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Tue Sep 22 06:00:01 EDT 2020
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Slept from ten to six-thirty.
Woke briefly around two-thirty.
Partly cloudy until late afternoon then clearing.
Highs in the mid 70s.
Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph.
Read more Ancillary Justice before bed last night.
Slow start, but that bringing together of little hints half way through the book is exciting.
A frosty, rosy-fingered dawn.
Twenty-five-minute walk.
Saw three crows and an unusual number of squirrels.
A cacophonous flight of two or three dozen geese.
Leaves on a two or three trees have started to turn.
Work
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- Verify we already install critical Windows security update
Done.
- Blow up RentPayment
Partially.
- Entrata phase seven validation
Done.
- Generate another stop file test for Fifth Third
Done.
- Activate new credit card
No.
- Send import deactivation forms to RentPayment
No.
Saw a small/medium (hairy?) woodpecker outside my window.
Home
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- C stuff
Done.
Washed dishes.
Started reading Solutions and Other Problems.
> …like being haunted by a defective by well-meaning ghost.
Half way through: oh, shit, brutal.
And then The Pile Dog Part 2 had me laughing so hard I was gasping.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/08/mysterious-carvings-evidence-human-sacrifice-uncovered-ancient-city-china/
> The stones were not part of the Great Wall but the ruins of a magnificent fortress city. The ongoing dig has revealed more than six miles of protective walls surrounding a 230-foot-high pyramid and an inner sanctum with painted murals, jade artifacts—and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice.
> Carbon-dating determined that parts of Shimao, as the site is called (its original name is unknown), date back 4,300 years, nearly 2,000 years before the oldest section of the Great Wall—and 500 years before Chinese civilization took root on the Central Plains, several hundred miles to the south.
> Shimao flourished in this seemingly remote region for nearly half a millennium, from around 2300 B.C. to 1800 B.C. Then, suddenly and mysteriously, it was abandoned.
> None of the ancient texts that have helped guide Chinese archaeology mention an ancient city so far north of the so-called “cradle of Chinese civilization,” much less one of such size, complexity, and intense interaction with outside cultures. Shimao is now the largest known Neolithic settlement in China—its 1,000-acre expanse is about 25 percent bigger than New York City’s Central Park—with art and technology that came from the northern steppe and would influence future Chinese dynasties.
> To protect themselves from violent rivals, the Shimao elites molded their oblong 20-tiered pyramid on the highest of those hills. The structure, visible from every point of the city, is about half the height of Egypt’s Great Pyramid at Giza, which was built around the same time (2250 B.C.). But its base is four times larger, and the Shimao elites protected themselves further by inhabiting the top tier of the platform, which included a 20-acre palatial complex with its own water reservoir, craft workshops, and, most likely, ritual temples.
> Shimao’s fortifications are astonishing not just for their size but also for their ingenuity. The defensive system included barbicans (gates flanked by towers), baffle gates (allowing only one-way entry), and bastions (a projecting part of the wall allowing defensive fire in multiple directions). It also employed a “mamian” (“horse-face”) structure whose angles drew attackers into an area where defenders could pummel them from three sides—a design that would become a staple of Chinese defensive architecture.
> In the third millennium B.C., when Shimao was founded, a relatively warm and wet climate drew an expanding population into the Loess Plateau. Historical records show a rapid shift from 2000 to 1700 B.C. to a drier and cooler climate. Lakes dried up, forests disappeared, deserts encroached, and the people of Shimao migrated to parts unknown.
It's more pleasant splitting up the evening between watching TV, studying/learning, and listening to music and reading than just spending four or five hours watching TV.
Servings: grains 7/6, fruit 2/4, vegetables 2/4, dairy 2/2, meat 2/3, nuts 0/0.5
Brunch: banana, cucumber, coffee
Lunch: peach, wrap with egg and avocado
Afternoon snack: cookies
Dinner: cheese curls
-29
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