Diary (December 12, 2020)
Online diary of Karl Jones for Saturday December 12, 2020.
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Mummy GI tracts yield evidence of early hospice care.
Hazardous candles
There was a major issue in a few cities with those saint candles in a few years back. The issue was apparently a combination of the quality of glass and the size and shape of the candle. Because they’re tall and narrow, there’s often a lot of empty glass above the flame where the heat is most intense. If the glass isn’t heat safe (like the thick, tempered soda lime glass we use for cookware and canning) it can shatter from thermal shock after a couple of cycles. Because the jar both catches wax, and spreads heat to all of the wax, melting it. That means you basically got an exploding jar of flammable wax next to an open flame.
A couple buildings in the neighborhood I was living in at the time burnt down due to this. Popular press and innernets blamed Orisha, Santeria and other “occult” shops, since such candles have a lot of ritual use there. Even though they’re just as commonly sold at Christian Bookstores and Catholic Churches. Ultimately the problem candles were traced to:
Dollar Tree and other dollar stores. Nobody mis-specced anything here. Those venues sell cheap candles made in the sketchy, counterfeit end of Chinese manufacturing. Nobody checked to see if a new or different jar matched the specification, cause there is no specification. Candles from such places are known fire hazards. I once bought a candle in one of those places only to find it was made of soap instead of wax.
- Comment by user Ryuthrowsstuff @ Boing Boing
Boring Billion
The Boring Billion, otherwise known as the Barren Billion, the Dullest Time in Earth's History, and Earth's Middle Ages, is the time period between 1.8 and 0.8 billion years ago (Gya) spanning the middle Proterozoic eon, characterized by more or less tectonic stability, climatic stasis, and stalled biological evolution. It is bordered by two different oxygenation and glacial events, but the Boring Billion itself had very low oxygen levels and no evidence of glaciation.
- Boring Billion @ Wikipedia
A parade of Fortean mystery
My life is not a parade of Fortean mystery.