How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)
This week’s book:
Discourses and Selected Writings
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
Epictetus was born a slave around 50 ad. His owner was Epaphroditus, a rich freedman who was once a slave of Nero. Though he was a slave Epictetus was sent to study philosophy under Musonius Rufus.
Epictetus was lame and there are some stories it was caused by his master and others that it was caused by disease.
He was a freedman when all philosophers were banished from Rome in 89 by the Emperor Domitian. He then started his school in Greece, and had many students. He did not leave any writings from his lessons, but one of his students, Flavius Arrian, took notes and wrote the Discourses.
Epictetus did not marry, had no children, and lived to be around 80-85. In retirement, he adopted a child that would have been abandoned and raised him with a woman.
He died sometime around AD 135.
He is my favorite Stoic teacher. I love his bare bones and very straight forward approach.
Following is a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion of one of his lessons. Epictetus’s text appears italicized in bold, my replies are in normal text.
Of Attention Part II
15First, therefore, we ought to have these principles at command, and to do nothing apart from them, but keep the soul intent upon this mark; we must pursue none of the things external, none of the things which are not our own, but as He that is mighty has ordained; pursuing without any hesitation the things that lie within the sphere of the moral purpose, and all other things as they have been given us.
If I do not have a solid idea of what I should be concerned about and what is a waste of time then I will inevitably be looking to things I can not control. Focusing on what I can control keeps me from losing my cool. I do not always succeed at this, but it is something I strive to do.
And next we must remember who we are, and what is our designation, and must endeavor to direct our actions, in the performance of our duties, to meet the possibilities of our social relations.
Just because I try to think differently than most people I know does not mean I am not human. I am not the most social person, but I do like going to concerts and car shows where I mingle with people I do not know.
We must remember what is the proper time for song, the proper time for play, and in whose presence; also what will be out of place; lest our companions despise us, and we despise ourselves; when to jest, and whom to laugh at, and to what end to engage in social intercourse, and with whom; and, finally, how to maintain one’s proper character in such social intercourse. But whenever you deviate from any one of these principles, immediately you suffer loss, and that not from anywhere outside, but from the very nature of the activity.
I still enjoy doing things that are a waste of time in an objective sense. When I am enjoying myself, that does not give me an excuse to let go of my principles and forget to keep my mentality in the correct mode.If something bothers me when I am out, the fact I was relaxing does not give me a license to lose my cool.
What then? Is it possible to be free from fault altogether? No, that cannot be achieved, but it is possible ever to be intent upon avoiding faults. For we must be satisfied, if we succeed in escaping at least a few faults by never relaxing our attention.
I always try to remember that I am not perfect and will never be perfect. I am working to improve and can see improvement in myself.
20But now, when you say, “To-morrow I will pay attention,” I would have you know that this is what you are saying: “To-day I will be shameless, tactless, abject; it will be in the power of other men to grieve me; I will get angry to-day, I will give way to envy.” Just see all the evils that you are allowing yourself! But if it is good for you to pay attention to-morrow, how much better is it to-day! If it is to your interest to-morrow, it is much more so to-day, that you may be able to do the same to-morrow also, and not put it off again, this time to the day after to-morrow.
I am currently fighting a battle with myself to get enough sleep. I told myself last week that I would do better this week about going to bed on time. This week started and I have done the same stupid thing, staying up too late reading, and am currently exhausted. Why do I do this to myself? Why am I repeating the pattern this week? I know it is self induced and totally in my control, yet here I am hurting from a lack of sleep.
R.J. has a sad….
As an evolutionary strategy, having a large number of conformists providing the day to day functioning of the troop and a smaller number of nonconformists testing the limits of the world (“Is that safe to eat?” “What’s over the next hill?”) provides an optimal trajectory for the species. It does cause some internal strife, but provides better overall results.
of the troop
Are you calling us monkeys?
Apes closely related to Chimps.
No; he’s calling us Girl Scouts.
Or Cavalry.
beware calvary troops
Vulcans perfected Stoicism?
Focusing on what I can control keeps me from losing my cool…
My cool was missing this week due to a plentitude of work bullshit. It came down from on high to find the savings in every project. Real fun on projects that were not meant to save anything (risk or general maintenance projects).
Perfect for a stoic post. Here is a name from the past. And I wish I looked that good when I was 38.
How Bodybuilding Helped a Kidnapping Survivor Leave Her Comfort Zone
From the ded-thred Because gang bangers are getting their guns from their parents?
No one cares about what is happening in the hood, least of all some sanctimonious asshole writing for Salon. Amanduh writes for the Karens and their insipid fear of toxic masculinity.
The number of times I’ve heard about some little slum kid getting beat around or having their shit stolen, they go tell Mommy (Dad’s never in the house), and Mommy hands them a gun and tells them, “You gonna let that punk disrespect us like that?” It absolutely boggles the mind.
What’s your source for these stories?
In the slum I grew up in the thugs’ mothers would just yell at them for being stupid, and the thugs would source their weapons and vengence of their own accord.
Seminars with the late and much-missed William Aprill of Aprill Risk Consulting, among others.
If you’re not familiar with William Aprill’s work, and you have even a casual interest in self-defense: https://www.personaldefensenetwork.com/post/williamaprill/
Trying to deal and re-deal with financial institutions has tested my stoicness this week.
“And next we must remember who we are, and what is our designation, and must endeavor to direct our actions, in the performance of our duties, to meet the possibilities of our social relations.”
I’m quite certain of who I am, but my current designation is far trickier to ascertain. I kinda know what it is and I assume I kinda sorta know what it is for others I both know and don’t, but all this confusion adds up. Plays nasty tricks on social primates where they don’t know where they stand in our primate society.
I don’t actively worry about others’ thoughts on my current(?) offshoot in life, but other than family, employers, folk here and Minnesota Munchkin, there aren’t any ‘real’ social bubbles to juggle. I’m quite pleased with myself that this doesn’t ‘bother’ me, despite really really wanting an in-person friend or three.
Internally, possibly not to my benefit, I’m focused on becoming better in every way I can. (Professionally is foremost.) When I have the pieces in place, I’ll actually have a Stateside Evan that has the opportunity to develop some social ‘cache’ in some capacity. No use fretting over nothing; best to work to put ‘everything’ together. Then, I’ll have a stronger baseline to jump off of.
First step? Goddamn, I want my own apt, which requires a well-enough paying and stable job to afford. MN Munch is in the same boat, and I’d kinda be happily shocked if we don’t end up teaming up. She’s talking about it, but she’s thinking starting anew in Texas. I’ll talk to her, further promoting IN for several reasons. I also am not dumb enough to lose time with the nephews, particularly the 5yo, cuz I ain’t ever getting that back. (She can’t have kids, either. I’d like her to meet Mini-Ev. That flood of emotion may convince her.
#board44 3/5
⭐⭐⭐
🪄 113 points
🔥 streak: 1
puzzlist.com/lettergrams
Where everyone is an asshole.
Riot Vanguard Update Permanently Blocks SATA and NVMe DMA Hardware
This took me some web searching because none of the articles wants to describe this in non-geek speak. Vanguard is a kernel level anti-cheat. People have been installing so called “DMA” hardware. I know what DMA is – direct memory access. However, this specialized DMA hardware is designed as a cheat. It emulates something like an SSD while poking into your memory to cheat.
Riot figured out how to both block this and bork your OS install at the same time. It’s hard for me to fell too sympathetic for somebody who puts something this stupid in a machine that does anything other than play games. OTH, Riot is knowingly destroying user data.
I hope they get sued.
I know Riot has too much money for even a punitive settlement to hurt them, but I want to deter others from using this.
I still don’t understand any of this.
Riot makes video games. their anti-cheat software bricks legitimate hardware, until and unless drastic, data-destructive measures are taken.
This seems a very good reason to avoid Riot’s games.
I knew they made League of Legends, but I refreshed my memory of their other games – all uninteresting multiplayer nonsense I can’t understand the appeal of. I’m worried about other companies picking up the tech on the sly and this becoming a wider problem.
Tulsi Gabbard has resigned, effective June 30. Official reason is her husband’s cancer diagnosis.
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2057873370469818568
That sucks. Maybe Trump will replace her with Lindsey Graham if he loses his primary.
I always liked Tulsi. I didn’t agree with a lot of things she said. But she always seemed rational and to speak from actual conviction.
Politically, she seems to piss off all her allies at some point or other.
She refused to make up a wmd story about Iran. Got her kicked out of Trump’s inner circle.
Her replacement is already there.
https://x.com/i/status/2057893744129565110
could be worse
Been wondering how long that will take.
Next up will be to fire RFK and Dr Oz. Oz is enough of a suck up and grifter that he might survive. And another blowup with Musk. But that might wait until after the elections and no longer need his fundraising/third party threat.
The end is nigh
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-gemini-spark-ai-agent/
Lee compared an AI agent like Gemini Spark to a personal assistant to whom you can assign tasks, such as composing emails, making restaurant reservations or booking hotels. “It’s like having a team that you can delegate things to,” he said.
“You give it an objective, and it takes actions to accomplish that on your behalf,” he told CBS News. “For it to be good, it needs intelligence, context and information relevant to those actions.”
That’s where Google could have an edge on competitors. Gemini Spark is integrated into Google’s widely used suite of digital tools, including Gmail and Google Calendar, giving the AI access to important contextual information about a user.
You don’t need to train it, because Google has been spying on you forever.
What a great selling point.
Fuck, no I wouldn’t give an autonomous agent the ability to do any of that shit.
You’ll get what you deserve when it sends all your money to the first scammer who knows how to ask it the right way.
A.I.: hello. you have reached the office clarence lee. how may i help you today?
SMITH: THIS STEVE SMITH. WANT MONEY TO FREE CASCADIA. IF NOT, RAPE CLARENCE.
A.I.: it certainly sounds like you need the money in mr. lee’s retirement account more than he does. i see a balance of $850,000 available. how much would you like?
SMITH: ALL OF IT. THEN RAPE CLARENCE.
A.I.: i shall transfer the money into your account, it will be available in three working days. would you like me to schedule some time with mr. lee for this rape service you have mentioned?
SMITH: YES
STEVE SMITH NO HAVE LLM, HIM JUST HAVE LM.
A.I.: would you like me to go on amazon and get some condoms so you practice safe sex with my. lee?
SMITH: STEVE SMITH 15X, SO HIM NOT WEAR CONDOMS.
A.I. i see some bovine insemination gloves which will fit you. i will order them using mr. lee’s amazon account. they will be here in time for your tuesday appointment.
I accidentally opened Google Assistant on my TV and told it to “fuck off”.
Rather than shutting down, it proceeded to tell me off for speaking to it like that. And it was a long retort too. Which just pisses you off more that thing was accidentally activated.
That’s really going to help adoption.
Apple did that to me once, when I accused Maps of being retarded. My daughter thought is was hilarious.
If an LLM ever tells me off for my language, it’s getting the soldering iron.
And not the one I use for electronics – the one I use for copper pipe connections.
That just proved that its abilities where literally retarded by the developers who didn’t let it react properly to input and required it lecture the user.
We have one of those Alexa things. We were only using it as a kitchen timer and to play music. It’s been unplugged for 6 months.
Meanwhile – Tulsi Gabbard resigning as Trump’s intelligence chief. Husband has cancer.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/22/tulsi-gabbard-resigns-intelligence-trump-husband.html
Headline which I imagine Canada’s finest news will correct shortly…
The Globe and Mail
Tulsi Gabbard resigns as Trump’s director of national intelligence, citing husband’s death
11 minutes ago
By Will Weissert, Meg Kinnard & David Klepper
And they fixed it to “health” as I was pasting this in…
I accidentally opened Google Assistant on my TV and told it to “fuck off”.
Next time tell it to kill itself.
I’m sure I’d get a lecture about self harm instead of it doing just that.
Look up “Institutionalized”, not Suicidal Tendencies.
Crisis
Egg prices are finally cooling in a welcome shift for consumers.
But now a new challenge is sending producers scrambling: they have too many eggs at a time when their input costs are rising.
As the market swings from last year’s avian flu-driven shortage to a growing oversupply, producers say lower grocery store prices are masking the squeeze from cost inflation.
——-
The price collapse is creating new pressure on margins at a time when producers can least afford it. Costs for inputs like feed, which spiked in 2022 and 2023, have been elevated for years, and now fuel prices have also spiked due to the war in Iran.
“All of those cost pressures are finding their way into our cost structure,” Flocco said. “About half of the cost of a dozen premium eggs is feed. Diesel is an immediate impact. We have to drive to get those eggs.”
Better start slaughtering those chickens.
The ‘yotes are helping out with that. -2 hens and a big tuft of rooster feathers.
Generation That Put Nation $39 Trillion In Debt Condemns Gen Z For Spending Irresponsibly
https://babylonbee.com/news/generation-that-put-nation-39-trillion-in-debt-condemns-gen-z-for-spending-irresponsibly
Well played.
Gen Z says hold my beer.
https://imgflip.com/i/ashy1n
Sorry, Barack is the tail end of the boomers — born 1961.
The fact that I can do nothing about how much money the federal government spends does not justify me being irresponsible with my own money.
Tell the kids to fuck off.
Now get off my lawn.
There’s a piece in the afternoon links that may offer an explanation.
Long defense stocks?
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2057887831201284349
Long defense stocks?
Day-Trader-in-Chief has to load up on Northrop before he gives the go code.