caesar novus

Roman themed interludes:

This pop ditty by The Association may lack excitement, but I wanted to point out a resource of hundreds of rare interviews with pop/rock stars, often nearing dementia of their 80s. https://www.youtube.com/@discograffitipodcast2872/videos is hosted by an eccentric music industry insider asking artists to rate their every song, but they give him interesting reality checks about their goals, historical context, etc. He must have about 6 hours from The Association and much more from the only surviving Momma/Poppa Michelle Phillips for example.

One could also write an article about supposedly Greek ruins that are really more or less Roman. Rome eventually occupies all, and either initiates or refurbishes sites all over Greece and Italy. I liked Paestum more than Agrigento, the latter seeming more starkly Greek. Both are close to the tourist path but can have travel challenges, especially near day's end when timetables seem to crater. I think there are Roman elements grafted on to the Taormina theater:

So it slowly dawns on me I might find pictures of the overlooking rooftop bars, which I include below. BTW the short video over Minerva piazza with local kids joyously playing soccer reminds me so much of the serendipity of less touristed pockets of Rome.

I always wondered what privileges Darius Arya was using for elevated views of the Pantheon on his channels. Maybe some tycoons apartment; his own apartment househunt was actually televised and landed him in an adjacent neighborhood. It finally dawned on me to check google maps and showed rooftop bars and eateries open to all. First is his most common (restricted) view from the SE, in Piazza della Minerva apparently from Hotel Minerva rooftop bar. Therefore it must be the most welcoming or tasty. It also might be worth checking if you can climb to the rooftop of adjacent Basilica di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva: Better side/frontal view from Piazza della Rotonda appears to be from NE rooftop bar at 3 star (affordable?) Hotel Albergo Senato. They must be less welcoming to lookie-loos because I rarely see it on either of his channels. Check 40 seconds in below:

She Sells Sanctuary (long 1985 version) The Cult

I think the art was not to determine the exact Roman and then Han situation and then compare them, with that bottom line graph that shows a stunning difference. Rather they played around with similar estimation techniques which, if biased, might be biased in a consistent way and thus cancel out in a Rome/Han ratio. Even the mental exercise sheds sidelights, and seems more useful than admitting all is more or less uncertain. Maybe I just have warm feelings for simulations, since I worked on optimizing electronic design thru evolution or monte carlo/annealing simulations. Injecting random mutations or whatever was fun and effective until the Phd folks invented better boring math approaches.

They are labeled simulation results and seem to be precision of the model rather than claimed accuracy of actual history. Often they are ratios ranging only from 0 to 1 or 1 to 3, and a lot of granularity is happening in that range that you wouldn't want to discard. They have a section on uncertainty which is nice to be explicit about, but you may not find it convincing.

Thank you. It's a little hard to see the numbers on similar shaped charts there, but the income per capita is almost double for the Romans. Since they don't calibrate charts with a common zero point, the different offsets are disguised and charts can falsely look alike.

Sorry for my digression, but somebody must be sharing my fate with youtube obsoleting their android apps. I found relief with Amazon's $90 bundle of 2022 (but unused) Fire HD 8 Plus tablet with extremely convenient wireless charger. Beware of cheaper unbundled versions which insert screen ads. Newer versions seem to lack wireless charging; older may have feeble audio. I dunno if it supports forum posting, but after auto system updates it youtubes nicely for the moment. App is not android so maybe youtube will let it age unmolested in obscurity.

That seems refreshingly non marxist, with clever metrics and handling of uncertainty. Lots of nice quotes, like Han fiscal system perhaps better in theory but Roman better in practice. I will try to entice further reading with a quote and a dramatic graph proposing the fatal difference of Han economy: (I can't post their graph, but look for their final fig. 3, just before their massive references section comprising 30% of length)

It looks to me maybe y'all skeptics to above did not take in the posted "times of israel" article and it's video on the unique properties of this tiny site. Or you were making plausible generalities for generic sites or vast areas in general. My observations had been: The compactness of this site, dense with architecture. it might fit in footprint of a modern Walmart store and have had loads of artifacts, recently removed by archeologists. The elevated nature of the site, which appears to comprise the upper half of a 500ish foot hill surrounded by undeveloped apron slope. The downhill foot of the apron was the discovery zone seen, I think, in the last second of their video. The soil looks like classic impermeable dry zone stuff that promotes flash floods, which Israel did experience this winter. Hundred year floods may trap material ground off top of hill towards the foot.

Video implied rich privilege due to direct hookups, but they paid for construction and upkeep so that public access could be free. Another fascinating short vid on Roman hygiene here:

Looks like they actually visited an external overlook in newly reopened Temple of Venus and Rome. Wiki sayth:

Let's salute the 100th anniversary of the vibraharp, commonly misnamed as vibraphone or vibes, and it's wild technology of electromechanically pulsating resonators. Here is what Santana could have sounded like, with classy vibrato... Poncho Sanchez & Friends - Cocinando: P.S. a lot of videos become unavailable for in-line insertion soon after I post. Maybe the authors don't think I gave proper attribution. Well, authors please clean up your own act with explicit info on thumbnail or text description.