caesar novus

Casting a net for more Roman content, I enabled a bunch of free streaming TV channels, mostly ranked in the article https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/best-free-tv-streaming-services/ . So far I have found zippo of Rome, but I do agree that the Tubi channel is one of the least annoying and worth a free account (which isn't normally required for any of them). Surprisingly sharp resolution with shorter and less woke ads, altho you can't avoid the ads like on CATV using fast forwarding. So Youtube remains the motherlode for Roman video content for me, but maybe you can show otherwise. Here's part of hundreds of hours of Roman docs:

I think I have heard and then forgotten those issues being addressed, possibly in a documentary of a replica Roman rowing ship and their troubles getting 100 or so university students to row it properly. Might be on youtube or in the back of someones mind; I think issues particularly arise in sprinting and maneuvering for ramming. However, having owned a couple of rowing sculls and rowing machines I am overflowing with likely irrelevant observations. First of all, rowing can be terrible for the disks in your back. If you pull with rounded back it can squash the gel disks rearwards and bump against your spinal chord with disastrous long term effects. For some reason rowing machines do this to me the most, including the most fancy air resistance version which was made in a factory nearby to me and gave me a good deal on a test version. Secondo, look at almost any amateur rower and see the dysfunction of them pulling the blade at a 45 degree pitch instead of vertical, and where they dip down and pull out is also whacky. I am not nitpicking and not trained, but this drives me nuts where the natural tendency is to self sabotage everything. Some of these issues could go away if the oar was higher or had a handle extension on it. Tripleessimo, rowing is crazy in the way you are facing backwards. I never got around to trying some bike mirrors, but you can be moving pretty fast towards disaster half blind. I have looked longingly at those complex contraptions that let you face forward and row, installable even on a SUP board. But I think the best solution is the Venice standing row boats where you throw your weight forward. One or many rowers, even the lifeguards in Italy have these in little catamaran configurations that are stable and roomy for several victims.

I believe television influenced english for the last 65 years by presenting an aspirational alternative to those otherwise immersed in regional accents. I grew up among the quirky accent of a remote region of lumberjacks and farmers, and when I watched national TV or even better the then-posh accents coming over the border from Canadian TV, well I decided I need not talk like my hick neighbors. I find it puzzling how anyone maintained a regional accent in the TV age, altho not going forward. I think TV influence is about over now, with the Orwellian ESG mafia clogging 90% of all commercials with patronizing afro influenced accents, or weed-puffing huskiness, or other fringe stuff. I am about to enable streaming on my TV to escape this decadent mess which can't be avoided even by frantic channel switching. I like watching 60+ year old Perry Mason shows which have amusing language quirks now ironed out by TV. With the TV age maybe over, I notice the effect of the internet bringing disruptive diversity back to fortress America. For example British use of prepositions have been picked up by the US in a way that can be very confusing: "different to" vs. "different from". I don't care which convention, but let's stick with one per country altho nationalities of anonymous ones setting an example online may be unclear.

That seems strange; isn't Latin something that those on a medical or biology career track want to take for the terminology? I had naively imagined it was offered at my school for catholics, and maybe your school was on a secular kick, like when revolutionary mobs bashed statues in French cathedrals. French would have been so useful, but the spelling seemed so unphonetic. Now I hear that the spelling comes from the very old ways of pronouncing, sort of like English used to pronounce the k in knife. Blessed are the spelling simplifiers, like the removal of u from "colour". So in HS, surrounded on 3 sides by French Canada and a zillion miles from Mexico, I took Spanish - because it was "easy". I think our Euro dialect was highly opposite to latin america's which sounds alien and incomprehensible to me. Kind of like they are chewing a dozen pieces of gum while talking, and I honestly get by easier in portuguese Brazil. In college I took Russian as a survival move, since the focus would be on learning the alphabet (easy) more than learning the language which is inherently hard for me. It has some use because I can read if not hear some stuff in the news including Ukrainian. It's funny that Russia is trying to purge english words, when it is packed with phonetic english - like restauran for restaurant. Once you can sound the letters, half of signs you see in a city make sense http://www.russianforeveryone.com/RufeA/Lessons/Introduction/Alphabet/Alphabet.htm It's a shame I didn't take Italian. Our humble college offered numerous languages, but all I knew of Italy was mafia, awful Italian-American comfort food, and well.. beautiful Venice. If I was aware of sublime real Italian food and Roman and other monuments, I would probably be living in Italy today. There are some cushy civilian jobs attached to US military bases in Italy that would have suited me fine. Sorry to run on so long, but I am avoiding a grim chore...

Nice info.

These two Bollywood videos each have around a hundred million views! First an excerpt of the best song with dance, then the whole 3 hour movie cued up to another notable dance with song at 2:37:18:

Interesting mythbusting of library(s) of Alexandria, and how Julius Caesar couldn't have caused much fire damage with what was a modest library during his time. Never a dominant center of scholardom except for just over a century, which was about the lifespan of papyrus in the humid sea air of Alexandria.

You might want to open a topic to brainstorm retirement locations under "Hora Postilla Thermae Arena The after hours baths... where almost anything can be discussed". Then I can grumble about my own missed opportunities or bad choices... or about how most every nice place goes to crap given a decade or two anyway. Or why those one dollar derelict homes in Italy won't work.

He didn't so much put it together, but made an infomercial for sombodies paid app that does the display. There are loads of these recreation videos and even the recent ones just don't feel natural. I think the color issue is overstated; you can see original Roman townscape paintings and see a lot of white with color accents. One issue is weathering; everything looks near brand new in these videos rather than in various stages of weathering. It reminds me of Italian disneyfied tourist traps like Positano or Portovenere which looked more natural when at least some of the buildings were in disrepair due to bankrupt or dying owners. Now they must have an HOA type tyranny to keep fresh pastel paint everywhere. Years ago recreation videos looked false due to lack of haze. Then the added haze looked false due to it's uniformity. It now does have sort of patchy haze and clouds, but seems to need differential ageing on facades including dark stains from water and maybe smoke. Maybe moss or vines that you see in neglected Via Appia structures?

The mosaic's inscription is translated in the older article and is the usual vacuous jibber jabber that is so disappointing in most ancient inscriptions. The patterns are nice, and they aren't just random geometry according to an explanatory writeup I have lost track of, but have meaning somehow.

It's been decades since I took classes in dating artifacts, but as I understand it the dendrochronology approaches (new and old) are limited to finding matches between artifacts of known date vs found artifacts. You often may have no continuous map of the seasonal variations to piece together for a given locality. In contrast approaches like radiocarbon dating (new and old) doesn't rely on seasons and continuity, but of course has much less precision.

I'm sure some of the travelers among us are wary of the fact that most of the black sea coast of Georgia was occupied since 2008, but fortunately the site is near Turkish border and not invaded (yet): Another attraction for visitors is perhaps one of the least known charming capitals if I can believe youtube walking tours. Here is an eccentric one, but find your own one to fit your fancy:

Pretty close to a ruined city recently added to my youtube ruins playlist - probably more to be discovered...

Nice; I've brought it up before, but will add more here. I went to a glass lecture by a (technical) rep of that museum, and asked about the myth that glass is slightly fluid over the centuries. It sounds silly and he did deny it, but there is various supposed evidence out there. After the lecture he was nibbling at an appetizer table and I got more explanation on what accounts for that misleading evidence and how it applies to Roman glass. Bottom line is that the topsy-turvy Roman glass at our local museum is that way because they (or their donors) could only afford cheaper objects, not because Roman objects wilted in underground pressure and volcanic heat. Or at least our museum had other priorities than than premium Roman objects and the security they would need. The post above has slightly asymmetrical blue objects but ours just scream asymmetry. BTW, I had no idea that lecture would have a Roman connection but went because it was held in an outrageous "arabian-nights-like" mansion of the once richest women in the world. The estate hadn't finished being converted to a museum, but I got on an email list for stealth events there (no outsiders allowed to drive or walk in that neighborhood). The very rich/artistic audience showed little comprehension of the technicalities of glass, so the speaker seemed to appreciate my odd but at least on-topic line of questioning.

Contrast these 2 videos: atmospheric celebration of (tourist) life in Rome vs death spiral of the country. While playing the 2nd video (1.1M views) display comments which are mostly from Italians in english confirming the economy and population decline passing the point of no return, due to benefits-sucking oldster voting block in charge permanently. Note comments saying only remaining jobs are for cleaning tourist toilets which won't pay rent or support children. My observation is that even the human waves of illegal immigration mainly pass thru Italy towards greener EU pastures.

Here are interesting, more justified reclamation actions. Notice how the museum and the artifacts donor almost had to beat Italy over the head in order to check whether their stuff was stolen. Not the usual narrative of selfish artifact owners and vigilant enforcers: https://tvpworld.com/71975995/italy-repatriates-looted-ancient-artifacts-from-us https://tvpworld.com/73610023/spain-seizes-smuggled-ukrainian-gold-artifacts-worth-eur-60-mln

A Manhattan district attorney has in one year of office forced the return of a thousand antiquities, finally meeting with legal checks and balances from a Cleveland Museum for it's statue of Marcus Aurelius. How can provenance be upended so massively and suddenly unless it's a woke narrative that steamrollers past reasonable deliberation? To humble Cleveland, this is was a huge investment and point of pride and worth arguing that Turkey had no proof that the statue came from there: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-19/cleveland-museum-sues-over-seized-20-million-ancient-statue-ny-says-was-stolen It's one thing to have due process with a genuine debate, but the attitude now seems to be guilty unless proven innocent. Museums seem eager to empty their shelves in a hurry to prove their virtue, vs blue collar Ohio city that knows the value of things hard won. I was just reading about how that attitude nourished it's rock musicians (R & R museum there). P.S. you may wonder why the top notch Cleveland sitcom "Drew Cary" show is no longer rerun, and it because they worked in so much local rock which subsequently became such classics that they cannot afford to license replay.

Porta Asinaria on Rome's wall 34m from Romano Impero Really fine Rome's Wall part2 44m from Romano Impero Another excellent Appian Way 108m from Romano Impero BTW, above can be slightly slow paced so can either increase speed or use option-arrow to jump to next chapters. May want to briefly step down resolution to enable quick navigation. Honorable mention to related videos Rome Wall part 1 and Rome Wall part 3. That whole body of Roman video work is worthy of following.

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This one sparks some thoughts, like don't let success bring liver abuse only to die early: Ah well, modern cars are so incredibly ugly (and not in a functional way) that I can't recognize them:

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Here is more from a Romanian cast of the column. I guess the reason I get excited by column videos is that I thought I had seen it all in the cast museum outside of Rome. But for some reason that one is colored (shiny?) grey with weird fluorescent lighting that doesn't show shadow relief. My long savoring of it there doesn't compare to the ivory colored Romanian cast or the actual column distantly captured on zoom lenses, where relief jumps out:

Here is a spectacular dialogue on first Punic War by maritime experts. The quality of discussion, graphics, and content are unsurpassed. Clarifies how Rome always was navy-savvy and did not have to play catchup as in the usual implausible narrative. Cartage was grappling with latest naval technology while Roman allies had exactly the same vessels on call for Rome to borrow. There are quite odd set of incentives for how fleets were financed that I don't entirely get, but also there are many sidelights into Roman culture to appreciate:

Yeah, I think I posted much earlier about not needing land bridges when you have ice bridges along with cultures adapted to life on the water/ice boundary hunting seals with kayaks etc. I heard a lecture on that in early 1990s and had the further thought that the southern Pacific may have had a ice bridge as well. I think there has been evidence of super early northward migration in S. America. I reject the stale narratives like Canada's "first nations" where a homogeneous group migrates during a thaw window and the nasty westerners disrupt paradise. There had to be endless incoming waves and warfare, seen not only in the archeology but the accounts of shipwrecked Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who walked from Florida to southern Mexico among pre-contact constantly warring tribes.