Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Freud and his theories, the patient riposted, were manifestations of the same materialism that he himself completely rejected in his own work in logic and philosophy. The mind was based on far fewer physical foundations, and far more spiritual inflences, than the twentieth century wanted to believe.
— Stephen Budiansky, Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel
Monday, January 31, 2022
In a 2004 argument over whether the federal government could regulate homegrown medicinal marijuana, Justice Breyer imagined a farmer who “grows heroin, cocaine, tomatoes that are going to have genomes in them that could, at some point, lead to tomato children that will eventually affect Boston.”
— Adam Liptak, "With Breyer’s Exit, a Farewell to Marshmallow Guns and Tomato Children," The New York Times
Sunday, January 30, 2022
A pod of orcas taking down a blue whale is “the biggest predation event on Earth, maybe the biggest one since dinosaurs were here,” said Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University and an author of the paper.
— Annie Roth, "Orcas Are Able to Kill and Eat Blue Whales, Scientists Confirm," The New York Times
Saturday, January 29, 2022
Great idea.
— Person to us as we cross country skied by
Friday, January 28, 2022
The person who controls access to the president is to a degree president.
— John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson
Thursday, January 27, 2022
Priorities. Love it.
— Jonathan after I texted that David and I would be delayed 5 minutes to get ice cream
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
In China, before the explosions, a message now says the police foiled the plot, arrested the criminals and sent Durden to a "lunatic asylum". The new finale tells viewers: "Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012."
— "China changes Fight Club film ending so the authorities win," bbc.com
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
Wuhan
— @rishibagree's reply to @Delta's tweet "Name a city that changed your life."
Monday, January 24, 2022
OUR RAPID OCHRE CAT ROARS NEAR THE IDLE DOG
— @tomlxndr, This is Lazy Dog - a small text plaything made of card. Push and pull the sliders to create new variations on the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
Sunday, January 23, 2022
A friend texted me the other day asking me for my father's first name, saying he remembered a conversation from almost a decade ago when I'd mentioned that my father works at the New School. I expressed surprise that he had retained this information, and he said that it had served its job now, and he could let it go. I teased him about what he would do with the song lyrics he'd memorized in middle school. He told me he was holding onto those for the apocalypse.
— Excerpt from #sky #nofilter: Meditations on a year when I sometimes thought I was dying, Chloë Bass, 2017, in Daily Ritual at Center for Book Arts
Saturday, January 22, 2022
The whole point is I earned these for you and you keep them.
— Lily to Ken on sports trophies
Friday, January 21, 2022
It was unfortunate—perhaps tragic—that such great consequences could hang on such ordinary things as timing, fatigue, and personal engagements.
— John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson
Thursday, January 20, 2022
This wasn't even a human anymore. I think they called it like biological waste or something like that, and it was now the property of them. It was no longer my property, and that was just... I couldn't even accept that. They don't want you taking your leg, and, and mailing it to the president or something. So, um... there's a liablilty there, and it's understandable.
— Guy with prosthetic leg who has the bones from his original leg preserved as a model, "How To Throw Out Your Batteries," How To With John Wilson
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
Because he knows his own human biases can creep into his decision making, Koon will often randomly select which of the solver’s tactics to employ in a given hand. He’ll glance down at the second hand on his watch, or at a poker chip to note the orientation of the casino logo as if it were a clock face, in order to generate a percentage between 1 and 100. The higher the percentage, the more aggressive the action he’ll take. “I’ll say: OK, well I just rolled 9 o’clock. So that’s 75 percent. That’s a pretty aggressive number.” In that instance, Koon might choose the largest of the solver’s approved bet sizes for his hand, whereas if the second hand had pointed to 3 o’clock, or 25 percent, he might have checked.
— Keith Romer, "How A.I. Conquered Poker," The New York Times Magazine
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
This, Hawking’s final theory, is that the law of physics evolved in a Darwinian fashion
— Bit of an email explaining a book*
Monday, January 17, 2022
That's sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
— Bill Clinton on China trying to crack down on the internet, via H.R. McMaster, "Joe Rogan Experience #1763 - General H.R.McMaster"
Sunday, January 16, 2022
Not all little girls grow up to be queen Victoria.
— K*
Saturday, January 15, 2022
So many linguist in one (our !) family ! ????
— Sid responding to K's text "Horchata" and L's text "porchata"*
Friday, January 14, 2022
C.D.C Says Cloth Masks Are Not as Effective as Others
— New York TImes headline
Thursday, January 13, 2022
David Foster Wallace, I really like the thing he says about this, which is, "the key to life is to be unborable," and I do really like you saying that it's a skill.
— Lex Fridman, "Donald Knuth: Programming, Algorithms, Hard Problems & the Game of Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #219"
