Friday, February 16, 2024

Love is what you've been through with somebody.


James Thurber

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Sherlock on knowledge

I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.

Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle in A Study in Scarlet

Monday, December 18, 2023

An explanation of some kind ... is necessary—however absurd—to the happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and face the problems of life. 

Algernon Blackwood, The Willows

Sunday, November 26, 2023

We think time travels forward, marches on in a straight line, and so we hurry alongside it to keep up. Hurry, hurry, mustn’t fall behind. But it doesn’t, you see. Time just swirls around us. Everything is always present. The things we’ve done, the people we’ve loved, the people we’ve hurt, they’re all still here.... The lie of time. Everything I’ve done and everything I’ve been is present in the same place. But we still think the thing that has just happened, or is about to happen, we think that’s the most important thing. My memories aren’t memories, my present isn’t present, it’s all the same thing.

Richard Osman, The Last Devil To Die

 

Saturday, October 21, 2023

The Coming Wave

[T]he entirety of the human world depends on either living systems or our intelligence. And yet both are now in an unprecedented moment of exponential innovation and upheaval, an unparalleled augmentation that will leave little unchanged. Starting to crash around us is a new wave of technology. This wave is unleashing the power to engineer these two universal foundations: a wave of nothing less than intelligence and life... defined by two core technologies: artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology. Together they will usher in a new dawn for humanity, creating wealth and surplus unlike anything ever seen. And yet their rapid proliferation also threatens to empower a diverse array of bad actors to unleash disruption, instability, and even catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. This wave creates an immense challenge that will define the twenty-first century: our future both depends on these technologies and is imperiled by them. From where we stand today, it appears that containing this wave — that is, controlling, curbing, or even stopping it is not possible.... Even as we worry about their risks, we need the incredible benefits of the technologies of the coming wave more than ever before. This is the core dilemma.

Mustafa Suleyman, The Coming Wave

Sunday, October 01, 2023

Truer words ....

There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.

Dead men don’t find things out. 

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

 

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Rules

That’s why there’s rules, understand? So that you think before you break ’em.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time