I recommend
"SPQR" by Mary Beard for a good comprehensive book on Roman history
If you prefer chronology for some reason
"The origin of empire" by David Potter is really good
Also "Inventing the Renaissance" By Ada Palmer
I went to college for this shit and these books, while very long, do basically smarize everything I learned on these two subjects. So I've saved you probably $10,000
You would love reading any Roman History book and then "Inventing the Renaissance" by Ada palmer.
You're right. It really does feel like were in the death throws of the republic of rome and the Empire is forming.
Which, naturally, will fall eventually and will likely turn into a nationalist nostalgia and inspire a Renaissance.
You should also be aware that most modern authors have 1 boon and 1 bane. Their boon is significantly more evidence than any other surviving roman historian ever. Their bane is that they will have Tue biases of our modern issues.
Its my favorite thing how much historical interpretation gets done through the eyes of a contemporary. Historians love to go on and on about not having bias, but their human so they do. A good example of this is Edward Gibbons "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" which revitalization our modern tradition of Roman History studies. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you're like me and wanted to study intellectual history) this whole series is often used as a criticism of the British Empire in the 17th century.
Of course a lot of it is good enough roman history, but whole stories within the book are complete fabrications. There is no evidence that they happened to Emperor X or Province Y, but the series of events and the alleged public disapprovals of them do match up with the events of his contemporary political moment for which it would have been illegal for Mr. Gibbon to criticize publicly.
And this means of using nostalgia around a long dead empire to affect contemporary politics is what happened in the Renaissance.
Ada Palmers book she effectively (and very accessibly) argues that the Renaissance was more or less just a massive propaganda campaign since by no measure was the "Renaissance" better or worse than the middle ages. In fact the span of the "renaissance" is so grand that it often includes the middle ages or it doesn't depending on where you want to believe the renaissance started which is constantly redefined.
I thought the point of the pihole was to route all DNS traffic through it on your network?
Note: I've never set up a pihole so this is ass talk
Me after learning what the Logistics guys do: "Wow that sounds like a lot."
Yeah but this also works on a lot of vegan substitutes and staples.
Quinoa is a good example in that its popularity amongst american vegans and health food enjoyer's (myself included) caused damages to local food supplies in poorer countries. Forcing south american and I think African communities to consume shitty processed flour with little to know access to the same nutrients and proteins of quinoa.
TBH, I don't know how bad this still is, I haven't followed it for a while. But the point I think is that the industrial scale food production chain is always going to be questionable ethically.
And if you chose the local only route of going to farmers markets only you're probably limiting yourself to the point of risking malnutrition on a vegan diet (love my local FM, but they do not have beans in the quantity I eat them) and, based on my interactions with all the Kentucky Farmers I've met, you're probably financially supporting a fascism supporter.
The point of "No ethical consumption" I think has always been that things are very complicated supply chain wise and it will take a LOT of work to beat the system. I believe that was intended to make the people trying feel better when they can't possibly beat the system. But you're right, people take it to an extreme and justify not even trying.
There's a "The Good Place" moment where a guy gets sent to the Bad Place for buying flowers for his dying mom. The joke being that the flowers were harvested by slaves and flown on a plane causing un told pollution (I never actually watched the show, just saw the clip on a meme board at some point). But that's the consequences of "doing good" under capitalism. We just don't know how bad it is to do good all the time.
Anytime someone has genuinely said a kind thing to me has been such a massive boost.
That's really it.
There's a few options now, but you can get Intel N100 ITX boards Like this one from ASUS with a soldered on N100 CPU for the cost of a normal motherboard.
If its just a NAS, and I do recommend having a separate Just a NAS, that CPU fucks hard.
Then the media cycle that would have been about the columbine shooters is about the mad stranger who killed two innocent high schoolers and vanished.
The best reason to watch his very long videos is if you like his specific kinda sarcasm and energy. Which, I do, but it is very whiny.
Anyone else notice how brown the snow was after home landed.
Never seen someone shit themselves so hard.
I want them to 1 for 1 recreate the scene. No changes.
I'm actually in tears. Its been such a bad day home.
Thank you.