If you and the PR can't get I2 up on her machine, try clearing the cache (if she will let you), or try using another browser? what are you using?
What exactly is the issue (with her box) thats getting in the way? let me know and I'll see if I can figure out what the cause might be. No guarantees but I can at least have a crack at working it out.
I2 works well enough on firefox from this PC. Alternatively, opera could be worth a try.
My quick bitch...
Was a bit sleepless last night for a while (eventually solved effectively enough with a sleeping pill along with my night-time dose of antiseizure med, plus a little oxy and some dihydrocodeine extracted from the OTC 7.5/500 DHC/paracetamol pills we can get (albeit stupidly overpriced) here, which helped me relax enough to put me to sleep quickly enough)
But before that, decided to work off some excess energy and indulge in a spot of late-night electrolysis, tinkering at figuring the most effective way to produce sodium metal via electrolysis of the hydroxide (I.e lye, caustic soda). Its annoyingly oversensitive to temperature, there is a window of less than 10-15 degrees, quite a bit less if I remember right, although the exact number eludes me right now, where the sodium, once liberated, dissolves back into the molten caustic soda which serves as the electrolyte to give a blue-ish grey colored solid solution of sodium metal dissolved in the caustic, which is water reactive, sparks and pops when a piece of this material is thrown in water, and it sets rock hard, tough enough that I couldn't get one of the electrodes out, even trying to rip it out with pliers didn't work. Did manage to come to a sort of compromise however, in using a mixture of NaOH and calcium chloride, which together form a eutectic mixture, that melts at a much lower temperature than lye alone.
Although at the temperatures of the molten caustic/CaCl2 mixture in the crucible used (I had to use a crucible of refractory firebrick type material, and I really do not want to break it getting the electrode out because its the only one I have, I can't use glass for this, as molten caustic soda at several hundred degrees C wouldn't just etch but likely as not chew right through glass, and I am sure as hell not sacrificing any of my flasks for such a purpose.)
The mixture worked, to an extent, I'm going to have to fiddle around with the proportions, and rather than pure sodium being obtained, the result is a sodium-calcium metal alloy. Its just damn difficult to liberate it from the electrolyte as it forms in little spheres, because its a lot less tame than Na at room temperature, and no amount of inert gas (I was using argon in this case) seemed to be sufficient to stop it from going off with an almighty crack at the temperatures required. For now the crucible, stuck electrode, solidified electrolyte and all has been tossed in a bag, the air squeezed out, then inflated with argon, tied off and sealed in three more bags of the same nature until I can get round to taking a drill to the stuff.
Glad I bought that face shield, because its also got a nasty habit, being conductive, of the molten sodium-calcium alloy flowing towards the opposite polarity electrode and shorting the power supply, causing a brief arc and sending molten sodium/calcium and molten, very hot, and extremely corrosive electrolyte flying across the room.
Was certainly a lot of fun though, just the thing I needed to burn off some excess energy that was stopping me falling asleep. The result of my efforts thus far is not large, but nevertheless, theres a nice bright shiny bead of Na/Ca alloy sitting under some naphtha to exclude oxygen.
Might try again tonight, and will drill through that solidified electrolyte, with a bit of argon over the top of the crucible, just in case the reason for the toughness is in fact a layer of metal below the surface of the solidified electrolyte, which would be a nice surprise.
DEFINITELY a good buy that full-face protective shield, mandatory is more like it, since goggles don't protect the rest of the face, and whilst in solution, as long as its washed off quickly, caustic soda isn't the worst offender around, when its not dissolved, but molten and at several hundreds of degrees 'C, it will do a lot of damage to most materials it comes into contact with, even graphite electrodes get chewed up and slowly dissolved/broken down into dark flakey sludge. and I shudder to think what that stuff would do to exposed flesh, so I wear an old heavy leather trench that has a split in the back, so now serves instead, as my lab coat, since its thick, and any corrosive spillages or similar things sent flying by exploding blobs of molten sodium would take much longer to go through it than they would through your typical thin cotton labcoat, the trench actually provides some protection, plus the long sleeves can go over the top of the elbow-length gloves.
