Peter Kraker

The image shows a rectangular Roman dice tower (turricula) made of four copper alloy (bronze) plates with punched cut-out Latin letters and cut-out decorative patterns. At the bottom front is a stepped exit chute with small bronze bells attached to the opening. The tower is a Roman anti-cheating device. It has an open top and is hollow inside except for three staggered, downward-sloping plates, designed to randomize dice as they fall, ensuring unpredictable dice rolls. When the dice rolled out of the exit chute they rang the bells! There is a decorative dolphin either side of the stepped exit chute. The top of the front plate has two decorative pine cone finials. Height 25 cm. There is a single die shown next to the stepped base to illustrate how it was used. The front inscription reads: PICTOS VICTOS HOSTIS DELETA LVDITE SECVRI Translated as: ‘The Picts defeated, the enemy has been destroyed, play in safety’. Around the top of the three remaining sides, a second inscription made with cut out letters reads: ‘UTERI/FELIX/VIVAS’ translated as ‘Use happily; may you live well’. Found at a Roman villa at Froitzheim in Germany in 1985.

Roman anti-cheating gaming accessory!

This Roman ‘turricula’ (dice tower) was used to ensure a fair roll of the dice! 🎲🎲🎲

Dice dropped into the top, tumbled over sloping internal levels, and appeared randomly below.

From Froitzheim, Germany, AD 300-400

📷 LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn

#Archaeology

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Blame Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Blame

This is becoming increasingly likely as an outcome.

www.smbc-comics.com/comic/blame

After performing surgery on the switch itself, I seemed to have fixed it!

Huzzah for 12 year-old blog posts!

zalbee.intricus.net/2014/02/how-...

I took apart my mouse's left click switch and cleaned it with contact cleaner tonight. I didn't want to replace it, since the weight feels right and it fits my hand so well, but I started to get "ghost" clicks, where text would randomly de-select.

YouTube video by Vulf The Mantra — Vulfmon, Yesberger, Noé Socha & Jordan Rose

New Vulfpeck: www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Qa...

I'm starting to see folks rationalize space cooling: "Infrared radiation gets more effective at hotter temps, so eventually, it'll reach equilibrium. It just takes some heat pipes." -- ya, but at that point all your sensitive microchips are glass.

a golden retriever puppy sits on a gray ottoman in profile, casting the most ruthless side eye directly at you. the dog’s wearing an impeccable blue rain jacket with a hood, patterned all over with bright yellow rubber duckies. he’d like to remind you that no rain is necessary to have nice drip.

This is Bowie. He overheard you talking about his rubber ducky jacket. Jealousy is a disease. Hopes you get well soon. 12/10 (IG: bowiethegoldenbear)

My photo shows a hemispherical red pottery bowl with underside supports in the shape of a pair of human feet. It is handmade from red Nile clay, slipped and polished to give a light surface sheen. The front of the bowl tips slightly forward as if offering its contents. The museum catalogue entry informs us that a bowl standing on feet is very similar in form to the Egyptian hieroglyph meaning "to bring." Dimensions: diameter 13.2 cm x width 13.7 cm x depth 9.8 cm. This type of bowl is dated to Predynastic Egypt, Late Naqada I-early Nagada lI period, circa 3700-3450 BC. I saw this bowl on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum purchased the bowl from M. Mohassib in Egypt in 1910.

To bring a smile to your face this weekend …

An ancient bowl with human feet!

Made in predynastic Egypt around 5,500 years ago.

The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

📷 by me

#Archaeology

Today in “Dudes Rock”:

A dude playing Dire Straits’s “Sultans of Swing” guitar solo on…a recorder.

Is there a reunion? Are you going?

a tan chihuahua mix pup sits on a fluffy rug outside in the sunshine. he's wearing a blue sweater and a brown collar with a bone-shaped name tag that says P-NUT. he looks at the camera with a soft and innocent expression.

This is Peanut. His name isn't Peanut because he's small. It's because he is a lethal threat to a significant portion of the population. Still 13/10 (IG: peanut_tacoterrier)

a popular myth is that people who are Very Computer have computers that work. nothing could be further from the truth. the Very Computer are capable of generating much more novel and fascinating ways to make computers not fucking work and exercise this capability wantonly

every year around christmas time the ballet dancers who play the rats in the nutcracker come out with a series of unexplained banger tiktok videos and anyway this is my favorite part of the holiday season

‘End-to-end encrypted’ smart toilet camera is not actually end-to-end encrypted | TechCrunch Kohler, the makers of a smart toilet camera, can access customers' data stored on its servers, and can use customers’ bowl pictures to train AI.

Brings new meaning to the term "shitposting" techcrunch.com/2025/12/03/e...

Also, they buried the lede: "The Dekoda costs $599 plus a mandatory subscription of at least $6.99 per month."

Imagine paying $600 + $7 a month for an AI to tell you your poop is brown.

Chocolate and Tahini Babka | Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street | Recipes, TV and Cooking Tips We added tahini to our chocolate babka, one of Milk Street's favorite holiday recipes.

Is this www.177milkstreet.com/recipes/choc...?

I've made it once, and is absolutely worth it.

Dale Partridge on Twitter writes: "Feminist media is BIG mad about me saying that women shouldn’t wear underwear (leggings and sports bras) as outerwear. As Pearl says, “It’s amazing how hard women will fight to be naked.” Immodest ladies, read 1 Tim. 2:9, repent, and follow Christ." Attached are two images. Image 1 headline: “Outraged pastor slams worker at quaint coffee shop for wearing ‘sinful’ leggings and sports bra in front of kids” Image 2 headline: “‘Make sin shameful again’: Pastor sparks row after sports bra complaint”

A friend who teaches theology shared with me a post about CS Lewis's Mere Christianity, which discusses foundational Christian logic across denominations. It reminded me of Dale's tweet below, and I wanted to share some thoughts here regarding modesty and respectability, which are often hot topics.

Baszucki: .. I would say we’re at a scale that is somewhat mind-boggling. So I’m not going to run any, you know, excuse numbers of Roblox relative to any other platforms. But I would say a scale of 11 billion hours is very different than a scale of 10 million hours.

2. Do all big platforms have these problems?

Roose: [do] you think that any platform of Roblox’s size, with the number of young users Roblox has, would be experiencing similar safety challenges?

Some examples:

1. Comparing letting your kids be on Roblox with going to the park:

"And if a parent out there, for any reason, is not comfortable with their kid going to the park, not comfortable with their kid playing with a certain toy, not comfortable being on Roblox, who am I to say, right?"

We Asked Roblox’s C.E.O. About Child Safety. It Got Tense.

The Roblox CEO Interview

I do not envy his position trying to moderate and maintain a community of mostly underage users, but he's talking out both sides of his mouth.

"I'm not going to make excuses about scale, but..." [...proceeds to make excuses about scale."

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/p...

YouTube video by Chris Fleming St Vincent, Crazy Pete and Kevin Magee

Chris Fleming is a national treasure.

"Those aren't freaks, those are attractive people with heavily vetted idiosyncrasies."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugm_...

Another fall photo from the neighborhood.

The colors on this one got me.

YouTube video by USSA: Woodworking+3D Printing Makers Bench 3.0

I'd love to take a week off, hole myself away and build this bench. First, I'd need to take a week off and clean my garage to make space. Before that, I'd need to clean out my basement... Before that...

You know what, maybe I just need to take some time off.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v_d...

Got to spend some time in the forest this weekend.

YouTube video by Dr. Glaucomflecken Ophthalmologist Diagnoses Disney Characters

youtu.be/1GYq1eHwhAk

Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back!

Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.

Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!

#MundaneHalloween

q: why did the outfielders raise their arms during this play?

a: according to the ancient scrolls in which the rules of baseball were found, if a ball lands and doesn't bounce that ball is declared god. the players were worshipping god. i doubt there will be a game 7 or any further baseball seasons

"Hey Alexa, turn on the lights"
[Alexa responds with both silence and darkness]

Once again, my policy of "No internet for things that don't need it." pays off.

oh well you’ll join us someday