I have finished reading the book, "Barbarians" by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira and then watched the DVD's that were part of the book and then shown on the History Channel. The premise of the book was challenging the ideas that the Romans were not civilized but they were the Barbarians not the other nationalities that the Roman's conquered and then the Romans considered them to be barbarians. The nations that surrounded the Roman Empire were in more ways more civilized then the mighty Roman Empire. The best example that exemplifies the point is the Roman coliseum and the thurst for the blood that the Roman nation satisfied there. Nowhere else in any other nation was the killing of innocent people by lions, or by gladiator’s to the amusement and enjoyment of the Roman people that filled the coliseum. I remember studying the Roman Nation in one of my Humanity classes and that my professor said that near the end of the Roman Empire the coliseum was in use 260 days out of the year. That is allot of death for the amusement of a nation. No other nation that surrounded or that was conquered be the Romans made death a national past time.

The Romans also treated knowledge from other cultures as either relevant to their needs or irrelevant so it was discarded, which means they burnt libraries. Rome was an Empire for 1000 years and in that time so much general knowledge was lost because it did not serve the Empire. The Catholic Church also bears so blame because when it came to power as the Holy Roman Empire beginning with Charlemagne if the knowledge did not benefit the Church, or in a act of holy rage to stamp out paganism; burn the libraries.


I had always wondered what caused the "Dark Ages" and I think that I stumbled onto one possible answer. The Roman Empire and the Church burnt the world’s libraries that contained the world's knowledge which resulted in man having to rediscover information and ideas that were lost for hundreds of years.


In the TV show a Roman boat was discovered in the Mediterranean and some artifacts were recovered but one artifact was thought insignificant until someone decided to x-ray the artifact. It was then discovered that there was an intricate gear formation that the x-ray revealed. Once the machine was recreated it was discovered that the motion of the planets and their position to each other could be revealed with this device. Here is a machine that was created a number of years ago by the Greeks that the plans were no doubt in some library that was burnt by the Roman Empire.

Burning books is not right even if you do not agree with it, you have the power to accept it, or reject it, but burning a book is not an option.

WOW what a change, the Democratic end game.

Hey AutoTuner, there was bike night out at Plant City, the city is about 30 miles from Tampa. The city has bike night every first Saturday of the month. There was one bike there that had a car tire for a back wheel. Here are some pics. You can click on a pic if you want to see more detail.

You may be wondering why I posted these I.T. rules, well let me tell you. I was told by my boss to go and install a printer in this person's office the other day. I person had given their permision to enter thier office and for me to install the printer which was fine by me. I entered the office to discover that the computer I was to install the printer on was a labtop, but the laptop was at home. The person did not know that the computer had to be there so I could install the printer, sometime PhD means "pizzia hut dude" since I am surrounded by them. Life of an I.T. person.

How to Please Your I.T. Department

1. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling tropies and childern's art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

2. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.

3. When an I.T. person says he's coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won't be there when we need your password. It's nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.

4. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's keeping from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get into your mail because your computer won't power on at all.

5. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We are just testing.

6. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to server.

7. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

8. When the photocopier doesn't work call computer support, there's electronics in it.

9. When something's wrong with your home pc, dump it on a I.T. person's chair with no name, no phone number, and no discription of the problem. We love a puzzle.

10. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.

11. When an I.T person tells you that he will be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice, "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That really motivates us.

12. When the printer won't print, resend the print job 20 more times. Print jobs frequently get suck into black holes.

13. When the printer still won't print after 20 times, sent the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them will work.

14. Don't learn the proper term for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "My thingy blew up."

15. Don't use online help, online help is for wimps.