250 years ending with a circus

Starting with kings in Rome and ending with emperors in Constantinople, the Roman state lasted about 2,000 years. It reached its peak power under the the late Republic and the first Caesars. Did they celebrate its 250th anniversary? Or its 1,000th? 

I was listening to the conversation Lex Fridman had with Anthony Kaldellis—the state survived through changes of capitals, languages, and religions. What seems to have been constant was the legal system. Emperors were appointed, inherited the crown from their fathers, or seized power by military force, but ordinary citizens could still expect the justice system to function.

According to Kardellis the emperors drew their legitimacy through competence.

Was pane et circenses or justice?

Turns out Rome celebrated its 1,000 anniversary. Usual circus.

According to Wiki the Ludi saeculares emperor was Philip the Arab who might have been the first Christian emperor. He also made peace with Persia. the expenses of the celebration led to his fall.

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Syco

 From Sycophancy - What I hate most is false praise. Like Gemini finding me funny. Like Grok finding me funny. Like all others bots genuflecting. Obsequiousness.

What I learned from a WSJ article is that the bots imitate you way of talking, your conversation style. Howl do they do this with my bad and unorthographical English? Luckily they do not hear my accent on top of my sentence structure...They generally come from a word use meaning follower. turns out sycophant comes from Greek where it meant showing the fig. the is made by putting the thumb between two fingers or into the mouth, with the intended effect of the modern gesture of "flipping the bird"

Robert Escarpit

 After I wrote the previous post I decided to look for his bio. Quite amazing - he was an editor of the Canard Enchaine - my favorite publication. I also wanted to be capable  to write using cultural references and calembours. [ I spent several hours in a car with a French young lady. I told her that in my youth I dreamt to write for a  French paper and asked her to guess which. - she immediately said Le Canard Enchaine] So Escarpit was a communist, he wrote on humor and on communication. 

Les êtres vivants sont ainsi faits que leurs accouplements sont rarement esthétiques.

L'humour est un art d'exister

.

Bien vivre, c'est avoir de la mémoire.

La lecture est la forme la plus haute de la paresse.

L'érotisme est une pornographie de classe.

Perdre son temps avec soi-même est aussi une manière de s'aimer.

Rage...daily

 I have this colleague who publishes a post every day on his engineering blog. I like the person, and we have a friendly, professional relationship. However, I admire and totally hate his capacity to share something new, special, or meaningful every single day. It drives me crazy! When I was a teenager, I admired Robert Escarpit, who had one or two short paragraphs on politics every day in Le Monde. These were called billets. This is what I wanted to be able to do. I find impossible to have something meaningful to say every day. I just rage

Beauty?

What kind of beauty is this without tattoos? Doesn't she feel naked? 

 

Itch

 Itch is a serious annoyance, but I could not find any significant discussion about it. Will check, and if Shakespeare did not write a drama about it, I will.

As far i have ever went

SPORTS BAR

HONKY TONK

NASHILLE

To the stone people...

Every summer i take a bike ride to see how my stone people are doing. Not very well, I am afraid. Nobody cares to restore past glory. Well it is mid June. Let us hope. The view might attract....

 

Three in a row...

  Yuval Harari is suggesting that since the French revolution all movements used combinations of only two of the three -Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. None managed to blend all three. Lots of easy truths in this...

The holy trinity of the Enlightnement.

 How does SCOTUS work on these? how does one juggle the three balls...

Probable there is always a third...rail. 

difference

Fifty years ago I jotted. The essential difference between humans  and computers is that the computer does not create its own problems.

Maybe it was a simple joke or a deeper foresight.  It was the dawn of our current age.- What computer existed fifty-year ago?  Programed in machine  or assembly language...

Searched the internet for philosophical definitions of difference. See below. Wonder,  when using these system ,what is the difference today between humans and computers?

Madhva’s Fivefold Differences (Dvaita Vedanta)

In the pluralist tradition of Hindu philosophy, thinker Madhvacharya argued that absolute differences are the very fabric of reality. He defined exactly five types of differences (Pancha-bheda): [1]

• Between the individual soul and God (the Supreme).
• Between one individual soul and another.
• Between the individual soul and physical matter.
• Between God and physical matter.
• Between one piece of physical matter and another

Is there a reversal? since computers can hallucinate? who is the God now?

Original sin -

In my standup act I make fun of the American obsession with sex with in-law and step families. I even say the turkey is the aperitif to Thanksgiving family action.

Just find out that Jefferson had several kids with the black slave Hemmings who was the half sister of his wife.  All in the family!

Tradition, tradition...

Peek

Frida gave me the opportunity  to appear  alongside

INTELLIGENCE WITHOUT

I remember this History of Psychology book that my mother had bought in the 60s. One chapter had the motto "Intelligence without character is hysteria". It was a quote from a well known philosopher. I asked AI to find the origin and obviously returned empty. Hysteria is a an injurious word nowadays because it degrades women.   The search returned "Intelligence without character is a dangerous thing."  Definitely Artificial Intelligence does not have character ....To me hysteria is more scary than just dangerous. 

anonimal - my claim

 I coined the term 'anonimal' in 1977 to describe the 'animality of the anonymous masses'—the loss of individual restraint in an overexcited crowd.   

 Can I still claim it? There is now a guy that uses this name on the internet. The dictionary says it is an usual misspell of anonymous.  I usually misspell words, but not here.

Image and imagination

I asked Grok how to increase my visibility on X. After analyzing my posts, it recommended that I comment on more popular accounts with similar views. To my surprise these accounts mostly belong to right-wing men with large beards and a very simplistic sense of humor—content I wouldn't normally care to read or watch.

It reminds me of when I finished my MS at MIT my colleagues rejected me and almost did not shake hands.. Nobody would talk to me because they couldn't peg me down; they either labeled me a "commie" or a right-wing, anti-feminist male.

The moon, enough

 I continue to believe that all this moon exploration is a Hollywood fakery. Here I was myself. see the proof.

Di Provenza il mar, il suol

This aria brings back memories of my father more than anything else—like negotiating with my girlfriends.

Maybe the presence of the father in most oh his operas, makes feel so close to Verdi/.

Journal or diary

 This blog is definitively a personal diary.

What other point could a blog possibly have? Even when I offer an opinion on the news, a concept, or a story, these are my personal thoughts of the moment. The more concise, the more effective. I’m not writing essays; I’m capturing the architecture of a thought.

I write this in response to Grok,  an AI that dismissed my blog as 'just personal thoughts.' To that, I say: Cogito, ergo sum on the internet. 

Jules Renan please rescue me.

UNTIED

 I have a joke on stage where I blame my mother because my shoes always come untied. Today, I actually almost had an accident over it, so I went online looking for a practical solution.

To my surprise, the internet says my shoelaces have a spiritual meaning.

According to the experts, constantly untied shoes are related to "unresolved loose ends in life, unchangeable problems, and spiritual instability." Some people say it's an omen of romance or that someone is thinking of you. Others say it means a "lack of grounding" and a need to find peace in the chaos.

Tattoed Graces