Thursday, August 18, 2022
A modern clock that displays time through literary quotes every minute.
— "Author Clock: A Novel Way To Tell Time," Indiegogo
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Putin, he remembered, always spoke so quietly that his interlocutor had to make an effort to hear what he was saying. In one sense, this was an aspect of his obsessive self-control, he almost never raised his voice no matter how angry he was, but like his chronic lateness, it was also a way to put the other party psychologically at a disadvantage.
— Philip Short, Putin
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
When you go through the Hall of Fame of cultural transgression, what you'll find is that each bad boy and girl rests their claim of transgression not necessarily on the work itself, but on the censorship of that work as evidence. In the public's mind, transgression doesn't lead to censorship so much as being censored is what leads to being considered transgressive.
— Brad Troemel, "the KAYFABE report"
Monday, August 15, 2022
You are right that people smell bullshit, but here's the thing. If you come in smelling like goat shit, you still smell, but you don't smell like bullshit so they don't count you out right away... One of the secret sauces of CIA, when you look and act like a spy, people think you're a spy, if you look and act in any other way, you know what they never ever think you are, a spy. They might think you're an idiot, they might think your trailer trash, they might think you're a migrant worker, but they never think you're a spy... If you're trying to take your boss's job, as long as you don't ever look like the employee who's trying to take the boss's job, the boss is focused on all the employees who are trying to take his job. Everybody's prioritizing whether they know it or not, the goal is to just not be the one they’re targeting... When they meet you, they put you in a bin, and if you want to avoid being put in a particular bin... just show some kind of characteristics that bin you in some other way.
— Andrew Bustamante, "Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy | Lex Fridman Podcast #310"
Sunday, August 14, 2022
A blue stenciled sign on the side of the building stated "Citizens: during artillery barrages, this side of the street is more dangerous." Beneath it was a white marble plaque stating that the sign had been preserved to commemorate the heroism of Leningraders during the blockade. It was actually a replica. Similar signs warning that the northern side of the streets should be avoided because the German battery was up to the southern side of the city, had been put up in several districts to remind the younger generation of what their elders had been through during the war.
— Philip Short, Putin
Saturday, August 13, 2022
Jimmy Hoffa.
— Dillon
Friday, August 12, 2022
His tendency toward embellishment extended to everyone around him. And he rarely resisted the temptation to introduce Roger Stoller, for instance, as "a famous surfer," which subtly undermined his actual achievements. His own granddaughter felt this acutely as she entered her late twenties. Decades later, Alexandra recalled, "I did not like the way my grandfather perceived me."
— Alec Nevala-Lee, Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller
Thursday, August 11, 2022
So first of all, it looks like the most expensive book report you can ever imagine. It's got its own binder. It's all very high-end. It feels important, it looks important. It's not like a cheap Trapper Keeper.
— Andrew Bustamante responding to Lex Fridman's question "What does the PDB, the president's deaily breif, look like?," "Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy | Lex Fridman Podcast #310"
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
In practice, a lack of structure led to cults forming around figures such as Rice.
— Alec Nevala-Lee, Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller on Black Mountain College
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
"An officer" he said, "had to handle any situation that arose when he was out of touch with home, which might include having to establish a naval base halfway across the world." Such work demanded very comprehensive men, and Fuller regarded himself as a member of the last generation to receive this education, which was rendered unnecessary after radio made it possible to transmit orders from a distance.
— Alec Nevala-Lee, Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller
Monday, August 8, 2022
An extraordinarily detailed book, Itinéraire de Napoléon: Au jour le jour, first published in 1947, records where he was and what he was doing every single day from his adult life.
— Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life
Sunday, August 7, 2022
Napoleon later recalled that when he reached Gap, "some of the peasants took five-franc pieces stamped with my likeness out of their pockets, and cried, 'It is he!'"
— Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life
Saturday, August 6, 2022
All you need to do now is either unfollow 1956 people or follow 28,044 new accounts
— @belleboundbooks on how @ice_cream_books has 333 posts and 33.3k followers
Friday, August 5, 2022
Now I'm just an Astros fan I guess
— Lily
Thursday, August 4, 2022
At the supposedly model town of Napoléon-Vendée he was so furious that the houses had only been built from mud and straw that he took out his sword and drove it into one of the walls up to the hilt.
— Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
How al Qaeda leader's morning ritual helped the CIA take him out
— Fox News headline
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
“Everybody pays as they go,” he said, “because I want everybody to think about it every time they have a guitar lesson... The person who’s doing it needs to pay for it, because that’s what makes it real for them.”
— Collier Meyerson, "Dan Smith Might Teach You Guitar," The New York Times
Monday, August 1, 2022
We're going to be able to bring the tactical environment around that jet, the war space that it goes into will almost be at a stochastic level from the enemy's perspective. Where it'll almost seem like every tactical environment they go in will be random and yet very deadly, because the system is providing a new tactical solution essentially for that particular scenario, instead of just training to particular tactics that have to be repeatable and tranable and leathal, but not necessarily the most lethal because they have to be trainable. But if we can introduce AI into that, and to have a level of randomness, or at least the appearence of randomnes due to the complexity, you know I would say like a stochastic tacticatical advantage because even our own blue fighters won't be able to engage in that fight because it would be unsafe essentially for anything else. And I think that's where we have to drive because otherwise it's always this chicken and mouse cat game about whose tactics and who knows what, but if knowledge is no longer a factor, it's gonna make things a lot different.
— Ryan Graves, "Ryan Graves: UFOs, Fighter Jets, and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #308"
Sunday, July 31, 2022
Mr. Koch has obtained well over 100 absentee ballots in the names of other people, including politicians, journalists and lawyers, without their permission, according to a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court. But despite ordering all of those ballots, Mr. Koch never cast them in an election. He told F.B.I. agents who interviewed him last month that he collected the ballots “as a hobby,” the complaint said.
— Benjamin Weiser, "He Ordered Celebrities’ Absentee Ballots. Now He’s Under Arrest.," The New York Times
Saturday, July 30, 2022
Create a Memory for Yourself
— Listed reason to "Buy a Brick On the Commemorative Walk At The Empire State Airosciences Museum" along with "Commemorate a Family Member, Honor a Military Veteran, and Pay Tribute to an Outstanding Citizen"