Apech

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Posts posted by Apech

  1. Posted

    On 3/19/2025 at 10:58 AM, old3bob said:

     

    and there are all the local, county, state, national and international "accidents" of various types that were and are largely preventable if not for sloppy trends from A-Z for most everything from A-Z!  (with serious results on our lives and the environment, for instance industrial fires, oil tanker disasters, train wrecks, airline crash's,  many endlessly delayed infrastructure problems with roads, bridges, buildings, lead water pipes,  forever compounds, trash in the oceans, etc. etc...)

     

     

     

     

    This thread is about slop.  Not about serious industrial accidents.  

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    49 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

     

    I´ll give it a go.  People buy solar panels thinking that they´re doing their part to "save the planet" by "going green."  Of course it´s not true because a lot of oil was used in the manufacture and transport of those solar panels.  Customers think they are getting one thing -- an opportunity to connect with nature and do good for the climate --  but they are being deceived.  It´s a fake do-gooder purchase.  Just like a rubber duck isn´t really a duck.  We buy them to get some sort of three-steps removed connection with nature but they don´t work; we´re deceived.  

     

    We live in a world where real environmental action is replaced by confusing fake actions and real ducks are replaced by rubber ones.

     

    It´s sad but also oddly reassuring.  If people are wrong about solar panels and rubber duckies maybe they´re  also wrong about the imminent demise of our duckmocracy. I hope so.


    I have a solar panel - which makes me sad but oddly reassured

     

    I think I’ll get another one 😃

    • Haha 2

  6. Posted

    This thread is not really about food but I will begin with an illustration from today.  I was out shopping and decided on a whim to have some fast food for lunch.  I went to a KFC and a meal there.  This is the first time since November (when I went to  macDonalds) that I have had this kind of food.  The chicken burger (called a 'classical' or something) was mostly tasteless but with some ice cold salad in it which was kind of off putting to crunch into.  The fries were covered in a sweet and sour sauce and bits of bacon.  I washed it down with a diet Pepsi which tasted mostly of aniseed.  

     

    There were an unusually large number of overweight people in the restaurant. Parents and children.  Everyone was well behaved and the staff were brilliant.  In fact, because we had a loyalty card from a supermarket the meal was free!!!  This was the best thing about it.  I wouldn't go again, unless forced by circumstances; but I have nothing against the place and am happy to allow its continued existence given the need for variety and complexity in our world.

     

    It did get me to thinking though.  Why is it, that on all levels, physical, emotional and factual our lives today are overflowing with slop.  Why are fries coated with sticky sauce?  Why is all the taste in the additives?  It's the same with TV, the news, everything that is presented to us as being enjoyable.  Anything on Facebook or Twitter.  Even in lifestyle choices (to use that terrible phrase) we are encouraged to prefer slop and not things that are truly nutritious or wholesome.  Is that why the birthrate is dropping?  Because people trade the deeply rewarding experience of having children for self indulgent frippery???

     

    Think about your day my friends and give me your best examples of daily slop.

     

    NB.  Nothing political please!

     

     

    • Like 3

  10. Posted

    10 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

    Sometimes I get a message from Cloudflare, that they're unable to connect. Sometimes it just takes 30 seconds or longer to pull up a thread or change between topics.

    Anybody else experiencing this?


    Yes it has been very hard to log on recently - It seems to be a server problem and people have been trying to contact the owner but they are a bit elusive.

    • Like 3

  12. Posted

    13 minutes ago, Nungali said:

     

    Well, yes  ... after they went to the beach for a picnic .

     

    By the way, feel free to contribute . This thread is my attempt  to get my head around various expansions and contractions of the Egyptian Kingdoms , with dates and relevant info on why these  things might have happened  ( eg . why an abandonment of fort in Gaza as the  first dynasty formed . )  This is my attempt at a step by step approach .

     

    Aside from that 'extension '    where there two more , or one ?   Checking on line maps shows great 'variety "  (one map mid bronze age shows the whole area of Levant as Egyptian ... with a big yellow space in the middle labelled Israel  ???


    Probably worth pointing out that Egypt was two kingdoms in one.  Upper and Lower, south and north.  They had a different dynastic and pre- dynastic history - different terrain and flora and fauna etc.  

     

    The great Egyptologist Sethe interpreted much of the early iconography as representing the struggles around this union.  The same struggle preserved in the myths is Horus and Set and also the souls of Pe and Nekhen etc.

     

     

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    2 hours ago, Nungali said:

    Well, what is love ?  Its usually qualified by something else ;   " I love ..... " 

     

    but unqualified , ie. 'pure love'  isnt a 'type' of love, it is love itself . So what is it ?  Its that universal force that causes certain things with  a potential to come together  in a new 'unity' .   Think of hydrogen and oxygen ... they are 'made'  to  'fall in love'   -  combine with each other ,   to make  water .

     

    In many cases we dont choose to 'love'   ( and that isnt really 'love' except on a biological level )  its the  euphoric sense we get as a driver to associate and mate with someone to produce offspring due to unconsciously sensing their   potential genetic match .

     

    Hows that for being 'romantic' .   :)

     

    Anyway , if one feels separated from God, or whatever ... even their 'higher self '  , I think that is why people say 'God is love' ; when they find or reconnect with that source it triggers the feeling of lost/ renewed  or new unity .

     

    But when everything gets literal and personalized  .... no, it doesnt make much sense ,  does it ?

     

     

    What is this thing called love?
    This funny thing called love?
    Just who can solve its mystery?
    Why should it make a fool of me?

    I saw you there one wonderful day
    You took my heart and threw it away
    That's why I ask the Lord in Heaven above
    What is this thing called love?

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    13 hours ago, Nungali said:

     

     

    Errrrrmmmmm   ....

     

    I thought you where about to say that Chinese actually invented  dahl and chapatis  !    :unsure:

     

     

    .


    Did the Chinese invent Marmite (vegemite) or Weetabix?

     

    • Haha 1

  18. Posted

    6 hours ago, silent thunder said:

    Always dug The Ravens and their defensive minded culture.  Probably because I'm a life long Viking fan raised on the Purple People Eaters with Carl and Alan back in 'the day'.

     

    While I haven't watched but a handful of games in the last 14 years... My Son has recently brought me back and after seeing Jackson and Henry having their literal way with the Steelers defense today... wow!   That was a clinic in running schemes mixed with play action.  A Ravens Vikings superbowl would be a really fun win win day.

     
     

    What on earth are you talking about?

    • Haha 2

  21. Posted

    9 hours ago, Sir Darius the Clairvoyent said:

    I realize this is below many of you ( ;) ) but I’d like to chat a little if it’s of interrelated to you. Some topics could be: mbappes form, what on earth is happening to City and will united ever get its s together? But as all good convos it is open format: bring up whatever you’d like.

    Amorim was very good at Sporting Lisbon but the problems he faces at United I think may well be too much ( but I hope not).

  25. Posted

    14 hours ago, old3bob said:

     

    yea it's crazy what some contractors charge.  I got a bid for about $6,000.00 to dig an 18" deep ditch for a natural gas line, so I decided to rent a ditch witch machine for a couple hundred bucks and did the job myself,  (with some help from my neighbor and sand fill-in help from my wife ) that went great until I hit some boulders and had to rent an electric powered jack hammer to bust them up.  I still probably saved $5,500.00 on that part of the job and probably another $2,000+ on labor for the furnace install which I also did.  (very carefully)

     

    for those that have never used a ditch witch its like a big chain saw but for dirt.  Below is a one person backyard machine but they also have huge industrial ones for digging much wider and deeper ditches

     

    6775ce9bc1b96_ditchwitch.jpg.55c513c2542a983302d3b311e8ae96b7.jpg


    wouldn’t it have been cheaper just to get the wife to dig the whole thing?