Thursday, April 2, 2026

A very useful book on the Science of Cleaning by Italian chemistry professor Dario Bressanini


 

 

 

There is a very useful 2024 book by Dario Bressanini titled The Science of Cleaning: Use the power of chemistry to clean smarter, easier, and safer. A  preview is at Google Books. He discusses what works (a lot), what is useless, and what is dangerous. His twelve chapters and their starting page numbers are:

 

 1] Clean and Dirty, 6

 2] Acids and Bases, 14

 3] Limescale, 30

 4] Soaps, 50

 5] Detergents, 68

 6] Chlorine-Based Bleach, 92

 7] Oxygen-Based Bleach, 110

 8] Laundry, 120

 9] Dishes, 150

10] Disinfectants, 174

11] Baking Soda, 206

12] Household Surfaces, 224  

 

One useless mixture is described in his detailed section on pages 24 to 26 titled Baking Soda and Vinegar: a mixture that makes no sense. The reaction is shown above. He says:

 

“Every time someone suggests mixing vinegar and baking soda to remove a stain or unblock a drain, a chemist somewhere combusts. I couldn’t say precisely when this particular craze began, but it’s definitely popular. Pick any online cleaning forum or Facebook group, then look for a video on how to unblock the sink, clean the carpet, or degrease a frying pan – or follow a few influencers or pick through the hand hints section of a modern home magazine – and it won’t be long before you begin to hear the inexorable chant in your head ‘Vinegar and baking soda, vinegar and baking soda, mix them quickly and watch the magic.’

 

It's a pity that not only does mixing them not work, it can even be counterproductive. I know many of you are thinking, ‘But everyone is saying it!’ Well, I’m afraid that everyone is wrong. No matter how many times we repeat something false, it doesn’t become true. As I explained above, baking soda is basic while vinegar is acidic. When mixed, they react instantly to produce water, carbon dioxide, and sodium acetate, a mildly basic substance with absolutely no cleaning properties. Likewise if you mix – in the correct quantities – two highly corrosive substances like lye and hydrochloric acid. The result is an innocuous water and sodium chloride mixture: salt water, in other words. This happens because in chemical reactions, the properties of the original substances disappear as the substances themselves no longer exist, having chemically transformed. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense to mix substances that react with each other.

 

I realize, however, that it might be too flippant to dismiss vinegar and baking soda in this way. As a chemist. I’ve often wondered how such an inaccurate piece of advice could have become so popular. It wouldn’t be the first time a wholly incorrect or ineffective home or traditional remedy has propagated at such speed and with such fervor. Kitchen and cooking tips are an excellent case in point, and some of the popular claims about how to clean or keep our kitchens hygienic are so wildly inaccurate that they shouldn’t be given the time of day. Why would throwing coffee grounds down the sink help unclog it?

 

 Anyway, the habit of mixing vinegar and baking soda is so common, and its promoters are so convinced of its effectiveness, that I decided to take a closer look. I spent a long time thinking about it until I eventually identified three reasons this urban legend has taken such a strong hold.

 

The first is psychological: When vinegar (or lemon juice) touches baking soda, it instantly fizzes, producing a very impressive cloud of foam and bubbles. It may look like something special is happening, but it’s still just carbon dioxide with no detergent properties. It you put it in the kitchen sink, the bubbles may drag up some of the dirt from the pipes and you may interpret this as a cleaning miracle. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news: It isn’t.

 

The second reason is the comforting knowledge that both vinegar and baking soda are edible, so they must be completely harmless. Everywhere we turn, we’re bombarded with warnings and ads fueling concerns for our health and the environment, suggesting – incorrectly and often dishonestly – that normal cleaning products, the ones ‘made of stuff with complicated names we don’t understand,’ are hazardous for our health. Conversely, there’s no denying that if you buy a product to unlock the kitchen sink, it will have a warning symbol blazoned across the label. For example, as I said earlier, lye should be used with caution, but it’s precisely its corrosiveness that enables it to unclog your sink. So if you pick up a magazine or follow an influencer and both tell you to use a much safer mix of vinegar and baking soda instead of the more dangerous lye, the temptation to believe is difficult to resist, especially if you’ve forgotten the chemistry you learned in school.

 

I’ve no doubt that many of you reading this will be ready to swear that your mixture ‘worked’ – that the last time you used it, it really did clean the thing you set out to clean.

 

This brings me to my third reason for this phenomenon, which is strictly chemical. I said earlier that vinegar and baking soda (just like lye and hydrochloric acid) cancel each other out, but only if you use the correct quantities of the two reactants. I’ll save you the calculations, but a liter of ordinary 6-percent vinegar requires exactly 84 grams of baking soda to react fully and produce a solution of water, carbon dioxide, and sodium acetate. Or, if you prefer, 100 ml of vinegar reacts fully with 8.4 grams of baking soda. After the reaction, both the baking soda and the acetic acid originally present in the vinegar no longer exist. I’m pretty certain none of the concoctions touted as the remedy of all cleaning ills contain exactly these quantities, which is the key to understanding why this mixture is believed to work miracles. If you mix less than 8.4 grams of baking soda with 100 ml of vinegar, the baking soda completely disappears when the two substances finish reacting, and all that is left is the excess acetic acid that didn’t react. Vice versa, if you add more baking soda, the acetic acid disappears and excess baking soda is left. It is the addition of the leftover, unused reactants that makes the mixture look like it is working.

 

There are generally two types of recipes for mixing vinegar with baking soda: hose with an overabundance of vinegar, which create a watery solution, and those with an overabundance of baking soda, where the latter is barely wetted by the vinegar to form a paste. When the leftover reactant is acetic acid, it is still active to a degree against any limescale crusting up faucets, lining pipes, or stopping water from draining properly. This is why the mixture seems to work, even if you’re only using what was left after the reaction and not the full 100 ml you started out with. You’re wasting vinegar and baking soda to create a liquid that is much less effective.

 

Some people even recommend making the mixture in advance and keeping it in a bottle. I hope you’re beginning to see why this makes absolutely no sense: As soon as baking soda and vinegar touch, at least one of them ceases to exist. If any cleaning is being done, it is coming from the leftover vinegar.

 

In the other recipes, the cleaning power comes from the abrasive properties of the baking soda, which is useful for scrubbing a crusted frying pan or removing buildup from an oven tray. Here, the amount of vinegar recommended leaves a portion of the baking soda unreacted and lightly moistened, so it can be used to scrape off the dirt. Once again, you’d be better off not wasting vinegar at all and just dampening a small amount of baking soda with water.”   

 

Recent magazine articles also discuss why to not mix baking soda and vinegar. One by Ashley Abramson and Barbara Bellesi Zito at Apartment Therapy on July 31, 2024 is titled Why You Shouldn’t Mix Baking Soda and Vinegar for Cleaning, According to a Chemist. Another by Caroline Mullen in the New York Times – Wirecutter on September 15, 2025 is titled Please stop mixing baking soda and vinegar to make cleaning paste.

 

Regarding what is dangerous there is a box all about bleach on page 98  in white lettering on a dark gray background with a heading of WARNING!:

 

"Never, ever, EVER mix bleach with another substance unless you are 100 percent sure what will happen. You should especially avoid combining bleach with acids.

 

Every year, hundreds of people end up in the hospital after intentionally mixing acidic cleaning products with bleach. When bleach comes in contact with an acid, it liberates poisonous chlorine gas, which was used as a chemical weapon in WWI due to its toxicity. Unfortunately, there are a host of toilet cleaners out there that are identical in everything but color, except that some contain bleach and some contain hydrochloric acid. While cleaning the house one busy morning, you could easily finish one bottle and start using another without thinking – but the new bottle happens to contain a hydrochloric acid-based cleaner, and before you know it, you’re choking on chlorine gas.

 

Separating bleach and acids also means avoiding using a toilet that you’ve just poured a bleach-based product into. Urine is acidic, so if it hits the bleach, don’t be surprised when you get a whiff of gas. And don’t forget that vinegar and lemon juice are acids too. Ammonia and bleach are both frequently used around the house. While they’re equally effective cleaners on their own, when combined (which I beg you never to do), they can create a very unwelcome – not to mention highly irritating and toxic – substance called chloramine.

 

Bleach mixed with hydrogen peroxide (which is a weaker oxygen-based bleach) produces an instant whoosh of oxygen bubbles. On its own, oxygen is not toxic, but the fizz is so vigorous that it can easily send splashes of liquid onto your skin and eyes. Please also steer clear of bleach and ethyl alcohol mixtures, which can create a number of organic compounds – from chloroform to acetaldehyde – in varying concentrations.

 

So I’ll say it again: Don’t mix bleach with any cleaning product, really. Ever!”

 

 

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Clip art of meshed or locked gears


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On November 17, 2020 I blogged about Smoothly meshing gears or jammed gears. Meshed gears describe graphically how individuals or parts of an organization can work together smoothly (as is shown above via an image modified from OpenClipArt).

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jammed gears describe the opposite. At OpenClipArt there is a set of three gears locked together, shown above.

 

There is a long article by Bartoz Ciechanowski on February 12, 2020 titled Gears with discussions, animations, multiple gears, and three jammed ones at the very end.

 

 

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

A fraudulent email asking for a Bitcoin payment of $600, and a fraudulent text message



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I go through the junk mail folder of the email account for this blog about once a week. One time I did in Mid-March there was an email from March 12 claiming to have all of my personal information. And, as shown above in a colorized version, he gave me just a day to respond. But more than a day already had passed, and NOTHING bad had happened. Furthermore, the same email had been sent to me on March 5. I concluded that the ONLY personal information he really had was my email address, since he didn’t even include my first or last name. That same email had been discussed by Brian Roche at WGAL8 on March 2, 2026 in an article titled Protect yourself | Email scam threatens to sell personal information online.

 

A few days ago I got a fraudulent text message claiming that I needed to pay the State of Idaho a fine for a vehicle infraction. Fortunately my iPhone displayed the country code for the message was a +66 (Thailand) rather than +1 (United States). 


  

Monday, March 30, 2026

To be in this speaking contest you also need to be a cowboy or cowgirl


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Kanzie Johnson at FortWorth on March 9, 2026 titled Debunking the myth of the quiet cowboy, and subtitled There aren’t many public speaking competitions that require being a cowboy as a prerequisite, but we know of at least one that happened right here in Fort Worth.

 

It is called the Bridles and Brains Collegiate Ranch Horse Competition. Each rider competes in two-partner ranch penning, ranch roping, ranch trail, ranch reining, public speaking, and a media interview. Those horse-related events are as follows:

 

“The ranch roping event is built upon the practicalities of working on a farm. At least 10 numbered cattle and a handful of unnumbered ones fill the pen, with two cows assigned to each number. When the rider enters, a number is called and they’re free to rope either cow wearing it.

Two-partner team penning is the only on-horse event done in pairs, where riders work together to move a herd of numbered cattle from one pen to another. When a number is called, the team must separate that cow and drive it into the catch pen as quickly as possible. 

Ranch trail replicates challenges riders might encounter during a day on a ranch, such as crossing ground poles, dragging an object by rope or opening a mailbox from horseback.

Ranch reining, meanwhile, is a higher-energy display where contestants follow a pattern with maneuvers like sliding stops and spins to showcase the horse’s responsiveness.”

The 1907 theater poster came from the Library of Congress.

Sunday, March 29, 2026

Tourons and the Disneyland Syndrome

 

 

 

 

 

Touron is a portmanteau word combining the first four letters from tourist with the last two from moron, as shown above. There is an article by Gig Morris at TheTravel on February 19, 2025 titled “Tourons” on the loose: Travelers are behaving so badly that they’ve earned their own nickname. For example, at Yellowstone National Park, they get injured after they come 11 feet from a bison rather than the recommended minimum of 75 feet. She said of touron:

 

“It sounds new, but the word can be traced to the mid-1970s within the National Park System.”

 

Another article by Katie Jackson at the New York Post on October 3, 2024 is titled Moronic tourists are ruining travel – how not to be one on your next vacation. I found the word discussed in a very profane four-minute YouTube video from Lewis Black on March 27, 2026 titled Tourists, Morons, & Lava | Lewis Black’s Rantcast Clips.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I was aware of the concept long ago. In the mid-1980s my brother Tom and I had visited the Smoky Mountain National Park. We wanted to get a great view by climbing to the highest point in Tennessee, Clingman’s Dome (Kuwohi). There is a mile-long paved trail leading to the concrete observation tower (shown above) via a spiral ramp.

 

That morning the sky already was medium to dark gray, so it was not a matter of if it would rain, just when. Both of us wore jackets. I got a big golf umbrella out from my car and used it as a walking stick on the way up from the parking lot.

 

Lots of tourists on the trail were without umbrellas or even hooded windbreakers. Just as we began heading back down it began to pour. We stayed dry, but most tourists got thoroughly soaked. I later referred to their behavior as the Disneyland Syndrome – behaving as if they just were in an amusement park rather than a national park.  

 

 

Saturday, March 28, 2026

Telling someone just to “be yourself” might be terrible advice


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The F Minus cartoon by Tony Carrillo on February 1, 2026 has a caption that says:

 

“For too long, we’ve ignored the devastating effects that ‘be yourself’ messaging can have on those people who happen to have rotten selves.”

 

Back on March 19, 2010 I blogged about Just be yourself (act naturally)? and I asked:

 

“Well, which self would you like to see: best or worst, relaxed or scared, et cetera?”

 

And there is a LinkedIn Pulse article on April 2, 2024 by Laura Bergells titled The Trouble with ‘Just Be Yourself’: A Deeper Look into Public Speaking Anxiety. A Mathew Hussey blog post on September 22, 2013 titled ‘Be Yourself’ – Bad Advice says:

 

“When someone says ‘be yourself’ all it does is give us validation for staying the same and not taking risks.”

 

My cartoon was adapted from a tee shirt and dragon at OpenClipArt.

 

 

Thursday, March 26, 2026

A fraudulent letter asking me to renew a Home Warranty - that I don’t have


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

In today’s mail I received an undated letter titled Final Notice to create urgency. Its heading only says Home Warranty Division, Private & Confidential and does not identify either the organization or their mailing address. (And there was no return address on the envelope, which was mailed from St. Louis, Missouri).

 

The message is:

 

RESPONSE TO THIS NOTICE REQUESTED

 

Attention: Richard Garber

 

It is important you contact our office at 1-888-413-5452 upon receiving this notice to avoid any unnecessary delays in your coverage before 4/10/2026. This notice is to inform you that the Home Warranty for your property in Boise, ID may be expiring or has already expired. Our records indicate that you have not contacted us yet to get your Home Warranty up to date. Please call immediately as this will be our final attempt to notify you about activating your Home Warranty. 

 

Failure to call and prevent a potential lapse in coverage could result in you being liable for all costs associated with any home repairs. However, you may still have time to activate a warranty on your home before it’s too late. No inspection will be required and final acceptance is subject to your ability to meet eligibility requirements. We reserve the right to revoke your eligibility for service coverage after the Expiration Date of 4/10/2026. Please respond immediately by calling 1-888-413-5452.

 

Sincerely, Vicky Mercer – Program Director”

 

Of course, I did NOT call her and give out any payment information. This message had previously been reported to the BBB [Better Business Bureau] Scam Tracker today, on March 19, 2026, and January 21, 2026, and at least five times in 2025.

 

My red letter cartoon was modifed from one at OpenClipArt.