I posted this at ATS but thought I'd use it as practice to try posting here ... still figuring out how to post links and quotes etc etc here ....

According to a recent poll - One third of married couples sleep in separate bedrooms.  There is a stigma attached to that so I'm surprised people admitted to it.  My parents and in-laws both did this and it worked well.  They were both married over 50 years.   GOTTA get a good nights sleep!

One Third of Married Couples Sleep in Separate Bedrooms

Quote:More than one-third of Americans have filed for a sleep divorce, according to a survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) of more than 2,000 adults.

Many couples struggle to get a good night’s sleep together fumbling with earplugs, eye masks, silent alarms and different bedtimes, before eventually opting for separate bedrooms.

“We know that poor sleep can worsen your mood, and those who are sleep deprived are more likely to argue with their partners,” Dr. Seema Khosla, a pulmonologist and spokesperson for the AASM, said in a statement.

“Getting a good night’s sleep is important for both health and happiness, so it’s no surprise that some couples choose to sleep apart for their overall well-being,” she added.

So, we get this neat discovery off the coast of Australia. 
From: New York Post

Quote:Scientists stumbled upon a massive forgotten colony off the coast of Australia that was once home to hundreds of thousands of people.

Various artifacts and signs of human life were discovered on the northwest shelf of Sahul, located off the coast of the northern region of Kimberley on a landmass that connects to New Guinea, according to a study in Quaternary Science Reviews.

The drowned piece of land was likely a thriving ecosystem during the Late Pleistocene period, which dates back as far as 2.5 million years.
The now-submerged landmass was nearly 250,000 square miles — more than 1.6 times the size of the United Kingdom.

Quote:The shelf — once thought to be a desert — was filled with habitable fresh and saltwater lakes, rivers and streams, as well as a large inland sea, that could have supported between 50,000 and 500,000 people.
It may have also served as a bridge for people to walk onto Australia before it became the massive island it is known as today.

Everyday we hear new Brave New World kind of headlines.  Multi-front bubble to burst.  Digital currency to replace all cash.  15 minute cities.  EV cars will replace ICE cars....and with it the freedom to go large distances in a short time privately.  One World Government.  The USA Uniparty.

Here's a new one for me.
Brace yourself for 'Q-Day,' a global cybersecurity event that could expose our most important secrets

I hope that date 2025 is wrong.  Put it out 50 years and most of us will miss the horror of loss of encryption on our computers....and end privacy in our lives.

Quote:When the technology gets there, though, it's "likely to be as transformational in the 21st century as harnessing electricity as a resource was in the 19th century," Michael Biercuk, the founder and CEO of quantum tech company Q-CTRL, told Reuters. 
So global superpowers like the United States and China are pouring tons of money into quantum research ahead of Q-Day. With companies like IBM, Amazon, Intel, Google, and more building quantum processors, North America is widely seen as the leader in quantum computing development. In 2022, the United States invested $1.8 billion into quantum research, while Canada committed an additional $100 million, according to estimates from consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Shiny new user here, an unknown enigma to everyone already here.
I'm burdman... a mild mannered liberal progressive gentleman who believes in the value of gentle, loving words absent profanities, controversy, and above all thing issued with earnest respect for anyone conversing with me.

Hi everyone. Just popping my head in to say hello!

This photo and Sagan's quote resonate so hard with me. If only we could all think in the context of humanity as a whole, maybe we could prevent our demise. Imagine what humanity could actually accomplish if we had worked together for the common good.

Quote:From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

— Carl Sagan

Some will probably know me from ATS. Glad to be aboard and hopefully i can contribute to the discusssions on this new site.

Hope to catch up with some friends both new and old. I know i can be controversial but that's what discussion is about at times.

Glad to be here.

I saw this movie last Saturday with my wife and sons.  

Holy Moses this was a great flick! There are so many reasons to like it. 

***This is in Japanese so you will be reading subtitles, but it did not
distract me one bit. 

The film actually makes you give a damn what happens to the characters. Unlike so 
much of the trash movies and TV shows that were released this year.
 
The actors and actresses are top notch and the post WW2 Japan setting is wonderful and realistic. 
There are actual relatable character emotions and REASONS for the these emotions presented 
in this film proficiently by the script writers. What a refreshing surprise! 

And then you have the 500 ton lizard in the room. Godzilla. 

Godzilla is truly scary in this instalment. He is no one's friend and just doesn't give
a fuck about you or your family. He is pure destruction created by atomic weapons
experimentation. This harkens back to the original 1954 movie concept and it is 
that original concept amplified like they could never have done it back then. Godzilla
represents the hazards of nuclear war and what happened to Japan. That is how I see it
anyway. 

The movie was released in limited theaters in the United States as it is a foreign movie but has since expanded to more theaters due to it's success but I read somewhere that due to some legal restrictions it may be forced out of American cinemas on Jan 1st. Not sure if that is true. 

I also read that they will be releasing a black and white version in Japan in the future (I suppose
to honor the original film). Not sure if this will come to American movie houses.

All in all if I gave this film a rating I would give it a 10 out of 10. And that is something I 
almost never do. I asked the people I saw it with and they agreed as well. Wow. 

And this movie only cost around 15 mil to make while other garbage costs 300 mil. Go figure. 

For me, best movie of 2023 hands down. 

Would love to hear your thoughts and highly recommend this film. 

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

I was always curious on what WW3 was supposed to be. CME, Hackers, Invasion, Civil War, Blue Beam, Aliens, What ever the f*ck is in the Ocean, and so on and so on. We've been conditioned to think that this was going to be something so noticeable that there would be no denying it was happening.

Well, what if we didn't realize that we are in WW10, what if all the myth's, biblical stories, from all religions were World Wars, Including the Adam and Eve story. You know the 2 major f*ck ups. BTW I am agnostic, just trying to add some stuff up :)

We have had the rise and fall of Empires, Colonization that changed World History, Worldwide slavery, destruction all over the world, our air, water, land. Why would these things not be considered World Wars? If there is a war in the Middle East (as usual) and it affects oil around the world in a bad way, is that not a World War.

"What is the full meaning of war?

a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air. a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations: The two nations were at war with each other. "


"What is the full meaning of worlds?


everything that exists; the universe; the macrocosm. any complex whole conceived as resembling the universe: the world of the microcosm. one of the three general groupings of physical nature: animal world; mineral world; vegetable world. any period, state, or sphere of existence: this world; the world to come. "

So, my point is that if we were to come to the realization that this isn't our first rodeo, we would pay better attention to those who are trying to make us think that the worst hasn't even happened yet, when in fact they know it never stopped.

Peace, NRE.

Hello people .

Hi, I've just joined so it will be a while till I get my son (the computer tech) to put an avatar on as all of you who know me I am not tech savvy. Probably take a while to get used to the new format and it's workings. Look forward to some interesting interactions without the trolls and idiots. Thanks.

One of my favorite free source mod games. Too bad the remakes didn't come anywhere close.

Quote:GoldenEye: Source is a total conversion mod developed using Valve's Source engine. GoldenEye: Source is a multiplayer remake of the 1997 Nintendo 64 video game GoldenEye 007, itself based on the James Bond film GoldenEye. The mod's development began in 2005, and remains in active development as of 2019.

Hi all, thanks for the invite. 

I will most likely be on both forums at least for a while and who knows, i might choose this place to be my de facto place to be. 

Thanks for the invite though.

Highly appreciated.

This site is obviously new and going to have to change. So for instance have you given any thoughts in regards to the “replies” and “topics” in each forum category? Let me tell you, the “replies” category is going to grow very large very quickly is my guess.

Also, how about a recent posts category like ats?

New posts and new posts today probably ain’t going to cut it, in my honest opinion, but damn this site is a very good first try.

Keep up the great work.

Loving it so far.

I'm sitting here with my warm clothes on (hubby likes the house at 73.  My body thinks this is somewhat on the chilly side) and stumble across something on my Facebook feed about snow... and snowflakes... and the question of "what's the biggest snowflake ever"?

Interesting question.  But it turns out that the answer is "it depends"...

It depends on what you're calling a snowflake.

Most of what we call snowflakes are simply single crystals of ice (think about salt crystals in your salt shaker) -- "snow crystals" -- and they're pretty tiny and the largest onrecord is only 1/3rd of an inch.

Snowflakes, however, are conglomerations of snow crystals and they can be pretty darn big... as in the size of a pizza pan https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/wor...-snowflake

You need a heavy, wet snow for that sort of thing: https://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/261/



Have YOU seen any big snowflakes?  We really don't get them in Texas, but I have a memory of seeing some pretty large and fluffy ones (perhaps close to half an inch) in Germany when I was a child.

I am looking forward to spirited engagement without the flames and foils of political theater.

There are plenty of things to talk about besides red/blue nonsense.

Long live the healthy exchange of ideas,

Vroom

My first try at a thread here.  Let's see how I do.
No fancy links .. not sure how to here.
Just my own review.   Some spoilers but I tried to keep it mostly generic ... 

We don't go to the movies often.  It's too expensive and honestly there aren't many good movies.  But we decided the Wonka movie looked cute so we went.  

We thought it was pretty good.  Definitely a family movie.  No body count.  No real violence.  No sex.  

The story tells of Willie Wonka before he started the magical factory.  He was into magic and chocolate and imagination.  It tells of his struggle to get his chocolate factory going and how he had to work through the machinations of bad guys like Slugworth to get his chocolate to the people.  

The songs were catchy and the story was cute.  And we find out why the ooompalooompas are part of Willie Wonka world.

The bad guys worked out of a Catholic Church, and the lair was under the church only accessible through the confessional and the priest in the confessional hitting a lever to get the bad guys down to the lair.  There were bad guy chocoholic Catholic monks as well.  Didn't appreciate any of that.  But it wasn't too bad.  Just a minor thing that I didn't like.

Overall ... it's a good lite weight movie for a rainy Sunday Afternoon.

Let’s put on our hats and dive into the realm of what if’s, shall we?

Now I’ve been going back and forth and thinking on this for a while, and it just makes sense (to me, at least)

It’s my belief that the Demons of the Bible are the Gods of days passed. Oh yeah, we’re going deep into this one. You’re welcome. Happy Tuesday.

Many, many moons ago, there were people all over the world living their lives the way they wanted to, worshipping who they wanted to. From the Sumerians to the villages of Africa, Muslims and Jews, to Rome and Greece, the Aztec, Eastern Indians, the list goes on.

Looking at these different (and more popular) religions, there seems to be a recurring theme, one that we’ve all noticed and one that can’t be ignored – partly because it’s a big point of contention:
“Blah blah blah, my God is the one true God.”
In and of itself, it doesn’t make you raise your head too much as that’s something you would expect from a religion. That said specific one is the only correct one, the rest are false, basically a line of a “pick me” religion. But what if there was more to that?

In the Christian Bible, for one of MANY instances, there is multiple mentions of not following any other Gods but the one true God; no others shall be placed before him, etc. This in and of itself is nothing but an admission that other gods do in fact exist, in my opinion.
Let’s go a step further… What do the ancient gods and “Demons” have in common? A lot, to put it simply. You can summon them. You can build them altars. You can offer them sacrifices and gifts. You can commune with them and ask them for favors. They each have individual areas of expertise (so to speak). They are both not to be toyed with. According to a lot of tales and books, they’ve each been around since the beginning, if not beforehand.

Side note - Could that explain verified cases of possession? Essentially just pissed off Gods from thousands of years ago that went from being worshipped and having offerings presented on a regular basis, to being demonized (pun intended) and turned away from... That would definitely explain the hatred towards anything with a Holy connotation to it.

On that note, what better way to get people to turn away from all of these ancient Gods/Entities than to claim they are pure evil and wash the masses into believing you?

When you look at everything and say it all out loud, it makes sense. To me, anyway.
 
Thoughts?

Good day!

I am very happy to see this site. Thanks for the invite.

Theatreboy.

As we learn more about animals, our behavior towards them changes.  A good example would be dogs --in the past, our treatment of them has been brutal.  We've used them in vivisections (stomach-churning stuff), medical experiments, as labor, as first line defenses (think police dogs, war dogs), chained them up outside, and often abandoned them to starve for many reasons.

They were just "things."  Terry Pratchett famously said "Evil is when you treat people as things." -- but this argument could also be applied to animals.  Evil is when you treat an animal as a disposable thing.  When you learn to "read" an animal, you get a much better outcome both for the animal and for you.

So... an article came up about how livestock are not "things that wander around and eat grass" but actually are capable of some self-awareness and complex behaviors.  https://www.science.org/content/article/...E78YRM_5f4

Which raises an interesting question:  we are omnivores.  We do better if we have some meat protein in our diet.  But what's the level of sentience at which we should say "don't eat that critter"/don't farm it for its body (I'm thinking about whales, dolphins, animals raised for their fur)?

I realize everyone has their own preferences (I have sworn off pork (but won't turn down the occasional piece of bacon... so I'm kind of a hypocrite there) and won't eat octopus/calamari.  I eat the occasional bit of beef but prefer chicken or fish or shrimp... or vegetarian.

So what's YOUR take on it?  At what point should we declare that an animal should be removed from our food chain?  Is "it's tasty" a good metric for determining what/who we should eat?





(By the way, on the topic of ethical treatment of animals, do you follow the saga of "Guard Dog", a character in the comic strip, Mutts?  It's heartwarming but a real tear-jerker... and the cartoonist actually raised awareness for folks about the difficulties dogs have when they're treated as things -- chained up and then abandoned when convenient.  (note: there's a very happy ending to the story, but if you're sentimental, grab a hanky first. https://mutts.com/pages/guard-dog)

I'm not sure how many here might actually remember me... but I am happy to find an opportunity to rejoin civil society...  It may be a while before I can return and respond to anyone ... life is keeping me distracted at the moment.  But I am hopeful... which is an amazingly uplifting experience... one that I really needed.

I was very happy to hear about this effort to restore the dialogue I had come to love so much.

Sorry to keep this atypically short (if you do remember me, I tend towards the long-winded.)  I will return for more as soon as I can.

I don't suppose any of you know this... but I actually have a "pick up" group of shanty singers (for those of you not familiar with this kind of thing, I let my friends who filk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filk_music) that I'll be at a convention and will do a set of shanties and if any want to join me, we can all sing together.  So... no practice but we are musicians and we know how to fake it for entertainment's sake)

(yes, I have a peculiar set of accomplishments)

Aaaanyway, I was browsing a newly available book from the Oriental Institute of Chicago (many of their publications are free) and came across a poem from ancient Egypt that surely sounds like a shanty.  It's called "Oh, I’m bound downstream on the Memphis Ferry" and it's about a young man who's leaving home to go to the big city (Memphis.)

There's other things in there, including Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun and a spell for love.

https://www.academia.edu/5961694/Ancient...Literature

But I was absolutely delighted to find a poem or song that might have been something like a shanty from the depths of time.  It's the little things like this that make scholarship fun.

Hey folks!

I'm here to wave papers and get into interesting discussions and not take a lot of umbrage at anything.

heccin heck is this;