Shoe of an ordinary Roman soldier, a legionary, discovered while excavating a Roman fort in Germany. These were just workday shoes, perhaps not worn on campaign but certainly when tooling around the camp in the long months between. Just ordinary Roman footwear. The workmanship and detail look like something you’d pick up at Target today. […]
Here’s a technology that hasn’t changed much in at least 4000 years. The Indus Civilization was astonishing, with beautifully laid out cities, running water and waste drainage systems and a complex economy, alas, we can’t seem to crack the writing, so what we know is mostly deduction. In neighboring Mesopotamia archeologists have dug up a […]
Brick's Science 
From your previous posts, I know that you are in favor of this kind of “anarchy”. Frees up the language and all that.
I’m sure I’ve asked this before, but why the heck has the word “awesome” completely conquered the American language? It seems I can’t read anything — advertising, book, whatever — created in the last decade or so which is not infused with it, and I can’t hold even the briefest conversation with anybody — “I’ll have the broccoli cheese soup.” “Awesome.” — without hearing it multiple times. It baffles me. I can’t think of any word, with the possible exception of “OK” (which I insist should not be spelt “okay,” just as I cringe when I see “all right” spelt “alright;” and, yes, I am using the archaic “spelt” instead of “spelled” just to be an annoying curmudgeon) which has taken over human speech and writing. Certain other tendencies show up on my radar, such as “share” to mean “say” (just as young folks used to say “go” for “say”) but that one boggles my Twentieth Century mind.
The other trend which amazes me — ignoring the fact that everybody under the age of, say, twenty has a weird first name, or that so many people here in Dixie go by their middle names, a trend I’ve never encountered in any part of the country — is the fact that I see so many people, from sweet old grandmothers to middle-aged blue collar workers to hipsters, covered with tattoos. Personally, I can’t think of anything that I would want to permanently inscribe on my skin.
I’ve wandered all over the place here, but that’s anarchy for you.
LikeLike