@mnolangray To be fair, Athens was a backwater for at least a millennia. Here’s Athens in 1810

I've had good luck so far with the solid brass and copper fixtures you can order from Morocco. If I ever build a house, it will be entirely free of American faucets, shower sets, etc.

@MostlyMonkey The type of nerd who know all the GAAP rules, but doesn't really understand in his bones how IRR works is not destined for greatness

American affluence is unlike any historically known form of human life, combining the schedule and social constraints of actual slavery with wild material opulence.

@BowTiedSalesGuy Go ahead and use my meeting opener: "I have a presentation that has all the information we'd like you to know. But I'd rather start with what you'd like to know. What were some of the first thoughts or questions you had when you heard about this meeting" I listen, take notes

@Empty_America I went to an English estate for a work function a couple years ago and I was commenting on how flat the grounds were. Despite my best efforts, no square foot of my New England yard is that flat.

@gaulicsmith Somerville, MA is dense with mostly triple deckers

@Empty_America Yale has tons of courses available for free on YouTube. If academic was the point then no one would be paying hundreds of thousands to hear the same lectures in person

@Empty_America Reminds me of Hemingway, I think it's in For Whom The Bell Tolls, where the American is telling the Spanish girl about how America used to have bicycles everywhere, but it doesn't anymore. We got too rich for bicycles and now we're too rich for economy cars.

@Empty_America I was watching His Girl Friday from 1940 and a major plot point is a public execution by hanging in NYC. The past is a foreign country.

@SandyofCthulhu My grandfather's comments after watching Saving Private Ryan - Yup, that's war - They wouldn't have marched that close together - There wouldn't have been anything identifying on the officer, because the Germans would target officers

I'm finally reading this book, and it is as great as many say—it is less a plot-driven novel, more a notebook of what the writer saw/thought during WW2. Sketches tied together by external events/time more than character arcs. I appreciate it because while you are immersed in

fwiw here are the publications that paid me the most ever. some of this is good money! but unfortunately with the way most publications string you along & take at least 30-60 days to pay out it ends up being worth less than the actual dollar amount. PR bio gigs kept me alive more

@WaywardRabbler 💯 right after the Persians kill all the Greek army officers through trickery, and the common soldiery are all laying about in despair. Exquisite reference

@romanhelmetguy Do you remember Xenophon's quote, along the lines of, 'From what city am I waiting for a general to come save? When will I be old enough? If I fall into the hands of my enemies I wont get any older at all"

For within him Hell he brings

Strange that the most significant offshoot of Dutch people, the Afrikaners, are not renoun for trade and infrastructure. Very different than their New Amsterdam descendants.

House of Friends

Arrested Thrones

Excited for the new HBO/Netflix crossover series. Stranger Sopranos