Rich WordPress Upgrade
Today WordPress announced a huge increase in free upload space: Free Space to Three Gigabytes.
“Today, one of those developments comes to fruition — everyone’s free upload space has been increased 60x from 50mb to 3,000mb. To get half that much space (1GB) at our nearest competitor, Typepad, you’d pay at least $300 a year. We’re doing the same thing for free.”
They also announced, important to people like me who like to illustrate heavily with photos, that if you bought a 1GB upgrade, it is now a 5GB upgrade, at no extra charge.
moar funny pictures
I upgraded when I got up to 75% capacity, but never even reached 1% or capacity yet. I feel like the (space) richest woman in the world today!
270,000 KD for What?
I found this in today’s Kuwait Times. I think maybe I am out of touch . . . I haven’t heard of anyone sending or receiving a telegram for a long time. I don’t believe my husband’s office even uses a telex anymore? Am I missing something?
Kuwait Times: 20 January 2008
Telegram, Telex services
Kuwait: The Ministry of Communication is planning to create a new telegram and telex service system. The system will cost KD 270,000 and will be using modern equipment and up to date methods. A contract for creating the system was first given to a Bahraini company, but then the ministry decided to create the system themselves. The ministry will start working on creating the system two weeks from now.
Anyone? Anyone?
Scary Sunrise 20 January 2008
When I got up this morning, the sky was all pink, the water was all pink, it was a world of pink haze, very beautiful. Within moments, the light had shifted, the pink haze was gone and the sun began to rise, very dramatically, lighting up the clouds like you see on the ceilings of Renaissance chapels.
But wait! What is this? The sky is lit, the clouds are illuminated, but the brilliance of the sun is having a hard time breaking through the sludge hanging just over the horizon. I have a bad feeling, whatever it is that is strong and thick enough to block the sun, we are also breathing it.
It’s about 5°C warmer at 0800 than the last few days, with forcast of clouds and possible rain through Wednesday.
Berry and The Alexandrian Link
On his way back from a recent trip, AdventureMan bought a book in an airport, which he read and then asked me to read. Here is what he said:
“It’s not a great book, but I don’t know why I say that. It has an interesting idea and I want to know what you think.”
So just after I finished Inheritance of Loss I started in with this book, and it was the second book I will not recommend to you.
It is wooden. The characters are about a millimeter deep. The plot is unbelievable and doesn’t make sense and doesn’t hang together. It is full of adventure and travel and shoot-outs, which our “hero” miraculously comes through without a scratch while all around him his foes are dropping like flies.
It DOES hinge on an interesting theory, one I had never heard before. There is a Lebanese historian and archaeologist, Kamal Salibi, who published a book called The Bible Came from Arabia. In this book Salibi makes his case for the “holy land” which was given to Abraham not being in Palestine at all, but rather in what is currently Saudi Arabia, along the western coast. He uses the utter lack of archeological findings in current day Israel/Palestine which support biblical accounts, and the plentitude of place names in the Asir region which closely resemble what the place names would have looked like and sounded like in ancient Hebrew, the language of the earliest biblical times.
The book, and the theory was, of course, controversial. If the contentions were true, it would undermine the foundation of the state of Israel in Palestine; it would mean that people have been fighting for the last 60 years over the wrong piece of land.
Here is a (very bad) photo of the map in the book which shows where Salibi believes the biblical cities were actually located. He believes “Jerusalem” was not a city, but an area within which were several cities. He believes “the Jordan” was not a river, but a mountain range, and that here, also, Moses and his refugees from Egypt wandered.
Unless you really love reading badly plotted books with cardboard characters, I would not recommend reading The Alexandrian Link. As a jumping off point for an interesting line of research – AdventureMan was right; this book gives you something new and different to contemplate.
Feeding MY Soul: Blog comments
Today, on the day we honor the Wise Men following the star, I got the following comment on a blog entry I wrote back in August, on Buck Naked and the Yemeni Star from PetroOps, no hot link, so maybe he/she is a blogger and maybe not. This kind of comment feeds my soul.
Well that Star is called (Sohail) it is a Yemeni Star because it holds its place on the southern sphere’s sky. so it is to the Yemen side for Kuwait and other GCC countries. on the opposite side there is the (Thoraia – Star) to the northwest of our Sky and that was mentioned together in some poetries as the lovers that will never meet with each others.
I never knew that! I have sort of kept Sohail in mind as a name for the next female cat that comes into my life, and now I can see that the next cat will probably have a brother, whose name will be Thoraia. If those names are male and femaie, and I have assigned the wrong sex (in English, if a name ends in an “a” it is most likely a female name) somebody please clue me in so I don’t make a terrible mistake. Anyway, I don’t see adopting another cat any time soon, as we have our hands full with The Qatteri Cat.
A week after the first Yemeni Star entry, I wrote another, Yemeni Star to which I received all kinds of great informative comments.
A lot of time on blogs, every blog, it is just blah blah blah. What feeds my soul are comments like this one above, and the ones to the Yemeni star entry, comments that add something to my knowledge base, often comments that help me think in a totally new direction. You do that for me, my readers, my commenters. Thank you for delighting my heart.
Epiphany (2)
While looking for an image of the Wise Men and the Child that appealed to me, I came across a website, Farsinet.com that has more information about the revelation of the child. Here is a quote from Farsinet.com from the Ronald Latham translation of The Travels of Marco Polo, from an article by H. Behzadi:
In Persia is the city called Saveh, from which the three Magi set out when they came to worship Jesus Christ. Here, too, they lie buried in three sepulchres of great size and beauty. Above each sepulchre is a square building with a domed roof of very fine workmanship. The one is just beside the other. Their bodies are still whole, and they have hair and beards. One was named Beltasar, the second Gaspar, and the third Melchior.
Messer Marco asked several of the inhabitants who these Magi were; but no one could tell him anything except that they were three kings who were buried there in days gone by. But at last he learnt What I will tell you.
Three days farther on, he found a town called Kala Atashparastan, that is to say Town of the Fire-worshippers. And that is no more than the truth; for the men of this town do worship fire. And I will tell you why they worship it. The inhabitants declare that in days gone by three kings of this country went to worship a new-born prophet and took with them three offerings -gold, frankincense, and myrrh – so as to discover whether this prophet was a god, or an earthly king or a healer. For they said : ‘If he takes gold, he is an earthly king; if frankincense, a god; if myrrh, a healer.’
When they had come to the place where the prophet was born, the youngest of the three kings went in all alone to see the child. He found that he was like himself, for he seemed to be of his own age and appearance. And he came out, full of wonder. Then in went the second, who was a man of middle age. And to him also the child seemed, as it had seemed to the other, to be of his own age and appearance. And he came out quite dumbfounded. Then in went the third, who was of riper years; and to him also it happened as it had to the other two. And he came out deep in thought. When the three kings were all together, each told the others what he had seen. And they were much amazed and resolved that they would all go in together.
So, in they went, all three together, and came before the child and saw him in his real likeness and of his real age; for he was only thirteen days old. Then they worshipped him and offered him the gold, the frankincense, and the myrrh. The child took all three offerings and then gave them a closed casket. And the three kings set out to return to their own country.
After they had ridden for some days, they resolved to see what the child had given them. They opened the casket and found inside it a stone. They wondered greatly what this could be. The child had given it to them to signify that they should be firm as stone in the faith that they had adopted. For, when the three kings saw that the child had taken all three offerings, they concluded that he was at once a god, and an earthly king, and a healer. And, since the child knew that the three kings believed this, he gave them the stone to signify that they should be firm and constant in their belief.
The three kings, not knowing why the stone had been given to them, took it and threw it into a well. No sooner had it fallen in than there descended from heaven a burning fire, which came straight to the well into which it had been thrown. When the three kings saw this miracle, they were taken aback and repented of their throwing away the stone; for they saw clearly that its significance was great and good. They immediately took some of this fire and carried it to their country and put it in one of their churches, a very fine and splendid building.
They keep it perpetually burning and worship it as a god. And every sacrifice and burnt offering which they make is roasted with this fire. If it ever happens that the fire goes out, they go round to others who hold the same faith and worship fire also and are given some of the fire that burns in their church. This they bring back to rekindle their own fire. They never rekindle it except with this fire of which I have spoken. To procure this fire, they often make a journey of ten days.
That is how it comes about that the people of this country are fire worshippers. And I assure you that they are very numerous. All this was related to Messer Marco Polo by the inhabitants of this town; and it is all perfectly true. Let me tell you finally that one of the three Magi came from Saveh, one from Hawah, and the third from Kashan.
(LLLLOOOOLLLLLLLL: It took me forever to find an image of the three Wise Men/Magi that didn’t look European or Western instead of Persian and Yemeni, as the legends state!)
Episodes Online
While in the US, my sister informed me that I could go different places and watch episodes of TV shows I like any time I like. Pretty cool. I didn’t have the time while I was back there, but today I wanted to catch up on one show, and this is the message I got:
Only viewers with the United States can watch these full-length episodes.
I believe that is true, and I also believe that . . . there are probably ways around it. So how do I get around it?
Old Cars
Several years ago, some friends were visiting Seattle and returned, saying “I have never seen so many OLD cars anywhere else.”
(They had never been to Turkey, where they have an art of keeping old cars running.)
I had never really noticed, but there truly are a lot of older cars in this area, and I don’t know why. Maybe one reason is that Seattle had a few leaded gas pumps longer than other states, and most of these old cars ran on leaded gas. You still see them – a lot of them – still on the roads.
Big Statistics Change
Two months ago, one of my regular readers Elementary Teacher who has a fascinating blog about teaching elementary school in a Middle Eastern country, wrote to me and told me that when I set up my blog page, I forgot to add back in the widget for Meta, which contained the RSS feed.
The truth is, I still don’t know entirely what that means, but I did as she suggested, and added the Meta back in.
And watched as my visitors nearly doubled overnight.
Who knew?
There is so much I am still learning, and I thank all of you who write to be, back channels, and give me hints. Thank you, especially, Elementary Teacher for your kindness in sharing such good information. I really enjoy reading your blog!
Cretan Olive Oil
This response is to a post I wrote October 25th on The Olive Oil scandal, that even when you buy a brand you have thought is reliable, you may not be getting what you paid for. For me, it was particularly horrifying to discover they were adulterating the olive oil with hazlenut oil – I don’t have a severe allergy to hazlenuts, but they make the insides of my ears itch. I avoid hazlenuts!
I keep getting such good responses to the post – and I have a partiality (disclaimer!) to small producers of anything, from olive oil to soap to pecans . . . I love buying from the entrepreneur.
Which is why I have taken this response from the comments page and made it an entry. Thank you, Mr. Sassone, for your thoughtful addition to this subject:
It is indeed a shame that the majority of the olive oil on the American and world market has been adulterated by unscrupulous sellers looking for enormous profits.
That is why I started growing olives on the island of Crete, making extra virgin olive oil-EVOO, and importing it to the US. I personally observe all steps in the process from the time the olive flowers bud on the tree until the EVOO goes in the can. I know it is the cleanest, freshest, highest quality, and most healthful EVOO you can buy at any price.
I also offer all customers copies of test reports from independent laboratories that show the exact quality. Acidity is 0.17%. Total polyphenols are 165ppm. Peroxide value is 6. Nothing can compare at any price.
When people buy EVOOs that are labeled as a mix of oil from several countries, they must take this into account: How clean was process to gather the olives? How clean was the factory that processed the oil? How clean were the trucks that transported the oil to the ship? How clean was the ship that transported the oil? You can see where this is going. At any one or more of dozens of steps in the process, contamination can occur. Some of the olive producing countries do not have food the safety standards like the European Union or US Food and Drug Administration.
My curiosity got the best of me. Recently, I sent samples of 13 EVOOs sold in the US for lab testing to find out just how good or bad they are. I dont have a web site just yet, but will publish the results as a comparison to my oil. So long as I keep complete control of the entire process, I can improve the quality of my oil each year.
My EVOO is now available in the US. It is the finest quality and most healthful EVOO you can buy at any price. Send me and email if interested. kretareserve@cox.net Thanks. Tony
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