An-acronyms

The Dead Sea

Dead Sea, located in the south of the Jordan Valley, the salty closed sea 400 meters below sea level is the lowest spot on Earth. The scenery on the shores of the sea in enchanting. The Dead Sea is famous for its extraordinary salt and mineral content, which many people say makes it a natural healing agent for skin problems.

5.000 Years of History
King David, King Herod, Jesus, and John Baptist were closely linked with the Dead Sea and its surroundings. The prophets knew it via the infamous Sodom and Gomorra. During the Egyptian conquest it is said that Queen Cleopatra obtained exclusive rights to build cosmetic and pharmaceutical factories in the area. Later on, the wily Nabateans discovered the value of bitumen extracted from the Dead Sea and needed by the Egyptians for embalming their mummies. Aristotle wrote about the remarkable waters. In Roman times the Essenes settled in Qumran on the Dead Sea northern shore as a place of refuge and on the heights of Masada a small group of rebellious Jewish zealots held out against the might of the Roman Legion. The remoteness of the region attracted Greek Orthodox monks since the Byzantine era. Their monasteries such as Saint George in Wadi Kelt and Mar Saba in the Judean Desert are places of pilgrimage. Bedouin tribes have continuously lived in the area and more recently explorers and scientists arrived to analyze the minerals and conduct research into the unique climate. Since the 1960's, tourists from all the world have also explored the Dead Sea region.

The Lowest Point on Earth
Situated on the heart of the Great Syrian-African rift valley that stretches throughout Israel and beyond, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on the earth (400 meters or 1,320 feet below sea level), and is flanked by the Judean Mountains on the west, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Mountains of Moab on the east, the Jordan Valley and Sea of Galilee to the north and the Negev Desert as well as the Red Sea to the south.

The Dead Sea Water
The water of the Dead Sea contains 21 minerals including magnesium, calcium, bromine and potassium. 12 of these are found in no other area or ocean and some are recognized for imparting a relaxed feeling, nourishing the skin, activating the circulatory systems and for easing rheumatic discomfort and metabolic disorders. As an example, the Dead Sea contains 10 times more salts and minerals than the Mediterranean Sea. The high salt and mineral concentration enables everyone to float in its waters but doesn't allow the proliferation of fish and other marine life.

Thermo-mineral Springs
Found in several locations along the Dead Sea shores. The many minerals contained in the warm water are dominated by sulfur. Soaking in the heated sulfur pools activates the circulatory system and increases the oxygen supply to the body.

Natural mineral spring water
Flows from the Judean Hills into the lower areas fronting the Dead Sea. When hiking along the area's "wadis" (seasonal dry river beds) and oasis, one can often splash in waterfalls and cool streams. Natural mineral spring water is bottled and locally marketed throughout the country.

The Sun
The Dead Sea is the only place on earth where one can sunbathe for extended periods with little or no sunburn because harmful ultraviolet rays are filtered through three natural layers: an extra atmospheric layer, an evaporation layer that exists above the Dead Sea and a rather thick ozone layer.
The Air The region's miraculous air is dry, unpolluted and pollen-free with low humidity. Due to the constant evaporation, the air contains high concentrations of several minerals, mainly bromine, providing a genuinely relaxing effect.

Because of the high barometric pressure it has approximately 8% more oxygen than anywhere else on earth and consequently makes breathing easier.

Alcohol tests, Drug tests

Black Mud
A signature element of the Dead Sea, black mud is homogeneous mixture of Dead Sea minerals, important organic elements from the shoreline as well as earth. Indulging in a black mud body wrap has both cosmetic and therapeutic benefits - known to cleanse and stimulate the skin, relieve muscle and emotional tensions, improve blood circulation, and ease rheumatic pain. The rich minerals and the mud tightening action promote circulation by increasing the supply of oxygen to and removing the toxins from the skin, thus toning and firming up skin tissues, leaves the skin glowing and youthful looking. Dead Sea Mineral Mud cleans, purifies, and restores the skin's natural minerals.

The Salt
As the name suggests, the Dead Sea is devoid of life due to an extremely high content of salts and minerals. It is these natural elements which gave the water its curative powers. Dead Sea Salt and Dead Sea Mud have been recognized by millions of people as a single source of health and beauty since the days of Herod the Great, more than 2,000 years ago. The Dead Sea has a 33% concentration of salts and minerals (compared to only 3% in the ocean). Dead Sea Salt original mineral composition improves cell metabolism and contributes to its restoration and regeneration. Dead Sea Salt also acts as a disinfectant and help in removing harmful substances from the skin.

Thought Experiment

I'm working on a story, and I need an estimate of what the odds are that two spacefaring cultures would reach the same uninhabited planet within a few years of each other.

So, first off, there are an estimated 100 billion stars in our galaxy, which I think I can take as average for the purposes of this thought experiment. There are, supposedly, about 100 billion galaxies in the universe. That means that the population of stars is about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 1 x 10²². Of those, only perhaps 10% have planets, and of those, only about 1% are estimated to be Earth-like, but that still leaves 100,000,000 per galaxy, or 1 x 10⁸. If we say that the average life of a planet is five billion years, and that 'within a few years' is a window of, say, 1000 years, then each Earth-like planet has 5,000,000 windows, or 5 x 10⁶, for a total of 5 x 10¹⁴ planetary co-occupation windows per galaxy.

Ok, ignore the universe numbers. Let's just keep it to one galaxy, because now we have to estimate the numbers of planets that develop space-flight and the will to explore extra-solar systems. Let's just say that 1% of all earth-like planets develop life, and 1% of those develop practical space-flight, and 1% of those decide to make the very, very long journey to nearby stars¹. Let us ignore the problem of adjacency, in which it becomes clear that civilizations that meet the above requirements are not going to start exploring planets ten thousand light years away, they're going to start close by. Let's assume that they have equal access to any system, because this is just a wild-assed guess.

Ok, so 0.01 x 0.01 x 0.01 = 0.0001, across time. That is too high, because that is the wild-assed guess of the number of systems that will develop spaceflight at any time, including in the future. Let's assume that the average length of time to develop a lifeform to spaceflight-ness is, oh, 100,000,000 years. Let's assume it takes 2 billion of our estimated planetary lifespan of 5 billion years to actually get life going. That leaves 3 billion, divided up into 100 million year 'windows', or only about 30 per planet.

1/30 x 0.0001 x 1/(5 x 10¹⁴), or 1 in 5 x 10¹⁹, or maybe ²⁰. Damn long odds².

The (sup) tag has been brutally abused in the making of this poast.

These numbers are wild over-estimates, IMO.

I realize that this whole thing reveals my mathematical weakness. So be it, it's just to arrive at a somewhat reasonable number for a short story. I didn't want to use 1 in 100, for example, nor 1 in 10⁴³⁹².

Bizon phone card
Jupiter calling card
Mozart calling card
Continental phone card

Eighties

I've been listening to a radio station that advertises 'playing what we want', which is supposed to mean that they don't take requests, but which really means that they play 80's tunes in a strictly non-ironic¹ way.

I'd forgotten how early 80's bands all sang with non-ironic British accents if they were British and with ironic British accents if they weren't. If that makes sense.

If it doesn't, you aren't feeling the irony.

Oh, the world is heavy with irony these days. I myself am so ironic that I rust.

Sophie's Choice

I could not watch the film Sophie's Choice now. I probably could have (never did) before I had children, but afterward... no. Even now, just thinking about the plot of the movie, in which a woman must choose which of her two children lives and which one dies, is painful.

I am reminded of this because I'm writing a short (about a thousand words) about a man who must make a choice in a near-future dystopia. It is between his daughter's education and someone's life. In the story as it is now, it is a nameless pedestrian's life. The only way the man can get the injured pedestrian to hospital in time to save him is to spend his daughter's education fund, and he cannot decide what to do.

As I was working, I realized that the story would be more powerful if I replaced the nameless pedestrian with the man's other child, making the story a sort of miniature Sophie's Choice.

I can't write that story.

Have to stop with news

Must write... must write...

I have to stop reading Google News.

I said some time ago (sorry, too lazy to look it up right now) that Iraq was a sort of Vietnam at 78¹. It has gone through the same general stages that the American presence in Vietnam did, just a whole lot faster. I think that the speed of the Iraq devolution is attributable to two major things:

The information age. More people are getting more information from more sources. We know more about Fallujah, for example, and faster, than we knew about My Lai. We're hearing from ordinary Iraqis. We're hearing from people in countries nearby. We're hearing from people whose voices were not heard during the Vietnam war.

The pretext for the war in Iraq is flimsier than the pretext for war in Vietnam. Both were entered by an administration that manufactured a crisis for ideological reasons, but at the time of America's initial involvement in Vietnam, the advancing threat of Communism was real. It should be clear by now that the alleged threat from Iraq was not. (The argument over the presence of WMD is a false one, in any event. The question isn't whether or not Iraq had WMD², it was whether or not Iraq was a threat to the United States. Anyone who still maintains that it was is a hopeless ideologue.)

The writing has been on the wall for some time now. The best that the Bush administration can manage now is a handoff of power that allows them to claim victory and get out. That, at least, they'll have over the Vietnam experience.

If you don't know what that means, you're young. At the risk of being horrifically redundant, vinyl records were recorded to play at various speeds. Anyone who had one of those cheapy stereos will remember the standard ones: 16, 33, 45, 78. Kids often played 33s at 78, laughing hysterically at the speeded up chipmunk voices.

The whole idea that WMD are a credible terrorist threat is pretty weak, anyway.

Canada phone cards
India phone cards
France phone cards
Russia phone cards
UK phone cards
USA phone cards

mtwordpress

I've downloaded Movable Type 3.2 and WordPress 1.5.2.

Yes, that means that I shall be leaving Blogger soon. Not yet, though. First I have to decide which of these to use, and get it working. Opinions? CW Murphy: I'm guessing you'll speak up for WordPress?

Plus I think I'm getting another damn cold.

off

HouseApe 1.0 and I are off for our annual Christmas shopping trip. We head to Nanaimo for the day. It will involve a lot of wandering and constant reminders that we aren't looking for things that HouseApe 1.0 wants. There will also probably be a cinamon bun, much whining about going to Toys R' Us, a trip to the big bookstore, lunch somewhere mediocre, and a sleeping child on the way back.

It also involves breakfast at McDonalds on the road, which is only tolerable because it is a tradition.

The sxKitten's entry on Jim Winter's blog today involves feline pogonophobes.

I just thought of something

Ok, this is a bit coarse. But then so am I.

I'm thinking that Aqua Velva could probably make themselves a smart marketing move by changing one letter in the product name. Everybody knows that us piglike men likes us some of that.

Or maybe they could market a line of women's product using that name? They'd double the size of their market, wouldn't they? Presumably men who wear Aqua Velva are married to/going out with women who would buy Aqua Vulva.

Scentsory

We just got an email from the boss, my boss' boss. It was a long thing (she's wordy) about the medical effects of scent pollution. Evidently, somebody complained.

I was a bit worried at first. I thought maybe it was me until I remembered that I don't wear anything other than a little deodorant¹. Somebody must have been bathing in the cologne or something.

I'd hate to be a boss. I'd hate to deal with things like complaints about grooming. Nobody wins there: some schmuck doesn't bathe regularly, so everybody gets pissed and whines to the boss, who has to say (in effect) 'you stink'. The malodorous schmuck is pissed off and probably increases his bathing regimen for a while.

Or in this case, somebody probably thinks that since a little Aqua Velva smells nice, half a bottle smells better². I once worked in an office building with a woman whose overpowering perfume made my eyes water I happened to get on the elevator with her in the morning.

The Next Door Rumanian is cursing a blue streak. He's trying to do something beyond his knowledge level, which is fine: that's how you learn. But he's getting frustrated and not accepting advice. So now that we have a policy that people can't smell too strongly, maybe I should harass the boss for a policy on noise pollution.

Actually, I wondered for a while whether it was my hands. I rubbed the sxKitten's back last night using Body Shop Vanilla Body Lotion. The vanilla scent from that shit sticks to your skin like... well... shit to a blanket. For a little while I wondered if somebody was complaining about my Overpowering Hand Stench.

That's assuming that you think that a little Aqua Velva smells nice. You may not.

From Feral to Domestic

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