71–80 of 421 posts
I feel sorry for the poor guys who never missed a day of work and gave their all to building that damn pyramid, 3200 years later nobody even knows who they were.
Said nobody on their death cot ever, “I wish I’d spent more time carving hieroglyphs down at the Pharoah’s tomb!”
I used to live in a scorpion-rich environment and can attest that a sting should disqualify one from manual labor for a day. I found that every time I was stung though the effects were less and less. The last time I was stung was a minor nuisance at most. I would advise, if you find yourself living with scorpions, to check your shoes, by shaking them out, before putting them on.
I second the shoe-shaking ritual. Even if you keep your shoes inside. When I lived in the desert, the neighbor had work done in his yard, and every scorpion from his property moved into mine. One day I found the cat eating a scorpion in the living room. Rushed him to the emergency cat vet place, and was told that cats aren't bothered by scorpions or their stings. But don't make crunchy, meaty scorpions part of a regu…
I used to live in a scorpion-rich environment and can attest that a sting should disqualify one from manual labor for a day. I found that every time I was stung though the effects were less and less. The last time I was stung was a minor nuisance at most. I would advise, if you find yourself living with scorpions, to check your shoes, by shaking them out, before putting them on.
My family lived in Texas for a time when my sister was younger and she stepped out of the shower one day and was stung on the head by a scorpion that was in her towel. Hearing that story I was certainly very vigilant, even paranoid perhaps, about checking my shoes and such when we went to visit family there when I was a kid.
The checking shoes by banging them is just muscle memory now.
Now, I like to use blacklights to find them at night.
The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc. The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year. Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons?
The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc. The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year. Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons?
https://www.learnreligions.com/the-six-seasons-of-india-p2-1...
> to embalm your brother If I'd used that excuse at my old work it would probably have triggered a 'difficult conversation' with my line manager.
The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc. The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year. Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons?
The 24 sekki can be further divided into three for a total of 72 shijijūni ko (七十二侯) that last for about five days each. These subseasons include mugi no toki itaru (麦秋至), or “the time for wheat has come,” which lasts from May 31 to June 5, and kamakiri shozu (“the mantis is born”) from June 6 to June 10. "
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/just-how-...
The full list is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar#The_24_sekki
There used to be a maintained shared Google Calendar you could use that would display those in your agenda. While the names did not fit exactly with my local weather, it was interesting to give a name to small parts of the year. It felt very natural and intuitive.
The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc. The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year. Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons?
Four seasons makes sense in all of these contexts, and I hypothesize that there are a lot of patterns in nature that are well bucketed into 4 sequential, equal seasons. This is impossible for me to demonstrate, unfortunately. Also, division by by 4 and 12, a year into four seasons is like a month into four weeks. Weeks seem to me to be among our most subjective fundamental time unit.
I see weeks as being the most arbitrary. I always like to imagine what life would be like if weeks were 3 days long. Or 11. I just love this topic.