coke and mentos

Most people have seen the Diet Coke and Mentos videos where you add Mentos to a Coke bottle and watch the science. The most basic is to just drop a few Mentos into the top of a 2 litre Coke bottle (Two litre because of the wider screw neck) which creates a rather spectacular fountain.

Coke and other fizzy drinks have a lot of compressed Carbon Dioxide in them. The Mentos, with their gnarly rough surface comprise thousands of tiny pits which are perfect places for carbon dioxide bubbles to form as it wants to desperately escape from the prison of the coke liquid. This 'nucleation' is like when the rough spots in a beer glass allow bubbles to form that that rise to the top of the beer. The other Mentos component is the gum arabic used as a binding agent. This reduces the surface tension in the Coke, making it more slippery.

So when the Mentos hit the Coke, the Carbon Dioxide bubbles form really fast in all of the tiny pits. This gas pushes the slippery liquid out of the bottle at jet propelled speed. So a fountain or a more advanced rocket become easy projects, (with safety goggles and outdoors). Trying this in, say, a kitchen would be devastating. In the mouth this can create concussion. Seriously.

So lets see a few experts such as the well known eepybird video using 200 litres of Coke and 500 Mentos which attempts to simulate a Las Vegas Bellagio Hotel fountain moment, but I prefer the more extreme rocket versions.

Now Italian-owned Mentos spends less than $20m per annum on US advertising. The blogosphere word of mouth advertising of this is reckoned to be worth more than $10m with over 800 Coke 'n Mentos videos (many from cellphones) on the web and counting...

Tag: Coke and Mentos, mentos, bonkers, cokerocket

Thursday Thirteen (V23)

1) My recent travelling finished early this morning, when I returned home at around 02:30.
2) By the time I got to bed, it was around 03:30 and I could see the early signs of dawn with some pretty light blue streaks in the sky.
3) I still needed to be back on the road by around 07:30 this morning, so I am rather bleary-eyed by now.
4) I couldn't help notice the rather light traffic today. I wonder if a lot of people had an urgent need to work from home, possibly linked to the soccer fixture which started at 5 o'clock this evening.
5) There was enough interest in the last part of the England game to keep me awake, despite my late night.
6) My early World Cup predictions are still holding out. I will review at the end of the first set of matches to see how many of my calculated teams have been dropped. Sweden's victory over Paraguay may interfere slightly with the odds.
7) Whilst on the road, I was adding blog entries from my PC. Everything was much more fiddly than doing the same on my mac.
8) I did also watch 'The Convent' this evening, which I'd recorded on Sky Plus. An interesting way to show the lives of nuns, using a reality format.
9) Enjoying a light tabbouleh this summery evening, as a refreshing supper.
10) I rescued my pedal bicycle from under the general domestic debris in the garage a few days ago. If I can next locate the tyre pump, I will then be out for a meander in the country lanes this weekend.
11) Tonight I will be in bed long before the midnight spider scuttles across the floor in this room. Its pretty regular and normally has a very similar route. I didn't know spiders were creatures of habit.
12) When did borrowing friend's wi-fi links start to become commonplace? We have people drop in and borrow bandwidth and I was doing it myself a couple of days ago somewhere else.
13) I started another book to review for Bob's Books, but am not finding it much fun. I don't really want to write negative reviews, so I shall probably let it quielty slip under the water.

{Yawn} Sleepy tonight. Next, to bed.

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Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

OTA Wordless Wednesday

The Sage Centre, Gateshead, yesterday morning

coast to coast (kinda)

Today, after I'd finished in Newcastle, which is very close to to the east coast of England, I had to travel west to Lancashire and to within 3 miles of the west coast.

A small loop the loop to get out of Gateshead and then I was on the way through County Durham, then part of North Yorkshire partly along the route of a very ancient and characteristically straight Roman Road. Next to some very pretty Cumbrian countryside including a picturesque run through the Eden valley and across the back of the Pennines hills, which run north to south in the upper part of England.

My journey was in early evening, there was sunshine and not much traffic on this drive across farmlands, lanes, small villages and past ancient pubs as I traversed the full breadth of England (admittedly at one of the thinnest points).

I arrived at my new destination, refreshed from a great summer evening.

up north

'Up North' is a variable expression in English.

As a Londoner from North of the River Thames, 'Up North' generally means above Watford, which is about 20 miles north of London itself. A South Londoner would regard 'Up North' in much the same way as 'North of the River' (Thames) and a North Londoner (and taxi drivers) regard 'sarf of the river' as a somewhat unknown area.

But today I've been properly 'Up North' in Gateshead - which is adjacent to Newcastle, in the quayside area by the rather spectacular theatre complex known as 'The Sage' - and I know its proper North because there's a famous landmark called 'the Angel of the North' which is slightly to the south of Gateshead and Newcastle.

of Pimms and nuns

This afternoon will be Pimms time. And Pimms were giving away nice Pimms jugs to mix the drink. So a number 1 Pimms comprising 5 parts lemonade, 2 Parts Pimms and 1 part gin, plus mint, orange, lemon, apple, cucumber and a tiny amount of lime. Oh, and ice.

Then I will be programming Sky plus for a complicated week. I'm partly away travelling, and in addition to soccer which I can watch wherever, I will want to see "The Convent" with wild women's poet Vik and others showing 40 days and 40 nights in a strict convent in Arundel. Its up on the BBC2 web site and also on BBC's religious site! Take a look at the trailer!

rashbre.tv: fruit

A wonderful, hot afternoon, time for a fruit drink and a neat rip-off of the Sony commercial. Click the television to view.

soccer options

Since I started my posts about this not being the Official FIFA World Cup Germany Site 2006, I seem to have been collecting rather a lot of hits in the search engines. I think my continued references to Official FIFA World Cup Germany Site 2006 seems to have created many inadvertant references to this site.

How could I have guess that this would have happened?


So, I got to thinking. There are people who really enjoy soccer and there are people who prefer to go shopping. Oh and there are Americans who kinda don't get the European pre-occupation with this sport (or cricket or rugger).

Anyway, I decided, for the duration of the Official FIFA World Cup Germany 2006, I would have an optional facility on rashbre central, so that those of you who like soccer are satisfied, but those who prefer a more soccer free zone (like craziequeen) can still feel satisfied if they pass this way.

So I have made the top corner of my banner optional. Sure, it drops down with a modest reference to England who will win the World Cup, of course, but if you prefer non-soccer then simply mouse over the image and a normal rashbre central header will re-appear.

I hope this caters for most tastes and I will continue to post in a suitable random manner on topics other than soccer.

All *Blog* Stars

Well I'm flattered to have been asked to join the All *Blog* Stars after an email invitation. I've added an initial post and wish every success to this new enterprise!

UPDATE: Revised logo:


Tag: allblogstars, allstars

sven its good its really good

Dieser Bild is nicht meinem. Ich habe es an flickr gefunden nachher Ich "fifaworldcup" angeclickt. Aber es gibt der Atmosfer des Mondial ganz gut. Hier is die erste Spiel des Deutschen und sie haben 4:2 gewonnen.

So, as Claudia seems to be enjoying the few moments of the World Cup in German hands, we look forward to saturation coverage on all media over the next four weeks. And don't forget, this is not the Official FIFA World Cup Germany Site 2006, but along side the hoses of the holy in the world cup universe reportage, I shall do my best to keep a blip of relevant news.

Tag: world cup, Claudia Schiffer, Mondial

FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 Results

I thought it would be a useful service to calculate the results of the Official FIFA World Cup Germany 2006. So, sitting at my friend's granite kitchen countertop, I decided to use some rudimentary statistics for this, which have been partly gleaned from the local betting shops.

I then took the average of everyone's odds to work out the order that everyone will be knocked out and who the winners will be. So here's a preview of the England / Brazil final, and due to a small statistical error at the moment it shows Brazil winning.

I will fiddle systematically reanalyse my computational error later so that the correct result shows England winning. I suppose this is good value for Germans, though, because in order to become third they will have to play an extra game after they get knocked out in the semi-finals.

OTA: Wordless Wednesday

Team Practice