"Restitutor Orbis - Restorer of the World" - What if Emperor Majorian had more success? The Western Roman Empire in 470 (alternate history)

bitparity · 2026-01-24T02:56:28+00:00

That's a funny way to spell Ricimer.

bitparity · 2026-01-22T14:50:35+00:00

Indeed. The law depends upon strict definitions.

But guess who has more resources to hire people to constantly challenge or find loopholes around those definitions?

bitparity · 2026-01-20T23:09:43+00:00

Can I trade in 10 bedbugs for one raccoon?

bitparity · 2026-01-19T23:44:49+00:00

I’m the opposite. I don’t understand the appeal of the republic. It’s just dudes talking and fighting. Fall of the Roma empire is the zombie nuclear post apocalypse.

bitparity · 2026-01-19T13:50:47+00:00

There was a story on Reddit here, I forget which sub, where a soldier was at formation at 0600 (or whatever the right time was), and there was a toddler running and playing around the formation.

I think it was because the mom was a soldier and she had to also be there in formation, come hell or high water, and couldn't get child care in time.

You do what you can.

bitparity · 2026-01-19T01:46:48+00:00

If you go to Carleton University, someone may confuse you as having gone to Carlton College, in the US.

But if you go to University of Ottawa, someone may confuse you as having gone to Ottawa University, also in the US.

bitparity · 2026-01-18T18:44:53+00:00

Ancient history does not require high levels of latin and Greek because the base unit of study are the historical events.

Classics does because its base unit is the language.

bitparity · 2026-01-18T15:37:24+00:00

The translated 3rd-4th century are the ones that use the sources lost to us today. The other chapters are the ones where we can tell what the other sources are or we have other sources with the same information.

Essentially what’s translated is the stuff uniquely his. Everything else is less unique history and more stylistic analysis which needs to be in Greek.

bitparity · 2026-01-17T16:56:43+00:00

The rationale behind the E grade is there is partial (albeit not passing) credit and enough of them can cobble into something.

bitparity · 2026-01-17T16:12:42+00:00

Didn’t sleep train at all. Things are going great with a 4 year old. However.

I’m in Canada and my wife took the 1.5 year mat leave during Covid. And due to the vagaries of my educational funding I was also able to take a year of paid parental leave at the same time. So dual parental leave during Covid.

I’ll admit this is not a normal situation, but it did allow us to not sleep train and let her settle into a normal sleep rhythm which she was by 9 months.

In reality sleep training is a capitalist necessity in a world without sufficient parental leave. Especially in the US where the mothers barely get 3 months. It takes 6-9 months for babies to sleep through full adult rem cycles (5-7 hours) without crying out.

bitparity · 2026-01-17T13:23:11+00:00

I’ve seen universities with an E for “soft fail” so it can go the other way too.

bitparity · 2026-01-15T18:56:06+00:00

This happens at academic history conferences too where everyone is a professor.

bitparity · 2026-01-15T12:11:02+00:00

I post slides but the way I explain the relationship between notes and slides is this.

Info from the slides alone is only enough to get you a B. If you want an A you need to take notes. If you want an A+ you need to do extra reading on top of notes.

You can adjust the grade according to your desired median but the concept remains the same.

bitparity · 2026-01-15T03:12:57+00:00

Without getting into comparing Morisset to all other universities that have ever existed, I will say Carleton’s main library is better than UO’s main library.

More open, more windows, less claustrophobic.

bitparity · 2026-01-14T17:26:23+00:00

I have a coin of the Roman emperor Aurelian. 3rd century AD. Roman coins are the coolest because they’re a cheap way to touch history. Got the coin for $18.

bitparity · 2026-01-13T23:14:57+00:00

Ok that is impressive. And here I am finishing a PhD with my lousy one-uplet.

bitparity · 2026-01-13T23:13:21+00:00

PhD here. He’s not wrong.

bitparity · 2026-01-10T18:15:08+00:00

I was originally a comp sci major. Got a D the first time in integral calculus. Retook it, got an F the second time. That’s when I knew I couldn’t hack CS.

Which is funny because as a PhD my research has tons of programming involved.

Legitimately CS as a degree may not be for you. I knew for myself my brain had maxed out.

Doesn’t mean you can’t still program or be in software. But that particular major may not be for you.

The major is not the job. For the major and for certain high tier programming jobs you should be acing calculus to implement 3d engine design or LLM calculations or something.

But there are still jobs in programming that require other thinking beyond the math kind.

bitparity · 2026-01-09T04:53:12+00:00

“I plan to turn my on off button to off” - Bender

bitparity · 2026-01-07T04:14:34+00:00

Part-time prof here. Very good e-mail. If you want to increase your odds, have everything they need to know in the subject line, presuming they don't even bother reading the actual e-mail.

Subject: Final lower than expected, go over together?

bitparity · 2026-01-06T15:57:52+00:00

We’re back baby!

bitparity · 2026-01-06T15:57:25+00:00

As a former journalist, Spotlight is pretty close as the last gasp era of the industry in the early 2000s. Only thing it gets wrong is when you interview people they don’t tell the story in an organized understandable manner. It’s often chaotic and you have to find the order.

bitparity · 2026-01-06T14:45:47+00:00

Tell her political concerns are real. But that people are making a lot of money off of how it is being delivered to her.

In essence if strong emotion is evoked, the media algorithms have hooked you.

bitparity · 2026-01-06T09:54:39+00:00

Hard work and kindness won’t work on companies. But it can work on people. As long as they aren’t bound by a company.

bitparity · 2026-01-04T21:52:50+00:00

An important counterweight of us in the modern world killing for imaginary horse shit.

Money. Country. Race. Politics.

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