Miscellany redux

[magid]

Scientists have found the oldest patch of ground that has been continuously exposed, which is in a desert, and apparently most of the oldest exposed land is desert (not what I'd expect, given how much of many deserts involves sand or other particulates). So if there's all that history, I could imagine a world where certain talented people (psychics?) can see after images of what happened before; it would be interesting to see how densely this place would be populated. And how images would appear with excavated ground/sites. (Life would be whole lot easier for archaeologists...)

Cool word of the day: helictite, including fish-tail helictites, looking like stone fish made it partly into the wall of a cave before running into problems. (For the Krayzen folk: I imagine a High Eld suddenly turned into a fish getting halfway into the All-Stone before expiring and somehow becoming stone.)

I'm pondering the Tour de Shuls at the end of the month. It's for a good cause, and presumably the snacks would be kosher :-). Looking at the different routes, the macho side of me wants the 75 mile route, but most of me thinks that's foolish, since I'm not quite ready for that plus biking to/from Needham (another 20-25 miles), and it would be challenging to get to the start by the 7 A.M. check-in. Plus I think it would be mentally harder to have a route that gets as close as Newton, then head away from homeward... Anyone else considering this ride, at any length?

Via Trainingmom, some very cool signs in parking garages.

I got faked out by the weather report, and didn't bike in today, expecting rain by now. On the plus side, at least I managed some time on an exercise bike. Not as good, but it's something.

Comments

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

I learned another cool word today, too: coulrophobia, which is an extreme fear of clowns.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Neat! I knew that there are people with that fear, but hadn't heard the specific word for it before.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

(not what I'd expect, given how much of many deserts involves sand or other particulates)

Ah, not desert, but desert pavement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_pavement")! All of the fine particulate matter has long since blown off. What's left is heavier and interlocked, so it's not going anywhere any time soon. I think this must also say a lot of about the rest of the surroundings, too. First, no lava to cover it up. No heavy rains or water to move it. The only thing that could have disturbed it was wind and it's done about all it can do.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Hm... "desert pavement" that lasts (effectively) forever. That makes me think unhappy thoughts about the results of us paving so much of the world, though it does make things much more convenient.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

First of all, I don't think we're as good as paving as nature is. This stuff is interlocked together. As a Boston resident, you realize that all you need is one good snow and half of it is missing.

Second of all, pavement out here is very useful during a wildfire. It's called defensible space. One large parking lot that is well placed can stop a fire. As the lab as grown, we've lost a lot of our parking lots. Granted, the last fire we had they tried to keep it off the lab as much as they could, so it took out an entire residential district. Nearly 10 years later, people are pleased with the results. Since the government set the fire, the government paid for new homes.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Point taken about natural pavement vs. manmade. I wonder if all the natural pavement is in hot deserts, rather than places with a freeze-thaw cycle. Though if there isn't much water, I suppose the fact of cycling below/above freezing isn't going to make nearly the difference it does where there is water.

I hadn't thought of pavement as a firebreak. That makes so much sense.
I can see why it would've been cheaper for the government to replace a residential district rather than labs; I hope people were able to take some of their treasures/memories with them when they left.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

I think I saw some thing that stated that desert pavement only happens because there is no water. Basically, it needs to be a place where there is limited erosion trajectories -- wind can take off all of the fine particulate, but there has to be no water. Post-fires out here, without the trees, grass, houses to stop water flow, all of the normal rains took out entire chunks of road (10 feet or so at a time).

Don't forget the national press on burning nuclear materials would have been salacious. With that said, it got really close to my side of the lab. I think it's a toss up on people's responses now. Town was evacuated in 45 minutes, which involved several miracles. A road that cannot be used normally, due to it bisecting reservation land, was opened up. Most people could not move their large animals, such as horses, so they were let free. Many people were not able to get all of their personal effects. That said, some people defended their homes. While their houses survived, every other house has been replaced with "dream" homes. I think a lot of people are happy that their Army Corp of Engineers-built house burned down and was replaced with a shiny new home. Surprisingly a lot of the horses were found, but a lot of people lost cats that could not be found during the evacuation.