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3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

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Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#411
post #408
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trillion dollars is roughly two years of the entire Russian national exports, and I don’t think he has the capacity to pocket 10% of the total exports every year for the last twenty. The corruption needed to enable that level of loss would imply other people having the opportunity, and I expect competition between different corrupt officials would limit any one person. Perhaps I’m wrong — I’m not knowledgeable, thi…

Four oligarchs died under suspicious circumstances in the last, what, a week? Who gets their assets? FSB will gather them up. Nobody can be sure of the numbers. Most of us can't count that high in one lifetime.

> Nobody can be sure of the numbers.

Naturally, but the other estimates I’ve seen — even recently — put him between 70 and 274 billion. A quarter to a 14th of what you’re suggesting. While anything over about 2 billion is uncountable in a human lifetime, the lower number does not feel entirely unbelievable, in the way a trillion does.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#412
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was joking about mega conventionally meaning a million of something [1]. I agree it's certainly "mega" in the informal/Aussie sense. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

Nobody (in English at least) uses SI prefixes for currency though? £1M (happens to have the same shorthand, but) is never called 'a megapound'.

Someone does :)

HN discussion (2009): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=921524

https://tarsnap.com

> Tarsnap uses a prepaid model based on actual usage:

> Storage: 250 picodollars / byte-month of encoded data ($0.25 / GB-month)

> Bandwidth: 250 picodollars / byte of encoded data ($0.25 / GB)

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#414
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody (in English at least) uses SI prefixes for currency though? £1M (happens to have the same shorthand, but) is never called 'a megapound'.

Someone does :) HN discussion (2009): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=921524 https://tarsnap.com > Tarsnap uses a prepaid model based on actual usage: > Storage: 250 picodollars / byte-month of encoded data ($0.25 / GB-month) > Bandwidth: 250 picodollars / byte of encoded data ($0.25 / GB)

Y'know.. that direction actually makes a lot of sense! (Just since we don't already have common words for those I suppose.) Do find it annoying sometimes when something's specified as 0.0000025 $currencies per hour or whatever.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#415
post #334

My first thought was what work? Weren't nearly all people farmers for most of history? At least after hunter gathering ceased. But maybe pyramid building was their job and it took so long to build just one it was a career.

Half the year there was no farming to do. If they built them that way, that means laying one 2-ton block each minute of every daylight hour for half of each of 20 years. Plus extra for the special features.

Not quite half but June to September the flood season.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't support that theory at all, and didn't mention it. I even gave a completely reasonable explanation why they might not want to discuss it.

I'm sorry, I thought >or they didn't build them. implied somebody else built the pyramids.

That needn't be aliens. Human culture existed prior to the old kingdom.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#417
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely didn’t invent it, but I would say it’s fair to give Christianity itself credit for converting Rome to a 7 day week & then most of the rest of the world after. It takes a religion with certain characteristics to accomplish that.

> it’s fair to give Christianity itself credit for converting Rome to a 7 day week How so? Constantinus was the one who committed to the change and the day names were after the Roman Gods. Even today, we're using Viking names, like today happens to be Odin's Day, tomorrow's going to be Thor's Day and the day after is going to be Freya's Day. I'm not sure it is reasonable or rational to "credit Christianity itself".

Constantine adopted a 7 day calendar a few years after adopting Christianity. Christians had already adopted that calendar from Jews.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember this is translated by archaeologists, and most of them go into the profession thinking about mummies. I suspect whenever they come across a symbol they don't understand to translate, they might just assume it means "ooh, it must mean wrapping my father"! TL;DR:. Translator bias could be hitting hard...

No. We have a good grasp of how ancient Egypt worked. Archeologists also don't go into the profession "thinking about mummies", archeology is a respectable, evidence-based profession. Do you think the whole field of archeology is a joke?0 There are lots of dual-language pieces that have been used to verify an accurate translation of these very inscriptions.

For a long time archeology was simply known as “digging” and following that “digging for things”

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polish doesn't use those names, but a different system: Poniedziałek (lit. After not working) Wtorek (not sure) Środa (also not sure) Czwartek (lit. the fourth) Piątek (possibly means drinking day?) Sobota (not sure) Niedziela (Not working)

> Piątek (possibly means drinking day?) The word means "the fifth day", from piąty (fifth) rather than pić (to drink). Wtorek (Tuesday) comes from wtóry, meaning "second". Środa (Wednesday) is from środa, meaning “middle”. Sobota (Saturday) is from Hebrew שַׁבָּת‎ (šabbāṯ), meaning the Sabbath.

Oh yeah, I guess I was tired and didnt make the connection
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