Please, no hunchbacked mice jokes

The world's smallest flat is up for sale.  Located in located in Rome, it's a snip at €50,000.  That's for 55 square feet, of course.

Frankly, I'm not all that impressed.  For five years I lived aboard a 24 foot yacht and this is positively spacious in comparison.

Past and future

Today is the 1,600th anniversary of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths.

Historic event or preview of what we have in store if we don't admit that civilisation is a good thing and start defending it?

Long-term recycling

Most archaeological artefacts are just cleaned up, preserved, and tucked away in a warehouse somewhere. If they have any other use, it's generally as a museum exhibit–though I did once commandeer a wrecking bar from an industrial site to help with the excavations.

Now news comes of 2,000-year old Roman lead ingots being used as shielding for a particle detection experiment. It turns out that the experiment is extremely sensitive and even the residual radiation from the lead will throw things off unless the shielding is left to "cool" for a couple of millennia. Enter the cargo of a Roman freighter lost off the coast of Sardinia in the 1st century BC.

Nice of the Romans to have the forethought to lay some by.

Rome

The wife and I saw Rome on the DVD last week and, to be honest, it wasn't quite what I expected.