Since you're about done with the History of Rome, if you happen to be looking for more:

- "12 Byzantine Rulers" is a short but pretty awesome series on the Eastern Roman Empire

- "Emperors of Rome" is super interesting too and it's still going, I find Rhiannon Evans really interesting to listen to (she's a lecturer in Mediterranean History), and Matt Smith the main host is always very excited and interested in the topic.

- "When in Rome" is about the history of different places in the city it's also by Matt Smith but the co-host changes.

Also, Meditations is a great book, enjoy it!

Congratulations on the new job!

If you happen to come down to Miami let me know, August is a tough time for going to national parks down here (lots of mosquitos, lots of humidity...), but it's a very pretty place and it's always fun to do something in the water.

Congratulations on the new job!

If you happen to come down to Miami let me know, August is a tough time for going to national parks down here (lots of mosquitos, lots of humidity...), but it's a very pretty place and it's always fun to do something in the water.

Congratulations on the new job!

If you happen to come down to Miami let me know, August is a tough time for going to national parks down here (lots of mosquitos, lots of humidity...), but it's a very pretty place and it's always fun to do something in the water.

I can so relate to this!

I play guitar to unwind and, if I'm having a particularly stressful day, sometimes I'll start playing scales and suddenly realized that it's been an hour or two. Lately, I've been playing classical more than anything else, and it's really so lovely.

Music is wonderful, and letting your brain focus on something creative feels really great.

I think this is exactly it... Everyone else is kissing babies, he's leaning in for a kiss and saying "yikes, that's an ugly baby, I'll pass".

Now, everyone might agree that it's an awful thing to say, you may even think "what's he talking about? that baby is adorable!" but the thing is... no one else is being honest.

Watching everyone else is a little like watching one of those TV singing competitions, you know someone is going to overact during the performance, they're going to throw in an out-of-place, unnecessary falsetto, and the judges are going to pretend that they just witnessed the birth of a once in a lifetime talent.

Watching Trump is like going to a bar and watching a band that, objectively, blows... A band that makes music you would never actually buy... BUT a band that gets everyone in the room singing along when they cover a classic. Yeah, they suck... yeah, they shouldn't be making music... but you know what, for tonight they're entertaining enough and they're fulfilling a need.

Trump would probably make a pretty awful president, but at least he's shining a light on how much of a PR puppet everyone else is, and he's saying things that no one else can really say.

For example, "I can buy and sell each and every one of you, not just because I have the money, but because you'd LET ME buy you and sell you to the highest bidder" is something that none of the other candidates can say because it's probably true of just about all of them, Trump can say it because, as well as he may be doing, he's basically a kamikaze approaching the target... The worst thing that can happen to him is that his campaign crashes and burns sooner than expected, in which case, who cares? To him, this campaign is (probably, I'm only guessing here) the equivalent of painting TRUMP on the side of his 757... it's just branding.

If it all comes crashing down he can go back to being a successful billionaire, and he can go back to making quiet contributions to anyone he needs to buy so that whatever tract of land he needs to turn into a golf course, or a hotel, or anything else becomes just that.

Trump is doing well because, he may be saying beautiful things or he may be saying awful things, but he's saying them with no filter... everyone else is a PR puppet kissing babies and standing on bales of hay to give empty speeches.

At this point, I think we should at least afford them the title of "naturalized earthlings" they've been around for a while.

I had no idea that there was such a thing as jumping genes... This article is going to spawn off an awful lot of associated reading.

For what it's worth, I would love that.

I think it'd be a great way to discover and promote new noteworthy tags.

Wow... this really caught me off guard!

Thank you, insomniasexx! I honestly was not expecting one of my posts to be newsletter-worthy :)

I'd say normally somewhere between 15 minutes and 1 hour, depending on what it is.

Less than 15 minutes is rare unless I'm heating leftovers. The upper limit is probably around 10 hours, but that's an hour to an hour and a half of cooking, and the rest is just waiting for the slow cooker to do it's thing.

Yeah, and even if you ignore the front page and go straight to subverses you're interested in, sadly the comment quality has really, really gone down, and you do notice the 2 or 3 majority groups dominating the conversation (at the moment I'd say they're probably coontown, fatpeoplehate, and reddit-hate in general, but I've been spending less and less time there, so I could be wrong).

There are also more puns, and more opinions that make you think "you must be 15 and trying to be edgy... or at least, god, I hope you are..."

I've noticed more downvotes for things that don't really take away from the conversation, but are just opinions that someone disagreed with.

For example, I feel like here I could tell you "ooli, I actually love coontown, those are not fallacies, they're enlightened observations" and we would probably never agree on that, but we could exchange views in a fairly civil way. Over there far more reasonable opinions are already starting to get bombed into a crater if they disagree with the general consensus. It's basically turning into a more reddit-like place, which is fine, except for the fact the people flocking to that place claim to be escaping reddit for being filled with basically what they're pushing on voat. It may be coontown and not SRS (or general SJW behavior), but they're still starting to silence dissenters rather than either debating them, or taking a live-and-let-live approach.

That's really a shame because here you won't find me advocating in favor of coontown in particular, but if I do have a personal opinion on anything that disagrees with a more widely accepted general opinion I will probably bring it up, and the beautiful thing about being able to do that is that I'd probably do it less to convert people to my side, and more to try to see why that opinion is not accepted, and to try to understand if it is me who is wrong. If maybe I haven't considered all sides.

I appreciate that about this place. I feel like comments are more thought out and, probably because of that, they're more likely to generate meaningful, constructive debate rather than personal attacks to deflect from having to think too hard about the merits of the argument you're putting forth.

I will say this though, I may not like the changes that voat has been going through, but they do make me appreciate hubski a lot more.

This is a really great place, and I'm grateful to all of you for making it that way.

Well, in the future, if you ever take any picture you're particularly proud of and feel like sharing it, I'd love to see it!

Thank you! Maybe I'll give it a shot soon them.

Photography is oddly satisfying. I actually have some of my own pictures hanging in my living room.

I've been published and have worked as photographer for parties and press events, that's less fun, but when you're doing because you love doing it, that's different story. It's really cool and you come out with photos you can be proud of.

Do you have any pictures you feel like sharing?

I live in an area that is pretty much completely flat, so I'll grant you that I may just not know what I'm talking about, but I'm pretty impressed that you're thinking of 3000 feet with 40 pounds strapped to you.

I have a hard enough time running 4 miles! That's wonderful though, and having something to shoot for is incredibly motivating.

I kind of love everything. Regardless of genre, if it's good I probably like it.

I have season tickets to the opera, frequent jazz bars, I love all kinds of rock bands, but really, I listen to just about everything. Good is good, regardless of the style of good.

I have this experience every time I feel lonely and go have a drink or a crappy meal at a bar.

The truly sad part is that I try for a while, but eventually I give up, take out my own phone, and drown my thoughts when I realize I'm not going to connect to any of the real humans around me.

You are one of my people... I'm the same way.

I play music constantly, and I'll jump from classical, to jazz, to hip hop, to everything else.

When I'm feeling sad, music makes me happy, if I'm already happy it makes me happier, when I'm worried listening to music, and especially playing, quiets my mind.

There's this quote by Tom Waits, something like "I love beautiful melodies that tell me terrible things" and that perfectly describes what I love to listen to the most (which would explain why I listen to Tom Waits).

Do you have a favorite style/kind/genre/or anything?

I'll check it out, thank you. It sounds especially good for work trips.

I'm probably already "that weird shirtless dude bent over by the window" to my neighbors, so I might as well creep out my work trip roommate as well!

I've started doing vinyasa flows recently, I'm still a beginner, but I love it. My friend is encouraging me to try Bikram but I think the hot room for 90 minutes may kill me...

Do you have any favorites you'd recommend?

Cool! Thank you for all the info!

I've never had an interest in board games, but every now and then I realize that they have such a huge following and there must be a reason for that.

I'm going to go through your links soon and see what it's all about.

I just got back from New Orleans, I love traveling too... losing yourself in a new city, or even a place you've been missing is a really wonderful thing.

I can absolutely relate to the music bit!

I've been waiting to restring my guitar for the last couple of days because I don't want to get it over with in 5 minutes. I want to sit down, remove the old strings, nut, and saddle, clean and polish the whole thing, and put on the new strings.

It's therapeutic, and when you're done you get that crisp, sustained sound. Yeah, you have to tune it every 2 minutes, but still... it's such lovely sound.

How are you liking the book? It's been on my list forever, but I keep picking up other books and putting it on hold.