the vacuum chamber they were completed in and by the next day they were useless. they usually still conducted, but they didn't absorb any light. a huge plague...especially if for some reason (which happened) the testing station was being used or broken or something...meant my solar cells probably oxidized and were useless and i'd have to redo the experiment.

now the irony...i bought a Creative Zen V Plus mp3 player 5 months ago. i fell off my bike and fell right on it hard enough to bruise my thigh. funny thing was it still worked. it had some lines across the screen for a few minutes, but then it went back to normal. unfortunatley, in the two days following it got dimmer and dimmer until the screen went blank. completely black. still plays music but i can't see anything and haven't memorized the menus or my song lists *shrugs*. i look online and a LOT of people have had this problem, even without falling on it as hard as i did. some say few drops, some say this or that, others say not a single drop at all.

but they all have the symptom that it dims and dims and dims until it goes black. well GUESS WHAT? (and i'm hoping i've dropped enough keywords for people to find this), the organic polymers responsible for emitting light (remember high school physics? solar cells convert light to electricity. LEDs, which stands for Light Emitting Diodes, do the opposite converting electricity into light) OXIDIZED. Perhaps a sealing failure, perhaps a hairline crack...the polymers oxidized (slowly) and little by little lost their energy conversion (electricity to light) abilities. i opened mine up and despite being glued and taped up to cover as much of it as possible....it was cracked from my fall and hairline cracks extended to the edge of the seals and voila...oxidized organic semiconductors.

in my master's program i was so frustrated with those damn organic solar cells i couldn't WAIT to finish my thesis and move on. i'm done with organic photovoltaics (i still study solar cells btw) completely.

and then this goddamn thing comes back to haunt me.

i could buy a new one for like $30....the damn thing only cost $90. 5 months...150 days....60 cents a day (and i probably used it almost every day)...not horrible. but still, what fuckers. 90 day warranties can lick my balls.

on the plus side...i do have a $90 4 gig shuffle....i just have to figure out what setting it's in and see if i can modify it....FUCK.

blows.