May 2013
4 posts
2 tags
“ “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust,...”
– Douglas Adams, English writer and dramatist (1952-2001), The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time (2002)
3 tags
“ “There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world....”
– Douglas Adams, English writer and dramatist (1952-2001), in a Speech at Digital Biota 2, Cambridge, UK, (1998)
3 tags
“ “For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a...”
– Douglas Adams, English writer and dramatist (1952-2001), The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time (2002)
2 tags
“Silence “Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence...”
April 2013
15 posts
2 tags
“ “Today’s news consists of aggregates of fragments. Anyone who has taken...”
– Buckminster Fuller, an American engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist (1895-1983), Synergetics, Macmillan, 1975.
2 tags
“ “A physicist is an attempt by an atom to understand itself.” ”
– Michio Kaku, an American theoretical physicist, a futurist, and popularizer of science, Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos, Doubleday, 2004.
3 tags
Nature Boy There was a boy A very strange,...
2 tags
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“A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty...”
– Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist (1899-1977), Laughter in the Dark, Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1932 Photo: Vladimir Nabokov looking out of car window. He likes to work in the car, writing on index cards. - LIFE (Ithaca State, NY, 1958)
2 tags
“ “We think not in words but in shadows of words.” ”
– Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist (1899-1977), Strong Opinions, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Feb 16, 2011.
5 tags
“
Colored Plates - Synergetics - R. Buckminster Fuller. Written by Robert W....”
– Buckminster Fuller, an American engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist (1895-1983), R. Buckminster Fuller on Education, University of Massachusetts Press, 1979, p. 130.
1 tag
“ “Dare to be naïve.” ”
– Buckminster Fuller, an American engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist (1895-1983), Motto of R. Buckminster Fuller; used in many of his speeches and writings, including Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking 1975
2 tags
“ “Relativity is inherently convergent, though convergent toward a...”
– Buckminster Fuller, an American engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist (1895-1983), “The Designers and the Politicians” (1962), later published in Ideas and Integrities : A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure (1969), p. 233, and The The Buckminster...
4 tags
“We say release, and radiance, and roses,
and echo upon everything that’s...”
– Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist. Rilke is “widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets,” (1875-1926), Selected Poems, translation by Stephen Mitchell
2 tags
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“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change...”
– Buckminster Fuller, an American engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist (1895-1983)
2 tags
“An abstract gets close scrutiny
At the San Francisco Museum of Art (taken...”
– The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things, 22 Dec 2012.
3 tags
“ “Most people aren’t trained to want to face the process of re-understanding a...”
– Charles Eames, American designer, who worked in and made major contributions to modern architecture and furniture (1907–1978), cited in Charles Eames in 15 Quotes for His 105th Birthday
3 tags
“ “That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting...”
– Haruki Murakami, Japanese writer and translator, 1Q84, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011
2 tags
“ “When man took to his bed the Computer, there was great rejoicing, and...”
– David Zindell, American author known for science fiction and fantasy epics, The Broken God, Spectra, 1992 (tnx wildcat2030)
3 tags
— David Macaulay, British-born American illustrator and writer, Baaa, Sandpiper, 1985.
March 2013
8 posts
2 tags
“ “Wrong solitude vinegars the soul,
right solitude oils it.
How fragile...”
– Jane Hirshfield is an American poet, Vinegar and Oil
5 tags
“Lucretius: ‘O unhappy race of men, when they ascribed actions to the...”
– Titus Lucretius Carus, a Roman poet and philosopher (ca. 99 BC – ca. 55 BC), De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), translation: Ian Johnston, Richer Resources Publications, Arlington, Virginia, 2010. (Illustration: Lucretius)
4 tags
“Lucretius on the infinite universe, the beginning of things and the likelihood...”
– Titus Lucretius Carus, a Roman poet and philosopher (ca. 99 BC – ca. 55 BC), De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), translation: Ian Johnston, Richer Resources Publications, Arlington, Virginia, 2010.
3 tags
“And differences
among various natures of human beings
and in the habits which...”
– Titus Lucretius Carus, a Roman poet and philosopher (ca. 99 BC – ca. 55 BC), De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), translation: Ian Johnston, Richer Resources Publications, Arlington, Virginia, 2010. III [315-318], III [320-323] p. 105. See also: ☞ How Epicurus’ ideas survived through...
6 tags
“ “The generic human need to make and listen to music, for instance, might...”
– Bernard Williams, English moral philosopher, described by The Times as the “most brilliant and most important British moral philosopher of his time.” (1929-2003), Truth and Truthfulness, Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 28.
4 tags
“ “Daniel C. Dennett favours the theory (first suggested by Richard...”
– Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor, Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, Daniel Dennett: ‘I don’t like theory of mind’ – interview, The Guardian, 22 March 2013. See also: ☞ Daniel C. Dennett on an attempt to...
3 tags
“‘News is to the mind what sugar is to the body’
“Afraid you...”
– Rolf Dobelli, Swiss novelist, writer, entrepreneur and curator of zurich.minds, ☞ Rolf Fobelli: News is to the mind what sugar is to the body, Lapidarium notes
2 tags
“ “High up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock....”
– Hendrik van Loon, a Dutch-American historian and journalist (1882-1944), The Story of Mankind, cited in Twitter, xkcd, what if?, Feb 2013.
February 2013
13 posts
2 tags
“ “Feeling insignificant because the universe is large, has exactly the same...”
– David Deutsch, British physicist at the University of Oxford, he pioneered the field of quantum computation by formulating a description for a quantum Turing machine, as well as specifying an algorithm designed to run on a quantum computer, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the...
4 tags
“ “The middle ages did not care much for alphabetical order, because they were...”
– Matthew Battles, a senior researcher with metaLAB (at) Harvard, Library: An Unquiet History, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
2 tags
“The unread and the unreadable
“The librarian in Robert Musil’s The...”
– Andrew Gallix, In theory: the unread and the unreadable, The Guardian, 18 Feb 2013.
2 tags
“ “Flaubert did not write a novel. He merely connected one sentence after...”
– Roland Barthes, French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and semiotician (1915-1980), on Flaubert’s novels cited in Young-ha Kim: Be an artist, right now!, TEDx Seoul [3:25-3:35], Filmed Jul 2010, Posted Feb 2013.
2 tags
“ “The Laws of Nature are written by man. The laws of biology must write...”
– Heinz von Foerster, Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy. Together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Lawrence J. Fogel, and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics (1911-2002), Heinz Von Foerster’s ‘Theorem Number Three’...
1 tag
“ “Hard sciences are successful because they deal with soft problems; soft...”
– Heinz von Foerster, Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy. Together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Lawrence J. Fogel, and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics (1911-2002), Heinz Von Foerster’s ‘Theorem Number Two’...
3 tags
“ “Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends.” ”
– Hafiz, Persian poet (1325/26–1389/1390), “Your Mother and My Mother”
3 tags
““We’re beginning to come to grips with the idea that your brain is not...”
– Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor, Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, Daniel C. Dennett on an attempt to understand the mind; autonomic neurons, culture and computational architecture, Lapidarium notes, 2013.
1 tag
“ “Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but what the instinct...”
– Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France (1881-1973)
4 tags
“ “Hello, what’s your name?”
“My name is Mr. Fischer,...”
– George W. Bush’s dialogue with German foreign minister and Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer during his visit in Germany, 24. February 2005. Illustration: George W. Bush’s self-portraits in the bathroom e-mailed to his sister Dorothy See also: Bruce Handy, Nude Self-Portraits of George W....
1 tag
“ “People who think the Web is killing off serendipity are not using it...”
– Steven Johnson, an American popular science author and media theorist, Anatomy of an Idea, December 14, 2011
2 tags
“Saudade [noun]
“Saudade is a Portuguese word that has no direct...”
– Wiki (Illustration: Bertha Worms, Saudades de Nápoles (Missing Naples), (1895))
6 tags
“Marcelo Gleiser: Life is fundamentally asymmetric
“Look into a mirror...”
– Marcelo Gleiser is the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy at Dartmouth College, ☞ ‘Elegance,’ ‘Symmetry,’ and ‘Unity’: Is Scientific Truth Always Beautiful?, Lapidarium notes (Image courtesy of Ben Lansky)
January 2013
4 posts
3 tags
“ “All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be...”
– Isaac Asimov, American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books, (1920-1992), “The Last Question”, Columbia Publications, 1956, cited in John Battelle’s The Search
2 tags
“ “If things can be seen that differently, how many ways can they be seen...”
– Terence McKenna, an American ethnobotanist, philosopher, psychonaut, writer, (1946-2000), True hallucinations: and, the archaic revival, MJF Books, 1998, p. 88.
3 tags
“ “A database can be listed; a human mind has to be stimulated.” ”
– Dave Snowden is a Welsh academic, consultant, and researcher in the field of knowledge management, The Ashen Model, (pdf), p.4. (tnx johntropea)
2 tags
“ Realer Than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari “A...”
– Brian Massumi, Canadian social theorist, Ph.D in French Literature from Yale University, Realer Than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari (1987) (pdf)
December 2012
11 posts
2 tags
“ “New Year’s Eve. It’s a promise of a night. Single, married...”
– Jardine Libaire is an American writer based in Brooklyn, New York, Here Kitty Kitty: A Novel, Back Bay Books, 2005.
2 tags
“ “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was...”
– André Gide, a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947,(1869-1951), cited in Marcus Herzig, Memoirs of a Johnny’s Fanboy, 2012, p.5. (Illustration: André Gide, de Paul-Emile Bécat, dessin, 1919)
1 tag
“ “Cell phones are tracking devices that make phone calls.” ”
– Jacob Appelbaum, an independent computer security researcher and hacker, Leave your cellphone at home, n+1, April 26, 2012.
3 tags
“ ”[Google] creates as much data in two days — roughly 5 exabytes — as the...”
– Pamela Jones Harbour is a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, The Emperor of All Identities, The New York Times, Dec 18, 2012. (Illustration: David Rowe)
4 tags
“David Deutsch on Artificial Intelligence
“What is needed is nothing less...”
– David Deutsch, British physicist at the University of Oxford, Creative blocks, aeon, Oct 3, 2012. See also: ☞ David Deutsch: A new way to explain explanation, Lapidarium notes
1 tag
“ “The brain stays up all night telling stories while we sleep. We just call them...”
– Jonathan Gottschall, American literary scholar specializing in literature and evolution, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, paraphrased in Book review. Original: “Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself... 