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Google competes for the future; Microsoft, the past
Posted by Demang tech / 11/14/2009 / Comments: (0)
Google was born on the Web and is increasingly giving Microsoft fits by forcing the decades-old software giant to compete on Google’s terms. Like open source. Like cloud computing.
Microsoft may shore up its fortunes in the short term with a successful Windows 7 launch. But in the long term, its very success with outdated “desktop” products threaten to cede the market to Google.

We’ll have all of it, please
It’s not really fair to Microsoft. Microsoft is a victim of its own success, needing to cater to its existing clientele with each new release, in true “Innovator’s Dilemma” fashion. Hence, Microsoft continues to make a lot of money, but its last two quarters have seen traditional strengths like Windows become a drag on earnings as enterprises spend more money with Google, Red Hat, and others.
Google’s lack of legacy frees it to innovate rapidly and broadly, as Genentench CIO Todd Pierce, a Google Apps customer, suggests:
The rate of innovation at Google is – well I mean, the Oracle, SAP and Microsoft product cycle is five years; Google’s product cycle is five days. It’s incremental. In five days you’re not going to be able to cancel your Microsoft Office license, but in five years, you won’t have Microsoft Office.
Microsoft, for its part, is so concerned with “backward compatibility”–”Is this product/feature compatible with our ability to continue to monetize our 1980s-style desktop monopoly?”–that it continues to struggle to embrace the Web. CNET blogger Dave Rosenberg points out that Windows 7 should have been Microsoft’s launchpad to cloud computing, but isn’t.
There are a lot of “should have beens” for Microsoft when it comes to the Web.
Meanwhile, no one is slowing down for Microsoft. Let’s stick with cloud computing for a minute. VMware dominates virtualization and has a strong claim on cloud computing, though open-source rivalry from Eucalyptus and VMops threatens to challenge both VMware and Microsoft as they seek to dominate cloud computing.
And then there’s Google, which provides an increasingly wide array of cloud-based services to enterprises looking to untether themselves from the desktop. In an interview with CNET News, Google CEO Eric Schmidt argues that “The browser can be both enterprise- and consumer-capable. The architecture is driven from the browser. That is the story of enterprise IT today.”
In other words, the desktop is simply the means by which a user loads a browser. It’s a gateway. The value is not in the desktop anymore. It’s in the browser, which is the new desktop, in terms of real functionality delivered.
Microsoft’s big opportunity to stymie the threat from Google and others is SharePoint. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has described it as Microsoft’s new operating system, but it’s in a recent interview with Forrester that he makes this meaningful:
In my own mind I compare (SharePoint) to the PC, the PC started off life as a spreadsheet machine, then became a programming machine, a word processing machine, (SharePoint is) a general purpose infrastructure that connects people to people and people to information….
I think SharePoint is considered a very serious development platform for rapid application development (by IT architects and developers).
SharePoint is Microsoft’s best attempt to connect desktop applications like Office with centralized, cloud/cloud-like collaboration and storage. Yes, Microsoft has other initiatives like online Office, but none marries so well its legacy profit centers with future innovation. And, given that SharePoint is already a $1 billion and frenetically growing business, it has momentum that other initiatives don’t.
SharePoint, then, may be Microsoft’s best hope for marrying its legacy to the future of Web-based computing.
The browser can be both enterprise- and consumer-capable. The architecture is driven from the browser. That is the story of enterprise IT today.
–Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Microsoft needs something like this. It is losing in mobile, and not simply to Apple. Google’s Android momentum is almost astounding, with AdMob data pegging Android smartphone penetration in the U.K. at 10 percent, as but one example.
If we assume that mobile will increasingly be the client platform of choice, then we see Google squeezing Microsoft from the top (cloud) and the bottom (client).
In both areas, open source is Google’s weapon of choice, and it’s one that Microsoft is going to have to figure out quickly if it wants to be a player on the Web. The Web is too big for Microsoft to control it, and the Web is overwhelmingly open source, as Lotus founder Mitch Kapor states:
The accomplishment of open source is that it is the back end of the Web, the invisible part, the part that you don’t see as a user.
All of the servers, pretty much, they run Linux as the operating system; they run Apache as the basic Web server on top of which everything else is built. The main languages out of which Web applications are built – whether it’s Perl or Python or PHP or any of the other languages – those are all open source languages. So the infrastructure of the Web is open source … the Web as we know it is completely dependent on open source.
Kapor further suggests that Microsoft’s war with open source is over, or should be over: open source has won. It’s essential infrastructure now, and hence something that Microsoft needs to embrace, not fight. This isn’t about open-source religion. It’s about pragmatism. Pragmatism that Microsoft, like anyone else, can embrace.
Google is using the future (open source, cloud) to compete for the future, and its tactics threaten to hit Microsoft in its profit centers like Windows.
Microsoft, however, appears to be mired in its past. Windows 7 looks to be a serious upgrade over its Vista predecessor, but in 10 years time, will we care? Or will we have moved on, forgetting about those quaint days when we used to care about the operating system and applications like Office?

During his reign as a governor in the Roman empire, Herod the Great turned Caesarea from a simple fishing village into a large, prosperous sea port. He was called “the Great Builder” by some, because he undertook amazing construction projects in this Mediterranean port city. Strategically positioned on the Via Mares (the way of the sea) — the major commerce highway of the ancient world connecting Africa, Europe and Asia; an intercontinental bridge — Caesarea became a booming center of commerce.

Herod built a palace there — where Paul was imprisoned after standing before Felix and Aggripa in Acts 24 and 25. We toured the ruins of this palace, which jutted out into the sea, seeing among other things the in-ground stone swimming pool he’d built in the residence area of the palace. We sat in the theater where Paul likely presented his testimony before Roman officials. We saw the Hippodrome, where horse races and gladiator matches took place. We saw where Herod built a temple using the latest in Roman technology in arch building (this was right after they invented the keystone, which was the secret of the strength of the Roman arch). And we saw the site of the roman bath houses built by Herod. And we saw the site of the great water break and harbor Herod built, using cement for the first time in history.

And of course we saw the ruins of a great aqueduct that stretched 10-15 miles from a fresh water source north of Caesarea down to the city. I’ve always heard that the aqueduct is one of the wonders of the ancient world, but seeing it up-close really confirmed that for me. Amazing!

After Jerusalem was destroyed in the 1st century AD, Caesarea became the capital of Israel. When Constantine “christianized” the roman empire in the 4th century, the Christians put an end to the theater and the games (races, gladiator battles, etc), and built churches in or on top of the amphitheaters. When the Muslims invaded in the 7th century, it was more of a cultural takeover, so (at least in Caesarea) there wasn’t much destruction of the existing buildings / architecture. And the crusades in the 12th and 13th century didn’t really change enough to worry about.

However, when Israel was reborn as a nation in 1948, Caesarea was covered in sand. Most of the ruins we saw today were uncovered and carefully excavated by the Jews after their nation was restored to them.

Another interesting note: the second largest library in the ancient world was in Caesarea. While the museum in Alexandria, Egypt was destroyed, the one in Israel survived and thrived during the Constantine era, helping to support Christianity as it spread throughout the known world. Very interesting!

But the most interesting thing about Caesarea for me was the rest of the story of Peter and Cornelius…

As a Roman centurion, Cornelius was the commander of 100 Roman soldiers (from the Latin, 100 = century). This was a very prestigious position. When Peter got to his home, he found that Cornelius had “called together his relatives and close friends”. According to our guide, this likely meant that he had gathered his family, friends, the 100 men who served under him, and their families. They would almost all have been gentiles.

When Peter entered the room, he immediately realized that these were not people with whom he should be socializing. But when Cornelius shared the vision he had had from God, Peter realized that his vision about unclean foods had really been about the gentiles. God had said, “Do not call unclean what the Lord has called clean.” So, Peter shared the gospel with them, and hundreds (ostensibly) came to a saving faith in Christ. And the movement to take the gospel to the entire world was born.

The most amazing aspect of this story is the global significance of this event. This was the last of 3 events that changed the world forever in terms of the spread of the gospel. First, Philip was sent by God to share the gospel with the Ethiopian Eunuch on the Gaza road in Acts 8. The Eunuch, a descendent of Noah’s first son Dan, believes in Christ and is saved.

In Acts 9, Saul is confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus. Ananias faithfully preaches the gospel to him, the scales fall from his eyes (both literally and figuratively), and Saul becomes the mighty apostle Paul. Saul was a descendant of Shem, Noah’s second son.

And lastly we have Cornelius, who is a descendant of Noah’s third and last son, Japhath. In Acts 10, he too receives Christ as a result of Peter’s faithfulness. So, in three chapters of Acts we see the gospel spread to every tribe of the whole world. Amazing!

Every gentile Christian can trace his roots to one of these three events.

In addition to learning a lot of history about Israel and this place, as well as connecting it to the Bible, Gary Frazier, the Director of Discovery Ministries, our tour company, spoke to us to welcome us to Israel and orient us about the trip. He talked about how Paul – an impressively scholarly man – could have spoken on anything before Felix and Aggripa, but instead he chose simply to share his testimony, and bear witness to what God had done in his life. Read the story yourself in Acts to see. Gary emphasized how this is true of us as Christians in the 21st century as well. His point was basically that we shouldn’t try to be impressive or smart, but rather should simply share with others the love of Christ – both in our actions and in the words of our testimony, when we point others to what God has done for us. He then shared his story with us, prayed over us, and sent us out into our tour with the admonition to be focused less on buildings, history and architecture, and more on what God is doing in our lives.

Crocodile chained to a palm tree = Nîmes, which is where the Roman legions that fought for Julius Caesar in the Nile settled after they served for 15 years. It is also where I went for the day on the recommendation of a friend who had studied in Montpellier some years ago. I planned the trip around a performance by some New Yorkers, which you can read more about here . This trip was in part for my Mom, who wanted to see nice pictures, but of course my camera batteries ran out half way through the adventure. I tried the best I could.

The fame of Nîmes rests on all the old things it has, which are older than most other old things because they are Roman. The first I saw was the Arènes, which was big.

Next was the Maison Carrée, some sort of temple that has this beautiful color gradient, perhaps because of exposure to the sun or uneven cleaning? It was beautiful.

This was about where my camera ran out, which is a shame because the most beautiful stuff was next: the Temple of Diana (no historical connection to Diana), which is filled with pigeons and carved graffiti both Roman and contemporary, and looks like it might have been sawed in half along a diagonal; a beautiful network of pathways leading up the hill; at the highest point in Nîmes, the Tour Magne, which looks something like a bombed out conch shell; and, on the way down, some little waterfall fountains to walk underneath. Regarding the last, those from southeastern CT might think of a smaller version of the waterfalls at the old Mystic Falls mini golf course and batting cages. 

At the temple of Diana I noticed somebody walking out of a darkened hallway zipping up his fly, and my first thought was “Christ these people will piss anywhere.” At that point I realized that I’d seen more public urination in the South of France than anywhere else I’d ever been, even New York. I don’t know if this generalization has any foundation but regardless it endears me to this place all the more.

Ah, Ann-Margret. Her of the unique ability to be 25 and act 14.

August Bravo: Before we talk about last night’s very interesting episode – “Love Among The Ruins” -I want you to go to this site. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen it before, the “Which MAD MAN are you?” quiz. I too it and my result was Pete Campbell. I really hoped for Cosgrove. Oh well. And from last week, what you said about Draper being more forward thinking than Kinsey, I thought you meant Kinsey, the famous 50s doctor, not the character on the show. Very appropiate for you to say that.

Marco Sparks: Thank you. I do my best. Oh, you mean Alfred Kinsey? Ha ha. Yes.

August: Okay, so last night’s episode… was a very interesting one. There were o many subtle scenes throughout. I love Don’s growing anger over Pryce and the chaps from London. And I’m very intrigued to see how that anger might continue to escalate throughout the rest of the season.

Marco: Indeed. Here’s Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner talking about the chaps and dandys from London:

“The British have come here because we’re great. They’re redefining how things are done. But at the same time,they feel everyone needs a parent. That’s their attitude.”

And yes, last night’s episode with the truly great title, “Love Among The Ruins,” based on the poem by Browning, was very interesting. And there really are so many ruins there, aren’t there? Sterling Cooper itself, New York, Betty Draper’s dad, Roger Sterling’s hopes for a smoothing sailing into his post-divorce life, etc. Oh, and speaking of which MAD MAN I happen to be, I took the quiz and this is what came out…

…surprising no one, perhaps. The drama over his daughter’s impending nuptials which may or may not have Roger’s young bride Jane in attendance is fasciating to me. I think since the end of last season, I’ve actually started to really like Roger. But I do sense that the new set date for his daughter Margaret’s wedding – November 23, 1963 - might be a sad, mournful day. It will probbly rain too.

August: I’m going to go ahead and say this right now, but my favorite scene in the episode was Probably Don showing his dominence in the family by telling Betty’s brother how everything was going to be and work with the arrangements over her ailing slightly alzheimers-ish father. I always feel Don is trying to maintain his manhood in the house. Not that Betty questions it or that anyone else does, really, but he seems to constantly need to exhibit his alpha dog status in the homestead.

Marco: Perhaps because he wants to have that perfect suburban home life, and in doing so, he feels partly defined by wearing the pants at home? And let’s face it, it’s not hard to be “the man” compared to his brother-in-law. I don’t want to call anyone a slippery pussy or anything, but seriously, stuff a tampon in that guy so that he’ll shut up. Also: Bunk beds!

You know who I didn’t love before, but that I do now? Peggy Olsen, no joke.

August: Peggy’s storyline throughout this episode was unusual, but certainly a nice change. What makes her think the things she does? I wnder how her infatuation with men again will change the way she feel about work. What I really liked about her in this episode was her reenacting the “Bye Bye Birdie” scene in the mirror. Does she want to be looked at the way the men look at the other girls? I don’t think so, but maybe she wants to know if she still has it?

Marco: I think if you take the whole Marilyn/Jackie O. comparision from last year and apply it to the two main ladies in the office, of course Peggy has to compare herself to Joan. I mean, first of all, look at Joan. She has a certain kind of commanding power and authority within the office (look how she handled Moneypenny last week) and she was the first person that Peggy interacted with when she was hired. And Joan and Don really are Peggy’s main role models I think.

from here.

I like Peggy more because she takes the good advice people give her (mostly from Don and occaionally from Joan)(but also from Colin Hanks last year), and she uses it. And she gets ahead. Yeah, she wants the eye of the men, I think, but only sometimes. That kind of attention feels good sometimes, but she knows she wants and deserves more out of life and a career. She doesn’t want to be a man, I don’t think, she wants to be a woman in what has always been a man’s world, and I think her arc over the course of the show will be just as interesting as Don’s. She’s too smart, especially shown last night during the whole Patio/Diet Pepsi meeting, about which fantasy to market towards: men’s or women’s.

“You’re not fat anymore.” How condescending, Crane.

In fact, I think she’s moving closer and closer to being the human version of Don Draper, as opposed to poor mn’ blue blood Pete Campbell, who is just as lost in the world of the human beings as Dick Whitman, but isn’t as good at hiding it and/or being fucking awesome in it.

Also, as much as I do now like Roger (and you can just smell an upcoming Roger/Don confrontation, can’t you?) and his runaway out of control charm, I think he needs to be applauded and, of course, slappd across the face for his “You’re the only one here who doesn’t have that stupid look on her face” line.

August: I love that line, I think it goes, “You’ve got to leave the tools in the toolboxes.” I wonder if he means the men at the office?

Marco: Mayyyybeee. I loved the stuff with her at the bar, trolling for the finest male college boys Brooklyn could offer her, and try out a few of Joan’s zingers. It’s okay to fuck some college boys, and you know what? It’s just as okay to skip out on them in the middle of the night, Peggy. If you stay, I think you’re going to find out just how boring Burger Boy really was. I was waiting for her to add to her parting, “I work on Madison Avenue, bitch!”

Joan still has my sympathies because of her asshole husband to be (or are they already married and I missed that?). The looming threat of June 1 and her upcoming prison of maternity makes me yearn for her to make a fiery breakout.

“It’s sexy and it’s what they want.”

August: With Betty’s father living there for what I assume will be the majority of the season, I’m interested to see the unusual things he will do, as he slips further and further away. I liked his prohibition era worry to the sirens outide. And I’m curious to see more of his antics in Don’s domestic bliss this year.

Marco: It’s interesting that the father, slipping away, was still able to shake Don up last year with his comment: “He has no people!”

August: That near final scene, with Don’s kids at the summer function, with Don just sitting there, just watching the girls dance around, the bare feet moving through the grass. Don’t can’t help but watch and reach below to touch something, to feel the grass. Just for a second. Maybe just to feel something. His life is in a jumble right now, and he fees lost (as he possibly goes more introspective) and he can’t help but want to feel something, anything.”

Marco: Yes, yes, yes. That scene was incredibly beautiful to me, and also incredibly tragic. Don Draper is a lost man searching for something external that he seems to feel is missing internally. He’s been a lot of places and all of them are where he’s already been, and yet, I feel he’ll travel a lot farther and long to feel a great many more things before he really meets Don Draper/Dick Whitman at the finish line. Also, I smell a wee bit more of infidelity.

August: We still haven’t talked about New York itself yet.

Marco: You mean that ever changing, sordid little beast with the Penn Station/Madison Square Gardens change up? I like Kinsey, the young guy who believes in change, but maybe not always for the right reasons, and always have a good laugh at him, especially here, as the Grand Old Wise Man Of New York City. I see Kinsey’s side to this particular argument, especially about the great works of Roman architecture, but I wouldn’t compare New York to Rome, nor call it the greatest city on Earth. I know New Yorkers truly believe that, but, well… “a city of cry babies?” Ha ha.

But I also love Don’s magic in selling the potential clients on coming back to Sterling Cooper, and of course his frustration with then having to drop them after he not only won them back with the need for such a change to NYC. He doesn’t just give his juice away for free, people! Just the same as the fact that the man attends meetings, he doesn’t set them.

It’s an interesting time at Sterling Cooper, in NYC, in Don Draper’s life, and on Mad Men. Out with the old, and in with the new. See you next week.

Bye Bye Birdie!

Chad and I have been in Rome for a day and a half and I LOVE IT! What an amazing, chaotic, bustling, gorgeous city. Ancient ruins co-exist right beside modern architecture in a fabulous architectural mash up.

Italians are super friendly and take time out to explain to our dumb ignorant selves about items on the menu that we can’t read. We’ve just been to dinner, to a VERY busy, fabulous, yummy, local Italian restaurant (we were the only tourists, which is just how I like it) and the wait staff tried to help us out as much as they could explaining the menu. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t quite enough. Now I’d much rather take a chance on menu lotto than go to some shithouse place in a tourist trap area, so I no complain (well not much anyway). After I’d ordered my meal, which I’d been told was fish, I was telling Chad about how much I’d hate it if the fish came out with a head still attached (seriously, how can you eat something that’s staring at you) or if I was served up little baby squids and tentacles. Calamari, love it, baby squids (tentacles, GROSS!) not so much. This isn’t a thriller; I think you can see what’s coming. Yep, it was ‘The Tentacles’. I was grossed, a little tear came to my eye and a pout automatically appeared. Chad graciously let me eat some of his delicious pasta and I sorted through all the squidgy bits to find the rings and fish bites.

Here I am talking about food and I’ve been discovering so much more. YES, for a change, life to me is more than what I’m having for my next meal (or what everyone else is having). We’ve been ultra busy in the short time that we’ve been here. We’ve interacted with locals, found an A.Mazing local patisserie cafe/gelato yummy place and we’ve been VERY cultural. We started out yesterday, with a trip to the Colosseum. Wow, what an amazing place. Did you know that not all the gladiators died? If you think about it, that would be SO bad for business. Get a good gladiator and have him last one match? No, these guys were kept on for a while to earn their keep. When there was a match where someone was supposed to die, they’d meet before hand and do a bit of match fixing so there would be a draw. WWF took its acting style from the Romans it seems.

Love having a travel partner/picture taker!

Then we went on another tour in the afternoon of the Roman Forum, apparently the heart, soul, business and political centre of Rome in the good ole days. Our guide was absolutely fabulous, granted I think she’d popped some amphetamines before taking our group around, but her hyper enthusiasm was welcome after a long afternoon in the sunshine. She filled us up with facts about ancient Rome, of which I remember absolutely nothing but it was nice feeling learned for a few hours anyway. I truly think the NZ education system has a lot to answer for. Neither Chad nor I knew any answers to the questions she posed. Romulus, Remus, Octavious… WTF!

Modern art amongst ancient ruins

There was a guy who was a total swot/teacher’s pet who delighted in answering every question, so even if I’d known an answer I wouldn’t have got a chance to say it anyway. He also wore socks with his sandals, enough said for crimes against fashion.

Crimes against fashion exhibit one

Photographed by Storm Crypt

In 141 AD, the wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius died. The emperor had this temple constructed in her honor. Two decades later, upon the death of the emperor, the temple was rededicated to both the emperor and his wife.

During the middle ages, this temple was converted to a Christian church. The church door was originally at ground level, with much of the pedestal of the front porch buried underground by the time this was converted to a Christian church in the first millennium. By the time this was converted to a church, the structure is more than 700 years old — much of the front porch was underground. When the archeological excavations were undergone in the Roman forum, the original pedestal can now be seen, as well as the original level of the columns’ foundations — which is why the bronze door, constructed during the middle ages, seemed to be raised considerably from the front porch.

Templum Antonii et Faustinae
Roman Forum
Rome, Italy

– License

The Independent

His name is immortalised in modern Italian as the word for a public urinal, but tomorrow that humiliation will be forgotten as Rome sets about throwing a massive party for the Emperor Vespasian’s 2,000th birthday. Naturally enough, the celebratory bash – which takes the form of a 10-month exhibition – is focused on the building for which he is most famous, the Colosseum.

By far the largest amphitheatre the ancient Romans built, it is capable of holding at least 50,000 and perhaps as many as 70,000 screaming plebs. When it was inaugurated, in the reign of Vespasian’s son and heir Titus, 5,000 wild animals were put to the sword over 100 days for the amusement of the punters, and despite the halt called by Constantine, the emperor who converted to Christianity, bloody gladiatorial combat remained standard fare until it was banned early in the fifth century.

As the crowning monument of a civilisation, the Colosseum has always had its detractors. Some scholars of the ancient world regard it as hideous, without architectural merit. On its own terms, however, the mega-structure known originally as the Flavian Amphitheatre, after Vespasian’s family name, Flavius, was a great advance on what it replaced. It was located close to the heart of the grounds of Domus Aurea, the “House of Gold” built for the Emperor Nero, the great monument to his vanity and greed. Vespasian expropriated those grounds and, in place of Nero’s self-indulgence, provided the greatest forum ever built for the self-indulgence of the multitude: aesthetically crude perhaps, lacking in delicacy and taste, but stunningly bold. And an appropriate monument to an extraordinary man.

Look at the surviving marble busts of Vespasian and the centuries fall away. You can see his descendants in any Roman street. He was burly and thick-set with a bald, bull-like head, steely eyes and a tense, frowning mouth, teeth clenched in determination. One of his contemporaries remarked that he looked as if he was sitting on the lavatory, and having a hard time of it. Above all it is a common face. There was nothing aristocratic about this emperor. He was Roman social mobility incarnate.

His full name was Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus and after his death, like all deceased emperors, he was worshipped as a god. He started out his life in an altogether different key, born the grandson of a centurion and the son of a tax collector in the rustic district of Sabina, north of Rome. He had only a mediocre education; in later life they made fun of him for his poor grasp of Latin. But you can read Vespasian’s ticket to glory in his simple, powerful face: he became a first-rate soldier, and beloved of the men he commanded.

He was in his early thirties when he made his mark, participating in the second invasion of Britain, seizing the Isle of Wight for Rome, and developing tactics for overcoming the Britons’ formidable defensive earthworks. Back in the Eternal City in furlough, he was ill at ease among the corrupt ruling class. AD66 he went to Greece as a member of Nero’s entourage but made the serious error of falling asleep during one of the megalomaniac emperor’s singing recitals. He saved his skin by fleeing to a remote province.

The following year the faux pas was forgiven when Nero realised that he had need of this man. Rebellion had broken out among the Jews in Judaea and the Roman forces were having a frustrating time trying to oust them from their walled cities. Vespasian’s success in winkling out the walled-up Britons was remembered and he was sent to Judaea with orders to suppress the rebellion and bring the Jews to heel. He did exactly that, and although many Jewish towns were destroyed and thousands of people killed, he was remembered as a fair and honest administrator. The defeat of the Jewish rebellion was the making of Vespasian. He was the hero of his army, and the loot he amassed would later go into the building of the Colosseum.

Rome descended into chaos and civil war after Nero’s suicide, getting through four emperors in a single year. All this time, Vespasian was plotting his path to power. With his devoted army at his back, and with two grown sons offering the promise of dynastic continuity, he was acclaimed emperor twice, first by his army in July AD69, then nearly six months later by the Senate. Vespasian would always be respectful and attentive to the Senate but he never had any doubt about the source of his power, and dated his accession from the first acclamation, not the second.

In the judgement of one contemporary historian, Vespasian was the first emperor whose character actually improved after he attained the throne. He took drastic measures to restore sanity to the Roman Empire’s finances, which had been emptied by Nero’s extravagance.

He raised taxes steeply, making himself instantly unpopular, and famously introduced a tax on public urinals, which is why in Italy they are associated with him to this day. When his son Titus remonstrated with him over this measure, the emperor held out a handful of coins for him to sniff. These come from the urinal tax, he said, “Pecunia non olet” (money has no smell). It was his most famous aphorism.

Vespasian retained his simple martial tastes despite all the temptations of his position; when a youth to whom he had given an important promotion came to him reeking of perfume, he sent him away in disgust, saying “I’d rather you stank of garlic”, and cancelled the new position.

Yet in his achievements he succeeded in transcending his humble origins and the brutalising years of military service: he created schools for grammar and oratory – thus laying the foundations for classical education all over Europe. He recruited a new class of administrators from the business class to run the empire on more professional lines.

And he set in train the greatest building boom of the century. When he came to power, Rome was full of ruins and abandoned sites, the result of the civil war that had preceded his coronation. To bring the city back to its former glory, Vespasian gave anyone with the desire and the necessary funds the right to build on those sites. The result was many of the breathtaking buildings in and around the Roman Forum that tourists still admire to this day. They include the Temple of Peace, the Domus Flavia and the Temple of Divo Vespasiano, his own cult.

To mark Vespasian’s big day, Rome is breathing new life into the ancient city he did so much to change. Busts, bas-reliefs, weapons, coins and paintings are among the 110 archaeological treasures that will be exhibited from today until next January in the Colosseum, the Curia in the centre of the Forum and the Criptoportico, a building on the Palatine Hill that has never before been open to the public. There will also be a new guided route through the Forum, with explanatory panels shedding light on the buildings for which the emperor was responsible.

Filippo Coarelli, the curator of the extravaganza, commented: “The element of chance in Vespasian’s success cannot hide the profound manner in which that success resonates with the whole history of Rome: the mobility which was intrinsic to that society, which allowed it to access the energy of emerging classes.”

Despite these achievements, and despite the Colosseum, which was still under construction when Vespasian died in 79, it was his determination to tax Romans to the hilt for which they most remembered him, the image of the stingy, money-grubbing son of a tax-collector that stuck.

During his elaborate funeral, the procession was led by a popular clown called Favor who mimicked the dead emperor. “How much did this funeral cost?” he demanded of the organisers at one point, according to Suetonius. “A hundred thousand sestertii,” came the reply. To which the Emperor’s caricature retorted: “Give me a hundred and chuck my body in the Tiber!”

Nero’s Golden House
Microcinema // Unrated // April 28, 2009
List Price: $24.95
Review by Jeffrey Kauffman

The Movie:
Having recently reviewed both the SD-DVD and BD of Quo Vadis, I came to Nero’s Golden House smugly self-assured that everything vile we’ve all believed about the “evil” Roman Emperor, especially as enacted by such greats as Peter Ustinov, would be emphatically exposed and analyzed. Damn! I hate it when films fictionalize historical characters (you regular readers of my reviews know it’s best not to get me started on the Jessica Lange feature Frances, for example). This very interesting documentary uses Nero’s insanely grandiose digs, built after the infamous fire (and actually referred to quite explicitly in Quo Vadis), as the starting point for an examination that may not exactly fulfill most viewers’ preconceived notions of what the supposed mad fiddler was all about.

Nero’s Golden House starts with some contemporary shots of Rome, intercut with several vintage film clips of various actors portraying Nero (including Ustinov, of course), before stopping a wide pan on the Coliseum, which happens to be built on top of part of what once was the huge, 200 acre plot where Nero’s building ambitions reached their heights. The camera then moves a bit to the right and reveals and nice little sylvan glade in the midst of the Roman madness, revealing that underneath the mini-forest are the only remains of what once was an astoundingly huge array of buildings.

The documentary goes into the history of the discovery of these remains (it was actually hundreds of years ago, and the frescoes on the walls back then were evidently as fresh as the day they were painted), before rippling out into what the archeological remains tell us about Nero the man, his reign, and some of the mistaken history we’ve all swallowed hook, line and sinker. Along the way we get the usual assortment of learned talking heads, intercut with some fun archival film clips, and, perhaps a bit bizarrely, shots of the old Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas being demolished and then a new hotel being built (shown via some pretty cool time lapse photography).

If Rome wasn’t built in a day, it didn’t take them too much longer, as Nero’s Golden House makes quite clear. Due to their for the times advanced engineering techniques, including that new-fangled invention concrete, the Romans were able to erect absolutely epic structures in a surprisingly small amount of time. Nero, who it turns out wasn’t even in Rome when it burnt (hence couldn’t have been fiddling and/or lyre playing as it burned), used that facility to quickly reclaim the center area of Rome to build his Golden House, which, it seems, really was finished in gold leaf, something that must have been quite dazzling due to the main structure’s southern exposure. Nero’s aims for his massive manse were to solidify and give symbol to his power, which the project actually did for a while.

What is revealed throughout Nero’s Golden House is that our commonly held precepts about the emperor are mostly wrong, or at least misguided. Was Nero lewd and lascivious? Probably no more than the average Roman of the day. Was he a wannabe “artiste”? Most definitely, though the jury is still out on whether the “wannabe” moniker fits, as he actually may have had some talent, and he certainly was a champion of the arts. Was he stupid? Well, he may not have been the brightest bulb in the pack, but it seems that he was mostly naïve, the result of a sheltered upbringing by a mother who, if not quite as ruthless as Livia of I, Claudius fame, was not above scheming to make sure her son ascended to the throne. That lack of guile is what ultimately led to Nero’s downfall and the ultimate eradication of his huge fortress.

This is an appealingly broad, yet nicely intimate, look at a long pilloried figure of history who may not quite deserve the scorn he’s frequently given. The recreations of what the palace may have looked like are neat, if not always photo-realistic, and the learned commentary gives us enough insight into Nero the man to help better understand why such an immense structure was built to begin with. Quo Vadis and its ilk may be the version of Nero most people will always remember, but sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction (as some wise man once said), and Nero’s Golden House proves that, architecturally at least, that’s one adage that holds entirely too true.

The DVD

Video:
Nero’s Golden House arrives with an enhanced 1.78:1 transfer that is pretty typical of television documentary fare–a certain degree of softness, but good color and contrast and overall excellent detail. There were a couple of very brief moments of aliasing in some busy relief work. Some of the archival film footage from movies of yore doesn’t look very good, and the wrongly blown up Quo Vadis (filmed in 1.33:1) looks horrible, frankly, which helps to show what an improvement the recent BD release of this venerable film really is.

Sound:
The standard stereo soundtrack suffices just fine for what amounts to talking heads and narration. There’s nothing exceptional here, but equally there’s nothing horrible. All voices are easy to hear and understand. No subtitles are available.

Extras:
None are offered.

Final Thoughts:
It may be more fun to relish in Ustinov’s over the top portrayal of the “mad” Roman Emperor, but Nero’s Golden House makes it abundantly clear that the actual man, while misguided and naive, actually did a lot of good for his Empire. Whether or not this frankly insanely massive structure qualifies as “something good” I’ll leave to the cultural historians to sort out, but Nero’s Golden House is an informative and consistently interesting documentary that helps dispel myths while illuminating a little known aspect of Nero’s roiling ambitions. Recommended.

Science Daily

Mansions In Pompeii: Ideal Measurements Of A Pre-Roman Model

ScienceDaily (Mar. 11, 2009) — Metrological analysis of ancient houses reveals the use of standard models that were ingeniously adapted to suit individual situations.

Pre-Roman atrium houses exhibited a striking number of similarities as part of a long Italic building tradition. Dutch researcher Noor van Krimpen analysed the measurements of primary mansions in Pompeii. As buildings were constructed according to a standard model, the adaptations to that model, required by the economical, practical and social demands of any particular project, provide a lot of information about the social significance of the houses of Pompeii’s elite.

Noor van Krimpen has added a new weapon to the archaeologist’s arsenal; the metrological analysis. This was already used to find out more about the design aspects of historical constructions. Van Krimpen, however, has now also used the method to add to our knowledge of the social significance of the houses of Pompeii’s elite. The main advantage of using metrological analysis is that it does not require further excavations and so the remains are kept intact.

The ideal measurements

The elite in Pompeii had architects to design their houses. Van Krimpen has demonstrated that these architects worked according to geometric figures and proportions, expressed in arithmetic approximations, a well-known tradition of classical mathematics. This resulted in a number of standard sets of ratios that were used by architects in the design of houses.

Despite the fact that the atrium houses in Pompeii show a high degree of homogeneity – all having been splendidly built around a so-called atrium, an inner courtyard with or without a roof – the architect’s skill and clients personal wishes ensured that each house retained an original character.

Dress to impress

Van Krimpen used a metrological analysis to establish what the original design must have been before subsequently examining how the houses were adapted to the particular circumstances. The adaptations revealed how a client exerted his influence on a design and how each situation required a unique solution. The primary mansions were mainly intended to receive friends and other notable persons and so had to be designed accordingly.

The Pompeii elite tried to maintain the illusion of a perfect home. The central symmetry was not solely maintained by juggling with the dimensions of the rooms. Van Krimpen even demonstrated how two neighbours had cooperated to outdo a third neighbour, one of the richest men in the city. They let their two houses be built behind a single facade so that their property appeared to be as big as that of their neighbour.

Van Krimpen investigated 18 primary mansions from Pompeii. Her research formed part of the broader project RUSPA (Ricerche Urbanistiche Su Pompei Antica) and was funded by NWO.
Adapted from materials provided by NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research).

The Times

As the evening sun caught the upper tier of the world’s best preserved Roman amphitheatre, Thierry Algrin cast a worried glance at the white streaks running down the 2,000-year-old stones.

To the untrained eye they looked insignificant, but to the architect in charge of France’s historic monuments they spelt danger for a building that offers a unique insight into antiquity. After surviving an incalculable number of adventures, the gladiatorial arena in Nîmes, southern France, is starting to crumble as water seeps into its stones and mortar, he told The Times.

Mr Algrin is responsible for saving the stadium, which witnessed the deaths of Christians and lions during the Roman Empire before becoming a bullfighting ring and occasional concert venue in recent times.

“It would be unthinkable to leave such a magnificent building to fall into ruin,” he said, turning his gaze to the scaffolding which marked the start, last week, of the most recent attempt to restore the arena. Seventy per cent of the original structure is still intact – and Mr Algrin must ensure that it survives for centuries more, at the same time preserving its soul and letting the concerts and bullfights continue.

It is no easy task, even if the French authorities have agreed to funding of up to €20 million (£18 million). This should pay for renovation of the exterior, 21m (69ft) high, but not for the interior of the 14,000-capacity stadium. Doubts over France’s commitment to the project stem from its record. Twice in the past two centuries officials have ordered the restoration of the arena, only to abandon the work before it was finished – and Jean-Paul Fournier, the Mayor of Nîmes, was quoted recently in the local press as saying that the latest renovation could take 40 years.

Mr Algrin is more optimistic. “It shouldn’t take that long,” he said. “I am confident that it will be completed this time because there is a real consensus now that something must be done. We can’t just walk away.”

The amphitheatre, which was built between 90AD and 120AD – about the same time as the Colosseum in Rome – brought Roman sport to the area. When the Roman Empire crumbled in the 5th century the arena was preserved by the Visigoths, who turned it into a fort and transformed it into a self-contained town over the next 1,000 years.

By the 18th century the arena was home to several hundred families, a château and two churches. Officials who decided to clear it out and begin the first restoration unwittingly began the process of deterioration, Mr Algrin said. “This seems to be speeding up. The question is why is this happening now, when the building has been there for 2,000 years? The only explanation is that the houses in the amphitheatre from the 6th to the 18th centuries kept the water off.”

Now, he says, the sand and lime mortar that holds the stones together is being dissolved by rain – hence the streaks of white. Some of the stones are cracking and a few of the lintels are breaking up.

His aim is to reinforce the building while replacing as little of the original structure as possible. The second phase – if money is made available – will involve the installation of seating, which would provide protection against water infiltration.

Ever since I first discovered the area round Arles I’ve hoped that one day this part of France will catch on with Classics teachers.

Rome in France
4:00AM Friday Nov 28, 2008
By Jim Eagles

If you want to see the world’s best preserved Roman amphitheatre, temple and aqueduct bridge then, surprisingly enough, you head not for Rome but for Provence.

Which is why, despite having been in Rome a few days earlier, we decided to take a Roman Sites Tour out of Avignon.

The focal point of the tour – and one of France’s top five tourist attractions – was the extraordinary 2000-year-old Pont du Gard.

This is a stone bridge, 275m long and 49m high, which carries both a roadway and an aqueduct across the River Gardon.

It is a remarkable piece of work, both magnificent to look at, with its three tiers of stone arches, and an exceptionally clever example of construction, having been built entirely without cement.

It is also, of course, part of one of the typically amazing pieces of infrastructure built by the Romans, an aqueduct 50km long to carry water from a spring near the town of Uzes to the city of Nimes.

Uzes, which our tour also visited, doesn’t have much Roman significance but it is a gloriously untouched medieval town and home to the premier dukes and hereditary champions of France. The ducal palace, in the centre of town, looks fascinating but sadly we couldn’t get inside because we hadn’t – in the words of the marvellously superior custodian – “made an appointment in advance”.

Nimes, on the other hand, is full of 2000-year-old Roman buildings still in remarkably good condition.

The amphitheatre, for instance, with its seating for 24,000 spectators, is still used regularly for concerts, in fact they were setting up the sound equipment for one as we wandered around.

And the temple built by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and dedicated to his two sons, is still in good enough condition to be used for a remarkable multimedia presentation about the turbulent history of Nimes.

Seeing all of this I couldn’t help wondering how many of today’s bridges, watermains, sports stadiums and churches will still be going strong in 2000 years time.

I haven’t managed to watch this yet – couldn’t find my way around the Google Earth site.

BBC News

Google has added a new twist to its popular 3D map tool, Google Earth, offering millions of users the chance to visit a virtual ancient Rome.

Google has reconstructed the sprawling city – inhabited by more than one million people as long ago as AD320.

Users can zoom around the map to visit the Forum of Julius Caesar, stand in the centre of the Colosseum or swoop over the Basilica.

Researchers behind the project say it adds to five centuries of knowledge.

“This is another step in creating a virtual time machine,” said Bernard Frischer of Virginia University, which worked with Google on the Roman reconstruction.

“The project is a continuation of five centuries of research by scholars, architects and artists since the Renaissance, who have attempted to restore the ruins of the ancient city with words, maps and images,” he said.

Also involved was Past Perfect Productions, which reconstructs archaeological and historical sites through virtual reality.

Joel Myers, the firm’s chief executive, said: “Cultural heritage, although based in the past, lives in the present, as it forms our identity.

“It is therefore our responsibility to ensure its conservation, to nourish it and make it accessible, with the objective of promoting global understanding. Ancient Rome in 3D is a major step towards this goal,” he added.

“Ideal allies”

Ancient Rome is the first historical city to be added to Google Earth. Google’s blog said the model contains more than 6,700 buildings, with more than 250 place marks linking to key sites in a variety of languages.

“Whether you are a student taking your first ancient history class, a historian who spends your life researching ancient civilisations, or just a history buff, access to this 3D model in Google Earth will help everyone learn more about ancient Rome,” said Bruce Polderman, Google Earth 3D production manager.

Within ancient Rome there are some 200 buildings scholars know a lot about – classified as Class 1 -which Google says have been rendered as faithfully as possible.

The 3D models are based on a physical model of the city called the Plastico di Roma Antica.

The model was created by archaeologists and model-makers between 1933 to 1974 and housed in a special gallery in Rome’s Museum of Roman Civilisation.

The new map was unveiled at an event in the Italian capital, and the modern day Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, offered the project fulsome praise.

“It’s an incredible opportunity to share the stunning greatness of ancient Rome, a perfect example of how the new technologies can be ideal allies of our history, archaeology and cultural identity,” Mr Alemanno said.

More than 400 million people have downloaded Google Earth since it was launched in June 2005.

Nice pictures of the Roman bridge at Vila Formosa

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Originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl

I’ve been playing around with the Aperture program and, obviously, haven’t quite figured it all out. I will, but even still… I liked how this came out. Strange, yet cool somehow. Or maybe that’s just the color of it that makes it seem cool. Hmmmm…