Stranger things

[Nungali]

 

[Taomeow]

Know these?  I saw them for the first time last year washed onto all of our beaches -- thousands of them.   As the summer progressed, they dried up and became indistinguishable from pieces of plastic littering the shore -- except unlike plastic, they eventually disintegrate with no harm to the environment.

And now they're back.  Some people claim they sting.  I try not to step on them so I'm not sure it's true.    

 

[Sanity Check]

57 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

Know these?  I saw them for the first time last year washed onto all of our beaches -- thousands of them.   As the summer progressed, they dried up and became indistinguishable from pieces of plastic littering the shore -- except unlike plastic, they eventually disintegrate with no harm to the environment.

And now they're back.  Some people claim they sting.  I try not to step on them so I'm not sure it's true.    

 

 

 

Resembles portuguese man o war.

 

The sting is not as bad as jellyfish.

 

Some advise peeing on the wound but its more like a inside joke / running gag than sound advice.

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Know these?  I saw them for the first time last year washed onto all of our beaches -- thousands of them.   As the summer progressed, they dried up and became indistinguishable from pieces of plastic littering the shore -- except unlike plastic, they eventually disintegrate with no harm to the environment.

And now they're back.  Some people claim they sting.  I try not to step on them so I'm not sure it's true.    

 

 

To me they fill the memories of a childhood day at the beach !     Zinc cream , hot chips  and .........   ' blue bottles ! '   

[Nungali]

Hmmmm ..... close examination ; " If there are this many on the beach, maybe they have all blown in ?"   <scans the ocean >   "I don't think there are too many over that way ." ..... 

 

 

[Taomeow]

I'm sure it was effective -- hardly anyone retains the ability to cough under general sedation.  But what it did to grammar was atrocious. 

 

[Nungali]

 < fake cough >   

 

Quick !   I need some of that ! 

[Sanity Check]

 

 

Wonder if a modern moat.

 

Might deter wild pigs and unwanted visitors.

[Taomeow]

3 hours ago, Nungali said:

 < fake cough >   

 

Quick !   I need some of that ! 

 

Three of the ingredients are OK, but chloroform and those undisclosed "other essentials" would definitely give me pause.

 

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Wonder if a modern moat.

 

Might deter wild pigs and unwanted visitors.

 

This reminded me of a friend of mine who lived in the neighborhood, who had an arroyo behind his house.  I don't know if this is something known outside arid areas like ours -- a waterway that is dry much of the time but turns into a moat of sorts after enough rain.  This friend fed a few local stray cats in front of it, and when the arroyo filled with water after a rainy season, it didn't deter them.  They jumped right over.    

[old3bob]

Didn't know this about the original source for the term:

Snake Oil—Salesmen and Doctors

"While today a “snake oil salesman” is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods, the use of snake oil has real, medicinal routes. Extracted from the oil of Chinese water snakes, it likely arrived in the United States in the 1800s, with the influx of Chinese workers toiling on the Transcontinental Railroad. Rich in omega-3 acids, it was used to reduce inflammation and treat arthritis and bursitis, and was rubbed on the workers’ joints after a long day of working on the railroad.

Enter Clark Stanley, “The Rattlesnake King.” Originally a cowboy, Stanley claimed to have studied with a Hopi medicine man who turned him on to the healing powers of snake oil. He took this new found “knowledge” on the road, performing a show-stopping act at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, where he reached into a bag, grabbed a rattlesnake, cut it open, and squeezed it. He labeled the extract snake oil, even though the FDA later confirmed that his products didn’t contain any kind of snake oil, rattlesnake or otherwise. That didn’t stop other unscrupulous doctors and fraudulent salesmen, who also started traveling the American West, peddling bottles of fake snake oil, giving the truly beneficial medical treatment a bad name."

[Taomeow]

37 minutes ago, old3bob said:

Didn't know this about the original source for the term:

Snake Oil—Salesmen and Doctors

"While today a “snake oil salesman” is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods, the use of snake oil has real, medicinal routes. Extracted from the oil of Chinese water snakes, it likely arrived in the United States in the 1800s, with the influx of Chinese workers toiling on the Transcontinental Railroad. Rich in omega-3 acids, it was used to reduce inflammation and treat arthritis and bursitis, and was rubbed on the workers’ joints after a long day of working on the railroad.

Enter Clark Stanley, “The Rattlesnake King.” Originally a cowboy, Stanley claimed to have studied with a Hopi medicine man who turned him on to the healing powers of snake oil. He took this new found “knowledge” on the road, performing a show-stopping act at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, where he reached into a bag, grabbed a rattlesnake, cut it open, and squeezed it. He labeled the extract snake oil, even though the FDA later confirmed that his products didn’t contain any kind of snake oil, rattlesnake or otherwise. That didn’t stop other unscrupulous doctors and fraudulent salesmen, who also started traveling the American West, peddling bottles of fake snake oil, giving the truly beneficial medical treatment a bad name."

 

It is still part of pharmacopoeia in many countries.  E.g., I used to always have the German ointment, Viprosal, on hand when attending our 6-hours-a-day weeks of taiji camp, to help my overworked leg muscles along.  It has viper venom.  Many participants used something like the tiger balm or what-not for the same purpose -- but theirs stank.  I'm sure some of them used that overpowering menthol-camphor/god-knows-what olfactory assault as a weapon in push-hands.  My snake oil, however, didn't have any smell, so I had to rely on skill only. 

  

There's quite a few preparations in wide use in Asia and, to a lesser extent, in Europe, also in Mexico and probably all over South America too.  The commercial ones are used for exactly the same purposes they were used in the 1800s.  But if you want to, e.g., cure severe arthritis to the extent that you're desperate enough, then travel to Hong Kong and hire a cobra hunter who will catch one, bring it to you alive, kill it in front of you, retrieve its gallbladder, and have you swallow it.  Reportedly it cures arthritis in one go.  (Snake gall successfully dissolves whole animals swallowed by the snake without damaging the intestines of the snake...  must be an interesting substance, tested in vivo daily for 150 million years...)     

Edited Saturday at 07:51 PM by Taomeow

[Nungali]

Plutonium . 

 

It ain't that bad . You can carry it around in your pocket .   Rumor has it someone swam in the cooling tank . Another had a lump on his desk . 

 

The risk is about the same as lead . 

 

As long as you don't breath it in or .... inject it  . 

 

Meet  Ebb Cabe , the first person to receive a plutonium injection   ...  not that he knew about it  !  

 

On 23 March 1945 Cade was on his way to work at a construction site for the Manhattan Project when he was involved in a traffic accident at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He was an African-American cement worker for the J.A. Jones Construction Company. Cade presented at the Oak Ridge Hospital with fractures of right patella, right radius and ulna and left femur. Dr. Hymer Friedell, deputy medical director of the Manhattan Engineer District, determined that as Cade was, as he characterized, a "well developed..well nourished" "colored male", he was suitable for "experimentation" with plutonium injection. Doctors left his fractures untreated for 20 days until after plutonium injections began on 10 April 1945. Cade received the injections at the Oak Ridge Hospital on the Clinton Engineer Works reservation without his consent or knowledge. He became known as HP-12 (Human Product-12) and was the first person to be injected with Plutonium-239.^[2][3] In order to test the migration of plutonium through his body, subsequently 15 of Cade's teeth were extracted and bone samples taken

 

According to one account, Cade departed suddenly from the hospital on his own initiative; one morning the nurse opened his door, and he was gone. Later it was learned that he moved out of state and died of heart failure in Greensboro

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebb_Cade

[old3bob]

 

and many died (which may have taken years) from being down wind and breathing radioactive particles after A bomb tests were conducted ..thus the Government rolling the dice with peoples lives!

 

[old3bob]

Cocaine was originally used by Andean civilizations for various purposes, including combating the effects of cold, hunger, and altitude sickness. It was also used in the form of tea or in a sachet. Later, cocaine was isolated from the coca leaves in 1860. In more recent times, cocaine and amphetamines were used during World Wars to increase alertness and suppress appetite. 

 

another once common use of cocaine shown below:

 

 

[Nungali]

On 4/12/2025 at 12:40 PM, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Wonder if a modern moat.

 

Might deter wild pigs and unwanted visitors.

 

Pigs maybe , but not unwanted visitors  .     Not that it was a  'lap the house swimming pool ' but your regular sort .  I was  working for the Post Office and pull up at expensive looking house to deliver a package (on  a little Honda 90 ) - stinker of a day , no one home . Gosh that pool looks inviting .   I would have jumped in if it was  lap pool as well .  Since I had gone down a long drive to the side of the house and no one seemed to be around  ... and I had no swimmers  , I thought a quick skinny dip was called for . 

 

Yep ... just as I dived in   the owner drives down the driveway   - she was not impressed  !  

 

Could deter pigs   ... could attract naked  strangers .

[Nungali]

7 hours ago, old3bob said:

Cocaine was originally used by Andean civilizations for various purposes, including combating the effects of cold, hunger, and altitude sickness. It was also used in the form of tea or in a sachet. Later, cocaine was isolated from the coca leaves in 1860. In more recent times, cocaine and amphetamines were used during World Wars to increase alertness and suppress appetite. 

 

another once common use of cocaine shown below:

 

 

 

Picky picky  .... Andeans didn't use cocaine they used coca leaves   . Cocaine wasn't synthesized  until 1855 . 

 

being picky due to that 'Cocaine Egyptian mummies '  scam .   Look what that lead to ; fuel for  all sorts of silly speculations about all sorts of things , including 'Atlantis', some type of Bronze Age or earlier world civilization etc etc  ... which I spent some time debunking here ... that caused anger to some  ,,, and some even left the site  !  

 

I said all along  ;     'Ummmmmm  ... archaeologists do coke ya know  ! '         ( I know some of them    .....not that I would of course !      I am on NOTHING   ..... like an archaeologists salary     .  

 

Also  I cant recommend  it for toothaches ... however if you feel you need a ' lift '   ; 

 

 

[Taomeow]

45 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

Picky picky  .... Andeans didn't use cocaine they used coca leaves   . Cocaine wasn't synthesized  until 1855 . 

 

 

My old pet peeve.  I find it quite manipulative (to avoid using obscene language) that they deliberately conflated plants -- psychoactive, narcotic, entheogenic -- with synthetic drugs that imitate (usually poorly and often dangerously) this or that natural substance those plants contain.  Many nasty things follow from this premeditated confusion.  

Edited Sunday at 11:56 PM by Taomeow

[Nungali]

Especially when one considers the vast pharmacopoeia  contained within coca and its 8000 year old usage (in its natural form ) . 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

Especially when one considers the vast pharmacopoeia  contained within coca and its 8000 year old usage (in its natural form ) . 

 

Which reminds me of the peculiar instance of Edgar Cayce ("the sleeping prophet") saving his wife's life.  He was a very pious religious man who never smoked, drank, or used any drugs, so it shocked the socks off everybody present (including a concilium of doctors) when he went into one of his trances and emerged with a prescription of cocaine for his wife.  The wife was in the end stage of tuberculosis and the doctors gave her two hours left to live.  But due to Cayce's reputation -- no one suspected any foul play -- the remedy was reluctantly administered.  The lady recovered and the happy marriage lasted for many more years.   

Now it makes me wonder if she would ever contract tuberculosis to begin with if she had the coca leaves habit from the start.  

 

Incidentally, natural opium (not heroin and not synthetic opioids) cures diabetes...