h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was going to post a couple of links to a couple of pages with arguments for and against young-earth creationism, with particular reference to flood geology. The page with the arguments for it had pretty pathetic arguments, but the one against it had heaps of really good points... like if Noah had "two of every living thing" in the ark, then did that include microbes, viruses, worms and insects? And where did plants come from? And what did the herbivores eat when they got off the boat? And what did the animals eat while they were /on/ the boat?
And so on. And more about fossil stratification and stuff.

Steam room sounds awesome. I don't know steam rooms very well, so I don't know what it should be like. Can you describe a generic one?
I'm thinking it should be attached to the pool room; I think I remember you saying its the kind of room you use before or after having a swim. Am I right?

interesting. right now i feel swayed to the against side... those are some pretty good arguements...

steam room....steam room....
well i've only ever been in one. and it wasnt really all that nice, i intend to improve on it. but i'll describe it to you. it was small and the entire thing was tiled. i suspect it has some kind of drain in the floor. there are benches, the ones in the one i was in were just tiled blocks that came out of the wall, i think i'd want something more like wood benches, or marble i dont know... just soemthing nice. there was a glass door.
a steam room is pretty much exactly the same as a sauna, except in a sauna the air is very hot and very very dry. in a steam room the air is hot and moist..... i just like it better because i find it easier to breathe in

and yes you were right. although i suppose you could also use it after working out or whatever, i'm not sure swimming /has/ to be involved...

Can it have hothouse plants in it? Ones that like steam and heat?

I think the main feature in the room would be the seats. They have to be comfortable, and able to stand the heat and humidity. So couches won't work.

I'm trying, but all I can think of are those generic wooden beches. And they're not comfortable enough. Any ideas?

Should there be some kind of skylight? Or glass ceiling? Or glass walls? Or mirrors? Something which doesn't steam up, perhaps. Or maybe only steams up in particular patterns, like my bathroom mirror with the bubbles. Except the bubble mix didn't last very long, and now the whole mirror steams up anyway.

Hmm. Running water is always good. I wonder if there's a way to have a small waterfall, like in the lounge. Steamrooms are the things with the braziers and the hot rocks, right? So that you pick up the rocks with the tongs and drop them into the pool of shallow water to make the room more steamy?
I wonder if there's a way to have the rocks heated and the water flow over it so that you can control how much water there is, or how hot the rocks are, or something...

sure! it can definately have plants if you like...... so long as we're sure no spiders will live in them..

i agree with you, i think the main feature would be seats. and i really cant think of anything but wooden benches... anything else would get damp and go all gross and moldy and stuff... well we could always have some kind of plastic chairs. something thats really comfortable... what do you think of something like the lawn chairs you can lay down in? the ones with the plastic straps so that its not too hard, so that when you lay down it gives a little... something like that?

i didnt even think of glass or mirrored walls! you're a genious! can we have one wall with some kind of neat pattern though? or something? i think mirrors are a very cool idea...but i dont know how to make them not fog up. and i know that if it fogged up then i'd want to draw on it with my fingers. but actually that could be kind of fun...

i love the idea of the waterfall!!! thats wonderful! i dont know where to put that though.....
how about this.. tell me if you dont like it...
what you see from the pool is a glass wall with a glass door in it. once you walk into the steam room you see that the wall to your left and the wall right accross from you are tiled with a neat pattern. from the top of the corner created by the two walls falls a waterfall. and the wall to the right is a mirror......
now i'm not entirely sure about that.... and i dont know if you can have a waterfall on tile or if that will wear away that stuff that goes between the tiles...
what do you think?

as for the ceilling i dont know.... even if it was glad you couldnt see out of it... it would fog up, so i dont know. i liked the idea of things that steamed up in patterns, but i cant think of anything that does that...

and to be honest i havent a clue how a steam room actualy works...

sent you annother emial

http://www.sodecowater.com/html/steam%20and%20sauna/steam%20and%20sauna.html
Google is good.

Quote from another site, though:
"At the end of each season, the shower and steam room walls and floors are painted and the benches are all varnished. It takes one month of full-time work for two people just to cover the basic preparation of the steam baths for the new season."
That's a commercial place, though.

I don't like those plastic chairs, plastic is yuk. Something comfortable like that though. Maybe hammocks made out of canvas or something instead? Hey that sounds good! I like hammocks.

I was thinking of just a little waterfall, like an obviously artifical one, with a sluice gate or something, set into the wall where it can be easily reached.

I'm sure you can have a waterfall onto tiles, I'm sure there's special grouting which doesn't wear away, and doesn't mind water.

Now I'm thinking of one of the walls being glass, with a rock wall or a rock garden behind it, which you can't see from anywhere else, and has some hidden lights for when it's dark and you can only vaguely see through the glass 'coz it's fogged up and so it looks all mysterious or something.

It sounds like the hot stones thing only happens in saunas, and that steam rooms have special electrical steamers. Maybe it could be hidden, like in the mouth of a carving of a dragon or something, so that when it steams it looks like smoke.... Just a thought.

And there /has/ to be a mirror to draw on, otherwise where's the fun in it?

Maybe different textures of glass? It would all change appearance when it steams up anyway, but that could be cool.

I just realised the room doesn't have to be square. Maybe it could be a tube or something, like the shape of the bottom of a well or something. Oh wait, that would make it real hard to put tile and glass in...

jerms! i love you! you're brilliant!
sorry its taken me so long to reply by the way... i was held captive on the phone by my nana.

hmm... that sounds like lots and lots of work... you dont suppose we could hire someone? or maybe we could have fun doing it ourselves. i dont know. could be an adventure. so long as we didnt make it a serious job and work at it too too much. of course then we'd have not mind about it being out of comission for a while....

no, to be honest i'm not a fan of plastic chairs either... hammocks! i love hammocks so much!!! thats a great idea!
i think our castle has need of more hammocks... can we have a hammock room? just for the fun of it? with all differnt kinds of hammocks?

i like the small water fall idea.... can it be drinkable water?

and as for the steam comming out of the dragon! annother wonderful idea! can it come out of the nostrils? and is this a friendly dragon? or a mean one? just because i think i'll like him better if he has a personality. can we name him too?
can it be a stone dragon? ooh... can we make it look nity like hes clawing his way out of the wall? so you'd see his head and his arms... if dragons have arms.... but he'd be a small dragon i guess, dont want him to take up the whole room...

and a rock garden behind the glass. i especcially like it being one that you cant see from anywhere else can we have a few green leafy ferns in there too? just a coupple. and maybe some nifty weird looking plants?

and thank you i want to draw on the mirror!

and you're right! it doesnt have to be square! i thought of that but somehow failed to mention it in my last post
hey... hows this for an idea.... why dont we make it kind of big.... and it will still be a square, or a cube to be more accureate... but its a cube that is standing on one of its points. so the walls first slant outward and then when it gets to the middle they slant inward to form a peak at the top....just an idea... but i thouhgt it would be neat... of course the bottom cany come to a point, it'll have to be flattened out. but for floor space and hight issues it should be tall.
i dont know. what do you think? its just an idea.... but the flat edges would be good for glass and tile and stuff...

Well it's not an incredible amount of work, although it would be better to get someone else to do it. I'm not planning to build a whole castle by myself... I wouldn't be able to lift all the stones for the walls, for a start.

A hammock room? Hmm. Well there's going to be a room full of trees; we'll have to make sure they're the right distance apart for hammocks. That would be awesome. We could have a hammock party!

Drinkable water: Yes!

The dragon /has/ to have a personality; otherwise it's just as pointless as having mirrors in a steam room and not being able to draw on the fogged up mirrors!
What kind of personality, I don't know. As long as it's cool. And since it's a dragon that shouldn't be too hard.

The dragon being made out of stone: Yes!
The dragon clawing its way out of the wall: Yes!

Green leafy ferns in the rock garden: Yes!
Now I'm thinking it would be awesome to have all sorts of weird plants, ones that look like triffids or something, just so it looks even more abstract and 'out-of-this-world'.

I like the cube idea; that's awesome! Reminds me of a James Bond movie where he visited Q in a secret location, and the secret location was a shipwreck somewhere, so Q's office was the captain's cabin, but because it was a shipwreck it was all on a lean and all the furniture was attached to the floor so it wouldn't slide into the corner.

Um. How would the door attach to the wall though, if the room next to it is normal?

alright, one last reply...and then off to bed with me. will i see you tomorrow?

alright, i think thats a good idea. having someone else clean it is very good. and i know what you mean...... i couldnt do it either. far from it. not only could i not lift the stones but we'd also more than likely end up with a wobbaly looking castle...

yay! a hammock party! i love the idea!
jerms? can we sleep in the hammocks in the summer? or is the tree room inside....then we could no matter what time of year....

yay! can he be a friendly dragon? can we call him smaug? like in the hobbit... but he'll be a nice smaug....
you're great! drawing on mirrors and a dragon with a personality!

i was thinking if we had ferns and all sorts of weird plants then when it was all dark and steamy and theres the stone dragon... could look a little prehistoric.... theres a particular plant i'm thinking of...i dont know the name of it though... so i'll have to find that out....

yay! glad you like the cube idea! and i love james bond! do you remember what that one was called? i want to watch it again....

as for the door... ihave a plan...but i'm having a hard tim thinking of how to describe it
here goes nothing......
ok. so the door would obviously be upright. and rememer, this is all glass...... imagine the door in halves (hamburger fold) the top half sticks into the cube while the bottom half of the door sticks outside the cube. so that way it doesnt take up too much space inside, but it also doesnt feel like a hallway like it might if you started from the top of the door and left the whole thing outside......
does that make sense? i hope so.

did you get the email?
i love talking about the castle with you
i'll be back again tomorrow, and i'll think a little more when i'm in bed
night night jerms. sleep well when you go to bed. hopefully i'll see you tomorrow.

Yeah I'm sure you'll see me tomorrow.

Actually, instead of replying to this post now, I think I'll go call my parents. I wanted to catch up with them tonight because they're flying to Australia early tomorrow morning for a holiday. I'll have to come back to uni again afterwards, I think.

I love these ideas! Can't wait to see what you can come up with before you fall asleep! I guess I'll find out tomorrow...



Take care of yourself. And thank you for spending time with me. I feel heaps better. And I love designing the castle with you too, it's so fun!

yay! i hope i do get to see you today

ok you can reply to what i said tomorrow. i think i asked a few questions in it.

castles! i love talking about castles! in fact i may very well be hooked! good think you like it as much as me

and now... ideas before i fell asleep.... ok, to be honest before i fell asleep i was thinking of my sore throat. and suprisingly enough i fell asleep fairly quickly... i'm thinking theres something in the tylonol cold and sinus nighttime pills.
however... this morning i was thinking... although not about the steam room. can we have slides that come from differnt parts of the house and end up in the pool? maybe from the bedrooms... and then the slide can wind its way down and you land in the pool. if we do that then maybe the pool should be in the basement....hmm... actually we can leave that question till we finish with the steam room. pool next!

and you're welcome. theres nothing i would have liked better. i love spending time with you, and i'm glad that you're feeling better. hooray! cant wait till you come on and then we can have more fun!

i think i'll write you annother email... soonish...

I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier. I got overwhelmed again. Stupid uni.

I hope you sleep well. I'm looking forward to catching up on the backlog here, as soon as I'm not so busy or stressed.

Big hugs.

jerms!

someone please tell me what i'm doing up at 6:27...

thats alright, dont worry about it. i was hoping you were sleeping, but oh well.

i slept well, when i finally fell asleep.
yay! catching up on backlog! yay! not being so busy or so stressed..... i hope that comes soon for you.
will you still talk to me here on this thread a little today?(you're usually on, its your monday)

take care of yourself!
sending astral hugs!

hooray! you're here!
and i thought you wouldnt come today...

did you get my email?

Not recently; I got the one the other day though. I still hope to reply to that little backlog; it'll probably all be at once. I don't know when though.

I won't be here for long, I'm not great. Just posted a journal.
Text me? Why were you on premod?

Hugs.

jerms..........

i love you

i'm sorry you'll be away from hootoo, but its very important that you take care of yourself.

just promise me you wont forget me? and that you'll keep in touch? you know you're very important to me....

i was on premod, everone was...... it was because of the strike. they did it rather than shut down the site, you missed it yesterday

hugs.
i'll miss you till you come back, but i'll keep a light in the window for you

oh.......
and i promise to text you lots. do you need a phone call? i think i could manage that........

and as for letters, i sent one just night before last

this seems pointless as you've signed out and i dont know when you'll be back......... but i want to say it anyway

no........changed my mind. i'll say it in an email
either way i think it'll be a while before you read it.

be well

I love you. You're great!

Of all the things I could miss about hootoo, the thing I miss the most is talking to you, and our little castles thread here.

I got your e-mail. It was the only thing in my inbox I actually wanted to read. I'm still feeling too easily overwhelmed, and I've got something like 63 unread e-mails in my inbox, because I don't feel like reading them just now. They're all newsletters and site updates and requests for votes and stuff, and makes me want to not look at them. So I logged out, although I probably should have stayed and written a reply to at least one of the e-mails you sent me.
But I just want you to know that even though I haven't replied yet, I still read them, and I love getting e-mails from you. I know you said you wouldn't stop sending them, but just in case I also want to say: Please don't stop sending them! They don't have to be about anything at all, I love to read them anyway.



Strange about the premod. Do you know what the strike was about?

Kristine wants me to move to Melbourne, she says I can stay in their spare room until I find a job there and can afford a flat of my own.
I know that I could get paid a whole lot more there for the same work as here, and there are more opportunities for lots of things. And more investors, aparrantly. Brent's quite excited about that. He's kinda like me, in that he has good ideas for stuff to make, and he can make a prototype, but then he wants someone else to market and sell it so that he can get the royalties and go on to design other prototypes. The only difference is that he's more of an engineer, has done his degree, and is working in a job where he has lots of resources to work with, just lying around.
I found out yesterday that we've both designed very similar robots. I think mine will be smarter in the end, but his will be better made, and is probably already half-done. Aparrantly he's going to take over the world too. After talking this over with Jacob we've decided we don't mind if he takes over the world before us. If his army of robots are cool enough than he deserves to have it, and we're fairly sure we can make space for our own world-domination plans somewhere in amongst his. Besides, we like him.

Anyway, it looks like you either didn't get my text saying I'd be on hootoo, or you got it and weren't able to make it on yet. Either way, I'm sorry I missed you.
It's probably for the best. I should go buy some lunch. Maybe I'll be able to buy some cable ties, they're the next thing I need for the workstation chair. I have a councellor's appointment in just over two hours, so I'll probably come back online before then. Probably afterwards as well.
I really just want to go home, but I've already missed too many appointments this week. I just haven't felt up to going to them.
But I'm getting better.

Big hugs! I love you!

dont go anywhere!
i'm here!

*goes to read what he wrote*