The End of Rome

Just a few days ago the History of Rome ended. No, not the empire, the podcast. I found the History of Rome just after I listened to most of the Norman Centuries by Lars Brownworth. It made so much sense out of what few fragments I remembered about the Normans. Embarrassingly most of what we know about the Normans comes from what we watch in Robin Hood movies and you can just imagine how deep and faithful to history that is - hah.

So after being impressed by how little I knew about the Normans I though I’d benefit from a run through the History of Rome podcast. The Normans were just 13 episodes long. Rome however, ends up running for 179 episodes and ironically seems way too short by the time you get there. Hey, we’re talking the history of Rome here - a lot happened.

Now, at the end, as the empire fights one petty tyrant after another our author, Mike Duncan, declares that for all practical purposes the Roman Empire is sufficiently dispersed that it’s history no longer matters in the epic sense that we usually think of it. It all degenerates into soap opera and trivial affairs. No one will benefit from continuing, not even Mike. That, probably, is the deepest insight into how the Roman Empire fell than anything else will ever provide. Even the people most involved no longer really care.

However, the easter Roman Empire does continue for another 1,000 years and is still yet another story to be learned. I look forward to someone claiming it as their turf and expanding our understanding of how that part of history unfolds. We’ll see.

But to mollify my grief over the ending of Rome, I went back and downloaded all of them and have started over from the beginning. To my great surprise I hated the first one. Mike is stiff and way too formal in his reading. The writing, too, is stiff and clunky. It’s too pedantic and caught up in trivialities and the whole experience is nothing like what I enjoyed at the end – a feeling you had a personal friend versed in historical perspective who was explaining it all just to you.

But of course – he got better over time. It’s a great example of how doing the thing makes you better. That practice and action win out given enough time should be obvious. Reading a podcast is a practiced art as is the writing and even doing the research. It all takes time and repetition to come together to form a personal style that’s both authoritative yet relaxed. (To say nothing of finding the right mic and sound deadening the room.) He’s built up his own perspective on what’s really important about the epic of time and events passing before us. It’s what you’d expect of study, improvement and knowledge gained.

Knowing more now, at the beginning, gives new perspective to actions and events. I can’t wait to find out how the History of Rome ends, again.

gunther

History, perceptions and personal experience

Today is the 25th anniversary of the MacIntosh computer from way back in 1984. This video of Steve Jobs proudly showing it off is very revealing about the state of computing in those early days. What the Mac did then was not much compared to today, but the real comparison was against what other computers did at the time, which was even less with much more pain attached. We need to remind ourselves of that historical perspective. Don't compare history against today, but against the values and capabilities of the time. That's why they're all clapping so much.

My first computer was a Zeinth running some form of DOS. I bought it through the school and I had spent a lot of time asking people for recommendations. It was horrible. I had to have the manual on my lap all the time and I was always disappointed with the printing of my work. Using it was like trying to give yourself a migraine headache. Finally I just gave it back to the school and walked away. I didn't care how much money I'd spent on it I just wanted it to stop.

Then I got a Mac.

Wow, I did more work in that first week than I had the whole time I was using the Zenith and it was fun instead of painful. The world then divided into two groups – people who were using PCs and people who were using Macs. You felt sorry for the PC people who seemed to be self delusional about even noticing the differences. Over the years when Windows came out the PC people all said, see it's just like a Mac, but it wasn't, it wasn't at all, but they couldn't see it. Then when I asked for help with my computer I always got a twenty minute lecture why Macs were inferior to PCs. Finally it was too much and I started learning and doing repair work myself. It was easy and still fun. I no longer needed the IT people to yell at me. I was independent.

Over the intervening years we've all come to get along better, but there's still that perception gap, an inability to fully see that the user experience is primary, that it isn't at all about the hardware or the sever but the experience, that sophisticated software is actually easy to learn and fun to use, that a computer helps you more by doing less, that it's the work you make that's important not the machine, and finally that the best advise comes from your own understanding not from someone else's perceptions. My only wish is for you to have as much fun working as I do, but remember, it's all about the work and how you get there is up to you.

gunther