Melissa Kutner
@melissannbee.bsky.social
Ancient Studies professor at UMBC. Mostly Roman things. Views my own.
Pinned
Melissa Kutner
@melissannbee.bsky.social
· Dec 19
PEETERS ONLINE JOURNALS
poj.peeters-leuven.be
My paper, "Public Granaries and Private Transactions: Infrastructure and Standardization," is now out in Ancient Society! Standard measures were never imposed by the Romans across Egypt. But I argue that taxation infrastructure, especially public granaries... poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?...
Seems like universities should take note
Guardrails anyone? Apparently not. With a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers. on.ft.com/44fyMfK
Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mounts
AIG, Great American and WR Berkley seek permission to limit liability from AI agents and chatbots
on.ft.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Seems like universities should take note
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
From the email from ASPROM, I read the sad news of the passing of Professor Roger Ling, Emeritus Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at University of Manchester.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
November 21, 2025 at 8:59 PM
From the email from ASPROM, I read the sad news of the passing of Professor Roger Ling, Emeritus Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at University of Manchester.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
Yes. The usefulness of chatbots is fatally compromised by their interface, because that interface inevitably undermines the ability of any user to judge the output. That same interface creates addictive tendencies, etc.
my most butlerian jihad coded belief is that we should probably make it illegal – and more importantly, we should work toward a cultural consensus that it is immoral – to design a computer program whose interface uses the first person
November 21, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Yes. The usefulness of chatbots is fatally compromised by their interface, because that interface inevitably undermines the ability of any user to judge the output. That same interface creates addictive tendencies, etc.
Paging Catullus
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Paging Catullus
Money museum 😍
The American Numismatic Society’s collections of coins will be relocating from Manhattan to the spacious campus of the Toledo Museum of Art. The $20 million plan, to be completed in 2028, would make possible its long-harbored vision of a state-of-the-art money museum.
After 167 Years in New York, a Priceless Coin Collection Heads to Toledo
www.nytimes.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Money museum 😍
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
The New School is now a place where students cannot major in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Global Policy & International Affairs, Global Studies, Urban Studies, or Environmental Studies. And more pauses, closures, and mergers coming down the pike this week. The future is uncertain.
November 19, 2025 at 1:15 PM
The New School is now a place where students cannot major in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Global Policy & International Affairs, Global Studies, Urban Studies, or Environmental Studies. And more pauses, closures, and mergers coming down the pike this week. The future is uncertain.
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
I've fallen down the rabbit hole of small town life in the USA in the 1880s-1930s [as research for the book currently called "The Money of the Poor"]. And even though I *knew* it, there's still something awful about the census form that lists a woman's age as 24, who's had 7 children, 5 living
November 18, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I've fallen down the rabbit hole of small town life in the USA in the 1880s-1930s [as research for the book currently called "The Money of the Poor"]. And even though I *knew* it, there's still something awful about the census form that lists a woman's age as 24, who's had 7 children, 5 living
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Would read a book about the impact of the spreadsheet tbh
Imagine if we had the same breathless coverage for that other genuinely disruptive technology, the spreadsheet
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Would read a book about the impact of the spreadsheet tbh
Sometimes you have an experience like this and years later see the man thanked for his mentorship by another man in the preface to the latter’s book, and it really burns
If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
November 16, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Sometimes you have an experience like this and years later see the man thanked for his mentorship by another man in the preface to the latter’s book, and it really burns
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
very happy to see my PBSR article on female token issuers in Rome and Ostia is now live! If anyone would like a copy, let me know. :-) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
REPRESENTATIONS OF ROMAN WOMEN ON THE TOKENS OF ROME AND OSTIA | Papers of the British School at Rome | Cambridge Core
REPRESENTATIONS OF ROMAN WOMEN ON THE TOKENS OF ROME AND OSTIA
www.cambridge.org
November 14, 2025 at 9:51 AM
very happy to see my PBSR article on female token issuers in Rome and Ostia is now live! If anyone would like a copy, let me know. :-) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Thinking about the recent research on towers in rich houses in Pompeii in relation to Evan Jewell's (@quidamabo.bsky.social) excellent article on wayfinding, and his point that the rich had sweeping views of the city while the poor did not
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
Discovery Suggests That the House of the Thiasos and Other Domus in Pompeii May Have Had Observation Towers
The mental image of the city of Pompeii, crystallized by the mold of ash and lapilli that preserved its ground level for centuries, may be about to acquire a new vertical dimension. A digital archaeol...
www.labrujulaverde.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Thinking about the recent research on towers in rich houses in Pompeii in relation to Evan Jewell's (@quidamabo.bsky.social) excellent article on wayfinding, and his point that the rich had sweeping views of the city while the poor did not
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Sit tibi terra levis
The American penny died on Wednesday in Philadelphia. It was 232. The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness, the Treasury Department said. Nothing could be bought any more with a penny, as the cost to mint the penny had risen to more than 3 cents. nyti.ms/48bFd5K
November 13, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Sit tibi terra levis
Lolita is twelve and cries every night after Humbert rapes her. In case you haven’t read it in a while.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Interesting email here from Elisa New, Harvard professor and wife to Larry Summers, to Epstein, reflecting on Lolita.
"...it's about a man whose life is stamped forever by his impression of a young girl."
"...it's about a man whose life is stamped forever by his impression of a young girl."
November 13, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Lolita is twelve and cries every night after Humbert rapes her. In case you haven’t read it in a while.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Sit tibi terra levis
The American penny died on Wednesday in Philadelphia. It was 232. The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness, the Treasury Department said. Nothing could be bought any more with a penny, as the cost to mint the penny had risen to more than 3 cents. nyti.ms/48bFd5K
November 13, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Sit tibi terra levis
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
📢 Did you know the the Journal of Roman Archaeology is flipping to #OpenAccess?
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
November 12, 2025 at 10:15 AM
📢 Did you know the the Journal of Roman Archaeology is flipping to #OpenAccess?
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
Aurora borealis near DC!
November 12, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Aurora borealis near DC!
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
I want to tell a story about this. I was at the Acropolis Museum in Athens showing some esteemed scholars the statue in question and discussing its features when a woman approached and said, "Can I ask you a question about this sculpture? You seem to know about it." I said, of course!
November 11, 2025 at 6:39 PM
I want to tell a story about this. I was at the Acropolis Museum in Athens showing some esteemed scholars the statue in question and discussing its features when a woman approached and said, "Can I ask you a question about this sculpture? You seem to know about it." I said, of course!
Oooh!
Lately I've been mulling over lots of questions re: wayfinding in the Subura and how demolition affected this process... Imagine my happy surprise when I discovered that @quidamabo.bsky.social published a fantastic article on wayfinding and subaltern Romans just last month! 👏👏
November 11, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Oooh!
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
"Books — actual books, with dust jackets, spines...are increasingly unwelcome...With few exceptions, the only stories allowed in the early grades of state-appointed HISD Superintendent Mike Miles' New Education System are minced into dry text that teachers read from manuals."
November 10, 2025 at 10:14 PM
"Books — actual books, with dust jackets, spines...are increasingly unwelcome...With few exceptions, the only stories allowed in the early grades of state-appointed HISD Superintendent Mike Miles' New Education System are minced into dry text that teachers read from manuals."
The effects of childhood malnutrition are grim and irreversible. Financial household strain also increases abuse. I’m not immune to anger, but that’s what I’ve been thinking about.
I am not defending Chuck Schumer, but I do think it is slightly more reasonable than we give credit to say that we cannot allow starving Americans, withholding their pay, and compromising their safety to become the way we do policy here. Saying “we were winning!” - no one wins when kids go hungry.
November 11, 2025 at 1:35 AM
The effects of childhood malnutrition are grim and irreversible. Financial household strain also increases abuse. I’m not immune to anger, but that’s what I’ve been thinking about.
Accountability sink (Dan Davies)
im realizing that companies calling "anything a computer does" "AI" isn't ignorance or marketing, it's them figuring out that calling something "AI" is currently a get-out-of-liability-free card
recently at an automotive industry conference and the way every CEO swapped between obsessing about how engineers will be replaced by "prompt engineers", and justifying confidence in "AI" by referring to "basically anything a computer does" as "AI," was terrifying
November 10, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Accountability sink (Dan Davies)
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
That Roman database of roads that's been in the news: treat with some caution.
Comparaison entre ce qui est connu (en rouge) et les tracés du dataset (en vert) pour l'est de la Bourgogne. Les données mises a disposition sont sans doute meilleures dans les zones où des spécialiste ont été sollicité.e.s (Egypte, etc). Bonne base de départ donc, mais a utiliser avec prudence 3/3
November 9, 2025 at 3:44 PM
That Roman database of roads that's been in the news: treat with some caution.
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
What was the purpose of the iconic Andean monument of Monte Sierpe (aka Band of Holes)? New research supports a new interpretation: it was a barter marketplace, later developing into a monumental system of accounting under #Inca rule.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
November 10, 2025 at 10:16 AM
What was the purpose of the iconic Andean monument of Monte Sierpe (aka Band of Holes)? New research supports a new interpretation: it was a barter marketplace, later developing into a monumental system of accounting under #Inca rule.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au