caesar novus

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.

Famous Cuban bassist Cachaito from album/playlist Cachaito plays "Mis Dos Pequeñas" which apparently has these unladylike lyrics: "Theme On Mambo" from album/playlist The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions, Vol. 1-5: Number 74 on the Congo to Cuba playlist:

Oops, I had such a clear impression the pdf was saying Vestals and the Salian virgins were inferior to Ceres and male priests, but no, my confusion stemmed from their repeated use of the term priesthood to not mean exclusively males but in their case all female. Heck, next they will be implying that mankind includes women I will post a couple of veiled statues from Compania in the 1700s or 1800s. They must have been inspired from Roman finds, altho don't have the the amazing orthogonal draping of the Ceres example near top of this thread:

I sense this topic might be mistaken as an uplifting sign of exalted status of Roman women, but reading the fine print: 1) This Ceres type of priestess is the only one rivaling responsibility of a priest, and only 7 were known to ever practice in Pompeii. 2) Her husband (wedding ring on conventional finger as moderns) has subtle indications of upper class, and probably was the source of family status that enabled her to become priestess. Lastly the most notable feature of the women to this rube tourist is her sculpted body veil. Several of these can be found in Naples churches from the 1800s and really impress onlookers. I guess it is a workable optical illusion to create riffles cross cutting thru riffles, but it seems like magic to this baclofen patient (side effect = false sense of well-being).

Downhill from an active archeo dig, with rare flood events; it seems like a natural concentrator. Reminds me of the ancient skeletons found in Kenya which were taken as proof of mankind's origin there. Actually it was no more likely to be an origin point than anywhere else within 1000 miles; it was just a natural preservation zone with deposition and periodic erosion. Now DNA evidence gives some nuance.

Was it enjoyed or primarily a sterility indicator? Do I sense conspiratorial grinning here in thinking respectable folks enjoyed a good buzz so why not lower inhibitions against guilty-pleasure amounts? Well, I present the opposite kind of role model trend in my inevitable video below. As an amateur maker of hard cider, first from nonpasteurized fruit juice then only pasteurized, I can tell you the process won't take if the microbiology is foul. Apple pickers in particular are tempted to pick up ones on the ground stewing with deer or other fecal matter, and stomach outbreaks hit the news in fresh-squeeze ciderland. Grape drinks have more sugar that can boost alcohol levels, so maybe can even kill baddies from later water dilution. I have sampled nice wine in Italy, and only encountered one local that overdid it there. But my formative college years were ones where Italian wine could famously be spiked with toxic antifreeze or wood alcohol, bringing charges of manslaughter. A recent application for surgery looked like they were prepared to refuse patients that even touched alcohol.

YouTube seems to be declaring war on older android tablets. Now it seems to require a version of android four or less years old to run YouTube. I have a pile of about a dozen small tablets that can no longer run YouTube. These were easily handheld and had the proper aspect ratio unlike too-narrow phones. I used to mess with options and firmware to avoid needless premium purchases, but have been lazy and trying refurbished ones. No luck with android updates so far, but gonna give a last try for affordable old wireless-chargeable Amazon Fire tablet, which has non-android Youtube.

I'm interested in material artifacts aspect of Roman history, and am less interested (skeptical in fact) about the going narratives. Think how wrong the media gets a story if you happen to have local knowledge of it. But there are hard to overlook vignettes evoked by ruins that just beg for some contextual story, like the alienation of Tiberius or the refinement of the Quintilii brothers based on their respective villas. Same could be said for their meditative portrait sculpture...

Irresistible Cuban vibe x 4

Is anyone bothered by the possibility that ebay items could be stolen? I've noticed a trend where some Amazon "free shipping" items have become quite pricey yet are increasingly cheap from ebay. Local stores may not have those items any more; what are the ethics of ordering from cheapest source? On one hand, an "American Greed" documentary covered the FBI shutting down shoplifting rings that used ebay, and somebody supposedly keeps surveilling ebay for suspicious patterns. In some sympathetic cases things come from overstock and wanting to sell from an indirect source in order to not violate a list price agreement. On the other hand more modest shoplifting has become decriminalized, and sellers I deal with have suspiciously small quantities available altho may have started with many more. I normally wouldn't deal with suspicious sources like ebay, but Amazon has gotten not only pricey and slow (non prime), but their takeover of delivery service is bad here with them dumping packages in insecure piles in public. On ebay if I order from a highly rated vendor I get faster, cheaper service with secure delivery. If these are greedy criminals some sure can be generous, like the one who let me have $100 shoes for free after some tiny dispute.

Cover of "I Feel Love" with humans playing rather than original robo synth, and serviceable vocals:

short intense nuggets from Cuba and India:

I would like to see a similar analysis of the populating of the americas. In some cases the reverence of "first nations" is misplaced because they are hardly first, but a ruthless later wave that crushed the earlier.

I Like It Like That · Pete Rodríguez Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata

Here is a really clear and thorough article downplaying lead risks of ancient time https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/08/30/why-lead-poisoning-probably-did-not-cause-the-downfall-of-the-roman-empire/

Giovanni Hidalgo & Friends performing Buena Vista Social Club's "El Carretero" live

Famous researcher of ancient dna and author David Reich had a couple hour youtube here that generated 3000 (mostly supportive) comments. I didn't realize they are so active with prehistoric and ancient dna, but apparently they are reluctant to publish due to narrative-busting results. Lots of findings about the plague and hordes from the east and how new narratives need to be developed:

Zeugma Mosaic Museum Virtual Tour

A prominent more nerdy western counterpart AI was just made free, offering an optional reason mode 03mini: https://chatgpt.com/ I tried rerunning some of these questions, and it did toy around with explanations and a few answers, but always it choked with "There was an error generating a response". Might work better for those in a different time zone; it's supposed to have similar quality.

I was more interested in how it reasoned to form haikus rather than which people chosen. And interested in Adrian's rich details for them. I just reran the search with explanations turned on, and yes it was based on a literal acceptance of 10 web pages. I think I could tell it to be skeptical and not rely on compilation lists, but might then need to get behind book paywalls. Supposedly it sneaked past entire NYT archive paywall, and that influence may be why it once made a woke attack against an innocent question of mine. I used to be skeptical against this mindless pattern-matching neural network approach, but found they can discover the rules of logic without being taught. That's why I use the R1 version of deepseek, which stands for reasoning. As for learning facts, deepseek is famous in only spending a few million in training vs a hundred+ million for competitors, yet getting similar results. Assimilating facts is costly but straightforward. Complex reasoning is badly done by humans, and seems ripe for automation. If you can prove reasoning capability thru explanations, then you might justify more investment for loading in facts. P.S. A crippled (lite) version of Chinese deepseek can be downloaded to run on laptops, but there is a U.S. law proposing 20 years of prison for that (for espionage). I showed how to run the powerful web version in a topic something like 5 worst Roman emperors. Excerpt of (a shallow) deepseek explanation:

I just noticed the eminent Adrian Goldsworthy covers a similar list of top generals:

Seems to be Roman brick and tile (very distinctive) with mostly unidentifiable stone and rubble.

"Orange Blossom Special ~ Michael Cleveland ~ BEST VERSION EVER !"