CriticalOne

Unlike Earth, where sunsets are red and orange due to the scattering of shorter blue wavelengths by our atmosphere, Mars has an extremely fine dust that scatters blue light more efficiently near the Sun.

So during sunset on Mars, the sky turns reddish-brown while the area around the Sun glows a soft blue. It’s the opposite of what we experience on Earth.

NASA’s rovers have captured this eerie sight

I’m not an expert on Egyptian religion, so I’m not the best person to ask this question to. I'll do my best to give a rundown on how we tend to view them.

As far as I’m aware, they’re all roughly concurrent in the sense that they all exist at the same time and share similar themes (cosmic egg, rising from the waters of Nun etc) but are also contradictory. This isn't really so much of a problem because each one of the Cosmogonies deals with a different aspect or theme of creation, so the minor contradictions don't really matter. They've all got the same themes and motifs. These myths also deal with deities that belong to the main pantheon, of which the worship belonged to the King only and he delegated this to priests. According to Ma'at, it was the King's job to maintain balance and keep the gods happy. One man cannot do this alone, so it gets delegated to priests, and you find these cosmogonies in temples on the walls of the main temples. Astonishingly enough (not), the chief deities of these temples are the ones who end up with these myths attached to them.

Hermopolis (the 8 gods of the Ogdoad): was most prominent in the Old Kingdom, and these are the gods you find in the Pyramid Texts, which, you guessed it, come from the Old Kingdom. (It gets renewed attention during the Roman period but the myth was already cemented by then)

Heliopolis (Atum and Ra): Also Old Kingdom but later. This myth gives rise to Shu/Tefnut and Nut/Geb, which in turn gives us Osiris/Isis, Seth/Nephthys and Horus. These are the Ennead and continue to be popular gods in mythology)

Memphis (Ptah): Again it began in the Old Kingdom wherein it is said that it was Ptah who created things (this later becomes Khnum). This one coexists with Heliopolis because it was said that Ptah's thought and speech gave Atum the idea to create the world.

Thebes (Amun): Amun is part of the Ogdoad, but as Amun gained prominence during the Middle Kingdom and then into the New Kingdom to become the chief deity (ousting Ra) a mythology developed that it was him who created the Ogdoad and the Ennead, the secret force behind it all. He is the secret part of all gods, just hidden from the world, which is why, when you get to the New Kingdom, there are so many gods with Amun in their name. Amun-Ra, Amun-Min etc etc.

So they're all connected, they just change by who was the most important deity at the time, and should give people an idea of how powerful the High Priests of Amun were that a different cosmogony didn't develop after this point. Akhenaten (plus his father and grandfather) tried to place the Aten as the chief god, and if that had stuck then I think we might have seen another, but Akhenaten didn't want slow change, so we never really got a full fledged myth for the Aten.

But I won't lie to you, I can't really say there was a 'consensus' on them being important one way or the other outside of a temple context. This is because we're not really aware of the common folk caring much about them outside of minor things like Khnum making people on his potter's wheel, or the land rising from chaos. Most of the 'creation' cosmogonies stem from the Pyramid Texts, which are a set of texts that were purely for the King and the priests. They weren't for the common folk and thus the common folk don't appear to (we lack evidence to say otherwise) get involved with them. Common folk are more preoccupied with other things and worship household deities.

You have to remember that a lot of what you're looking at is only accessible to those who can read, which was less than 2% of the Egyptian populace. Then you have to think of who would actually even come across these cosmogonies, and it's not a farmer or a stonemason. These texts were only seen by priests and the King, so it boils down to 'which god is chief of the pantheon at the minute and which myth fits into that narrative?' That's it.

As far as I can tell the reasons that this happens are:

The interpretation of disability accommodation as wokeness - a lot of the same people who are shitty about food limitations are also shitty about sign language interpreters and ramp requirements (also building regulations relating to the latter) because they view any accommodation as capitulation to a group they think should "suck it up and deal with it" (quietly exist without named or obvious accommodations). The conversations around peanut-free or milk-free classrooms to accommodate children with allergies are similarly unhinged and possibly more horrifying.

Conflating specialty diets as a result of proximity in the popular consciousness - you're a lot more likely to see something described as "vegan + gluten free" or to see vegan/vegetarian/g-free options grouped on menus than you are to see keto/vegan/gfree options so the "lefty" animal-free diets get grouped with gluten-free (it's also interesting that there are right-wing diets, and I wonder how many of these people remember when you used to be able to find "atkins-friendly" symbols on casual dining restaurant menus)

Gluten free diets became a fad fifteen years ago; tons of people read "Wheat Belly" and stopped eating wheat as a weight loss hack and when they went back to eating wheat because it's actually pretty difficult to get around a major staple grain they didn't experience any negative consequences; people saw this and basically think that it's a trend, that people are faking medically necessary diets as part of a fad. When questioned about this they always go "but, I mean, it's okay if you REALLY need to skip the wheat because you have a condition but most people are doing it because it's popular" when g-free diets haven't been a major trend for quite a while now. TO BE QUITE FAIR, I think that things like "Gluten Aware" cookies and beer and such, which contain a little gluten but not NO gluten contribute to this perception (these have annoyed me forever for two reasons: 1. They make people without celiac think that a little gluten is fine for people with celiac, which it is not; 2. fucking commit, companies. *I* want the cookies and beer and it's deeply annoying that these business will go to the lengths to create products with minimal gluten but won't actually make g-free foods - this is often because of the risk of cross contamination, they won't claim to make g-free things because they won't work with a dedicated g-free facility)

Anyway, in conclusion: it sucks, I'm sorry.

US specific:

Is your ham made with vinegar? Does your ham have the generic word "spices" on the ingredient list? Does your ham include "smoke flavoring"? Does your ham include caramel coloring?

Because malt vinegar has gluten in it. "Spices" may include wheat products in a mix. Smoke flavoring may be made with barley flour. Caramel coloring may be made with wheat or barley syrup.

If the label says "gluten free" that means that the "spices," caramel coloring, vinegar, and smoke flavor are certified to contain 20ppm or less of gluten.

If the ham is cured in any way, it may include gluten. If the ham was marinated, it probably includes gluten. If the ham was prepared in a facility that processes wheat in any way, it might be cross contaminated with gluten.

There's a company out there called "Gluten Free Water" that makes water in plastic bottles, poking fun at the idea that too many things have a gluten free label. I fucking hate that company. Because that company is functionally saying "lol, people are so sensitive and over the top about this, let's be a little silly and laugh about how crazy people can be with their 'gluten free' nonsense."

Did you know that there are sustainable food containers and straws that contain wheat? And that you don't have to label them? There are definitely people with celiac who have been sickened by biodegradable plastic straws in their "obviously water is gluten free there's no risk here" water.

"It's over-labeled so it looks trendy" just means you don't know how foods are made or what foods contain gluten. Gluten is ridiculously common in foods in general, and also in packaged meats.

Your ham has to say gluten free because it distinguishes it from the hams that do contain gluten, which is a fucking lot of them. And you're annoyed that your ham has to say gluten free and I'm annoyed that I'm standing in the grocery store calling a ham company to figure out where they source their caramel coloring so I can figure out if the damned ham is safe to eat.

"lol, oats don't have wheat in them, are people so stupid that they have to be told what is and isn't wheat? why does this oatmeal have a gluten free label?" Cross contamination; gluten free oats are not grown near wheat and are not processed in facilities that process wheat.

"lol, rice doesn't have wheat in it, why is this rice labeled gluten free, all rice is gluten free" Cross contamination; the rice isn't processed on equipment that processes wheat.

"lol why does this turkey breast say gluten free, it's just fucking turkey" read the ingredients on your "just" turkey, lots of packaged meat is packed in broth, some of which contains modified food starch, which may contain wheat.

"lol why are these strawberries labeled gluten free? they're fucking strawberries" WAX, BUDDY. SOME FRUITS ARE COATED IN PRESERVATIVE WAX FILMS BY THE MANUFACTURER AND SOME OF THOSE FUCKING FILMS CONTAIN GLUTEN.

I think that part of the reason that people are so irritated by g-free labels is because it exposes them to just how vast and alienating their food systems are.

"Ham should just be meat from a pig, maybe with sugar and salt; what on earth is happening that there might be wheat in that process? Nothing in that process should involve wheat." And then you might have to think about it for a second, might have to wonder what "sugar" and "salt" mean when someone is producing a million hams to be delivered thousands of miles away. It's not just sugar and salt; it's preservatives and nitrates and batch cooking and getting corn syrup instead of sugar and getting smoke flavoring instead of smoking the ham and turning your "whole food" into all the ingredients that make up the ingredients that make up the ingredients.

A "gluten free" label says "you can eat this" to somebody with celiac disease, who has already pounded their skull against the shittiness of the medical system and the food system.

But to someone who doesn't have to worry that their food is going to disable them, a "gluten free" sticker on ham takes a known quantity and turns their sandwich into a hyperobject that contains animal agriculture and industrial additive production and shipping pollution and the ongoing assault on regulation.

If it doesn't have the label, you can just eat your lunch. If it does have the label, you are haunted by the specter of RFK junior imploding the FDA.

This is Mayhem's bedroom. She stole it fair and square...

... And she's not giving it back.

The office immediately split into two factions over it. One says that if anyone falls in the spike pit it's their own fault for being so stupid and not watching where they're walking, so we should remove the sign. The other says that the sign is an insult, there shouldn't be a spike pit in our office at all, and having the sign up like that is just normalising the existence of the spike pit, so we should remove the sign.

Test subject

Look at that thing. We get used to sci-fi where the spaceships try to look aerodynamic and cool, and the Nostromo went in the exact opposite direction. It is an entire industrial refinery floating through the void, matching the interior of overly complex panels, cramped spaces and chimneys dripping with water, chains dangling and clinking in the factory shafts.

It's enormous. It gives the impression of being understaffed by its sheer size - it doesn't seem to fit that a crew of seven, only two of whom are engineers, can be responsible for this towering manufactory, an implicit reference to the corporate mishandling at the core of the story.

It takes the symbol of antihuman greed - the factory with its barely paid, unsupported, physically endangered workers - and slaps it directly into space. It tells you that Weyland-Yutani did not invent exploitation, but is part of a repeating cycle that never ended even once we commodified travelling to the stars.

Its labyrinthine layout, exposed piping, its ridiculous size, it all gives the alien a perfect place to hide and hunt the crew, as if the alien turns the very ship against its passengers, which Ripley then discovers was an intentional collaboration from the start. Even the vent shafts they believe they can corner the alien in have an unforseen advantage in the alien's favour.

put your TV on channel 2 so the VCR will work

open up the clamp shell case that held the VHS that has that satisfying crrlikkkkkk

put in the movie

gdi it has to be rewound

press STOP and then rewind because its so much faster that way

start the movie and it takes a few seconds for the movie to actually start cause you rewound to the VERY beginning

FBI will get you if you illegally distribute or exhibit this movie

and then. because you forgot that movies are always so much louder than TV

COMING SOON TO OWN ON VIDEO AND DVD

QUICK LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME OH FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay crisis averted.

although. these ads are kind of quiet. a little hard to hear.....

better turn up the volume...