2024/01/31
Todays Thought
To bear up under loss, to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief, to be victor over anger, to smile when tears are close, to resist evil men and base instincts, to hate hate and to love love, to go on when it would seem good to die, to seek ever after the glory and the dream, to look up with unquenchable faith in something evermore about to be, that is what any man can do, and so be great.
-Zane Grey, author (31 Jan 1872-1939)
2024/01/30
Todays Thought
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (30 Jan 1882-1945)
2024/01/28
Todays Thought
Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.
-Colette, author (28 Jan 1873-1954)
2024/01/26
2024/01/24
Todays Thought
I begin to see what marriage is for. It's to keep people away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them: children, duties, visits, bores, relations, the things that protect married people from each other.
-Edith Wharton, novelist (24 Jan 1862-1937)
2024/01/23
2024/01/22
Todays Thought
He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?
-Lord Byron, poet (22 Jan 1788-1824)
2024/01/21
The Economists Who Found the Richest People of All Time
The Economists Who Found the Richest People of All Time
Milanovic ends with Simon Kuznets (1901–1985), who after World War II noticed that income distribution was growing more equal not only in the United States but in other advanced industrial economies—the very thing Pareto had said could never happen. This reversed the trend toward growing inequality that had prevailed during the Industrial Revolution. Kuznets concluded that inequality followed a U-shaped curve, growing during the disruptive early period of industrialization but then shrinking after it matured. At some point, an industrial democracy would become so rich that productivity differences between industry and agriculture would diminish, a surplus of capital would drive down the rate of return, and society could afford to set aside funds for pensions and government programs like unemployment insurance. That was the mid-twentieth-century reality.
It didn’t last. In the late 1970s, incomes started growing more unequal, a trend that persists to this day. It took a while for economists to notice, partly, Milanovic says, because Kuznets had lulled them into complacency. But in 2014, Thomas Piketty came along to argue, in Capital in the Twenty-First Century, that r > g, where r is growth in capital and g is labor income or, more broadly, growth in the broader economy. The result is an ever-increasing concentration of wealth. The process has been reversed periodically by cataclysmic world events like the Black Death of the fourteenth century, which created a labor shortage that benefited peasants, and the two world wars of the twentieth century, which extinguished capital and finished off the aristocracy. But growing wealth inequality always resumed afterward. A cataclysmic event today on the scale of the two world wars would, of course, likely finish off human civilization altogether, leaving its impact on economic distribution moot.
2024/01/19
Todays Word
A paraprosdokian (/pærəprɒsˈdoʊkiən/) is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists[1] such as Groucho Marx.
Examples[edit]
- "Take my wife—please!" —Henny Youngman[12][13]
- "There but for the grace of God—goes God." —Winston Churchill[1]
- "If I could just say a few words … I'd be a better public speaker." —Homer Simpson[14]
- "If I am reading this graph correctly—I'd be very surprised." —Stephen Colbert[15]
- "If all the girls attending the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised." —Dorothy Parker[16][17]
- "On his feet he wore … blisters." —Aristotle[18]
- "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." —Groucho Marx[19][20][21]
- "My uncle's dying wish was to have me sit in his lap; he was in the electric chair." —Rodney Dangerfield[22]
- "I like going to the park and watching the children run around because they don't know I'm using blanks." —Emo Philips[19]
- "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." —Mitch Hedberg[10][23]
- "I sleep eight hours a day and at least ten at night." —Bill Hicks[10][24]
- "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." —Will Rogers[25]
- “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” — Bertrand Russell[26]
- "On the other hand, you have different fingers." —Steven Wright[12]
- "He was at his best when the going was good." —Alistair Cooke[1]
- "Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read." —Jim Brewer, sometimes attributed to Groucho Marx[27][28]
2024/01/18
Todays Thought
Everyone has a belief system, B.S., the trick is to learn not to take anyone's B.S. too seriously, especially your own.
-Robert Anton Wilson, novelist (18 Jan 1932-2007)
2024/01/17
Consequences
Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi. One hundred years later, it’s more relevant and more urgent than ever.
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Religion without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.
When we create these imbalances, we pay for them.
2024/01/16
Todays Word
prestigious
Prestigious, Lucrative, and Bonkers; The Economist (London, UK); Oct 14, 2023.
See more usage examples of prestigious in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.
2024/01/14
Todays Thought
When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.
-Jane Welsh Carlyle, letter writer (14 Jan 1801-1866)
2024/01/13
2024/01/12
Todays Thought
People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.
-Haruki Murakami, writer (b. 12 Jan 1949)
2024/01/10
2024/01/09
Todays Thought
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion.
-Simone de Beauvoir, author and philosopher (9 Jan 1908-1986)
2024/01/08
Todays Thought
When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.
-Baltasar Gracian, writer and philosopher (8 Jan 1601-1658)
2024/01/07
2024/01/05
BIFTEK HACHE A LA LYONNAISE
INGREDIENTS
- 3⁄4cup finely minced yellow onion
- 2tablespoons butter
- 1 1⁄2lbs extra lean ground beef
- 22 tablespoons marrow or 2 tablespoons fresh pork fat
- 1 1⁄2teaspoons salt
- 1⁄8teaspoon pepper
- 1⁄8teaspoon thyme
- 1egg
- 1⁄2cup flour, spread on a plate
- 1tablespoon butter
- 1tablespoon oil
- 1⁄21/2 cup red wine or 1/4 cup water
- 2 -3tablespoons butter
DIRECTIONS
- Cook the onions slowly in 2 Tablespoons of butter (about 10 mins) until tender not browned.
- Place onions in mixing bowl. Add the beef, butter (or suet, marrow or pork fat) the seasonings and the egg; mix well.
- Form into patties 3/4" thick.
- Cover & refrigerate till ready to use.
- Just before sautéing, roll the patties lightly in flour.
- Shake off any excess flour.
- Place butter and oil in heavy skillet over med-high heat.
- When butter foam begins to subside, saute the patties for about 3 minutes per side (or more depending upon how you like your burger).
- Place burgers on serving platter and keep warm while finishing the sauce.
- Pour fat out of the skillet and discard.
- Add stock (or wine, vermouth or water) and boil down rapidly.
- Scraping up the coagulated pan juice till reduced to almost a syrup.
- Off heat, swirl 2-3 Tablespoons of butter into the sauce - 1/2 Tablespoon at a time until absorbed into the sauce.
- Pour the sauce over the hamburgers and serve.
Stop Asking If the Universe Is a Computer Simulation
Stop Asking If the Universe Is a Computer Simulation
We will never know if we live in a computer simulation; here is a more interesting question
The 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that the universe ultimately consists of things-in-themselves that are unknowable. While he held the notion that objective reality exists, he said our mind plays a necessary role in structuring and shaping our perceptions. Kant was ahead of his time but undeniably insightful. Modern neuroscience and cognitive science have revealed that our perceptual experience of the world is the result of many stages of processing by sensory systems and cognitive functions in the brain. No one knows exactly what happens within this black box. What we do know is these brain processes generate a vast amount of additional information beyond what our senses perceive. Take vision, for instance; our retinas are two flat surfaces that only receive two-dimensional information, but our cognitive functions add the third dimension to our perceptual experience.
If empirical experience fails to reveal reality, reasoning won’t reveal reality either since it relies on concepts and words that are contingent on our social, cultural and psychological histories. Again, a black box.
So, if we accept that the universe is unknowable, we also accept we will never know if we live in a computer simulation. And then, we can shift our inquiry from “Is the universe a computer simulation?” to “Can we model the universe as a computer simulation?” These are two very different questions. The former confines us in speculation; the latter puts us on track to doing science.
Gaspard de la nuit
The name "Gaspard" is derived from its original Persian form, denoting "the man in charge of the royal treasures": "Gaspard of the Night" or the treasurer of the night thus creates allusions to someone in charge of all that is jewel-like, dark, mysterious, perhaps even morose.[3]
Of the work, Ravel himself said: "Gaspard has been a devil in coming, but that is only logical since it was he who is the author of the poems. My ambition is to say with notes what a poet expresses with words."[4]
Aloysius Bertrand, author of Gaspard de la Nuit (1842), introduces his collection by attributing them to a mysterious old man met in a park in Dijon, who lent him the book. When he goes in search of M. Gaspard to return the volume, he asks, " 'Tell me where M. Gaspard de la Nuit may be found.' 'He is in hell, provided that he isn't somewhere else', comes the reply. 'Ah! I am beginning to understand! What! Gaspard de la Nuit must be...?' the poet continues. 'Ah! Yes... the devil!' his informant responds. 'Thank you, mon brave!... If Gaspard de la Nuit is in hell, may he roast there. I shall publish his book.
I. Ondine
Written in C♯ major and based on the poem "Ondine", an oneiric tale of the water nymph Undine singing to seduce the observer into visiting her kingdom deep at the bottom of a lake. It is reminiscent of Ravel's early piano piece, the Jeux d'eau (1901), with the sounds of water falling and flowing, woven with cascades.
II. Le Gibet
Written in E♭ minor and based on the poem of the same name,[7] the movement presents the observer with a view of the desert, where the lone corpse of a hanged man on a gibbet stands out against the horizon, reddened by the setting sun. Meanwhile, a bell tolls from inside the walls of a far-off city, creating the deathly atmosphere that surrounds the observer. Throughout the entire piece is a B♭ octave ostinato, imitative of the tolling bell, that remains constant in tone as the notes cross over and dynamics change. The duration of Le Gibet is about 5:15.
III. Scarbo
Written in G♯ minor and based on the poem "Scarbo",[10] this movement depicts the nighttime mischief of a small fiend or goblin, making pirouettes, flitting in and out of the darkness, disappearing and suddenly reappearing. Its uneven flight, hitting and scratching against the walls and bed curtains, casting a growing shadow in the moonlight creates a nightmarish scene for the observer lying in his bed.
With its repeated notes and two terrifying climaxes, this is the high point in technical difficulty of all the three movements. Technical challenges include repeated notes in both hands, and double-note scales in major seconds in the right hand. Ravel reportedly said about Scarbo: "I wanted to write an orchestral transcription for the piano."[1] The duration of Scarbo is about 8:30-9:00.
-
Arizona's huge new dark sky observatory: See the construction progress Renderings & Floorplan The 22,000 square-foot IDSDC will ac...
-
The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers is a c. 1672–75 oil on canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age...
