caesar novus

I believe I saw the whole pantheon temple complex depicted in this Yale class session http://academicearth.org/lectures/hadrians-pantheon-and-tivoli-retreat

Just some unrelated observations... I think the Pantheon's exterior is ugly, hulking, and of awkward proportions. However it was pointed out to me that it was originally tightly surrounded by wings of related buildings, and thus mainly seen from inside perspectives. Sorry, but I also think the lower level interior clashes with the Roman vibe. It's sort of Catholic baroque, but I hear the original interior look is recreated in a room of the Vatican. I vaguely recall this as pagan grandiose, but didn't appreciate it too well because the crowds are at a particular chokepoint there. Also it looks a bit new and stagey, so I didn't make the connection until hearing about it afterwards (maybe someone can post a picture?).

I think there are both good and bad misspellings (sp?). English has all kinds of irregular historical oddities that may or may not contribute meaningful distinctions. When it doesn't, I can appreciate a change to a more regular form, like swimmed rather than swam - especially from non-native speakers. There is a grey (gray?) area... do we absolutely need the who/whom or effect/affect distinctions? A related issue is choice of words such as the BBC list of 50 worst Americanisms http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796 . I think some are a step forward, some a step backward, and others neutral. Like the included notes from American readers in that article, this is a process of evolution. Mutations can be thought as random, and most misfits will die off but a few improved innovations will survive. There once was intelligent creationism in the form of spelling simplification by Ben Franklin or somebody of the American revolution era where various British spellings were shortened and regularized, although not all caught on. Meanwhile misspellings offer a window into the mind of the writer - are they obviously unaware of the roots of the words they use, or do they cover up a mess with a spell checker which lets them insert many (rightly spelled) wrong words that sound the same?

I wonder in what phase of the war the worst of the artifact damage happened? Too bad Germans didn't recognize that Heidelburg was being purposefully spared (as a culture center, just as Kyoto was) and sent artifacts there. They could have used Hitler's personel train bristling with AA guns, which he didn't use towards the end. Oh right, they would have installed secret weapons and elite villas instead. I will risk brainstorming a bit more, even though my WW2 knowledge may be fractured... It's interesting to think whether the damages were particularly needless (although not known at the time). The final intense bombings of Berlin had a solely psychological purpose IIRC since there were few useful ground targets or defensive planes to worry about. It was actually trying to save more damage and killing by forcing surrender before the ground forces swept in. The Russians were very close, but maybe Allies didn't have Hitler's psychology profiled right to see that a combined, imminent, apocalyptic threat did not tempt surrender (did tempt Hitler's deputies tho). But previous to that, at least in the latter half of the war, the Berlin bomb damage was not for psychological reasons. It was a successful program of tying down masses of 88 guns and fighter planes so that the Russians and later the Normandy invasion could proceed without overwhelming opposition. The bomber crews were explicitly sacrificial bait for the German fighters to approach and be mauled by P-51s and P-47s. Russia gets credit for 4 out of 5 allied casualties, but maybe this would have risen unsustainably if not for artifact-busting bombing which gave them air superiority. Earlier in the war the bombing may have been less useful due to less impact on German defenses (and of course psychology). In the case of Italy, isn't it a shame the fake invasion plan they so skillfully convinced the Germans of (thru a covert operation in Spain) didn't go into effect. Sardinia (after Sicily?) was to be captured and project airpower from southern Germany to the surrounding Med. There was optionally going to be incursion into Macedonia, Albania, or Yugoslavia. Think of the saving to the Italian mainland, not only to such prime artifacts of western civilization but to casualty rates in the mountainous boot that favors defense over offense. I think there is little in Sardinia worth preserving, and if the Germans could be convinced that the island invasion has merit, then why not. Instead a roll up the Italian boot occurred with a particularly skillful German general and klutzy US one.

The "naked archeologist" had a program on how thieves or at least illegal amateurs had brought to light the most interesting artifacts in Israel. Of course the legal archeologists countered that the biggest loss then was inability to examine artifact's embedded context. Maybe in centuries the items could be properly dug up - or on the other hand destroyed by construction. Lake Nemi was such a heartbreaker. Those fabulous Roman ships brought to light by Mussolini draining the lake - a documentary recently examined the tunnels drilled to make this happen. Then the ships being burned by retreating Nazis (I take it an alternate theory that Allies did it accidentally is whispered among scholars - I so much wish the Allies used plan B invading Sardinia rather than the mainland boot). I wonder if Italy completed a reconstruction of 1 ship that was shown laying a keel in a long ago documentary?

I have a medieval england course http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/Course_Detail.aspx?cid=8410 playing on my ipod and I believe the lecturer said both the Viking and Saxon "invasion" was oftentimes more like a stream of settlers, according to the archeology. She gave specific reasons why the history was long ago spun to emphasize the wave or invasion aspect due to identity politics. I don't recall if she claimed many women came by sea - you can put Viking bangles on a Brit bride. I may have muddled some of this narrative because I play this series while walking along busy traffic.

Borders drove me away from bricks and mortar stores and towards online. The freeloaders blocking the shelves in their eternal reading or headphone positions started getting territorial and relishing keeping genuine shoppers away from their interest areas. I remember years ago when these bookstores started this library/coffee theme when such opportunities weren't taken for granted. It was also a time vagrancy was uncommon even during recessions, but now the default attitude seems to be cynical assumption of entitlements. Well, I guess this approach still works at some fringe bookstores that attract esoteric demographics.

Sorry - I guess his "new" findings date from the early 1990's which he is just consolidating (not introducing) now. I am out of date due to immersing myself in WW2 decades ago at a military library with no followup. Now I have started to follow a book called something like "the third reich at war" and almost falling out of my chair due to stuff I didn't know (but probably widely known). Anyway I jumped the gun since I hadn't seen his video yet. I saw another one he did and some overenthusiastic book reviews, but this video was poor. I guess cspan book site is in a summer slow period and not so great now - but don't lose heart and be sure to check it around September!

Here is a heads up before they post the video on the page below, but some WW2 enthusiasts may want to check it out on the weekend TV broadcast times they indicate. The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War http://www.booktv.org/Program/12498/The+Storm+of+War+A+New+History+of+the+Second+World+War.aspx by Andrew Roberts who seems to be taking a fresh look at the whole war and reassigning blames and credits for various developments. Not just knee-jerk revisionism that you'd expect from modern monday morning quarterbacks, but pretty thoughtful. His conclusions almost seem disturbing (you're going to upset THOSE assumptions?) but they sound somewhat persuasive after getting over initial shocks. There is also an author broadcast on WW1 and other clashes this extended independence US holiday weekend. Both of the schedules near top of the first post may prove more fruitful to history buffs than last weekend due to this. These are usually about an hour long.

That WAS an unwatchable series. Jones' main reason for emerging from obscurity was by making a career out of knee-jerk irreverence in Monty Python. Wikipedia says he currently passes his time by demonizing in print the efforts to contain terror. I wonder if he was the "python" who John Cleese suggested as having had a distrustful childhood making him paranoid about any authority. He had a funny way of describing this, but only would criticize in name the "python" who died. About the same year, UC Berkeley held a class which is now downloadable that demonized the Romans in the same revisionist way, even within their borders. Also then, another "python" Micheal Palin did some present day travel documentaries pushing the victimology angle.

Applying for your own job throws up a scare, but may be less jeopardy for most than it appears. It could well be a veiled way to justify sacking specific people they have been unhappy with a long time, and may have repeatedly informed them of how to improve their status but with no cooperation. A bit brash for me to say though, having decided to early retire just before a re-app was sprung on our group. I think business exists for the customers and owners. If you hire a worker-bee plumber, is it acceptable if they can't make it but will charge you $500 per day for them doing training classes or back therapy or employee sleep in? The customer must be pleased with results, and the investor/owner/manager has to be pleased with the income or else should put their (sometimes considerable and essential) money elsewhere. Employees should find their profitable niche only by being as valuable or better than employees of competing companies, or else find a more productive niche (even self employment). I don't think the employee should be a charity or the whole transaction/responsiblity between owner and customer is perverted. For instance, gov't workers often don't give value to taxpayers because their management isn't answerable to taxpayers but rather to political factions like employee unions or voting freeloaders immune to the costs. That said, I did gravitate to a company famous for low employee turnover.

I thought I might prevent some grumpy meanderings in my forum entries if there was a place off to the side to unwind, such as here. And actually I feel guilty to not responding to a gun entry posted here somewhere months ago. Someone blogged about finding a really old family 10 gauge pump shotgun as I recall, and was thinking of testing it. At the time I remembered seeing such a thing in my dad's closet and him saying ammo is hard to get (and wondered why - huge 10ga was rare but legal). Later I heard some appraisal show saying these were mostly black powder guns and could not stand up to modern ammo. Well, it must be a testament to my values that alarm bells did not fully ring until I heard another appraisal show saying these were very valuable due to being the first pump/repeating shotguns. So while I didn't intervene then to try to save face wounds or loss of an eye (will heal by itself, or at least another eye is left), I now want to point out that sale of such a thing might help fund a visit to Roman sites! I also remember fiddling with 2 rifles from that closet. One was a WW1 gun which my dad had me convert to a "sport" rifle as a learning experience. It was still heavy for me as a kid so he used that and I got a modern semi auto. Having fiddled with bolt action, I could hardly imagine how it could repeat so took it all apart and reassembled - with one spring left over, to my horror. I didn't dare admit this, and went on a ritualistic deer hunt with my dad. I think we both had no interest in bloodsports, but it was a supposed to reveal it's value afterward according to myths of the time. After the unsuccessful hunt I emptied the gun, swung it vaguely towards a dirt pile by the car, and pulled the trigger to unspring the firing pin - BLAMMO! Maybe the missing spring would have revealed how there was still a round in the chamber. Anyway, it's good I always used the rule to point even unloaded guns away from people (many ignore this). And it's good I ran across a couple of poor squirrels before butchering any bambi, and got so sick at the sight of wounds that I eventually became vegetarian and save a chain of deaths that way. Not that I'm sentimental about it, I just don't want that vaguely unclean feeling.

Wow, I would love to be a WW2 archeologist. But the neutrality of Republic of Ireland was a sordid affair, indirectly stemming from a secret WW1 sabotage mission ordered there by the Kaiser. He also had some responsibility for the cold war, due to his secret WW1 support of Lenin's re-entry to Russia. He even affected my Norway holidays, by paying to rebuild Alesund (destroyed by fire) in a uniform art deco style. All by an oldtimer titled like Julius, who wore a pickle spike on his head. So this nonsense gets past BBC editors now? Maybe the Spitfire was marginally best on it's introduction, but even the later enhanced versions probably ranked below the top all time 5. Even Nazi top aces can be seen in documentaries giving a nod to that tiresome candidate, P51. The new generation of BBC editors no longer seem to know history or their heritage of understatement. (A Korean war documentary relates that a British tank group was not rescued due to the commander reporting to a UN coordinator only that things were "a bit sticky" when they were totally engulfed with enemy even atop their tanks)

I just went Trondheim->Bergen as a non stateroom passenger in 2003. Staterooms were chronically sold out even one could cope with their cost. My trick was to stop overnight in pretty Alesund and catch the opposite direction Hurtigruten which went into Geirangerfjord (maybe over rated in spite of Unesco listing), then catching the next southbound ferry continuing to Bergen. From this documentary, I feel I missed the best scenery that was north of Trondheim. But this documentary is even better because the northern towns were breaking out into festivities. I really like how this captures the feel of the voyage, including the soothing hours of how the hull just rhythmically hisses thru the swells. Reminds how I watched bronze summer sunrises among still snowy peaks from a deck vacated by people more interested in breakfast. How it feels to see deep blue sky and green coast after umpteen hours of grey drizzle... wouldn't it be nice to have this constantly running as a screen saver or on a tablet device on a bedstand to lull you to sleep. I think it will be a couple of years for hardware to be capable of handling the size/complexity of these files, or for Norway to condense them. P.S. In some lectures tracing Norwegians before vikings, I seem to recall the only early written record was of a Greek traveler reporting to Rome. I cannot find more mention of this, and anyway they couldn't tell at all how far along the fjord coast he got.

Some further thoughts after reading the scholars epilogue and forward and such: I didn't see any mention of disease notoriety, although the next expedition by DeSoto seems famous for that, along with brutality. Cabeza's trip thru the SE US actually had quite rare interactions with inhabitants. He probably would have led the DeSoto expedition (with very different legacy?) if not being delayed getting back to Spain by weather, a sinking ship and French pirates. Contrast that with Cabeza's later stranding in Texas and Mexico where the inhabitants took them as shamans to treat the sick (and made him breathe over each of the well as a protection). At least in the short term, all "patients" got better (psychosomatic?) including one who was thought to be dead. The half of a village that I mentioned dying on his arrival seemed to expire due to dysentery which I think is passed locally and not via Europe. Cabeza supposed he was leaving a trail of peace because he insisted in neighboring tribes stopping hostilities before he would treat them. He was horrified by Spanish slavers, and seemed to have a vision of how the Americas could be a symbiotic paradise once friction among the indians and with the Spanish could be turned positive. If that sounds delusional, you would have to read his account to see how his self-deprecating style seduces you into believing it. I guess he went on to an ill fated South American quest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Norwegian TV provides free coverage of their most famous scenic sea and rail journeys in http://www.nrk.no/hurtigruten/?lang=en and http://nrkbeta.no/2009/12/18/bergensbanen-eng/ which you can download instead of traveling there. They are 134 and 7.5 hours long respectively, and have the creative commons share alike license. Maybe you know of some similar offerings? The rail trip over the glacier is most manageable as a 22gb download, in reduced 720 resolution which they offer thru a torrent as well as a huge 245gb version. I found only the latest VLC tool will render the dark tunnels right - quicktime makes a blocky mess. It is a bit unfortunate the trip was made in bleak late November, and that only the train front camera scenes could be offered free. The coastal ferry trip just ended but the full delightful version can be accessed via a map or random toggling within the link above. I think their server is quite confused and will jump you around randomly, but take a peek into the little towns they hit near the end and the very festive reception they give the camera folks with dancing and such. You can pipe this into a high def TV and get full resolution of fjords under midnight sun, etc. Click on the downloads button, and you are offered a list of ship front camera segments which unfortunately are in full resolution and not only will comprise maybe 3 terrabytes but may drive your pc to about melt down just in the process of rendering. I hope they offer a lower resolution or better hardware becomes available soon. P.S. They have "cultural" encounters with reconstructed viking ships and chats with Saami representatives, etc.

I thought I might post some video links of nonfiction author talks from cspan tv that seemed unexpectedly good. Anyone can cherry pick ones with promising sounding titles using the weekend schedules at http://www.booktv.org/Schedule.aspx and http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/print-schedule.php (latter only shows same day shows). But others may promise to be boring but I happened to find favorable by channel surfing, then scramble to catch up online. For example: The Civil War of 1812 http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Warof1 was a little US/UK sideshow war to UK's war with Napoleon. The UK mostly thought the US should cooperate with them fighting the Hitler of the time, but instead is outraged the US fights UK when it is down. Well, sometimes it wanted to vandalize and threaten the US. But it gets stranger. Many battles occurred in British Canada. Most Canadian combatants happened to be recent emigrants from US! Most combatants on both sides were Irish born! The American Irish were fighting the British with an eye to eventually liberating Ireland, and were subject to hanging as a traitor if captured. In fact any UK born American was considered returnable to the UK military. NE US leaned toward the UK partly because there had been nothing but rural minded Virginians as presidents, alienated to their trader interests... Mastermind: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect KSM http://www.booktv.org/Program/12550/Mastermind+The+Many+Faces+of+the+911+Architect+Khalid+Shaikh+Mohammed.aspx covers the endless failed opportunities to stop KSM, who was sort of a scatterbrained but ghastly terror idea-man that even drove Bin Laden up the wall. What hooked me was the author first hinting at then pretty much spilling the beans of the aggressive interrogation techniques that the CIA used against him and 2 others. Apparently misunderstood by news reports (and wikipedia I see) yet hushed due to lawsuits, their ultimate escalation sounds bearable and was even mocked in the process by KSM. Some point out the alternate interrogation under military rules gave great success in WW2 where Japanese and Nazi prisoners were coddled and spilled a lot of stuff to hidden mikes. But this approach was used anyway in most cases by CIA, yet it outlaws key modern police techniques due to dating to 1940 before they were understood. Much CIA success apparently came from subtle Pavlovian dog type stuff, like imperceptibly rewarding truth tellers with more comfortable environment (and v. versa).

TV documentaries of Rome seem to have dried up, but I caught a great repeat from Smithsonian channel I missed the first time http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/sn/show.do?episode=137533#video that made gladiators seem more interesting than ever before. Let's see, I heard some terrible Roman podcast that made me swear off amateur historians. Longer ago viewed the Yale course on Roman Architecture (search for OYC or open yale course) which dwelled a bit much on terminology, but can't complain about free..

Aha! I thought there were irrational assumptions in the common migration path explanation. Click thru some steps on the world migration map here and see if you think it looked a little gimmicky http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ The last interpretation I heard of DNA "breadcrumbs" left behind in migration paths left me with the idea that nothing proves that Africa was the origin; rather someplace on the arc from Africa to Australia could give the same DNA trail. I think the main issue to me was the Aussie aborigine DNA trail from Africa was entirely missing. Therefore between Africa and Australia there could be an origin that fed into Africa as well as Australia. It probably would be closer to Africa than Australia to account for missing fanout, and could be now submerged.

Giraffe are widely claimed to decapitate lions with their kick - I even heard this from guides in Kenya. So I googled for confirmation, and poked around just enough to be sickened by a bunch of youtube scenes of lions battling with various animals with various degrees of success and failure. Some have the air of artificial herding together combatants in some perverse revival of Roman setups (no stage or anything, just suspicious). Anyway, what I gather is small giraffe are brutally dominated by a lion looking for food. Medium size giraffe can be killed by a pack of lions, but risking injuries. A large (bull) giraffe utterly dominates even a pack of lions and some are gonna die. I never saw a forward kick, which I thought would be so effective with that long leverage over a heavy hoof. There were vicious rearward kicks, but the intent seemed to be to fling the lunging lion away. The most aggressive was a weird high stomping action with giraffe front legs, which terrorized even packs of lions. I think it was aiming at the backbone which is right near the lion skin on the top, with all the protective muscle on sides or bottom. The term decapitation refers to the way giraffes seperate the lion skull from the backbone. I don't know if they ever snap off soft tissue. Now I see thru giraffe eyes (one who has been terrorized by lions while growing up) that the lions backbone looks like a fragile cantilever (protruding, actually), hung off it's front haunches... just asking to be snapped. P.S. on animal kicks and linguistics: I heard that the slow drawl way of speaking in Texas, the midwest, and parts of northeast US come from working close to large cattle and milkcows and reassuring them so they don't kick or stomp you. Just yesterday I was smiling at a newsclip of a Texan cop who was somehow putting across urgency but in a voice that was very monotone and exactly steady in volume. It's a type of voice that is taken as slow witted, but might have hidden wisdom even when around people that might act like animals.

There have been some scare stories about Roman sites in the Libya war in http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/06/14/libya.war/ But NATO condemned the use of these sites to store weapons, and I'm sure they left it open whether to be bombed (which they did more explicitly than above) for secrecy and as a deterrent against more abuse. I have seen a ww2 video of Churchill making a speech before thousands of troops in what appears to be Leptis Magna - I bet the site was a bit worse for wear after that

OK, I can empathize with some skepticism about my, err, APPLE GARUM. On reflection I may have been inspired by drinking pulque in Mexico, which I had assumed was a fermented cactus slurry and byproduct of tequila production. Bubbly and almost gelatinous... but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulque gives it a bit different and historically fascinating origin. Final production thoughts: I guess best to do a single container at a time, and put aside a quarter of it to give headroom for the rest to expand. Hit it hard with yeast for a fast bubbly ferment, using a fun flavor of fruit juice to help dissolve the yeast (berry juices do better than citrus, which ferments with odd tastes). Every hour or two, open the container (with a towel or paper in case of spray) and be prepared to spoon some out to make room for more expansion. When it is at a peak (4 hrs on a warm day?), eat all you want and refrigerate the rest (beware of storing more than a day or so). This may be illegal in some countries like Norway where homebrewing is considered a sin. And where I live carbonation is practically a sin, with container recycle taxes, threat of sugar drink taxes, and transportation restrictions of CO2 tanks. But at least a small amount of alcohol is important for foods because certain flavors are primarily soluable in alcohol, like vanilla beans flavors. Hmm, I have a cheap bulk source of that, so will have to try chucking it into the sauce...

What I learned now is to not recycle old yeasty applesauce like you would sourdough starter. It works ok, but the highly fermented pulp has an off taste which was masked by it's higher alcohol content in it's original situation. Also fermenting too slow in a cool environment leads to more alcohol than bubbles which is boring. The bubbles are the thing - to hold them to your tongue in a thick paste is a revolutionary sensation! Sez http://sciblog.marylandsciencecenter.org/2010/01/what-do-bubbles-taste-like/ : person

Oops, I skipped the simple approach to get yourself calibrated without mess or fuss. You can check progress hourly the first time, which will relieve pressure and prevent spraying. Also gives you the feel of how much yeast is needed and what stage you like best. You should spoon some out each time you open it to give room for expansion. It will start off pretty bland, then should take off in 3 or 4 hours. If you eventually move it to a fridge, don't let it sit too many hours without checking it I use about a coin size dollop of active dry yeast, as in for baking bread. I long ago tried special champagne yeast for fermenting, but it didn't seem so special. A medium to large coin size seems to work for most any size batch - the main thing is big enough to prevent some other microorganism from dominating, but not so big as to rupture your container before you notice it. Once you get calibrated for the timing, etc it will ferment better and more pure when you don't open it in the meantime. Any competing organisms (such as the kind that makes smelly cheese) would come from the air, assuming your applesauce was pasteurized at the factory.

Fermented apple sauce! Once as a kid I opened a jar of applesauce and it gushed all over the table due to being full of bubbles - it had fermented into a tangy treat. So in the interest of creating a delicious homemade snack more healthy than chips or junk food, I have recreated this. Or I am perfecting it and maybe someone will have better ideas of how to do it. I don't generally even like alcohol and mainly focus on the bubbles, but the alcohol does give a good tang like a yogurt on steroids. The bubbles can give the sauce a thick consistency like moist bread for some reason - kind of like a rumcake. I saw some article saying bubbles tease your tastebuds due to some physics thing; not just due to their carbonic acid. I start with plastic bottles of pure applesauce, which are surprisingly cheap. Plastic won't shatter under pressure, and lets you feel the pressure so to prevent a rupture or too much sprayout when uncapping. Well, you can't really prevent a sprayout since the sauce can double it's volume due to trapped bubbles when uncapping, or at least fruit pulp near the cap threads will shoot out everywhere. But back to the start... You can open a fresh bottle of applesauce at room temperature, toss in some yeast, close it, shake it up and let it rest upside down. But the yeast I use won't find enough moisture to fully dissolve (maybe I should try another kind), so I have taken to spike it with a bit of a fruit juice chaser like cranberry. P.S. this may not work well with a previously opened bottle of applesauce because long contact with regular air brings in competing bacteria which can stink up the ferment. Wines can tolerate this because over time the good yeast wins, but we are doing this faster. Anyway in a few hours the bottle distorts under pressure and will open in a big mess but give heavenly sauce. I don't think it would have helped to loosely cap the sauce because the bubbles are entrapped and won't bubble up. You can put the remaining unused stuff in the fridge and it will slowly recharge but get increasingly alcoholic as it converts more sugar. It eventually loses the fun combination of sweetness to accompany tang, but change in itself is fun. What I am trying now is to cut back the messy sprayout without investing in bigger containers with the need to wash them and such. When the fermented bottle is down to 1/4 full, I partly refill it with fresh sauce. This is like reusing the "mother" yeast for sourdough bread and saves some money. But it referments kind of slow in the fridge - I will have to try at room temperature. And the freshly opened jar will need to be cooled... so you don't end up with a nice situation of warm sauce unexposed to air critters that gives optimum results - still perfecting the process!