January 2012
1 post
December 2011
7 posts
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“Then, as conversation turned to the future and Gillard’s pledge in her...”
– The Honourable Kevin Rudd MP, Australia’s current Foreign Affairs Minister and - until June 2010 - our Prime Minister, flying the flag.
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“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be...”
– I sure hope that pithy aphorism is true, Sir Francis Bacon.
“Begin With Certainties” may as well have been on our family crest.
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November 2011
23 posts
WatchEvery day this week, J & B’s biggest request has been to watch (then rewatch) a cartoon made 57 years before they were born.
Here’s them watching their very favourite minute…
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The Alan-Alda-fication
John Roderick: When we were kids, the school curriculum was still based on the premise that we were trying to beat the Russians to the Moon. Even though we had already beat the Russians to the Moon, we were still reading those same math books.
Merlin Mann: We, we wanted to get the Moon, and we wanted them NOT to get to the Moon.
JR: Yeah, right, we wanted to get to the Moon and go, “IN YOUR FACE!”
MM: Um-hmm
JR: But then somewhere there in the Seventies, the ‘Alan Alda-fication of America’ happened, and suddenly everybody was an Artist. Nobody had a slide rule anymore, nobody was trying to get us to the Moon. Now everybody...now everybody was free to be... and we were all, our little hearts needed to be...set free.. and we needed to talk about our feelings... and everybody needed to share...and now we live in a nation of 350 million of the Most Important People Who Have Ever Lived. Nobody can wait in line. Nobody can admit for a second that maybe - in the Grand Scheme of Things - they...are...a PEON...
MM: Um-hmm
JR: ...and they need to STFU and get in line and do their jobs and get out of the way of better drivers who are on their way to some place, and only have nine minutes to get there.
MM: I think I finally understand it: OK, it’s really, it’s a problem with at least two levels. The second level is that the people are in your way, they’re making it take way more than nine minutes, you’re not gonna get the chance to have a walk or a nap, they’re in John’s way. If I understand correctly, the first, much more broad problem - we’re never gonna get to problem two until we get through problem one - is that people are literally not being forced to literally listen to you.
JR: Um-hmm.
MM: Because that’s part of the problem...your...what you have to share with them is getting lost amidst all the voices and talking about feelings. Is that fair to say?
JR: That is fair to say, except that - with the caveat - that I don’t really care if they’re listening, I just want them to be quiet while I’m talking. If they are just sitting there, just, just dumbly...
MM: So it’s not really about the movie. The movie, really, the movie is You. The problem is they’re talking during You.
JR: They’re talking during Me.
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“Needless to say, neither side converted the other, and we refused to abandon our...”
– - Arthur C. Clarke, via.
Can you imagine sitting among C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Arthur C. Clarke as they argued over beers at the pub?
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“‘Steve Jobs secretly began planning to move Apple off of the Motorola/IBM...”
– Sensing that John Siracusa is not a huge fan of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs
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Punctuation
Version 1:
“Dear John,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy; will you let me be yours? Gloria.”
Version 2:
“Dear John.
I want a...
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“It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that...”
– C.S. Lewis
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October 2011
17 posts
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(Jessica is drowsily stirring after a very long night of high fever, vomiting, cool showers, vomiting, tears, vomiting and exhaustion)…
Mel: I’m so sorry you had such an awful night, honey!
Jessica: I had a wonderful night, Mummy. I got to be with you in the big bed - they’re the best nights of all.
…
Jessica: Why are you crying, Mummy?
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Sugar Water
“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” - Steve Jobs to Pepsi’s John Sculley, 1983
It’s been twelve hours since I learned - via Twitter, via iPhone - of the death of Steve Jobs. Like many others, I’ve thought of little else since.
Even as someone with a deep admiration for the man, for Apple, for...
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September 2011
13 posts
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“Those who would give up essential privacy and agency to obtain a little...”
– Ben Franklin, 2011, probably.