RedCrystal

Body Wash Ingredients

Confession: I have a bit of a compulsion around reading anything. Especially in the shower. I see the shampoo bottle, and I try to just focus on only using it to wash my noggin. But the Brain takes over, and I am now reading it. First off, what does this funny looking "e" on the right mean?

Don't tell me. I don't really care. I could figure it out by going to logo databases and finding it. But it's not the point of this entry.

Here's the point of my entry. My wife's shampoos and body washes all tout having something fruity, vegetabley, or organicy in them. Something about smell or health, I guess. Although I don't know of many people who, upon seeing a cucumber, immediately think, "Oh good! My face can get really clean and healthy now! I'll smash this up and slather cucumber pulp all over me!"

My shampoo, however, does not. I didn't choose it because of that. It's just Man Shampoo, and so I don't think it matters all that much to most men. No words on the front about how much my hair will be shiny and flowing. Just the words "for Men." Good. I like it that way.

Here are the ingredients.

WOW! That's a lot of crap going into my hair! Okay, well, at least there are some hints about what is what.

1. Water. What is that? Oh, it's "Aqua." Also call "Eau" in high school French class.
2. Sodium Laureth Sulfate. Stuff that comes from Coconut Oil. Not sure why they don't just say "stuff we processed out of coconuts," but, I see Somethingium Laurethal Sulfate a lot on soapy stuff, so now I just think of it as "the soapy stuff that makes this better than real soap."
3. Cocamidopropyl Betaine. Also stuff that comes from Coconut Oil. This must be part of the part they processed out, processed back in again.
4. Cocamide DEA. More Coconut Oil. I'm thinking they probably should have thrown in the whole coconut by now, and saved money.
5. Polyquarternium-7. Mystery ingredient, but sounds very cool and chemistry-y.
6. Lauryl Glucoside. Actually processed Corn. I check my bottle to see if it still says "For Men" on the front. It does. I frown and move on.
7. Sodium Chloride. A natural mineral. Also enhances the taste of your hot popped and buttered Lauryl Glucoside.
8. Quillaja Saponaria Bark Extract. Fancy name for Panama Bark. Which is a ... it's ... um ... bark. From a tree. Maybe in Panama, maybe from Panama. Doesn't matter. Probably Native Americans were rubbing Panama Bark all over their heads to keep their hair shiny and flowing. Except for the parts that had bark bits tangled in.
9. Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Extract. Tea. Chamomile. Hot.
10. Rosmarinus Officinalis Leaf Extract. Rosemary. From Scarborough Fair. That won't seem funny to you if you're under 35 years old. Sigh. Moving on.
11. Salvia Officinalis Leaf Extract. Because hair is shaped like spaghetti, and we all know what kinds of things to put in spaghetti sauce.
12. Thymus Vulgaris Extract. Okay, that's enough. I was making a joke. Paul Simon and Chef Boyardee are hating on me now.
13. Oryza Sativa Bran Oil. Rice Bran. I realize now that I should have checked my shampoo for its Nutrition Facts label before I bought it. Maybe it should have more fiber....
14. Polyquarternium-10. Plant Cellulose. Because nobody wants to see cottage-cheese cheeks on their plants. Too obscure? Yeah, I thought so, too.
15. PEG-12 Dimethicone. Mystery ingredient #2. Also good for repairing cracked windshields. I made that up.
16. Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein. Because the USDA insists that you have enough servings of this every day. As does the American Wheat Lobby.
17. Glycol Stearate. Mystery #3.
18. Tetrasodium EDTA. Mystery #4.
19. Propylene Glycol. Mystery #5.
20. Citric Acid. From Molasses? Well, everybody appreciates a little tartness in their hair care products. Besides, I really do appreciate that, as an acid, this may affect pH balance. See Mr. Fix? I didn't totally sleep through 10th grade chemistry class. Boo-yah!
21. Fragrance. Hold this for a minute. I'm coming back to this one.
22. Benzyl Salicylate. Mystery #6. Although by now I'm thinking they just got tired of finding all the fancy names for coconuts, corn, tea, and Italian herbs and went whatever the scientists in the rooms without windows said was in this stuff.
23. Limomene. Half lime. Half lemon. Half mene.
24. Linalool. It's floor polish and a dessert topping!
25. Methylparaben. Mystery #6.
26. Propylparaben. Mystery #7.
27. Methylchloroisothiazolinone. Mystery #8 and #9. (It's too big a word to be just one.)
28. Methylisothiazolinone. This is what methylparaben needs to drink before hooking up with propylparaben to make little baby infantylparabens.

Who knew lather was so hard to make?

Anyway, that was actually not the point of this entry. No, I was not wasting your time. Looky here.

This is from the front of a body wash bottle my wife uses.

They make a Big Deal of the Natural Ingredients. Now, I don't really have any problem understanding this. It's just marketing. We all know it. And another part of the marketing is that if they write "white tea and ginger" on the front of the bottle, then it had better smell like white tea and ginger when you pop open the bottle in the store and stick your runny nose on it. (I saw you do it!)

Here's the back of the bottle:

Hey, hey, hey! I recognize a lot of those things.

1. Water
2. Sodium Laureth Sulfate
3. Lauramide DEA
4. TEA Cocoyl Glutamate
5. Cocamidopropyl Betaine
6. Fragrance
7. Sodium PCA
8. Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice
9. Carica Papaya Fruit Extract
10. Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract
11. Citrus Junos Fruit Extract
12. Zingiber Officinale Root Extract
13. Propylene Glycol
14. Polyquarternium-10
15. Benzophenone-4
16. Citric Acid
17. Tetrasodium EDTA
18. Methylparaben
19. PEG-150 Distearate
20. Methylchloroisothiazolinone
21. Methylisothiazolinone
22. Sodium Chloride
23. BHT
24. Yellow 5
25. Yellow 6
26. Red 40
27. Blue 1

Here's a different bottle. First the front.

... a-a-a-and the back:

1. Water
2. Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate
3. Ammonium Laureth Sulfate
4. Cocamidopropyl Betaine
5. Glycerin
6. Cucumis Sativus Fruit Extract
7. Cucumis Melo Fruit Extract
8. Tocopheryl Acetate
9. Fragrance
10. Polyquarternium-10
11. Cocamide MEA
12. PEG-5 Cocamide
13. Propylene Glycol
14. Ammonium Choride
15. Tetrasodium EDTA
16. Methylchloroisothiazolinone
17. Methylisothiazolinone
18. Etidronic Acid
19. Blue 1
20. Yellow 5

Now, real quick, beside Water and Propylene Glycol, what is an ingredient that all three products share and that you have no idea what is really in it?

Did you guess it?

Nope! It's not Methylchloroisothiazolinone. You make me laugh, Internets!

I'll give you a hint. It's fragrance.

Now here's the thing I don't understand. All three products make a big deal of itemizing every tiny detail of their ingredients, to the point of absurdity. There are only three people in the world who know what the proper scientific terms for plant and vegetable extracts are, and when they are not being paid to tell these manufacturers, they are busy editing Wikipedia in order to make you feel more stupid than you really are. (Hey, everyone needs a hobby, and you really don't want them doing their next favorite thing -- trying to figure out how to get dates and have it lead to procreation.)

Polyquarternium-10? Don't know, don't really care. As long as my hair stays on the top of my head, it's all good.

But why do they list all this mumbo-jumbo super-impressive chemistry stuff, and then hide the magical smells-good ingredient under the name "fragrance?" They clearly each use very different fragrances.

I used to think it was because they didn't want to get sued by people with allergies, or at least try to help out the Poison Control people that time when you "accidentally" actually drank a large plastic cup of it on a $20 bet from Dan in contracting at last year's Super Bowl party, and bubbles started coming out from under your fingernails.

But if that was really true (the reason for the science smackdown on the ingredients list, not the fingernails thing), then why don't they tell you what is in "fragrance?" How do they make it? Doesn't it also have an unpronounceable polysyllabic scientific-y sounding name?

Well, if you'll excuse me now, I'm going to eat lunch. It's an antibacterial ham sandwich with extra-lathering Swiss cheese.

And if you see Dan, tell him he still owes me $15.

Experimental study about Test Driven Development

I've heard anecdotally for a while now that TDD is, overall, better, but haven't been able to put my fingers on any evidence obtained from studies. Now it looks like there is a study that was done to determine exactly what is the CBR of TDD.

Experimental study about Test Driven Development | Peli at RiSE | Channel 9

The bottom line:

The results of the case studies indicate that the pre-release defect density of the four products decreased between 40% and 90% relative to similar projects that did not use the TDD practice. Subjectively, the teams experienced a 15–35% increase in initial development time after adopting TDD.

 

Circuit City

Michele said she heard Circuit City was closing, and wondered where we would then go to get our electronics.

Turns out, not all of them are closing: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27515440/

But Best Buy seems to be hanging in there.

And Papa needs a new TV.

Party splitting?

Remember how everyone said the Democrats couldn't get themselves into a cohesive whole, couldn't stay on message, unlike their Republican counterparts (a la Wednesday Meetings)? Well...

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1463341016/bctid1866657225

Someone get that man a Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McMuffin. With black coffee and a hash brown. Stat.

Stupid Vending Machine Vendors

Where I work, there are two beverage vending machines. My experience is that this is typical. One is for Coke. The other is for Pepsi.

I generally choose Coke products. Whatever. However, whichever brand I choose, I prefer to have a reasonably wide assortment of beverages from which to choose.

More to the point, I would really like to be able to choose a calorie-free and caffeine-free flavored beverage, whether or not it's carbonated.

Here are pictures of the Coke machine:

Typical lineup.

Top row: Fruit juices (calories), V8 Splashes (calories), Godiva coffee (caffeine + calories), Full Throttle (you're insane)

2nd row: Water (unflavored), Powerade (calories)

3rd row: Sweetened Tea (caffeine + calories), Lemonade (calories), Vitamin water (calories -- yes, really) and it costs twice as much a diet soda

4th row: Sprite (calories), Diet Coke (caffeine)

Last row: Coke (caffeine + calories), Coke Zero (caffeine)

Can't I get a Diet Sprite? Can't I get a diet orange? Do we really need that any many bottles of lemonade and tea? And do we really go through that many bottles of Dasani, when the water at the workplace is free and chilled already?

The Accidental Tourist

I finally finished reading The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler. I was not prepared for it.

Before I talk more about it, understand that I assume you have already read it. If you haven't, there are probably spoilers in this entry, although I'm not going out of my way to make them.

Although the entry is not available right now, I once talked about why this web site is named "twilight soul." It has a lot to do with my "inner self," which exists in a state of permanent sadness. I don't really know why, and it no longer has the sort of control over my life it used to. But there it is. Inside me is a fundamental affinity for melancholy.

So the protagonist of this story, Macon Leary, seems to have been cut from the same cloth as me. What was most interesting to me is how that shows up differently for different people connected to us. Ms. Tyler did a remarkable job with the characters around Macon. I could wish that the people around me could see through her eyes in order to see me.

Like Macon, I find that I frequently express strong emotions through some very unconventional channels. We both share a fondness for systems, although I suspect that this is a actually a coping mechanism designed to not have to work with emotions. And we have difficulty distinguishing who we are from who we are being when we are with the ones we love.

However, I'm pleased to say that this is no longer a mystery for me. I believe Macon made the right choice between Sarah and Muriel at the end. I wonder if this story reveals anything about my choices. While I have not had to choose between one of two partners in life, I do find myself facing choices about other people important in my life. I struggle with that. And, like Macon during most of the book, I am resisting any decision. I'm probably hiding my true feelings by expressing them through other channels. I'm not even sure which channels. Maybe writing in my blog more.

The part that frustrates me most about how I do this is that I feel incompetent at expressing the more positive emotions I have in a way that is accessible to those around me. Everyone I know says I'm "too wordy." Maybe that's how I do it. Maybe I do it the way the rest of my family does it, with not communicating at all unless there is bad news. (Weird juxtaposition, huh?)

I don't know. At the end of this entry, what I do know is that I will remember having read this book for the rest of my life, and will probably never want to see the movie.

Will it blend? -- the Man Cave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ppc4gaAS_Q

Comment left on NPR blog: Defiance

http://www.npr.org/blogs/politics/2008/10/defiance.html

Srsly!

Phil Town on The Real Culprits

http://www.philtown.com/phil_towns_blog/2008/10/the-real-culpri.html 

A quick read of Phil's post might suggest that the real culprits of the financial debaucle we're heading through might be the subprime mortgage borrowers, and there is a slight insinuation that he means racial minority mortgage borrowers.

I read a little more carefully, and I think he didn't mean to imply that minority mortgage borrowers were the culprits, but that it was due to attempts to deregulate the bank lending policies so that minority borrowers could qualify for mortgages which they had previously been wrongly denied. As a result of this deregulating, and also because banks began aggressively promoting adjustable rate mortgages toward real-estate speculators and house flippers, we are now in the mess we are in.

I trust Phil's perspective, and want to make sure he's not misunderstood.

Wondering if she reads this blog...

I'm going to buy Michele some flowers today on my way home. Just because. I'm not in trouble. It's not her birthday. She's been trying to convince me that I'm no longer romantic, but I don't believe her.

Special Commentary from Keith

It's not so much that I lean left, as much as I think McCain/Palin are just so outrageous.

Transcript here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27054958/

Desperate Deception and Clear Evidence of Fox News Bias

One of the headlines today is that Palin is going on the offensive, and she's doing it by attacking Obama's character, more than his plan or his substance.

Specifically, she's conducting fear-mongering (what a surprise...) by making a desperate attempt to associate him with terrorists. Here's her quote from FoxNews.com:

"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

-- FoxNews.com, Sunday, October 5, 2008 http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/05/attacks-personal-campaign-calendar-ticks-election-day/

Follow that link, please. No, really, go and read it. Read the whole article. Notice that Fox makes no attempt whatsoever to either support or deny the claim. Rather, they let the claim stand on its own merit, as though it had any merit. The only thing they do is quote Senator McCaskill (D-MO) refuting the allegation (at the end of the article), but only after they extensively quoted Senator Lieberman (I-CT) as saying that a double standard is at work and that Obama's campaign would have made the same kind of attack if they could.

Now, please go read just about any other news site about the same event where Palin made her claim. I'll provide some links, but you should also do some searching yourself. If you're at a loss but generally think that Palin is credible, then you should know Palin told Fox News that she reads the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal (the latter is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which also owns Fox News).

• AP: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h2TC1ztefVzOiXeCNcmY7lIelBNwD93K34700
• MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27022487/
• NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/us/politics/05palin.html
• Wash. Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/04/AR2008100402126.html?sub=AR
• Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-bill-ayers-obama,0,4485492.story
• CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/04/palin.obama/index.html
• LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-palin5-2008oct05,0,118648.story
• Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122315505846605217.html (start at 3rd paragraph -- and note that this one seems to skew almost as much as Fox News does)
• ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5957466&page=1
• CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/05/politics/fromtheroad/entry4502414.shtml

Nothing from NPR, PBS's News Hour (which generally leans right, according to FAIR), or BBC World News yet.

From what I gather, Palin's got the info from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html

That article made it abundantly clear that there is nothing substantial about his relationship.

Seriously, Sarah! Does this mean Obama could start attacking you because of your relationship to pit bulls?

Security Development Lifecycle

“Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing initiative is perhaps the most advanced and comprehensive application security program in the industry.”
“Managing Application Security From Beginning To End,” Forrester Research, Inc., August 2007

Security Development Lifecycle

This Biden v Palin debate condenses 90 minutes into 4.75 minutes. Faithfully.

Although I would have like to have seen Lisa address the jaw-dropping part about where Palin says she wants to expand executive powers into the legislative branch beyond where Dick Cheney took it. That's just stupefyingly scary.

LisaNova Live

LisaNova does the best Sarah Palin impression. It's in the same ballpark as Tina Fey's impression.