caesar novus

Cellos in Pula Croatia ancient Arena P.S. If you have been flagging music videos with a "like", you can replay the list and shuffle etc. I do this with the youtube music app and really prefer it to the garbage that it may mis recommend for me. I've flagged hundreds of music likes and thousands of video likes over the years (sometimes "youtube music" mixes one up with the other). Youtube music may be a premium only app, but what I like is they haven't obsoleted it as fast as regular youtube on old versions of android. Actually mine gives error msgs but still works on old tablets.

https://www.newsmax.com/thewire/captain-cook-ship-endeavour/2025/06/16/id/1215162/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook

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.

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