A side note, airtags + iphones are effectively the largest bluetooth mesh network in the world, and they are quite useful even though only coordinates are sent.
I meant useful in general. It's slightly off topic, but I think many people overlook the fact they are just a bluetooth mesh network as well.
Imagine one just as large as the airtag + iphone ecosystem but with messaging capabilities!
Would be cool to see one built into android + iphones but that will never happen. But a 3rd party could get so popular that it achieves somewhat close to that.
I'd imagine remote villages and towns could all install this and communicate with each community member very effectively.
I don't really see any need to take parental advice from a blog.
Not going to give advice either as we all have our own methods, but it's more or less the opposite of what this person is saying.
Doesn't mean letting them sit mindlessly in front of screens, but screen time is okay as long as they are creating, not consuming.
That has nothing to do with their noise levels though. There's a time and place. Outside with friends, yeah sure be loud within reason. In public around strangers? You better shut the hell up.
Not OP but.. The ptolemaic Pharaohs (Cleopatra..) and after are not related to the dynastic cultures which made the pyramids. They were greeks. Subsequent occupation by post Roman cultures including the Byzantine, and Islamic Arabic tribes, and the Ottomans, means the culture and genetics of modern Egypt have little to do with pyramids and pre-roman era mummies and culture/religion/beliefs.
Waves of occupation over 2000 years eroded any cultural link.
What I read suggests the Berbers have some historical relationship and the Bedouin less. Nasser was an arabist, as were the young egypt political movement of the 19th century.
It's like asking why modern British people aren't strongly identifying with pictish culture or beaker people.
The Egyptian archaeologists assert nationalism and cultural goals and have to deal with Islamic fundamentalists who push back on pre Islamic religious artefacts. Saudi archaeologists have similar pressures.
Egypt is an Arab country. They're literally called the Arab Republic of Egypt. Before that the United Arab Republic. Official language Arabic.
Arabs came from Arabia, not Egypt.
Copts are a bit closer to ancient Egypt (their language especially) but their religion is Orthodox Christianity which influences their culture, which came out of the Greek/Roman culture of Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt.
Oh boy, the subject of Egyptian identity is a complicated subject. Are they Arabs? Egyptians? Muslims? Mediterraneans? Pharaohs? Coptic? Bedouin? Berbers?
An "Arab" is not a race nor is it exclusionary with Ancient Egypt. If someone had an uninterrupted ancestory line from today to Ramasis II, those ancestors learned Arabic at some point and became Arabs or Muslims themselves.
Ok, most Egyptians I have known would immediately strike out Berbers/Amazeghs identity. They actively dislike "amazeghs" and consider them foreigners even though they look the same, speak the same language, and plenty are legally Egyptians with families that have lived there since the 17th century. Egyptians consider them imposters and maybe thats why they are hated more than the "obviously a foreigner". At least the latter isn't pretending.
But at the "Bedouin" the lines start getting blurred. They identify as independent tribes that partially moved from Arabia in the 7th or 8th century and they are very very adamant about their independence from the Egyptian state and their right to self determination and how they live. They are the libertarians of Egypt, except they actually practice a fully bedouin/nomad/libertarian lifestyle. The state is always fighting with them. Most regular Egyptians I knew consider them Egyptians despite their disapproval. Egyptians public like the bedouins in general. It's a romanticized existence.
The Arabic/Egyptian/Muslim/Christian/Coptic/Pharaonic/Roman/Greek/Ottomon identity of Egyptians (and arabs in general) is a subject of many books.
> those ancestors learned Arabic at some point and became Arabs or Muslims themselves.
Did they? Seems like this is erasure of the Copts, a people who, to this day, both still exist, mostly aren't Muslim and speak a language directly descended from ancient Egyptian.
> Are they Arabs? Egyptians? Muslims? Mediterraneans? Pharaohs? Coptic? Bedouin? Berbers?
You forgot to add the Nubians/Cushites and other groups south of Egypt. Is it possible that the Egyptians lived next to them for thousands of years without any admixtures of genes and culture with them?
Modern Egyptians are primarily Arab. If anyone is a descendant of the Ancient Egyptians, it’s the Coptic Christians, who still use a descendant of the Ancient Egyptian language as a liturgical language and mostly don’t have any Arabic ancestry (since the child of an Arab Muslim and a Copt would almost always be considered an Arab Muslim).
Jasmine rice can NOT be used for sushi! It's not sticky enough to hold together. The fact that it's not sticky makes it good for fried rice, not for sushi.
In my experience it's just barely sticky enough for sushi provided you don't wash it but I don't think the texture is right for that usage. I prefer it for most things though.
might be confusing mushy with sticky - the individual grains of sushi rice is intact and whole. Mushy rice is a grain that has too absorbed too much water, and is burst.
Premium Tamanishiki (a type of premium sushi rice) is grown in the US and Japan, the US just produces a lot of types of rice. Japonica is a category of rice that includes Calrose for example which is grown primarily in California and is definitely an "American" rice given that it founded the California rice industry
Perhaps because of factual errors (O. s. japonica is not only the same species, but the same subspecies), and pointlessly negative personal opinion making up the rest of your comment.
With the car, my back of the napkin calculation, says it will pay for itself in about 5 years. At ~10K miles/year, and San Diego gas prices of ~$5/gal..
It's hard to judge with the mini-split, since the house didn't have A/C at all before, and the ADU is new, so there is no history to compare.
In the next few years though, I intend to install solar and batteries. This takes a little longer to pay off, but it's getting shorter all the time. Utilitys, especially SDG&E here in San Diego, have been raising rates at ~12%/year for quite a while.
I hope to be totally energy self sufficient in another 1-3 years (including operating the car).
I would expect this prospect to be very appealing to conservative rural residents, and yet for some reason there is a huge support for continuing to be dependent on oil companies.
> I would expect this prospect to be very appealing to conservative rural residents
I am in a conservative rural district right now. Here's the math: 20% are at or below the federal poverty line, and of the remainder there are a huge number of people on fixed incomes or sitting on major credit card or vehicle debts (people own trucks or farm equipment, often related to work). They have very little wiggle room on any major investments, not just clean energy.
Yet people understand the value of solar. There are households and even some farms with solar arrays here. They also know utilities are jacking up prices despite huge wind farms and hydro nearby (this is in part due to local crypto mining ventures that sprouted up 10 years ago, which will likely be joined by AI farms in the coming years.)
People aren't staying away solar because there is "huge support" for fossil fuels. They are staying away from solar (and heat pumps) because they simply cannot afford the cost. They don't have the cash on hand, they will never qualify for loans, and in many cases they are dealing with existing debt or emergency costs.
In the long run, it all pays for itself. Every homeowner should pursue it. The sooner the better.
Especially once complete independence from an electric utility is achieved.
I totally agree with you that the time to install this stuff is at time of construction. Unfortunately real estate developers don't really care about how much it costs to _operate_ a building, they only care about building it as cheaply as possible, and selling for as high a price as possible.
The cost to increase insulation, add solar and batteries, all electric appliances, would all pay for itself over a decade or so.
Most homes in the US are occupied for many decades (not all by the same owner) so the savings are substantial over the lifetime of the building.
Of course, the consumer's savings are the electric utilities losses, and we know who has the pull in policy creation...
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