News You Can Bruise for 2002 May 6

Mon May 06 2002 11:27: More ancient (Chinese) NYCB history: in response to this call for science fiction stories on the legal effects of relativistic time dilation, Sean Neakums once wrote:

I recently read Stephen Baxter's "Space", in which a character is induced to undertake a dangerous mission by the promise of riches generated via compound interest. This character did a few more trips, and returned after one such trip to discover that the banks had undertaken to appropriate the bank accounts of star travellers. I forget exactly why; I read fast with a retention rate of close to zero.
"Space" is a follow-on to "Time", also a good book.

If you liked Time, you'll love Space! Coming soon: Mass!

Mon May 06 2002 13:52: I was wondering when this would happen. Fortunately, it appears to be a joke, and hopefully its existence as a joke will preempt someone taking up the cause for real.

Mon May 06 2002 21:30: I just had a brief, pleasant chat with Seth, during the course of which we came up with an idea for a sitcom in which the characters are forever finding themselves reenacting various thought experiments and logical puzzles. "Wait a minute, why are we suddenly in this lifeboat?" "I want to eat, but you have my left chopstick and you have my right chopstick!" "I find it very strange that half of these people always lie and the other half always tell the truth!"

Mon May 06 2002 22:50: While searching on Sumana's behalf for this Atlantic article on Saddam Hussein, I discovered The Life of Antonius Heliogabalus, an account of the excesses of one of the later Roman emperors. He's one of the ones who comes in around the time the author of the history of Rome is getting really tired of writing a history of Rome, and just wants to get it over with so they can write the chapter about The Continuing Roman Influence and have a beer.

As such, Heliogabalus usually rates a mere mention in a list of bad emperors, and it's not generally known (or was not least to me) the virtuoso and inventive ways in which he expressed his total insuitability for power (though I'm not convinced he was much worse than your average bad Roman emperor in this regard). The Life is chock-full of interesting anecdotes, of which my favorite is this one, near the end:

The prophecy had been made to him by some Syrian priests that he would die a violent death. And so he had prepared cords entwined with purple and scarlet silk, in order that, if need arose, he could put an end to his life by the noose. He had gold swords, too, in readiness, with which to stab himself, should any violence impend. He also had poisons ready, in ceraunites and sapphires and emeralds, with which to kill himself if destruction threatened. And he also built a very high tower from which to throw himself down, constructed of boards gilded and jeweled in his own presence, for even his death, he declared, should be costly and marked by luxury.