I Know Now

I've said many times one of the remarkable things aout the modern age is the ability to check things out for yourself. Back in the day, people would say things, and you just had to size them up to determine whether or not to believe them. Checking up on it was way too hard. It's not to say you can't learn something that isn't true, or be misled by social media, etc., but you do have better resources now. I'm still a little embarrassed I thought for a bit that Sammy Davis Jr. had a white father, but I was misled by a photo in IMDB.com, so it can happen.

I know now that the story we all bought into back in the day about the word 'crap' coming from a Brit named John Crapper is totally wrong.

Quote: wikipedia link

It has often been claimed in popular culture that the profane slang term for human bodily waste, crap, originated with Thomas Crapper because of his association with lavatories. A common version of this story is that American servicemen stationed in England during World War I saw his name on cisterns and used it as army slang, i.e. "I'm going to the crapper".

The word crap is actually of Middle English origin and predates its application to bodily waste. Its most likely etymological origin is a combination of two older words: the Dutch krappen (to pluck off, cut off, or separate) and the Old French crappe (siftings, waste or rejected matter, from the medieval Latin crappa). In English, it was used to refer to chaff and also to weeds or other rubbish. Its first recorded application to bodily waste, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, appeared in 1846 [when Crapper was 10 yrs old]

https://www.etymonline.com/word/crap

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper#Origin_of_the_word_%22crap%22

I believe there are more slang words for crap in every language then there is any other word. It's something everybody does every day and nobody thinks highly of the results. I was just reminded of something disgusting so I'm compelled to share it. I once had a driver when I had the cab company who dressed like an English cab driver, the whole outfit. We started to hear from the hookers we picked up that he paid them to take a crap on the bed in front of him and he would freeze it and later makes sandwiches out of it. I said it was disgusting, even the hookers were disgusted by it. Guess what we nicknamed him. That's right, shiteater.

How do you believe an english cab driver dresses? Just curious.

Quote: Evenbob

Guess what we nicknamed him. That's right, shiteater.

Reminds me of this old joke.

So a man walks into a bar, and sits down. He starts a conversation with an old guy next to him. The old guy has obviously had a few. He says to the man:

"You see that dock out there? Built it myself, hand crafted each piece, and it's the best dock in town! But do they call me "McGregor the dock builder"? No!
And you see that bridge over there? I built that, took me two months, through rain, sleet and scorching weather, but do they call me "McGregor the bridge builder"? No!
And you see that pier over there, I built that, best pier in the county! But do they call me "McGregor the pier builder"? No!"

The old guy looks around, and makes sure that nobody is listening, and leans to the man, and he says:

"but I shag one sheep..."

Quote: OnceDear

How do you believe an english cab driver dresses? Just curious.

I don't know how they dress. And this was 40 years ago. He wore black trousers, a short black jacket the kind that a Bellman might wear. And a thin tie. And a leather cap somewhat similar to the one in the picture you posted.

I used to think that getting wiped out by a huge asteroid or comet was the greatest threat to human existence outside of something we might do to ourselves, like nuclear war or a Chinese lab-escape of killer virus.

Later I learned that the Universe is a dangerous place generally. Notably, we don't know if a very large coronal mass ejection from the Sun will be survived well, and this is almost certainly going to happen at some point. As for North America in particular, if Yellowstone repeats what it has done in the past volcanically, our region is done for. You can imagine Mankind generally will recover from these last two but it will be a crisis.

But I know now scientists are unsure of what the percentage of oxygen in the air will be in the future. We might expect a change to be gradual, allowing for adaptation. But the current human model, with the massive oxygen hungry brain, cannot survive much of a drop from the current 21% of the atmosphere that O2 now sits at. Many scientists seem to think a drop is more likely than an increase. In that scenario some sort of survival of a species that links back to our current gene pool is possible, if not guaranteed. But these creatures will not be like us it seems, depending where the cutoff point is. OSHA contends that a level below 19.5% becomes problematic for what we need now, see link. I didn't spend all day searching but didn't find the point where you pass out for sure.

Check out the image. In one model, the green one, the current level was reached by steady increase. In the red one, it has been reached by steady decrease!

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_history_of_oxygen

https://www.ehstoday.com/safety-leadership/article/21917274/confined-spaces-is-195-percent-oxygen-really-safe