Alex Knapp

TIL they had dice towers in ancient Rome.

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

I'm not annoying, I just like to talk about Mogo and Rot Lop Fan and why...

ah yes, yes I see. I'll show myself out.

an image promoting a substack article titled ‘25 medieva manuscripts you can look at online right now’

i made a starter back of beautiful and unique manuscripts you can browse online! (with links) for anyone that wants a good way to spend an afternoon :)

open.substack.com/pub/weirdmed...

I would read that comic though

I read that twice before I realized you didn't mean you'd written comics with all three at the same time.

My wife says I like The Pitt because "where else do you see competent people in positions of authority trying to help?"

I have mineral structures in my oral cavity that I use to help process nourishment.

My humanities thesis was a defense of Pelagianism...

How Anthropic’s Kerfuffle With The Pentagon Became A Optics Headache For OpenAI Plus: Popular Chinese open source models are helping mint billionaires.

AI behemoth Anthropic has come into the U.S. government’s line of fire. But thanks to wild turn of events over the last few days, the Anthropic-Pentagon kerfuffle has become a optics headache for OpenAI.

A full recap in the latest edition of The Prompt:
www.forbes.com/sites/the-pr...

Dario Amodei says Anthropic has a higher retention than OpenAI, emphasizing its "mission" as a way to reinforce staff loyalty and fend off competitors' offers (The Information)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

LLMs show bias in opioid prescribing Testing large language models on acute-pain vignettes reveals biases in opioid recommendations that particularly affect marginalized groups.

It’s unsettling to see LLMs scaling bias, not solving it.

A study of 3.4M outputs found models recommend more aggressive opioids to Black and LGBTQIA+ patients while simultaneously flagging them as high risk.

Clinical guardrails are needed to ensure these tools don't worsen disparities.

Greek Mogul On Why Iran Attacks, Elimination Of Gray Fleet Is Boosting Tanker Fortunes The U.S.’ latest attacks may raise gas prices at the pumps, but Trump’s military operations have already helped boost shipping billionaire fortunes by $45 billion and counting.

1/ The U.S. ouster of Maduro in Venezuela and the attacks on Iran have been a boon for oil tanker billionaires. Tanker rates are up to record highs, tanker stocks are up by 60%+ so far this year and tanker resale prices are up to decade highs as well.

www.forbes.com/sites/giacom...

Startup MMI Wants To Use Mini Robots To Treat Alzheimer's MMI is starting FDA-approved human trials for its tiny robot to use needles the size of eyelashes to help clear waste from the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

*NEW* In my latest @forbes.com feature, I wrote about the startup that’s starting early clinical trials to use a miniature robot to treat Alzheimer’s based on experimental operations done in China and elsewhere in Asia.

www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

After seeing so many things about it online, I finally started watching Traitors. It is akin to watching a high-stakes chess tournament between a bunch of people who only learned how to play chess yesterday but are convinced their three-hour class made them experts at it. (Complimentary)

Iranian Hackers Use Elon Musk’s Starlink To Stay Online As the attacks continue, Iranians have turned to Space X’s satellite internet technology — including one of the country’s most notorious hacker crews, which is claiming retaliatory cyberattacks agains...

🚨NEW🚨 One of Iran's most notorious hacker crews, linked by Israelis to Tehran's intelligence apparatus, is using Elon Musk's Starlink to stay online.

It also has a blue tick account on Elon Musk's X, where it's been advertising its unverified retaliatory hacks.

www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

It appears a hospital in Teheran has now been hit.

www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

U.S. Half Marathon Championships Ends in Controversy as Top 3 Women Are Led Off Course The lead pack was running the wrong way for a quarter mile before having to make an abrupt U-turn.

Ugh, this is awful.

www.runnersworld.com/races-places...

I think a part of this is the arbiters of cool in Gen X were always trying to find the next big thing before anyone else did. Discovering new sounds was part of the culture.

U.S. Strikes in Middle East Use Anthropic, Hours After Trump Ban Within hours of declaring that the federal government will end its use of artificial-intelligence tools made by tech company Anthropic, President Trump launched a major air attack in Iran with the hel...

Despite the ban, the Pentagon is still using Anthropic.

www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

You need to read the spiritual successor - Operation Bounce House. Takes this idea and runs with it for the streaming influencer era.

The King is mad

VA Secretary Collins Is Wrong About Veteran Suicide Prevention Funding - The American Prospect These programs save lives, every day.

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins harps on one point: The VA spends too much money on its suicide prevention operations. But these initiatives keep the veteran suicide rate much lower than it would be otherwise.

Exclusive: Prior to Iran attacks, CIA assessed Khamenei would be replaced by hardline IRGC elements if killed, sources say In the run-up to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Saturday, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency assessed that even if Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the operation, he would likely be replaced by hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), two sources briefed on the intelligence said.

Exclusive: Prior to Iran attacks, CIA assessed Khamenei would be replaced by hardline IRGC elements if killed, sources say reut.rs/4l9SCAs

Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Anthropic's response to the Secretary of War and advice for customers

"This action follows months of negotiations that reached an impasse over two exceptions we requested to the lawful use of our AI model, Claude: the mass domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons."

www.anthropic.com/news/stateme...

Pentagon removes senior official from Joint Staff post, sources say U.S. Vice Admiral Fred Kacher only took the post in December.

Trump has dismissed Vice Admiral Fred Kacher, deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for issuing warnings to him about what might go wrong in a new war against Iran, Reuters report. www.reuters.com/world/us/pen...

Callers to Washington state hotline press 2 for Spanish and get accented AI English instead Callers to Washington state’s driver’s license agency who select automated service in Spanish are instead hearing an AI voice speaking English with a strong Spanish accent.

Callers to Washington state’s driver’s license agency who select automated service in Spanish are instead hearing an AI voice speaking English with a strong Spanish accent.

Trump Directs Government To Drop Anthropic After Pentagon Dispute Anthropic rejected a request from the Pentagon to allow it to have unrestricted access to its AI model, taking issue with the agency using the model for mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

"President Donald Trump said Friday he is directing all federal agencies to stop using technology from artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, blasting the company as 'woke' after it declined to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI models Thursday."

www.forbes.com/sites/antoni...

What The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Means For Larry Ellison’s Fortune By Forbes estimates, the elder Ellison, who is also Oracle’s largest shareholder, doesn’t have enough cash to fulfill his part of Paramount’s $111 billion offer for Warner Bros. Discovery. Here’s how ...

By @forbes.com' estimates, the elder Ellison, who is also Oracle’s largest shareholder, doesn’t have enough cash to fulfill his part of Paramount’s $111 billion offer for Warner Bros.

We'll know more in the coming days, but here’s how it could play out:

www.forbes.com/sites/phoebe...