Back of the Envelope Calculations: Revelations, Oceans, and Blood

I was recently discussing Revelations and the Rapture with some of my friends. Apparently there’s an outfit called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA that has assembled a group of Atheists willing to take care of pets if/when the Rapture occurs (for a nominal fee).

At first thought, the whole thing does sounds a bit contrived, but the execution is rather extensive and well thought out. The group’s website even includes a useful FAQ page that includes such Q&A’s as

• How do you ensure that your representatives won’t be Raptured?
• How can we trust that you’ll honor your service agreement, afterall you ARE atheists. [sic]
• What if one of my family members is left behind? Will you still take possession of my pet?

I mean, it would be rather…unfortunate, shall we say, if 3 out of 4 family members were Raptured and the 4th one somehow didn’t make the cut. Three people would be up in Heaven, while the odd man out would be on Earth, in what are estimated to be pretty harrowing conditions.

So you might be wondering: What happens post-Rapture to all the people and stuff left on the planet? Does God just CTRL-A, CTRL-X everything left on Earth?

Well, not exactly. If you’re not familiar with the general conditions, they include asteroids hitting the Earth, the crust of the Earth breaking open, locusts and other animals scurrying about stinging people, and the oceans turning to blood. Yes, blood.

If you’re anything like me, one of the first questions you might ask is: I wonder if there’s enough Iron on Earth to turn the oceans to blood?

Motorola Droid vs. HTC Droid Eris: Side-by-side spec comparison of Verizon’s Android Phones

Being stuck at home for the past couple of days has afforded me extra time to get things done. One thing I’ve wanted during the past week is a side-by-side comparison of the technical specs of Verizon’s new Android Phones.

I’m interested in getting either the Motorola Droid or the HTC Droid Eris as I’m eligible for the New-every-two upgrade plan and could save $100 if I upgrade when the phones come out on November 6th.

Being a strong supporter of Free Software, I’d like to be able to replace the stock Android build with an entirely Free Software build such as Replicant. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Verizon has locked down the handsets to such an extent that it is impossible for us to replace the OS running on the device. That’s why I’m going to wait a couple of weeks and see how far people have gotten in rooting the device before I make any decision.

H1N1: How we test for it and why there’s no FDA-cleared test

Oink, oink. Yes, one of those ILIs has caught up with me and I’m currently stuck in bed sipping water and battling a fever that makes me wonder if I could fry eggs on my forehead.

The CDC has some nifty graphs and tables on their website. You can learn about everything from the number of illnesses reported by US region to Antiviral resistance. In case you thought that H1N1 was some kind of trumped-up wimp on the block, note that

all 2009 H1N1 viruses tested since April 2009 have been resistant to the adamantanes (amantadine and rimantadine).

Oh great, just what we need: more superbugs!