caesar novus

Wow, here is Beit Shean in Israel, and for a longer unnarrated saunter see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v_e4-wJevI or for a shorter view of overall travel experience see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaVzbXXG0vk Nero's Golden House:

So hard to choose among very diverse videos of this villa in Sicily: My spring visit to this forum was punctuated by an apocalyptic hailstorm where shelter was scarce, exit paths went under water, and a grueling flu was hatched. "Science" insists you can't get infections from wet and cold, but after experiencing about a 98% correlation I can surmise bugs must always be in us waiting for weakness. The only good video on Segovia aqueduct deserves more than it's current 7 likes! You can now live in/on Theater of Marcellus: Roman Nimes:

No new items to report since the above consumed a couple years acquisition budget. But this triggered a few reflections from long history of owning laptops (usually refurbished, and in need of lengthy software upgrades). Basically even new windows consumer machines appear to be great values with a lot of function for the price. But their software has exasperating requirements of babysitting updates thru at least twice a month, and is intrusive in other ways. They have a feel of cheapness, and hardware features seem to fail after the warranty expires. I normally have a mostly working one, a partly working backup, and a bad cripple for emergencies. So in future I will say good riddance to the above, and will pay up or sacrifice features for the following. I think the cheap stuff may not even be sold in EU which enforces implied quality standards. One good experience was a business grade windows laptop, which has a solid feel, premium software/driver access, and a long warranty. It was an affordable refurb due to a fault showing in self-test, which recently disappeared years later. The other good buys were MacOS which only has 6% market share and I was about to abandon. But I had a worn out 2013 Apple laptop that was still transparently upgrading software and had a slick physical feel, so I plunged in with Macbook pro. As usual the refurb had last generations screen resolution, but it can approximate 4k and look nearly as good in 2k where my router isn't so overloaded when hopping around in a stream. The physical feel of it all (keyboard, hinge, huge trackpad, etc) and the fabulous speakers seem so luxurious that I can tolerate the drawbacks like no touchscreen. I learned a lot from configuring away the quirky defaults and making both my Macbook and BizWin appear as similar Firefox machines. P.S. My definition of "refurb" isn't used but immediately returned by first buyer, maybe without a cord or a manual. It used to mean an agent would fix supposed problem and renew the warranty, but now it means wipe fingerprints, storage, and reinstall base software. The seller should explain the history. However I often get fooled about how long it has sat obsolescing on the shelf. Also it pays to check forums to see if that model had a pattern of chronic failures.

This is by far the best way to experience Diocletian's Palace, near dawn before it's multipurpose commercial uses overwhelm the place. Next maybe I will take a break from google's world of media, and search my CATV system for "rome" or "roman" or "ancient".

Short glimpses:

Only a few of these are long and atmospheric like those in https://www.youtube.com/c/ProWalks/playlists . Many are 30 minutes or even a punchy 10. One approach is to click on all the "watch later" symbols on these thumbnails so youtube makes it easy to navigate the list at leisure. I suspect Prowalks may be a history teacher for the large US Navy base near Naples, lucky guy. He used to film a bit more intrusively, but with success and higher profile he films or edits gentlemanly to a fault now.

Maybe "Historia in Universum" next time? As for a Roman connection, isn't there a downside to ruins being drenched with cat pee at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_Argentina_Cat_Sanctuary

(Don't miss the previous 2 videos which due to their lively spirit I sneaked in with a later edit)

I keep my last working CD player preloaded with this ambient piece: P.S. I had mixed results seeing living legions before they self destruct or whatever. Fine if they are on the upswing or even plateau of virtuosity. Not good if they are coasting downhill into smaller hicksville venues like where I used to live at. May be sinking into addictions or in one case despondent about losing a leg to diabetes. On the other hand they may be on an inspiring rebound. I joined a free concert with one half of a famous duo who was tired of his jailbird partner holding him back. He played their familiar hits with more sparkle than ever, I believe to charm industry executives in the audience. Somewhere in the middle was my only stadium rock experience. Now I read this was near a low point of Stones addictions and morale. Keith said for that exact concert he anonymously chartered a small plane to fly the bands collection of guns and drugs out to the next venue. He said between every song they partook of cocaine laid out in the speaker backs. They were integrating a new guitarist swamped with new material, and I think Mick was losing that authoritative voice edge. Keith said he overslept such concerts by hours because he thought audiences didn't mind. The band didn't dare wake him because he instinctively drew a gun from under his pillow. That's why we wilted or fainted in brutal heat and humidity for a mediocre daytime event.

Previous post reminds me of my live R&B gospel phase. Found festivals for that in New Orleans and LA, but mostly I hit Fri/Sat nite concerts in NYC Harlem or Bedford Stuyvesant (dangerous area to loiter in then). These were not filmed but let me recreate the feel. Imagine the below turbocharged with 2 drumsets, 2 grand pianos, and umpteen guitars. It's secularized, but audience in sequined nightclub garb still whirl in transcendence:

8. Somehow I think the frequent excellence and popularity of Tank Museum videos transcend the army nerd demographic: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTankMuseum/videos

I love hot lava vs water, but here is a case where the lava can win. I cue this up at 11:26 where a swimming pool in La Palma is blasting off from trickles of lava. The sailing couple is staying there a while and start to show life under the cinders, etc.

Let's head out to the peaceful SE outskirts of Rome for chariot racing, etc: And turn on captions, since I find no english videos that do justice to fine sites with amazing story:

I liked that last one with none of the summertime haze, altho I think spring or fall beats winter visits. As this page is getting slow to load, I downshifted less interesting videos to hide their thumbnail launchers. Not sure how often to repeat channels here since interested folks already had chances to subscribe. Don't forget to switch on informative closed captions, and look for chapter breakdowns. Altho fine on a digital device, the 4k res ones can be incredible on a large immersive TV. That is unless you cheaped out like me with one of those unbelievable holiday bargains. They can look fine running in a showroom, but about a quarter of (poorly stabilized?) youtube videos drive the anti judder feature nuts. However you adjust it the pixels jump around more or less; thanks Samsung!

Here is a Russian movie that our guides were surprised was popular in US university towns. P.S. my first visit to Italy had police or militia everywhere carrying submachine guns at the ready, due to urgent terrorism crackdown. They did not keep barrels pointed away from people and seemed in late teens with fingers on the trigger. Maybe Russia was in some crackdown mode when I visited. My long walks find stuff not featured in news, like a smoking blown up bank in Athens not that long ago.

AeroTrainer is less twitchy and more multipurpose than an exercise ball A big solid firm memory foam pillow is lasting forever for me, and stopped the endless cycle of replacing flattened conventional pillows. I keep many pillowcases on it to avoid a plastic sensation. Today I thought I lost it because it wouldn't recover from a pretzel crunch position, but like a CPR operation I beat the reluctant thing into semblance of original shape where it slowly reverted to like new. It came compressed quite small, unlike regular pillows that may fill a whole shopping cart as a pair.

Out of all the 3rd world police states and commie countries I visited, old Russia was unique. Police were intimidating everyone like foxes watching a henhouse. Explicit sinister behavior did not endear folks to the Marxism they enforced, which was the original point. For US case, you should read Heather Mac Donald's book or articles on the war on cops in the US. Statistics show the opposite of your anecdote based impressions. White cops are hesitating and being massacred by trying to halt black on black crime. Rather it is black cops who are tough with black perps. Everything is around the ratio of 10, like what are the chances of cops being shot rather than killing someone. Social media ruins all by fake narratives, and doesn't report the usual situation of juries declaring cops not guilty. Now the progressive response is to axe cop numbers and historic dropping crime trends are exploding upward in these places.

Looking back on say the Andropov era when I visited Russia, we expected little enthusiasm for the regime but much in the way of nationalism. Sure enough, old WW2 vets toddling down the streets wearing a square foot of medals were met with warm adulation by passersby. Regimist policemen had everyone intimidated; in an underground street crossing folks would look around and if seeing no police there would suddenly have relaxed postures and smiles. I wore some slightly elastic jeans which caused a sensation by passersby wanting a similar western look. We understood Russia as having an extreme regime due to confronting an extreme Czarist stalemate. The pity was various chances for evolutionary reform were intentionally sabotaged even by reformists, to whom a utopian end justified barbaric means. It was a strategy by calculating elites, not consensus of the masses. Now I think elements in the US also consider progressive ends justifying previously unacceptable means. Anyway, I am concerned by reports of Russian whitewash of the barbaric history of Stalin. He didn't kill as many fellow countrymen as Mao, but about matched internally what Hitler wreaked externally. I enjoyed meeting Maxim Shostakovitch, historically known for the regime forcing his fake denunciation of his world famous father. Back to books, I would say Hitler wrote incomprehensible gibberish except possibly in "Table Talk" which is more about tame civic issues brought up in "polite company" dinner chit chat. I think Zhuangzi is a more digestible book of philosophic Taoism rather than the enigmatic "Way" or whatever it's called. For a really good alternative to "The Prince" do a search on "the art of worldly wisdom pdf free download" by Gracian 300 years ago. Choose from many pdf versions ranging from messy to overly slick.

https://youtu.be/tZnNPH_A_nY (removed thumbnail of less interesting vid)

We are just now seeing a return to low tech mid rise insulae style apt buildings in US:

Here I attempt to cue up 35:33 at a chapter of a Volterra video called Roman Theater and Baths. It's not spectacular; more of a consolation prize for being on the losing side of a civil war. But see how these chapters work for Roman cherrypicking in similar general videos. You can detect chapter names by sliding down the time bar, and for instance skip the Etruscan crap . On my TV this is especially well supported by arrow up letting you jump to named chapters. In this case the cameraman briefly wanders offsite to re-enter at lower level, so don't prematurely think it's over: