Stranger things

[Taomeow]

55 minutes ago, Nungali said:

....  and 'Servia'   ?

 

 

 

I wasn't done yet.   Please stay tuned.

Serbia was called Servia until 1916. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=22913

[Gerard]

16 hours ago, Taomeow said:

I wonder how many eighth graders would pass this 1912 exam in 2024.  What do you think?  

 

None. Btw, that's what my exams were like in the 70s (Catholic school education).

[Taoist Texts]

18 hours ago, Taomeow said:

I wonder how many eighth graders would pass this 1912 exam in 2024.  What do you think?  

we dont have to guess

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-k-schools-getting-rid-of-analog-clocks-because-teens-cannot-tell-time/

[old3bob]

9 hours ago, Nungali said:

'Strange Fruit '  -

I just had a totally out of season (for here )  imported from USA delicious nectarine , which was 10 times better than our in season ones  that taste like they came out of deep cold storage  ( at the local super and some of the time , for some reason there is a few weeks break when we get nice fresh ones .

 

More strange fruit -  once I was buying bananas imported from Mexico , they where in large bins outside the  shop, against its wall and from there I had direct line of site to local banana plantations , local ones where 3 times the price .

 

What a wacky world we live in .

 

I don't fully trust any food from Mexico, including that labeled organic.  Same with food from China; have you ever been in a transplanted Chinese (to the US) food store?  They have all sorts of and kind of strange (to me) artificial looking items in multiple colors! 

[Taomeow]

29 minutes ago, old3bob said:

 

I don't fully trust any food from Mexico, including that labeled organic.  Same with food from China; have you ever been in a transplanted Chinese (to the US) food store?  They have all sorts of and kind of strange (to me) artificial looking items in multiple colors! 

 

It is OUR law to irradiate and chemicalize all fruits and vegetables from Mexico and China, so whatever may have been organic on location becomes non-organic once it crosses the border.  My special pet peeve is medicinal herbs -- sulphur added as preservative, otherwise can't be imported.  And to read labels on imported Japanese foods, you need a Ph.D. in chemistry.    

[Gerard]

8 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

I don't fully trust any food from Mexico, including that labeled organic.  Same with food from China; have you ever been in a transplanted Chinese (to the US) food store?  They have all sorts of and kind of strange (to me) artificial looking items in multiple colors! 

You'll eat better in Mexico and China than in the USA. Real cuisine not manufactured and soulless food. 
 

Learn to cook yourself and try to buy your food from market stalls that sell produce grown organically and the like. I used to exchange PMs from a member that no longer posts here who lives in Texas and all his groceries were purchased that way. 

Edited August 13 by Gerard

[old3bob]

11 minutes ago, Gerard said:

You'll eat better in Mexico and China than in the USA. Real cuisine not manufactured and soulless food. 
 

Learn to cook yourself and try to buy your food from market stalls that sell produce grown organically and the like. I used to exchange PMs from a member that no longer posts here who lives in Texas and all his groceries were purchased that way. 

 

  i think that would be very conditional on where, when and what food a person is getting in those countries.  Same with most places.

I've seen reports where someone found food in Mexico growing in very contaminated soil, and as for China even many of the kids toys from there have been found to be dangerously contaminated with who knows what;  (like lead paint) and there are also the food animal cages with serious crud in them and their sick occupant's.  Etc...  

[Nungali]

14 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

we dont have to guess

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-k-schools-getting-rid-of-analog-clocks-because-teens-cannot-tell-time/

 

Oh stop complaining, you !  Its the new fashion , the new 'architecture ' .   Its done by those old young kids that have now graduated , that now make things that LOOK LIKE  the things that used to be made ... except they dont actually work .

 

Look 'good' though .

 

 

Thats the new whizz bang 'arty'  local 'little city '  ( Coffs Harbor  .... 'Big City' is the capitol , Sydney )  court house .

 

They forgot to design the separate rooms and corridors , so sets of people ( eg, judges , the jury, the public, the accused , etc ) dont run into each other  .   Result ?   When I HAD to do jury duty there , we would wit outside  a side utility entrance , where a court officer was waiting  (sometimes in the rain ) until all of us where present , then usher us into  a fire exist ,  all cramped into a small lift , then out of that and ushered quickly into the jury room .

 

Once , in the foyer I was admiring the  very large expanse of glass  going up 3 floors

 

 

 

 

but then  ..... is that  rain water running down the INSIDE ?  I asked the court officer ;

" Yes ! And not only that , the roof leaks like a sieve !  The  first rain after opening , leaks everywhere ... even on the judges  desk ! I had to go around town  and buy  buckets . The judge had 3 sitting on his table  ! "

 

Me ;  " OH .. ummmm ... "

 

" And that;s not all !  You see all the scrrens up in each court for video evidence ;  on every wall in each direction, one small one for each 2 jurors , one for the judge ? Well, the first time we had video evidence ,  a lawyer offered up the disc , the judge nodded and  asked me to play it , i nodded ok and went to the nearest computer , looked all over it , nope . Checked the others, nope. Checked the judges , nope. 'Where do I put the disc in ?  Turns out none of the laptops had a  cd port . So then the case was held up while I went to all the electronic shops in town and bought as many  seperate  CD drives and leads as I could , and connect them all up . "

 

Me ; " Gosh !  Did you then ... "

 

" And thats not all !   ....  "

 

( you are gonna luv this bit ! )

 

" .... you see that 'clock' up there ? "

 

Me : " Huh ? No, where ? "

 

" Exactly , that huge ugly screen  sculpture  thing hanging down  from the  ceiling up there .  It says  " You now have  20 chances and 10 opportunities '  ... that means its  10:20  ! "

 

Me :  " What the f ..... ruit ?"

 

" AND , , supposedly, when the architect was put on the floor about it and it was pointed out that  all this corridor and private access  stuff was supposed to be considered in the design  they said  " We did CONSIDER it  , but since the contact said we didnt have to specifically incorporate it , we thought it would adversely impact on its artistic merit  !   " 

 

   

 

I guess it need to 'match' the police station next door   ;

 

 

  

 

[Nungali]

12 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

I don't fully trust any food from Mexico, including that labeled organic.  Same with food from China; have you ever been in a transplanted Chinese (to the US) food store?  They have all sorts of and kind of strange (to me) artificial looking items in multiple colors! 

 

A lot of herbal and health companies buy bulk from sources that buy bulk from China . Did you hear about when they analyzed a lot of it ? It contained none of the herbs claimed whatsoever  !  Analysis concluded a collection of probably ; grass clippings and other plant and shrub clippings and matter , perhaps from municipal gardening .

 

" Most commonly, counterfeiters swap one active ingredient for another. A well-worn trick is to replace high-quality American ginseng with its blander Chinese counterpart. Others exchange peppermint, which contains large amounts of the menthol used to treat inflammation and high temperatures, for spearmint, which contains minimal amounts of menthol.

Using cheaper, but less effective plant variants in place of true medicinal ones can easily deceive those who lack specialized knowledge of botany. For example, the most reliable way to differentiate between the root of Rumex chalepensis — a subspecies of a genus of plants known as docks and sorrels — and Rheum palmatum, or Chinese rhubarb, involves looking at them under an ultraviolet lamp. (The former emits a fluorescent purple glow; the latter does not.)

Other drugs contain wildly different ingredients from what they list on the package. Instead of adding Chinese magnolia berries to cough medicines, TCM counterfeiters sometimes use unripe wild grapes; instead of Gastrodia elata, an herb used to relieve rheumatic pain, they might use processed potatoes; and instead of saffron powder, believed to boost circulation, they might use dyed corn silk. In each case, people think they are taking TCM remedies, when they are actually just consuming cheap vegetables.

Often, counterfeiters mix in completely unrelated substances in order to increase the weight of the final product. Red-brick powder can bulk out the spores of the Japanese climbing fern to create an ineffectual cure for kidney stones. Longan fruit, used mainly for its nutritional value, fetches a higher price when coated in sugar. And sellers often cake pangolin scales in salt to ensure that the final price is worth risking punishment for trafficking a protected species.

Animal-based drugs can also contain substitutions. The sharp-nosed pit viper, a venomous snake found across a broad swath of China, is used in several TCM treatments. But sometimes, counterfeiters will mix parts of other commonly found snakes into the remedy, and sell it for the price of a pit viper treatment.

Perhaps most shocking are the painstakingly constructed fake versions of expensive, animal-based medicines: plastic antelope horns, deer antlers made of nothing more than animal hair and glue, or dried caterpillar fungus made from flour and water. "

 

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002735

[Nungali]

12 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

It is OUR law to irradiate and chemicalize all fruits and vegetables from Mexico and China, so whatever may have been organic on location becomes non-organic once it crosses the border.  My special pet peeve is medicinal herbs -- sulphur added as preservative, otherwise can't be imported.  And to read labels on imported Japanese foods, you need a Ph.D. in chemistry.    

 

and good luck with the font size on it too .

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, Gerard said:

You'll eat better in Mexico and China than in the USA. Real cuisine not manufactured and soulless food. 
 

Learn to cook yourself and try to buy your food from market stalls that sell produce grown organically and the like. I used to exchange PMs from a member that no longer posts here who lives in Texas and all his groceries were purchased that way. 

 

Old bob is talking about food FROM Mexico, not IN Mexico , so in some cases I agree with both of you.

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

  i think that would be very conditional on where, when and what food a person is getting in those countries.  Same with most places.

I've seen reports where someone found food in Mexico growing in very contaminated soil, and as for China even many of the kids toys from there have been found to be dangerously contaminated with who knows what;  (like lead paint) and there are also the food animal cages with serious crud in them and their sick occupant's.  Etc...  

 

Happens here a lot . Especially in near city suburbs that had industrial past , then some greenie makes a back yard veggie plot .

 

Also in our famous 'pristine'  Byron Bay , Oz's  first  tourist alternative capitol , home of all things wholesome and soulful

• https://www.echo.net.au/2018/04/issue-radioactive-dust-byron-bay-blows/

They might not be able to pay attention to that ...  but at least they got one of them new 'Hipster buildings' for their council to meet in

 

... Mhe , not bad , they forgot  the 'over presented'  disabled access ramp though , and the Aboriginal flag   , but  did include the facilities for TWO ' fossil free  transport modes '  ( the car park is hidden out the back  )  . 

 

I would be very careful where I ate in China . Mate goes there all the time on business  he said he was saying at a reputable Hotel with reasonable food . Then he starts telling me about the river out the front of it .  he said it was opaque, stinking and a weird color , and a woman was  fishing in it !  The she actually caught a fish , he said he could not believe  fish where  living in there . She got very excited, ran off with the fish into the back service door of the motel he was staying at ..... then came back out , without the fish .

 

PS , dont forget about my old posts on 'gutter oil'  !

 

 

Edited August 14 by Nungali

[Master Logray]

Eating in China is not so straight forward.  Many farmers, food manufacturers, restaurants customarily use chemicals to make food and fruits sweeter, keeping longer,  look better, resemble expensive ones.   But they are not multinational corporation that has laboratories, chemists, albeit doing the same thing in much safer ways.  They are normal people making use of easily available "resources and technologies" without thinking of the consequences.   This is the most dangerous aspect than the environmental heavy metal contamination or unhygienic preparation of food or fake foods.  The problem is more serious when it is "upsteam".   The raw ingredients are not safe.  So even reputable restaurants and 5 stars hotels won't know its food is not right.   The latest news is that tanks used for carrying chemicals are used to carry edible oils without prior cleansing, despite regulations and check.   There are soulless food because there are soulless people.

 

 

[Sanity Check]

On 8/12/2024 at 7:24 AM, Taomeow said:

I wonder how many eighth graders would pass this 1912 exam in 2024.  What do you think?  

 

 

 

Academic standards of tests are not evidence of people becoming less intelligent..

 

They only show how educational standards have diminished & continue to decline.

 

Judging by recent success with AI, the real indicator of intelligence is the amount of data a person (or computer) can process.

 

Coupled with capacity for pattern recognition, memory and context.

 

Our current environment might serve as an incentive for acceleration of human intelligence.

 

It took society around 10 years to accept scurvy being treatable with citrus fruits.

 

How much faster public opinion shifts today with recent trends. 

 

People are much harder to fool now, then they were in past eras.

Edited August 14 by Sanity Check

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Academic standards of tests are not evidence of people becoming less intelligent..

 

They only show how educational standards have diminished & continue to decline.

 

Judging by recent success with AI, the real indicator of intelligence is the amount of data a person (or computer) can process.

 

Coupled with capacity for pattern recognition, memory and context.

 

Our current environment might serve as an incentive for acceleration of human intelligence.

 

It took society around 10 years to accept scurvy being treatable with citrus fruits.

 

How much faster public opinion shifts today with recent trends. 

 

People are much harder to fool now, then they were in past eras.

 

true in some cases but very untrue in others, for instance a very sick pathological liar, thief,  cheat, grifter, con-man, sexual assaulter, fraud, convict, pro-violence perpetrator, dictator wana-be, etc., etc.  pulling the wool over the eyes of multiple millions of his supporters!!  I'm speaking of trump and his henchmen.

Edited August 14 by old3bob

[old3bob]

5 hours ago, Master Logray said:

Eating in China is not so straight forward.  Many farmers, food manufacturers, restaurants customarily use chemicals to make food and fruits sweeter, keeping longer,  look better, resemble expensive ones.   But they are not multinational corporation that has laboratories, chemists, albeit doing the same thing in much safer ways.  They are normal people making use of easily available "resources and technologies" without thinking of the consequences.   This is the most dangerous aspect than the environmental heavy metal contamination or unhygienic preparation of food or fake foods.  The problem is more serious when it is "upsteam".   The raw ingredients are not safe.  So even reputable restaurants and 5 stars hotels won't know its food is not right.   The latest news is that tanks used for carrying chemicals are used to carry edible oils without prior cleansing, despite regulations and check.   There are soulless food because there are soulless people.

 

 

some may know of the risks but their greed is the first priority in selling who knows what when it comes to various foods... others may not know the risks or are unlikely to get all the information that they should about things and are just trying to survive one more day as a desperately poor person in a very hard and often unforgiving environment!  (apparently like the lady that caught that fish and sold it to survive one more day )

Edited August 14 by old3bob

[old3bob]

10 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Old bob is talking about food FROM Mexico, not IN Mexico , so in some cases I agree with both of you.

 

righto, and there are also the roadside produce sellers that have no health license and sell stuff that has no background checks or history so unless you personally know and have verified their product details its a roll of the dice!  Years ago we might have gotten by ok with most roadside sellers but who knows now-a-days since somebody could be growing veggies where a lawn once existed that was soaked in "Roundup" and or other anti-weed or anti insect related chemicals ! 

Edited August 14 by old3bob

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, old3bob said:

 

true in some cases but very untrue in others, for instance a very sick pathological liar, thief,  cheat, grifter, con-man, sexual assaulter, fraud, convict, pro-violence perpetrator, dictator wana-be, etc., etc.  pulling the wool over the eyes of multiple millions of his supporters!!  I'm speaking of trump and his henchmen.

 

Methinks you're in the wrong thread for this.

[Taomeow]

2 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Academic standards of tests are not evidence of people becoming less intelligent..

 

They only show how educational standards have diminished & continue to decline.

 

Judging by recent success with AI, the real indicator of intelligence is the amount of data a person (or computer) can process.

 

Coupled with capacity for pattern recognition, memory and context.

 

Our current environment might serve as an incentive for acceleration of human intelligence.

 

It took society around 10 years to accept scurvy being treatable with citrus fruits.

 

How much faster public opinion shifts today with recent trends. 

 

People are much harder to fool now, then they were in past eras.

 

It's very true that academic standards and intelligence are absolutely not the same thing, but schools don't teach intelligence.  In the best case scenario they educate, and in the worst case scenario they brainwash.  In the current scenario they fail to educate and excel at brainwashing.   

 

AI is not intelligent.  It's a machine for processing and plagiarizing data.  A GIGO* machine, as a programmer might put it. 

Its pattern recognition is mercifully still paltry (that's why you are given those "I am not a robot" patterns to recognize when you want to sign up for this or that online -- you recognize them, the machine doesn't.  And those are simple visual patterns a 2-year-old has no problem with.  About complex ones, neither machines nor people with this skill deficient even know they exist, and fail to notice them on a lifelong basis.)  

 

Our current environment is all about dumbing people down.  And I don't see anyone being "harder to fool now" -- what I see is the opposite.  

 

*GIGO -- one of the basic principles of programming: "garbage in, garbage out."   Meaning, the machine is unable to obtain its own judgment, and whatever data you feed it will form the basis of its quasi-thinking process.  The data that is corrupted, untrue, biased, one-sided, distorted, fake, etc., will be processed toward conclusions that are corrupted, untrue, biased, one-sided, distorted, fake.  A machine is not capable of critical thinking, and its quasi-thinking will consist of garbage if people who program it supply garbage input.  But then we have to deal with garbage output this process produces that is, at the next step, fed to other machines as input.  So the process becomes exponential, and the pile of garbage masquerading as information grows at every step of it.  The same is true of people too, except those capable of critical thinking (the "intelligent" in the real sense of the word) might escape this process and avoid turning their brain into a dumpster for "trends" overfilling faster and faster.            

      

Edited August 14 by Taomeow

[old3bob]

4 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

It's very true that academic standards and intelligence are absolutely not the same thing, but schools don't teach intelligence.  In the best case scenario they educate, and in the worst case scenario they brainwash.  In the current scenario they fail to educate and excel at brainwashing.   

 

AI is not intelligent.  It's a machine for processing and plagiarizing data.  A GIGO* machine, as a programmer might put it. 

Its pattern recognition is mercifully still paltry (that's why you are given those "I am not a robot" patterns to recognize when you want to sign up for this or that online -- you recognize them, the machine doesn't.  And those are simple visual patterns a 2-year-old has no problem with.  About complex ones, neither machines nor people with this skill deficient even know they exist, and fail to notice them on a lifelong basis.)  

 

Our current environment is all about dumbing people down.  And I don't see anyone being "harder to fool now" -- what I see is the opposite.  

 

*GIGO -- one of the basic principles of programming: "garbage in, garbage out."   Meaning, the machine is unable to obtain its own judgment, and whatever data you feed it will form the basis of its quasi-thinking process.  The data that is corrupted, untrue, biased, one-sided, distorted, fake, etc., will be processed toward conclusions that are corrupted, untrue, biased, one-sided, distorted, fake.  A machine is not capable of critical thinking, and its quasi-thinking will consist of garbage if people who program it supply garbage input.  But then we have to deal with garbage output this process produces that is, at the next step, fed to other machines as input.  So the process becomes exponential, and the pile of garbage masquerading as information grows at every step of it.  The same is true of people too, except those capable of critical thinking (the "intelligent" in the real sense of the word) might escape this process and avoid turning their brain into a dumpster for "trends" overfilling faster and faster.            

      

 

ah ha, 'stranger things' indeed, describing me thinks the principles also related to another thread 

Edited August 14 by old3bob

[Nungali]

14 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

true in some cases but very untrue in others, for instance a very sick pathological liar, thief,  cheat, grifter, con-man, sexual assaulter, fraud, convict, pro-violence perpetrator, dictator wana-be, etc., etc.  pulling the wool over the eyes of multiple millions of his supporters!!  I'm speaking of trump and his henchmen.

 

I am going for the definition of intelligence as   being  able to enact  'solutions that benefit you and everyone else ' .  Nothing to do with IQ and AI

 

However AI seems to limiting our ability to find intelligent solutions .

 

data storage as a measure of intelligence  ?    POOO !

[Nungali]

14 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

some may know of the risks but their greed is the first priority in selling who knows what when it comes to various foods... others may not know the risks or are unlikely to get all the information that they should about things and are just trying to survive one more day as a desperately poor person in a very hard and often unforgiving environment!  (apparently like the lady that caught that fish and sold it to survive one more day )

 

yeah ok, but lesser ...

 

 the guys that spray their dope crops with poison ...'Oh man, its my only income , if I loose that  to caterpillars .... "

 

or the anti monoculture dudes here that now do mono culture garlic and ginger crops ?

" Oh Man , you can make a LOT of money out of garlic ! "

 

Me ; " REALLY !  Well, I never realized that making money drove environmental harm !   I thought people did it for fun ! "  

 

Ancient Egyptian negative confession item :

" I did not pollute the food or crops . " 

 

[Nungali]

13 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

righto, and there are also the roadside produce sellers that have no health license and sell stuff that has no background checks or history so unless you personally know and have verified their product details its a roll of the dice!  Years ago we might have gotten by ok with most roadside sellers but who knows now-a-days since somebody could be growing veggies where a lawn once existed that was soaked in "Roundup" and or other anti-weed or anti insect related chemicals ! 

 

Thats why I like my own produce  . 

 

Then there is the 'local tradition'  ; imagine my first trip to Tasmania , just off the boat , driving along , as soon as I get out of urban area , a road stall , VERY dilapidated and dirty, broken sign, 'dilapidated' tassie local in blue singlet shorts and gumboots

 

" Smoked Mutton Birds "   wtf .  

 

They still do it 'down there '   " Bird and chips "

 

 

 

[Nungali]

13 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

Methinks you're in the wrong thread for this.

 

dont worry , Cobie will report him

 

 

[Gerard]

I had no idea about GUTTER OIL

Thanks Nungali. I wonder if I have eaten food containing that poison when I lived in Taiwan. 
 

You are right OldBob. But I regularly buy jars containing Chinese pickles imported from China which I use as congee rice toppings. They are delicious. I hope "gutter oil" is not added to them.

 

No idea about what comes from Mexico. All I know is Mexican cuisine and from what I know is really nice but in Mexico. 

Edited August 15 by Gerard