Now to invent a quick save for Fazor:

Doesn't lots of mythologies treat fish and sharks differently spiritually?

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

" He's got a point there!"

Oblio

Mesopotamian ziggurats resemble closely those pyramids found in mesoamerica, often having the same function.


I find it curious that no Egyptian pyramid dated before or after those 3 at Giza shares their high level of craftmanship and longevity. Besides being blank, unlike everything else egyptians made, those 3 are unmistakably unique.



Oh, and I've not watched the show; we don't do tv.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Nah, Sneferu probably said, "damn, I just can't emulate that 52 degree angle; just build it at 43 degrees."

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Yes.... and if he had read the Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy, he would have been safe at " 42 " .

Dan

Heh, to be sure.

He probably got his ideas for the inclination after seeing the Narmer pallette.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Exactly. Though I know some sharks who hang out at the billiard hall and are not fish (but they don't have a vertically aligned tail either).

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

They resemble some of the more agressive credit card companies.
Hmmm...

"Can't you see them circilin' honey,
Can't you see them schoolin' around,
There's fins to the right, fons to the rest,
And you're the only bait in town."
(Jimmy Buffett)

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"Everybody's playing the Game
But nobody's rules are the same
Nobody's on nobody's side." (Tim Rice)
No matter how strong, or brave, or pure of heart you may be; sometimes the dragon wins!

That can only be by ignoring the Step Pyramid of Djoser, and the Meidum, Bent and Red pyramids of Sneferu which show a fairly clear development of technique and knowledge.
This includes sophisticated construction in the inner chambers that wasn't used in the Giza pyramids, possibly because they could see it wasn't needed after all.

As for blank what do you mean, without ornamentation? When covered they'd have been impossible to walk on, so ornamentation couldn't have been seen and writing couldn't have been read.
I think they realized that it would looks rather silly to have the lover bit covered in writing if the upper bit wasn't and reserved the writing for the pillars, mastabas, temples and other buildings in the area.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Should we take the History Channel seriously anymore?

There are a few shows which are pretty good and one or two which are excellent. Telling those from the lousy misinformation is the trick, and I don't think the average viewer has the knack.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I stopped doing that after they changed the name. They'd been going downhill before that, but that's the point at which Fonzie left the ramp.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I was home sick on Friday and I have to say that "History" was the only thing that kept me sane for the two hours during daylight that I was actually awake. Daytime television is . . . lacking. History had some good programming on Ancient myths and what not. No room for woo there, though.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

There's some sort of show on there about what the world would be like after people become extinct, showing various time periods. I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, there's a trailer running for it over here which ends with the narrator saying "To see what the internet would look like after people, go online". Always amuses me, that.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

There is a progression of pyramids up the great pyramids, after that economics and a change in tomb building philosphy brought that era to an end. Tombs moved to the Valley Of Kings if I have my chronology right. As to them being blank, well after 3000 years of sand blasting who knows how the original surface actually looked?

The surface has been saved, since it was actually removed and used in other buildings.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

It wasn't essentially the movement of the stones, but the precision in the actual cut of the stones that was improbable. It is extremely difficult even to this day even with human laser technology

Define "Extremely difficult, even today".

My post prior to my current position was at a 30 story high rise, adorned predominately with large cut and polished granite slabs. They were expensive, but they weren't particularly difficult to procure. In fact, in the rare occasion that one needed replaced, it was typically done in under a month.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Fortunately, the original builders didn't try to use human laser technology. They avoided the difficulties associated with it by using the products of their own technology.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

This forum has potential but these replies are getting old.
I get this weird feeling that there's some etiquette to follow or you're not skeptical enough for the elite crowd on the forum(self appointed title).

I'm fully on board with the idea that we have lost many skills we would have deemed very necessary 3 thousand years ago.

I'm also on board with the fact that just because something looks hard doesn't mean aliens swooped down to help.

However, you(the community) have a place on the forums for this kind of stuff then when people post about it you get all the super cool skeptics saying "prove it" "define this" "what is the meaning of is". Give me a break. Those replies are no longer new and interesting and certainly aren't clever or entertaining.

And for the record, extremely difficult today means it would be extremely difficult to do today. I know, mind blowing.
Unless of course you could walk outside right now and carve up a few dozen 3 ton stone blocks with ease then I think its safe to say the task is extremely difficult today as it probably was 3000 years ago.

If you disagree go ahead and prove otherwise.

It was a perfectly valid question. How is it "extremely difficult" today? There's plenty of crafters who routinely produce precise stone work. It's not common, because it's more cost effective to work in other medium. But it's only "extremely difficult" to you or me.

It's faulty logic. "It's hard for regular people to do today, so they couldn't have done it back then!"

We have our stonemasons. They had theirs.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Yes, how tedious of us to follow scientific standards of evidence.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Yeah, people will just keep asking for that awkward stuff: evidence. This is essentially a science forum. If you want a crowd who will just say "woo, that's amazing" you've probably come to the wrong place...

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In the 34th minute of the final hour the Law Of Inverse Enclosure was rediscovered and a matchbox was declared the prison of the universe, with two fleas placed inside as wardens.

Actually yes, quite tedious. Especially when I'm reading a forum for entertainment. Maybe I have the wrong idea about the internet though.

Or maybe I didn't read the rules of the forum. But if that's the case and proof is required on this forum then whats left to discuss?

By the way, my apologies Fazor. I mistook your post for something it wasn't.

I actually don't think Ive come to the wrong place. There's not another forum like this. Its just that the cynicism was getting a little dry and played out which is what I took Fazors post for initially.

I like it here

I don't think of it as cynicism. Not really even skepticism, just a relentless questioning and search for things that can be backed up.

Which is one reason I like it here...

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In the 34th minute of the final hour the Law Of Inverse Enclosure was rediscovered and a matchbox was declared the prison of the universe, with two fleas placed inside as wardens.

It seems so, if you think there's just one idea for the internet.

The entirety of the physical world? There are a lot of things about which I am uneducated; I can and have come here and said, "I don't understand X. Can someone explain it to me?" There are threads where new ideas and discoveries are brought forward--with, yes, evidence shown--and we exchange wonder about the world around us. There are threads where we discuss more subjective issues, such as books and movies. We can even talk about how our days are going.

But, gosh, if you want to claim that there are aliens visiting Earth, we're going to ask for evidence, because otherwise, what's there to discuss? Rampant speculation? You might as well discuss the idea that my cat is the Ruler of Time and Space. Which would be a horrifying thought, given that he fell off the edge of the bathtub again this afternoon.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I expect your cat is entirely confident that he is the Ruler of Time and Space.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

First, he'd have to have a concept of Time and Space. Besides, I can move the World (furniture and so forth in the apartment) and he cannot. He's a little afraid of this.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"