Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Space For Forgetting Things And Creating Things

The fortunate thing is that I'm still the same person as when I began.  I have no plans for retirement.  I wake up early, 6.30, I sleep about four to five hours.  In the brain, there's space for forgetting things and creating things.  We all have problems.  There's a proverb that says every roof has a shingle broken.  Everyone has his problems.

-- Ernesto Colnago (9 February 1932-), Italian entrepreneur, cyclist, and bicycle manufacturer, Cycling Weekly "Inside Colnago: The making of a legendary brand", 16 September 2017


http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/inside-colnago-making-legendary-brand-350576

Monday, September 18, 2017

Thank You, Cassini

The signal from the spacecraft is gone, and so will be the spacecraft in the next 45 seconds.  This has been an incredible mission, an incredible spacecraft, and you're all an incredible team.  I'm going to call this the end of mission....  Thank you, Cassini, and farewell.

-- Mission Manager Earl Maize, at the end of the 20-year Cassini Probe mission 932 million miles from earth as the spacecraft was deliberately crashed into Saturn, 13 September 2017

Thursday, September 14, 2017

mother!

Mother, an exercise in torture porn, may be the vilest movie ever released by a major Hollywood studio. ...  To experience the final half-hour is to understand what it must feel like to be a clump of broccoli in a Cuisinart.  Loud, extravagant, and obnoxious, Mother is the kind of film that makes you want to walk out, demand your money back, then file for a restraining order that would forbid the director from coming within 500 miles of any filmmaking equipment again.

-- Kyle Smith, in his review of Darren Aronofsky's new film "mother!", National Review, 14 September 2017

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Talking About Nothing

For so many years, talking about the weather was talking about nothing.  Now it really is our survival.

-- Terry Tempest Williams, author and naturalist, on thoughts that turn apocalyptic in light of a preponderance of staggering hurricanes and wildfires and a powerful earthquake, New York Times, 9 September 2017

Monday, September 11, 2017

Never Attended

Anyone who thinks scientists like agreeing with one another has never attended a scientific conference.

-- Neil deGrasse Tyson, @neiltyson on Twitter, 10 September 2017

Thursday, September 07, 2017

Luxuries

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. 

-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), p. 13.

Wednesday, September 06, 2017

Too Much Money

God has given you too much money when you have someone else tend your vegetable garden.

-- Steven Gaines, who has written about excess and eccentricity in the Hamptons, on how professionally planted and tended vegetable gardens are another status symbol on Long Island's East End, New York Times, 6 September 2017

Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Not Alone

We offer friendship across the stars.  You are not alone.

-- Message sent to NASA's Voyager 1 probe for its 40th anniversary at a distance of 13 billion miles from Earth, as read by William Shatner, originally tweeted by Oliver Jenkins and selected from among 30,000+ submissions, 5 September 2017