Dispatches

Nero Did Not Fiddle!

Nero was loved by soldiers and commoners but deeply resented by the Roman aristocracy. The stories about Nero were recorded years after his death—by suicide, at the age of thirty, when the Roman Senate declared him a public enemy. By the time his life was written, politics was being adjusted to favor a different dynastic line.

Rise of the Chatbot

Courtesy Piqsels, CC0 1.0     When you speak with someone on the street, you usually know relatively quickly when they are self-interested, when they do not have answers, when they are delusional, stalling, or wandering off topic. That is, when they are full of it. Similarly, corporate communication is…

Crafty on the Blockbuster Set

Photo of similar setup courtesy Acabashi, CC 4.0   A visitor last week to a major Hollywood film production was treated to a view of the food that gets an army of extras through 12 to 16-hour work days. One hears self-referential stories and jokes in movies and on TV…

Time Bubbles

‘Ekaterina II’ in Sevastopol, 1902, public domain     Travel—and here I do not mean tourism or flight from danger—is often no escape. If anything–if it is being done well–it makes obvious how we are individual bodies at the mercy of time and the world. Your library card is a…

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