paulgorman.org

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Sun 14 Apr 2019 10:47:50 AM EDT Slept from eleven to eight-thirty. Woke around three, and had some trouble falling back to sleep. High of thirty-eight and rainy today. Some excitement this morning. Prolonged, audible blue-white arcing on an electrical pole outside, though I didn't lose power. Called DTE, and someone else must of have called 911. A bunch of cops showed up while I was still on the phone with DTE, hung out for ten minutes, then left. A couple DTE trucks showed up half an hour later. Maybe just a squirrel having a very bad day? Goals: - Work on simple inventory Done. Half-hour walk to Beverly Park. Cool and rainy, but I didn't mind. All the earthy smells slightly intensified because of the damp. Maple trees are dropping their red bud shells. A sparse carpet of green has poked up in the little woods between Huntley and Beverly Park. Loads of robins foraging. Heard a morning dove, saw a cardinal, saw and heard a woodpecker. One Mallard in the pond. My root partition failed to come up clean this morning (needed manual fsck), and I was reminded that I should always have a live boot distro on a USB stick. Is something really wrong with my machine? Every time I download debian-live-9.8.0-amd64-gnome.iso, I get a different checksum (and none of them the expected checksum). No, I can copy files around or download other files with expected results. It's just the Debian ISO download. Watered plants, vacuumed. Watched the rest of Santa Clarita Diet. James A. Smith, the guy who wrote the Dreams of Mythic Fantasy blog that periodically posted The OSR News, died at fifty. I chipped in for his funeral expenses. https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/bcykbe/in_the_time_of_the_roman_empire_was_there_ever_a/ > In the time of the Roman Empire, was there ever a "Colonel Kurtz" scenario where a Roman general or governor went rogue with the local population, and needed to be assassinated? > Quintus Sertorius is pretty close: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Sertorius > He was a brilliant general (contemporaries compared him to Hannibal) who fled Sulla's dictatorship and set up an independent state in Iberia. He was highly popular with the local tribes, doing things like creating a school to train tribal elites in Roman manners. He was eventually assassinated by his subordinates after his enemies put an enormous bounty on his head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Crown > [Pliny:] as for the crown of grass, it was never conferred except at a crisis of extreme desperation, never voted except by the acclamation of the whole army, and never to any one but to him who had been its preserver. Other crowns were awarded by the generals to the soldiers, this alone by the soldiers, and to the general. This crown is known also as the "obsidional crown" [siege crown], from the circumstance of a beleaguered army being delivered, and so preserved from fearful disaster. If we are to regard as a glorious and a hallowed reward the civic crown, presented for preserving the life of a single citizen, and him, perhaps, of the very humblest rank, what, pray, ought to be thought of a whole army being saved, and indebted for its preservation to the valour of a single individual? Servings: grains 1/6, fruit 2/4, vegetables 3/4, dairy 0/2, meat 2/3, nuts 0/0.5 Brunch: banana, cucumber, carrots, coffee Lunch: migas, tomato, mandarin Afternoon snack: Dinner: Chinese 127/76

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