Uhh....

Like, you can say you “know more” than the average person in antiquity - but you don’t. Maybe in a conceptual manner - yeah, we know about distant planets and galaxies, we’ve got germ theory, we have made a collection of the entire human genome, we have walked on the fucking moon - but from the perspective of someone from 500 BCE (if I may be allowed a dash of speculation here), does that matter?

In our industrialized, globalized world, I think we forget the sheer effort that went into everything. The sheer degree of skill needed to create homes, tools, clothing, ceramics, fine jewelry, statues, and everything in-between. The skill, knowledge, and effort that went into everyday subsistence activities, like farming, herding, and weaving; and into other trades such as shipping and manufacturing. These are not mindless tasks, devoid of calculation and forethought; to pretend they are in even the slightest is disingenuous.

I would even go so far as to say it is extremely classist & sexist, because - shocker - people still work in these fields. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the streets you walk, the buildings you eat and sleep and live in - these did not spawn out of a vacuum. Constant effort - unending, backbreaking labor, time, and skill has gone into the world we walk through today, so people can go on pretending like they’re somehow ‘smarter’ than those who came before them, when the only difference is that we* are able to concentrate on something besides our own survival. something otherwise ‘useless’ for everyday survival, and i say that as an archaeologist. Excavating a Bronze Age brewery does not provide food, it does not provide you with clothes (it actually damages them), it does not give you shelter, it mostly provides you with broken potsherds and a whole lot of dirt destined for floatation. Yes, it requires practical skills too - but many of these are essentially also used, even more frequently, in manual labor and agriculture.

And - in this broken, frightful world - we are so damn lucky** that people can even spare time for this, to learn more about the ancient world. And we are even more lucky that - when we are born with health complications, are disabled, or are faced with diseases like pneumonia, measles, and COVID - that these are not death sentences. Artificial scarcity, corporate greed, and fearmongering can make them so, but there is still that ability to live. To focus on the past, instead of making it to the next day, the next week, the next month.

But - I want to emphasize here - this is all entirely reliant on the work of people who continue to carry out the same manual labor done by countless individuals - enslaved and free - up through antiquity. People whose calculations were their survival, whose understanding of the natural world and local resources made the difference between life and death.

To pretend like we are somehow more knowledgable, more capable, more “advanced” intellectually than those who laid the foundations for the entire fucking world we live in today, is a lie. A smug, disgusting little lie that spits on all we have done as a species (and all the progress we are trying to make) with the idea that “we’ve done it”, we’re “superior,” this idea that only encourages rotting in self-assured apathy while the world burns.

And you cannot appreciate the past when you approach it with false assumptions which are based on nothing except preconcieved notions of modern superiority and the belief that knowledge is both ‘quantifiable’ and absolute. We are just as capable of joy, wisdom, compassion, and love as the ancients; and we are just as susceptible to fear, anger, and hatred as they were. I’m not saying everyone has to know the ins and outs of every ancient industry ever to appreciate the fucking Parthenon, but if someone cannot approach the ancient world with an open mind, a sense of humility, and self-reflection - then I suspect they cannot appreciate the fucking Parthenon.

*When I use the term 'we,' I am referring to individuals who do not specialize in manual labor/blue-collar industries and/or engage in subsistence agriculture.

Cnetizens: Get a winter melon, lie on a bamboo mat and cuddle it to sleep.

OP: Here’s my experience from last summer. Temperatures in Shanghai stayed above 35°C through July and August last year. I almost never turn on the air conditioner at night, only run a fan. Waking up soaked from the heat was pretty normal. Then I roll over, and my arms and legs touch something nice and cool. It’s not that sharp shocking cold that makes you shudder just really pleasant. What’s more it holds a steady cool temperature. No matter how long I hug it, it barely warms up. Once my skin moves away from its surface it cools down quickly again. It regulates itself surprisingly well. You don’t need to worry about it turning lukewarm.

Pros Great at keeping a constant cool temperature energy-free totally silent thick rind means it lasts a long time up to three months multi-purpose you can even hold it while doing squats or use it as a barrier so you don’t roll off the bed. Cons You’ll reek of vegetable odour after sleeping all night with it. You can’t eat it afterwards. Don’t get any ideas about turning it into a stuffed winter melon bowl. Don’t ask how I found out. It’s really heavy. Getting it home from the market is tough and throwing it away later is just as much hassle. The inside turns completely mushy watery pulp so you have no choice but to dump it. (cr 星辰大海随风去)

AC and electric fans can be found in nearly every household across China, yet not everyone likes keeping the AC running nonstop. Some people with extremely weak constitutions cannot stand air conditioning at all, nor can they bear constant airflow. That’s why people have come up with all sorts of ways to beat the heat.

Winter melons are 96% water. Their surface stays several degrees cooler than the surrounding air, so sleeping with one in your arms is basically hugging a natural cold water pack. As long as the rind stays intact, you can use it all summer. Just watch out for ruptures — if it splits open, all the liquid inside leaks out. Using winter melons to beat the heat has been a folk custom in China since ancient times.

There’s also the zhufuren竹夫人(literally bamboo lady, aka bamboo wife), a similar popular cooling tool. It’s a hollow cylindrical cage woven from thin bamboo strips. Air flows freely through its gaps, carrying heat away nonstop.

Chinese people had plenty of other clever ways to stay cool. In 1978, the bronze jian fou was unearthed from the Marquis Yi of Zeng’s tomb in Suizhou, Hubei. Dating back over 2,400 years, it’s China’s ancient version of a refrigerator. Ice went in the outer vessel, and wine was stored inside the inner container.

The Tang Dynasty had cool pavilions built next to water. Waterwheels channeled cool air indoors. Some even pumped water up to the rooftops to create artificial water curtains. The cooling trick relied on waterwheels spinning fans paired with flowing water.

By the Tang Dynasty, plenty of icy treats already existed. The most famous one was su shan酥山, an icy dairy confection. Modern researchers have worked out its general recipe. First, heat dairy cream until it nearly melts and turns soft. Drip it onto a plate to shape it like rolling mountains, then store it in an ice cellar to freeze solid.

Song Dynasty people enjoyed frozen drinks too. Records of the Eastern Capital’s Dreams documents summer treats sold in Bianjing, the Northern Song capital.

Cold treats grew far more diverse in the Song Dynasty. Historical records show that as early as 962, the third year of the Jianlong reign—the exact timeframe featured in Where Winds Meet—the imperial court set up the Bingjingwu冰井务(Ice Well Service), an official department dedicated to making cold food for summer relief. Every summer the government handed out these icy delicacies to officials to help them beat the heat. Booming Song Dynasty commerce gradually made cold drinks accessible to ordinary people, and the variety of icy treats available to civilians expanded greatly. Documents note three major cold drink shops operating in Kaifeng, capital of the Northern Song, selling a huge range of refreshments including bingxue(icy snow), cold congee soup, licorice decoction, preserved papaya, fresh papaya, chilled lychee paste, golden tangerine balls, snow foam spleen-soothing drink, elsholtzia beverage, perilla drink, cold rice wine drink, soapberry syrup, sweet soybean candy, mung bean water, brined plum drink, jiangcha tea, Wuling San herbal mix, Dashun San herbal mix, lychee cream and snow foam plum wine. The most common cold drink back then was bingxue冰雪❄️, comparable to modern ice pops. In winter Song people filled bronze basins with water mixed with sugar, sometimes fruit juice and plant gel, and left them outdoors to freeze solid. These blocks were then stored in ice cellars. The following summer they would cut the frozen slabs into chunks or carve them into animal shapes such as dogs and foxes to sell at cold drink shops.

Street vendors also sold frothy soybean drink, pear juice, plum syrup, ginger honey water and papaya nectar. The menu rivals today’s trendy bubble tea shops. Vendors set up stalls everywhere — at street corners, alley entrances and bridge crossings.

114 people died in the Hyatt Regency collapse, and in the US it's the third largest structural collapse fatality count, behind 9/11 and the Pemberton Mill collapse in 1860.

I've learned about this tragedy in my physics classes, to demonstrate tensile strength, and as a reminder about the importance of calculations being done right. I've also learned about it in my legal classes as an example of construction defect lawsuits. I've seen it referenced in disaster response classes.

Between AI and the current Presidential administration, we're barrelling right back towards this nightmare.

There are multiple errors that resulted in this collapse, but these stand out to me:

1. Kansas City was facing high unemployment and needed to attract jobs and business into the city. So the planning and inspection departments may have looked too closely at the designs.

2. An engineering firm too lazy to double check their designs or design changes by the manufacturer before approving them. The error that resulted in the collapse was one that the owner of the engineering firm said that a "first year engineering student" would spot.

3. The steel manufacturer treating preliminary plans as final plans, not verifying the math on their end.

The bridges' original design could only hold 60% of the minimum load required by city code. The design changes recommended by the manufacturer halved that. Less than a year and 3 weeks from opening to the public, the whole thing collapse.

Articles about the collapse say that everyone "trusted" the other party to have done the calculations correctly.

A significant portion of the population trusts what the computer or AI tells them, without checking. Imprecisely calibrated AI hallucinate information. The US economy is going into a downturn and federal regulatory agencies are being gutted.

We are going to see the Hyatt Regency Collapse repeat over and over for decades, not just in buildings, but in medicine, manufacturing, the environment, etc.

Some of this we're just going to have to weather, but the message for AI users comes straight from IBM (once the world's leading computer manufacturer) back in 1979:

"A Computer Cannot Be Held Accountable. Therefore A Computer Should Never Make A Management Decision."

The owner of the engineering firm that designed the Hyatt Regency spent the rest of his life lecturing on the disaster, to serve as a warning to his fellow engineers about the real-life consequences of sloppy design.

I don't think Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk will have the courage or the honor to do that when OpenAI / Meta / xAI are responsible for getting people killed.

BECAUSE THE STUDENT KNEW WHAT THE FUCK THEY WERE DOING.

Stop backing up my fucking files.

Stop asking me to back up my fucking files.

Stop taking my fucking files off my fucking computer.

I don't want a fucking reminder in three fucking days. Let me fucking say no.

Here's a text tutorial to get rid of that shit on Windows 11.

Here's a video tutorial to get rid of that shit on Windows 10.

Here's a video tutorial to get rid of that shit on Windows 11.