Crystal Clear

I couldn’t imagine life without the internet. The access to information is incredible. I do not know how people researched small stuff (household items, etc.) without it. Not easily, that is for sure.

What’s next? People talking about Web2.0 are envisioning connecting information to make it more useful. Not just linking pages together, but actually feeding information from one thing into another.

One example is Google Earth – satellite photos and GPS. But now people can add pictures based on GPS so we can see what it looks like if you are there. They are adding weather patterns and other ‘layers’ with data from outside sources.

These sorts of things are called mash ups. And it’s not just Google and it’s not only about maps.

“Information wants to be free”, I’ve heard. And when information is free, then it can be paired with other information to become very useful.

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The ring on my finger caused many people much pain to create it. I didn’t really know or think about that at the time.

Gold mining is nasty for the earth. Once the ore with gold in it is extracted, it takes 30 tons of ore to obtain 1 ounce of gold! That’s insane!

Diamond mines are not much better, and they often finance war and conflicts with arms.

An option I could have chosen when I got engaged / married was to buy a ring at a pawn shop. It is already in existence and doesn’t increase demand for new materials.

Today, I found a company that will do the research for you, and ‘create’ a new ring to your specifications. Brilliant Earth also lists information on conflict diamonds and dirty gold. Yay for options!

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Many people claim that dishwashers save water over washing by hand. I found this hard to believe, so I did some research and some measuring.

What I found for sure, is that is depends on how you hand wash your dishes. If you do it by running the water (ie. not filling a sink) you will use much more water than a dishwasher (I’ve seen estimates of 75L). No surprise here… So don’t do that! Fill up a sink instead!

Based on my practise, with a double sink, where my wash is between 4.5 cm and 6 cm deep, and I rinse by turning on running water in batches once the second sink is full of dishes to rinse, below is my usage:

1. Wash: 41.5 cm x 35.5 cm x 4.5 cm deep = 6.6L
2. Rinse: estimate same height (probably less) = 6.6L

I found that Energy Star dishwashers use 4 gallons per load, or 15L. My total for hand washing is about 13L. So, that’s pretty comparable.

But, if you pre-wash or rinse your dishes before using the dishwasher, than hand washing wins. If you have an older dishwasher, then it won’t be as efficient. And if you use high temperature water or heat to dry dishes in the dishwasher, any advantage is also lost.

So, to me, the two ways are pretty even. If you prefer to have a dishwasher, get one that saves water and use it wisely. Make sure you buy dishwasher detergent without phosphate (see ranking of effectiveness of detergents and the nasty about phosphate). If you wash by hand, use as little water as possible and find a phosphate free detergent as well.

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I read often that scientists are not very good at communicating to the public what they study. This does make sense to me, since many of them are naturally very good at researching and studying and writing for their peers.

I sort of bumped into this when I was talking with a past professor and I shared I was looking to read a recent book on origins and how that topic connects to my Christianity. He expressed frustration that so much debate goes on about origins, at the expense of thinking about and acting to care for the environment / creation.

While I agree with him that a better use of time would be to change our actions to care for the earth, the reality is that many Christians get stuck on the issue of origins (creation, evolution, etc.).

If scientists, and Christian ones at that, are unable to effectively share their knowledge and research with the public, people will be only given information from the popular media, which by and large, does not do a good job of ‘reporting’ on scientific results. This is understandable as they write to sell papers, their media outlets have specific biases, and many reporters have little scientific training.

I find therefore, Origins, A Reformed Look at Creation, Design and Evolution to be very, very good. Having a science background, I found the authors to be methodical and clear. They did not seem to try to twist issues to fit their conclusions, nor did they tiptoe around conclusions that seemed problematic.

We need more of this from good Christian scientists. Sadly, this takes time away from researchers and many are uninterested in the reporting aspect. Maybe we need more writers with science backgrounds to read the research that is being done and to write it up in ways the public can read and understand it.

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