May 2012
23 posts
“Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the next to die.”
—Obama & Antiterrorism. Quite a look. Full article here.
“Information does not imply meaning, or knowledge, or – much less – wisdom. And, meanwhile, we can find meaning where we can. We’re engaging in a project of organizing knowledge, sorting it, filtering it, reviewing it. We need to remind ourselves that this project has been underway for many centuries, and it’s never going to end. It is subjective, and imperfect, and unstable.”
—James Gleick, author of The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood – one of 7 essential books about the future of information and the internet – speaking at Harvard. (via explore-blog)
“A characteristic of artistic education is for people to tell you that you’re a genius. […] So everybody gets this idea, if you go to art school, that you’re really a genius. Sadly, it isn’t true. Genius occurs very rarely. So the real embarrassing issue about failure is your own acknowledgement that you’re not a genius, that you’re not as good as you thought you were. […] There’s only one solution: You must embrace failure. You must admit what is. You must find out what you’re capable of doing, and what you’re not capable of doing. That is the only way to deal with the issue of success and failure because otherwise you simply would never subject yourself to the possibility that you’re not as good as you want to be, hope to be, or as others think you are.”
—Legendary designer Milton Glaser, father of the I♥NY logo, on the fear of failure. (via explore-blog)
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“All the heroes are dead. And the real heroes are the parents. Dying is a very simple thing. I’ve looked at death and really I know. If I should have died it would have been very easy for me. Quite the easiest thing I ever did. But the people at home do not realize that. They suffer a thousand times more.”
—Ernest Hemingway’s letter to his parents after being severely wounded in Italy during WWI, from this collection of young Hemingway’s letters. (via explore-blog)
“Science is primarily an investigation of our place of the Universe — the place that people occupy in a world which ranges from the tiniest subatomic particles to the furthest reaches of space and time. We do not exist in isolation, and science is a human cultural activity, not a purely dispassionate striving after truth, no matter how hard we might try. It is all about where we came from, and where we are going. And it is the most exciting story ever told.”
—John Gribbin quoted in brainpickings
“2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.”
—6 tips on writing from John Steinbeck (via explore-blog)
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“Human minds yield helplessly to the suction of story. No matter how hard we concentrate, no matter how deep we dig in our heels, we just can’t resist the gravity of alternate worlds.”
—How humans became the storytelling animal. (via explore-blog)
