Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Life was from its begining a picture magazine managed by former writers, not by photographers. The publication's photographers, it has been said, were more like a thesaurus than authors.
— Brett Abbot, Engaged Observers
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Differences between the generations were more pronounced in Russia than in Western Europe or America because the change of system after the collapse of communist rule in 1991 had been total. Putin's concern, however, was less with the behaviour of younger people – a tolerance which may have stemmed from his memories of his own truculent youth – than with their lack of a sense of national identity. He complained of their 'appalling' ignorance of their country's past and quoted his favourite historian, Vasily Klyuchevsky: '“History doesn't teach anything, but it punishes those who haven't learnt their lessons.”
— Philip Short, Putin
Monday, September 12, 2022
As flat as the surface of the Earth.
— Niels*
Sunday, September 11, 2022
Myths aren't stories about things that happened in the deep past that are largely irrelevant. Myths are stories about perennial or pertinent patterns.
— John Vervaeke, "John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317"
Saturday, September 10, 2022
Notably, not a single person present in the room had been part of the ceremony the last time around, when Queen Elizabeth was proclaimed sovereign 70 years ago.
— Megan Specia, "In an ancient ceremony with a modern twist, King Charles III is formally proclaimed to his new role," The New York Times
Friday, September 9, 2022
Birthday toad.
— Lily
Thursday, September 8, 2022
The amount of information in this room that you could actually pay attention to is combinatory explosive. The amount of information you have in your memory, long-term memory, and all the ways you could combine it, combinatorial explosive. The number of possibilities you can consider, also combinatory explosive. The sequences of behavior you can generate, also combinatorial explosive. And yet somehow you're zeroing in. The right memories are coming up. The right possibilities are opening up. The right sequences of behavior. You're paying attention to the right thing. Not infallibly so, but so much so that you reliably find obvious what you should interact with in order to solve the problem at hand. That's an ability that is still not well understood... It's amost like a Zen koan, what makes you intelligent is your ability to ignore so much information... So I represent this as a cup. The number of properties it actually has, and that I even have epistemic access, to is combinatory explosive. I select from those a subset and how they are relevant to each other insofar as they are relevant for me. This doesn't have to be a cup. I could be using it as a hat. I could use it to stand for the letter "V." All kinds of different things. I could say this was the 10th billion object made in North America.
— John Vervaeke, "John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317"
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
I'm really tripping out cause my birthday is April 17th. And I see MVP on license plates... often. Rolled in here, right as I turn in, on the first car... 4... 17... MVP. Swear right hand to God.
— Robbin Stone, "S1 E3: Gold Digger," The Rehearsal
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
OMG In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books. LESS THAN ONE DOZEN.
— @aprilhenrybooks tweet via @bradtromel
Monday, September 5, 2022
Izvestia wrote that autumn that as well as appearing presidential, he had managed to make ordinary Russians feel, 'he's just like me', with the result that 'changing one's good opinion of Putin would require changing one's good opinion of oneself, which is very hard to do.'
— Philip Short, Putin
Sunday, September 4, 2022
The first decree which Putin signed as acting president, using the same pen that Yeltsin had used to name him his successor, granted the former president immunity.
— Philip Short, Putin
Saturday, September 3, 2022
I think people sometimes read in some ideological bend or policy thing into that that I think often isn't there. But unfortuntely, there just are, becuase the scale is so big, there are going to be millions of mistakes. You're going to be able to find almost any pattern that you want in that much data.
— Mark Zuckerberg, "#1863 - Mark Zuckerberg, The Joe Rogan Experience"
Friday, September 2, 2022
Of course, it will take passengers longer to exit the airplane if their eyes haven’t yet adjusted to the outside light. If the airplane’s interior is dark while its exterior is bright and sunny, passengers may struggle to quickly exit the airplane during an emergency. Therefore, airlines require passengers to open their window shades during takeoffs and landings to allow for eyesight adjustment.
— "Why Airlines Require Passengers to Open Window Shades During Takeoffs and Landings," monroeaerospace.com
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Geppetto.
— Lily on Giacometti
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Moulded bricks
— Title of explanatory wall panel at the National Museum of Denmark
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
The so-called "tromp l'oeil" genre is typical of the Baroque era with its interest in witty illusionism, metaphor, and allegory. The genre was popular with princes and heads of states throughout Europe. The works were good conversation pieces when entertaining dignitaries from abroad.
— Wall text at Statens Museum for Kunst
Monday, August 29, 2022
“If you spend your whole life studying the worms that live on nodules, then you get very attached to that,” Mr. Lodge said.
— Eric Lipton, "Secret Data, Tiny Islands and a Quest for Treasure on the Ocean Floor," The New York Times
Sunday, August 28, 2022
“Both Israel and another country are working to make Iranian clouds not rain,” Brig. Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, a senior official in the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps, said in a 2018 speech.
— Alissa J. Rubin, "Cloud Wars: Mideast Rivalries Rise Along a New Front," The New York Times
Saturday, August 27, 2022
000000
— Eritech Lightning Event Counter inside of beam at the top of Loen Skylift
Friday, August 26, 2022
Never take an unnecessary chance just to get a good photo.
— Bullet point on sign at Storsæterfossen
