OT: Am I just TOO sceptical?

No, you're right to be sceptical. Some years ago, while the internet was much less invested in our lives, I spotted this book called "Everything you *think* you know is a lie" - I can't recall the author and it's probably out of print by now, but nevertheless, a real eye-opener. In many cases, conspiracy theory is actually conspiracy fact.

I would hope common sense would prevail and May would be flattened.

It is best.

That?s mad with significant events like say the Gatwick shutdown or 9/11.

Available in kindle format now

Surely not? Every programme shown on TV is factually correct. That's why Glasgow is actually empty after so many series of Taggart.

Actually there can be a strict time limit since the archeologists are typically digging in a field to establish if there is anything interesting there before someone digs foundations for a warehouse. Some key sites are protected and revisitable but many are strictly time limited and about to be completely trashed by a building site. TV always chooses pretty rural photogenic sites rather than grimy industrial ones.

There were a couple of digs near me. One prior to M&S laying their foundations and the other after they knocked down a Victorian prison to build a new shopping centre. In both cases the academics had a window of about 8 weeks to extract as much as they possibly could from the site before it was built on. They did find some fun stuff and held a couple of open site weekends where members of the public could see it.

I had a bit more respect for garden makeover programmes after I tried to do one myself with similarly tight timing constraints (but no cameras).

Some things really did happen though. eg

Apollo went to the moon. The Earth *is* an oblate sphere orbiting the sun and flat Earthers are categorically wrong. The Earth is more than

History you have to remember is always written by the victors.

Some things are not open to doubt.

You can unambiguously date a clay pot firing or an igneous rock or piece of stalagmite. There may be error bars on the answer but the scientific method works. It is *not* open to interpretation.

There seems to be a lot more rabble rousing today than there used to be. Death threats against a defence lawyer who is merely doing their job being a very recent example of this new ugly populist meme.

Indeed . Especally in towns. But what the OP was complaining of and what I was addressing was the type of artificial deadlines set by TV companies for purely economic reasons.

A I hour self enclosed programme made out of 4 days digging may just about be feasible in terms of likely ratings.

Filming over 4 or 6 weeks with no guarentee of a positive outcome would simply never get commissionsed. Unless there was a series on the Richard III car park thing that I missed.

That might seem to imply that you actually believe they keep to the deadline shown in the programme.

In any case being professionals, having carried out similar projects for years (or being advised by off camera by people who have) they will know all the tips and tricks.

Indeed. But why precisely did the US govt decide to devote so many resources to such a project ?

Was this simply a further consequnce of the profound shock delivered to the US system by the totally unexpected launch of Sputnik !?

Did the US see the Moon project as having actual strategic value rather than simply propoganda value in its cold war rivalry with the USSR ?

Does the subsequent distinegration of the USSR have any bearing on the US abandonment of the space programme.

Or is this simply a result in a general decline in optimism ?

But those are easily verifiable geological facts.

At the time most certianly . But unless they adopt a thoroughgoing scorched earth policy along with a policy of thoroughgoing genocide once the vanquished make a recovery and ideally devevelop a system of teriary education a new generation or revisionist historians will emerge.

Much history, in tems of any sort of record for much of the past doen't exist at all of course. So its never been written by anybody.

But not necessarily say what it was used for.

That's geology not history

That's simply social media for you. Basically without the gatekeepers who nobody is willing to pay for (cue argument "who is to decide who qualify as gatekeepers) social media becomes an ideal vehicle for both the hard of thinking and the devious to peddle abuse, racism, simplistic nonsense to the similarly hard of thinking. Basically its electronic mob rule.

And there seems to be no real answer to this.

michael adams

...

Im have often wondered why DIY SOS mostly restrict themselves to 9 days. But I'm betting the planing has been done before the start of day one. I have noticed they do start before the first day too on some projects. My G would be why 9 because it the last single digital number ? Myabe it's like £9.99 being cheaper than £10 same psychology.

Which only happened after they found something.

I doubt that.

I would say they do mostley. They even do so on master chef, but of course they don't do it in real time.

Don't we all.

Only if you believe the Gospel to be an accurate record, but who believes that ?

If anyone says to me it's the gospel truth then I say "you mean it's a lie then".

Why do you think there is only one reason ?

Or the cost and the risk or a disaster.

Are they ? Could you prove to me that the earth is more than 6000 years old without using someones else's evidence. Do you know how to carbon date things and can you do it in your home or do you need someone to do it for you?

Don't forget that virtually everything we know we have learnt from others.

I've just done this with a student who asked me if I can tell him how to connect a switch up I said No. Use a DMM to work it out for yourself, that why yuou might remmeber rather than forgetting it by tomorrow.

Perhaps.

That's pretty meaningless. We know the earht anf the universe existed for a long time a very long time before man existed and started writing about it.

Are you sure about that ? How do you know ?

And death threats have never been made in the past ? What happened to julius caesar lots of LOLs I assume.

No it's happened in real life too.

Have you ever heardc anyone on social media cast a spell on anohter ? Well it used to happpen in the middle ages and I'd say such things have gone on in other times too. But you won;t see that on social media will you.

and in the few 10,000s of years this hasn't happened before social media.

I'd say Jesus being executed is one of the first recorded social media events. He wasn;t hanged because of anything othe rthan the perception of what he could achive socially, rather than physically.

Humans may evolve, although looking at some of these students I do wonder.

Haven't you noticed all these sort of progs work to a formulae? A deadline makes it much more interesting. Allegedly. As does a disabled child, terminally ill member of the family, and of course the real 'aww' factor, a pregnant woman.

With all these hours and hours of TV channels to fill, you can't really expect any new ideas - even given half the country now seems to have meja degrees?

But then TV is simply another product to make money out of. So stick to tried and tested things. Just like the accountant tells you to.

It should have ended by now. The Idea (I'm not sure where from) is that the lifespan of the World is 6000 years: 4000 before Christ and 2000 after. That's how Creation is dated to 4004 BC (after correcting Denis the Small's erroneous estimate of the date of the Incarnation). So it should have ended at the end of 1997. I think. It's a bit confusing with there being no zero in the Christian calendar.

You may be surprised to find that none of the above are demonstrably *true*.

All that can be said is that as an explanation for where we find ourselves *now*, these are reasonable, self-consistent *narratives*.

In fact it is a dull infinitely long Sunday afternoon in Grolicarpas and you are plugged intoa virtual reality machine experiencing a 'realie'...:-)

Perhaps it has and we just haven't noticed ;-)

The 4000 before came from the idea that man didn;t exist before he could write about his existance. IIRC. Of course it's totaly crap, but that's religion.

I don't think a zero would help much.

It's based on what they knew - or thought they knew - then.

Quite sure there will be plenty we think of as gospel now that will be laughed at in 2000 years time.

How is that differnt from now.

Like the laws of physics, perhaps we will get FTL travel but that doesn't negate the laws of physics does it ?