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A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

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Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#31
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side project idea, chrome or firefox extension that takes text and pictures from popular news sites and removes all the distracting bells and whistles. Now that I think about it, something like that probably already exists.

Readability? https://www.readability.com/

I would rather have something local, not send a list of everything I read to some server somewhere.

Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#32
post #6

One year, we couldn’t buy bottled water for months, because the plant that produced the water somehow caught fire. Ouch. A way to know one lives in the developing world.

Meanwhile, in the actual developed world, nobody buys bottled water because the tap water is perfectly indistinguishable from the bottled stuff, which the stores only keep for tourists.

Ok, I'm curious. What geographic locations do you consider the "developed world"? People in Europe, Canada and the US all tend to drink large amounts of bottled water.

Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#33
post #18
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My tap water (from a well) is highly sulfuric. The quality and taste of tap water varies greatly from location to location, "developed world" or not. There are all sorts of good reasons to buy bottled water.

If your tap water is unusable, you do not live in a civilized society with modern infrastructure.

That infrastructure is called bottled water delivery.

Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#34
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes! Perhaps it's best to leave "civilization" out of this?

(Thanks for the correction; fixed.) A civilization needs modern infrastructure. One of these is certainly tap water. If the tap water is not usable for one of its primary purpose – drinking – then I would say that the infrastructure is lacking, and, by inference, the civilization. The same with road systems. If I can confidently know that I can drive safely on the roads, I live in a civilization with a modern, mainta…

Why can't a civilization have tap water that's suitable for everything except drinking, and let bottled water be delivered on the free market? If that's the most economically optimal way to handle things, that's a more advanced society.

Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#36
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes! Perhaps it's best to leave "civilization" out of this?

(Thanks for the correction; fixed.) A civilization needs modern infrastructure. One of these is certainly tap water. If the tap water is not usable for one of its primary purpose – drinking – then I would say that the infrastructure is lacking, and, by inference, the civilization. The same with road systems. If I can confidently know that I can drive safely on the roads, I live in a civilization with a modern, mainta…

>If, on the other hand, I must constantly look out for potholes [then I am not in civilization].

I guess civilization isn't possible in North America above 45°N then.

The other poster is right, your comments are better suited for Reddit.

Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#37
post #14
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, in the actual developed world, nobody buys bottled water because the tap water is perfectly indistinguishable from the bottled stuff, which the stores only keep for tourists.

My tap water (from a well) is highly sulfuric. The quality and taste of tap water varies greatly from location to location, "developed world" or not. There are all sorts of good reasons to buy bottled water.

Shoot...try the municipal tap water in Tampa, FL. Nasty, sulfurous stuff. You get used to it after living there for a while, but whenever I go back, it's bottled all the way.

Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#38
What a great little vignette on a part of our modern world. The clash of tradition, politics, love, and garbage. My family owns an auto repair shop and I could just feel the clothes that Sayyid wears on my skin again (grease and salt, similar, but not the same as his). My father also deals with most strata of society and Sayyid's observations ring true to me as my father's words: 'Assholes have all manner of 0's on their bank slips'.

Re: A neighborhood garbageman explains modern Egypt

#40
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Readability? https://www.readability.com/

I would rather have something local, not send a list of everything I read to some server somewhere.

Ah, then you want Readable.

http://readable.tastefulwords.com/

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