caesar novus

I wonder what expectancy for non smoking teetotalers, etc. Anecdotally, I encounter a lot of reports of famous wealthy ancients living that long. And I checked my 100 closest Norwegian ancestors and barring accidents they typically lasted about 87 years. The earliest recorded one lived 1287 to 1377. AI podcasters promise infinite lifespans for those under age 51 due to personalized drugs. edit: it may have been just my male ancestors that lived long, w/o childbirth dangers

This 1974 Italian tragi-comedy can be found under it's English name "All Screwed Up" on Kanopy or Youtube pay sites. From legendary art house director Lina Wertmüller who showed the raw struggles of folks selfish and altruistic sides in vintage Italian context. Jaw dropping scenes, such as bungling father of 7+ trying to make ends meet as a gigolo. Filmed just before her most famous works, like Swept Away:

Lost Treasures of Rome documentary series is at this moment playing nonstop season 2 on Nat Geo TV, and above is season 1. I guess a couple more seasons exist, but I somehow channel surfed past them due to the low-key approach. It can be a refreshing change from the usual sensational themes, especially when they take on lesser known (and advertiser unappealing) stories of Rome.

Yeah, I think the words, topography, and even the bone find have some amount of uncertainty. Luckily we now can assimilate this thru AI, which just told me that Hannibal brought elephants from Italy to Spain! I think that is a so-called hallucination which was meant to temporarily get the search/answer process unstuck. I used to work in this area: Camel safaris bookable thru France, but they forgot to notify my tour had been cancelled. On arrival I ended up alone for days in an encampment at the bottom of Algeria with no english or money exchange. I lived on my sort of powdered gatorade which worked well with Algeria's then-abundant fossil well water. Later they added me to a departed group with last choice of camel; I imagine some of Hannibal's beasts also had personalities that made the journey extra hard. It was scenic but wintry cold with buggy oasis stops that reeked of camel urine. There was drama in getting out of the country for all of us.

The maps with more squiggles may be taking topography into account, as well as linking ancient settlements. For example the Andorra area had Roman presence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra#Iberian_and_Roman_Andorra with a valley linking the east with Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra#Geography There are maps with even finer granularity that I can't seem to find again; precision vs. accuracy? I take topography as a serious influence having spent a week on a camel touring the Hoggar mountains in Sahara's center, typically on 45 degree sideslopes with trail little more than a foot wide. I had a skittish animal who got bullied off trail. Also have hiked Med coast where the trains and sometimes cars have to use tunnels. Finally I have bounced back and forth from Spain's coast to mountainous inland.

Here is a thumbnail of a good Britannica map of Hannibal's route with rarely shown jogs and diversions. The Cordoba find was just west of the Baecula label. On the encyclopedia site there are full maps and excellent summaries. Not behind a paywall but sort of copyright wall making it hard to point URLs. I think our understanding of the Cordoba find would be better past the sciencedirect paywall, if anyone has some library privilege for it.

Behind Ency Britannica paywall is a detailed map of Hannibal's route with inland jog thru Pyrenees, but nowhere near Cordoba. The second article says it is unlikely a souvenir, but explanation is behind paywall (everywhere they show a "..."). Cordoba is out of the way for those Italy-bound but is close to the Carthaginian occupation zone so could have been pre-Hannibal activity or brought forward for his fighting retreat. The first article cited concludes:

Here is a map of Hannibal's route thru Spain although it probably is speculation, biased by a presumption that coastal lowlands aren't as rugged as they are. Then a topographic map showing inland Cordoba is indeed on a river valley coming close in the east to another river snaking east thru mountains. But again those valleys may be really rugged. So IMHO even if 100 elephants were led thru and occasionally died in Spain it seems unlikely to find any ancient death site vs souvenir pieces spread far and wide.

It seems so unlikely that remains of a once whole visiting animal of extreme rarity could be found in the rugged deep interior of Spain, that I lean to the following afterthought explanation in that article: Think of the fetish for rhino horns, ivory, etc even today leaving widely scattered artifacts that don't indicate animals were there.

I refer NOT to the bland 2023 Max TV series of the same name, but to the original proof of concept short animation Fired on Mars (2016). I'll be tightening my hernia prevention belt and re-streaming this hysterical dark comedy frequently. It involves a new hire recruited to travel millions of miles to mars only to be downsized with no apparent means of support or return. All is unfolded in upbeat euphemistic terms by the company and main character. He seeks to make the best of things in spite of series of setbacks, like realizing his girlfriend no longer plans to follow him and now lives with her meditation teacher. Great graphics which this trailer hardly does justice to; I found it on Kanopy under Stash Short Film Festival: Comedy episode 1.

Here are reviews and previews of exceptional movies and TV series. First is Playtime (1967, France), whose second hour comprises one of the funniest slapsticks of opening night in a posh restaurant. The first hour is a fine satire on misguided modernity, but the second is worth streaming over and over. Don't worry about subtitles because there is minimal dialogue and partly in english anyway. Still skeptical? Read from first review: Second recommendation is new TV documentary series Crime in Progress (Arts & Entertainment) which is unsullied by narrators or anything other than real bodycam. And the bodycam isn't hashed up and sensationalized except by step by step unveiling of truly horrific crimes, usually in "nice" neighborhoods with multiple bodies. The police conduct is usually highly professional, or else they'd unlikely be releasing the surveillance and interview room footage. It's sort of like perfecting their successful "The First 48" documentaries which along with it's spinoffs has bordered on over sentimentalism recently.

If so repulsive, what was demotivating folks from voting with their feet and moving to smaller towns or countryside? Rome on the other hand had an abundance of fresh water, the grain giveouts, and lack of local warfare etc: https://www.youtube.com/@ancient-techie/shorts

I had thought of that, and felt the sepia was a bit overdone. But did you know the colored turret roofs of the Excaliber Casino/Hotel used to have to be repainted 10 times a year to retain vibrancy? I think the sooty, dusty, sun baked environment of Rome would indeed turn much into sepia with little interest in restoring older stuff. Think of pre-war photos of Paris and London where everything was blackened. Altho that was from coal, Rome seems to have even less of cleansing wind and rain in my experience.

Here is a new AI reconstruction of Rome 300AD with amazing granularity, and not that usual sterile look. Garnered rapturous review from a @Teddy-u8z9j:

This topic reminded me to finally put pool testing strips in my amazon shopping cart for the frequent times I am looking for a small extra item to attain the price threshold for free shipping. Don't have to be a pool owner but a swimming pool visitor. They have strips for regular water as well; I bet hot water taps reach toxic levels when the tank cooks down concentrated sludge.

Fans of somewhat edgy TV sitcom still in reruns "The Office" may be surprised that character "Creed" played in a famous 1960's counterculture band "The Grass Roots", here playing "Temptation Eyes". Pretty impressive playing of a red guitar (not on thumbnail) which seems to match the guitar in a more recent recognizable photo below: Picture above is from Wiki but quote below is from vastly superior (but pictureless) https://grokipedia.com/page/Creed_Bratton. P.S. for the one subscriber I noticed to this thread: I have tried to live up to your loyalty here, but can no longer maintain discriminating standards due to my new laptop having crap little speakers. Old large Macbook Pro had a luxurious multidimensional sound that brought out the best of songs...

I like this video history of why some gladiator types were phased out and in:

The article talked about Balkan Muslim areas dampening the top averages for height and possible effect of dietary restrictions. Wiki "Islam in Europe" shows heavy concentrations in non-mixing southern shorter areas, as well as some tall areas. Maybe it's switched on/off by EPIgenetics? Map:

So I guess we have a case for tall Romans. Nearby Montenegro has the tallest folks in the world, and tallness seems to go back centuries. I seem to recall that all Montenegro legislators were at least 6.5 feet tall a few years ago. Diet and genetics of that whole greater tall zone are discussed in https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/not-dutch-montenegro-tallest-people/ but I note the tall types may have migrated in or out since Roman times. Tall map including Serbia:

Here is a US gov't search tool I use to kind of sniff out if a charity is currently legit, and it's official name and tax number: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ I override it's database choice to "Pub 78 Data" and search by "Organization Name" rather than EIN number. To be US tax deductable, it has to spend most donations in US rather than Italy, but they structure it to somehow benefit Italy or whatever. Even if deductability isn't a concern, this provides some checks due to paperwork they must regularly file. But there are some sketchy organizations that get approved and on the list.

I'm puzzled by seeing about 1/3 customers at my regular mega food mart wearing masks. And I can no longer get a flu shot on demand due to full appointment bookings. No worries, since my once-in-a-lifetime pneumococcal vax has seemed to make respiratory problems a thing of the past.

Here are 2 more standouts for narrative-to-sleep channels. https://www.youtube.com/@ShadowsofConflicts/videos is mostly eastern front ww2 German memoirs of extreme hardship and regret on the retreat. https://www.youtube.com/@Mossad-Vault/videos covers Israeli secret service taking out genocidal technocrats all over the world in ingenious ways. Overall mostly historical bad guys getting what they deserve, and in the Mossad cases maybe a message to bad guys to retire early?

There seems to be some redefinition of white in US law enforcement record keeping, where many dark middle eastern areas of origin were recently changed over to white. Made for strange wanted posters and conspiracy theories about fudging crime statistics. Not sure if this was some coordinated interpol revision or what.