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David Rafferty

@davidrafferty.bsky.social

4K followers 4.3K following 6.4K posts

Historian. ARC DECRA Fellow @ Adelaide with project “How Republics Die: Rome’s democratic breakdown in the 1st century BCE”. Husband and father. I’m the one who set cats and dogs against each other. Not endorsed by employer. https://davidrafferty.org

davidrafferty.org

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 4h

You see, Google was making an astronomical amount of money providing a product that worked. But they decided that wasn’t enough. So now they’re making even more money providing a product that *doesn’t* work.

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Reposted by David Rafferty

Tim Lyons @picketer.bsky.social · 6h

Web search may be the only really significant technological advance where we *decided* to just bork it completely. It's like we had a steam turbine ships with radio and people said "fuck it, we are going back to slave galleys plus a bloke on top of the mast with some flags"

Tombmas Spooks @thomasfuchs.at · 23h

How many trillions of dollars have been invested into this technology so far?

Google search for "austria hungary in space"

Google excitedly tells you about the 1889 orbital flight, and that by 1908 there was a Mars research output with 30 people.

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 4h

While I understand the temptation to dunk on her because of this, it’s not that different to lefties enjoying Tolkien. We can enjoy art without agreeing with (or even noticing) the author’s moral or political standpoints.

Paul Haine @paulhaine.bsky.social · 1d

Kemi Badenoch claiming Terry Pratchett as her favourite author is wild

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 10h

Also: you can’t treat them like shit! It’s only by threatening to deport them and their families that you get the tiniest bit of discipline!

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 16h

My theory is that the daily-experience motivation of rich conservatives (as opposed to big-picture motivation) is that it’s hard to get reliable domestic servants.

So they want to create a society where that will be easier.

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Reposted by David Rafferty

rattatatouille @rattatatouille.bsky.social · 1d

The 90s had a lot of missteps but the then-earnest belief in diversity and multiculturalism brought on by post-Cold War optimism was one of it better fruits

jeff computers @helldude.bsky.social · 1d

the wave of weaponized nostalgia for 90s-style multiculturalism and political correctness is gonna hit different

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 1d

Ivanhoe is the story of a Russian farmer and his tool.

Reposted by David Rafferty

#MusicBrownlow @musicbrownlow.bsky.social · 1d

Your #RobertHarveyMedal Top 32

Number 6 (36 votes)

Ænima - Tool

youtu.be/5irce-bVeyc?...

TOOL - Forty Six & 2 live 1996 Pomona, CA

YouTube video by daveh0ndoras

youtu.be

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Reposted by David Rafferty

#MusicBrownlow @musicbrownlow.bsky.social · 2d

Your #RobertHarveyMedal Top 32

Number 19 (18 votes)

Angel Dust - Faith No More

youtu.be/U8b88US-6ts?...

Faith No More - Midlife Crisis (Official Music Video) [4K]

YouTube video by UPROXX Indie Mixtape

youtu.be

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 1d

One of my favourite bits of Roman history: the conspiracy to rig the elections in 54 BCE. The best detail is at the end: to hold both sides to the deal, money was held in trust by third parties and noted in account books.

Cue Stringer Bell: "Are you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?"

The Consuls are in the thick of a tremendous scandal. The candidate C. Memmius read out in the Senate the text of a compact which he and his fellow candidate Domitius had made with the Consuls providing that, if they were themselves elected, they would furnish three Augurs who would state that they had been present at the passing of a lex curiata which had never been passed, and two Consulars who would state that they had witnessed a senatorial decree making provision for the consular provinces, though the Senate had not even met; failing this, they were both to forfeit the sum of HS 4,000,000 to the Consuls. The compact, which, as was stated, was not an oral one but had been entered in the account books of many persons with names and full details, was produced by Memmius on Pompey's advice with the names cancelled. This exposure leaves Appius where he was— nothing lost to be sure. But for his colleague it is a collapse, he is
utterly discredited. Memmius, having broken up the coalition

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 1d

Sadly, the last line of this clip isn’t a gif. It would so often be useful.

youtu.be/sxNRyxw4kIk

Naked Gun - Drug Dealers

YouTube video by Top Clips

youtu.be

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 1d

I can’t speak for others, but for me it’s because I’m an historian.

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Reposted by David Rafferty

Harry Turtledove @hntdove.bsky.social · 2d

Hell of a thing to put next to a statue of Joan of Arc. (h/t David Pilling)

Fire extinguisher next to a statue of Joan of Arc

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 2d

There’s also the Alexandrian customs. I don’t think we have numbers on them, but as the biggest port in the Med, they would be substantial.

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 2d

Pre that, you have disproportionate spending on navies, which are famously capital-intensive. The Ptolemies were also relatively less good at plundering outside their borders, which was the easiest way to raise silver. So, as you say, a structural shortfall.

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 2d

I would also ask @quatrus.bsky.social. She is working on silver flows into/out of the eastern Mediterranean.

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 2d

Steady on, Rousseau.

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

Brisbane deserved winners (*spits*) but the Storm were terrible in the second half. A team built on doing the basics well couldn’t complete their sets. #NRLGF

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

For neutrals watching both grand finals, the correct opinion:

The kombucha lady meme, with “Broncos” as the bad one and “Lions” as the good one

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

Can you measure this on the Sam Draper scale?’

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

There won’t even be any chocolate inside.

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

Are we talking 1980s German footballer bad?

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

Everything in that article was saying “Why don’t they just create a government work force to build houses, continually? Why rely on the building companies?”

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

Which is why Roosevelt is (in world-historical terms) the greatest American. Someone else in that job might well have sat out the war.

David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 3d

I’ve been thinking this for a couple of years, but @jonawils.bsky.social’s column (www.theguardian.com/football/202...) crystallised it:

Arsenal. Left back steps into midfield next to a deep-lying player. Two 8s ahead of them. Wingers who stay wide; a single centre-forward.

Is this a W-M?

The secrets of Glasner’s success and why Palace system would be lost in translation elsewhere | Jonathan Wilson

Why does a system that has drawn so much scepticism at Manchester United work so well at Crystal Palace?