Re:I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil
by semi-extrinsic on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @05:43PM
(#10503265)
Yeah, the (usually Chinese) spammy chemical suppliers have an interesting selection. I've seen several offering to sell you 99% pure isopropane, which is a bit like offering a RESTful service that keeps track of state on the server.
The FOOF article pointed out one other nasty problem, namely, how easy it is to game search systems:
"But I do note that if you run the structure through SciFinder, it comes out with a most unexpected icon that indicates a commercial supplier. That would be the Hangzhou Sage Chemical Company. They offer it in 100g, 500g, and 1 kilo amounts, which is interesting, because I don’t think a kilo of dioxygen difluoride has ever existed. Someone should call them on this – ask for the free shipping, and if they object, tell them Amazon offers it on this item. Serves ’em right. Morons."
Given how often I come across spammy search results in Google, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.