Happy New Year

May your troubles be less,
Your blessings be more,
And nothing but happiness
Come through your door.

-- Dorien Kelly, The Last Bride in Ballymuir (2003)

RIP Jimmy Carter

I didn't ask God to let me live, but I asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death.  And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death.

-- James Earl "Jimmy" Carter (1 October 1924 - 29 December 2024), 39th President of the United States, 2002 Nobel Peace Laureate, in a talk he gave to his church in 2019 as quoted by James Zogby in "Jimmy Carter Is Our Greatest Former President" (20 February 2023)

Illuminate The Infinite

The greatness of human actions is measured by the inspiration that it brings.  Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal of beauty and obeys it: an ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of country, ideal of the Gospel virtues!  These are the wellsprings of great thoughts and great actions.  All reflections illuminate the infinite.

-- Louis Pasteur (27 December 1822 - 28 September 1895), French microbiologist, chemist, and pioneer of the "Germ theory of disease",  Discours de réception de Louis Pasteur (27 April 1882)

Memory Lane

Today I had the pleasure and honor of spending a couple of hours over lunch at Papa Del's with some old PLATO folks.  I hope it sparks warm memories when I name drop Josh Paley, Steve Peltz, Susan Wrightson, G. David Frye, Ray Thomsen, Quentin Barnes, and James Quisenberry. 

There was reminiscing, with tales of Dr Bitzer and CERL PLATO.  And there was catching up with past lives, current activities, and future plans.  Many familiar names were mentioned.  A get-together like we had today reminds me of just how many smart people were drawn to PLATO.  It's an amazing community.

Merry Christmas

For the holidays I made a few pies and a few hundred cookies and candies, including a few dozen Christmas cookies which were then decorated by my grandkids.  At dinner time we had 21 people, including kids, grandkids, sons-in-law and other significant others.

I hope the season is treating you well, and that 2025 will treat you even better.

May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back.  May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Merry Christmas Eve

Give us, O God, the vision which can see Your love in the world in spite of human failure.
Give us the faith to trust Your goodness in spite of our ignorance and weakness.
Give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray with understanding hearts.
And show us what each one of us can do to set forward the coming of the day of universal peace.

-- Frank Borman, II (1928 - 2023), United States Air Force (USAF) colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, businessman, rancher, and NASA astronaut, commander of Apollo 8, Prayer from Apollo 8, on Christmas Day (25 December 1968)

Standards Of Conduct

In sum, the Committee found substantial evidence of the following:

[Seven bullet points omitted]

Based on the above, the Committee concluded there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.

The Committee did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Representative Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute.  Although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the Committee find sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud, or coercion.

-- U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ethics, 118th Congress, 2nd Session, "In The Matter Of Allegations Relating To Representative Matt Gaetz", 23 December 2024

The World Laughs With You

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 - 1919), American poet, "Solitude"

Proper Place

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.  You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder.  He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it.  You do not need to send him to the back door.  He will go without being told.  In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit.  His education makes it necessary.

-- Carter Godwin Woodson (19 December 1875 - 3 April 1950), African American professor, historian, author, and journalist, The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)

Ground For Taking

The ground for taking ignorance to be restrictive of freedom is that it causes people to make choices which they would not have made if they had seen what the realization of their choices involved.

-- Sir Alfred Jules Ayer (1910 - 1989), British humanist philosopher, The Meaning of Life and Other Essays (1990) "The Concept of Freedom"

Eustress

The term eustress means "beneficial stress" -- either psychological, physical (e.g., exercise), or biochemical/radiological (hormesis).

The word was introduced by endocrinologist Hans Selye (1907-1982) in 1976; he combined the Greek prefix eu- meaning "good", and the English word stress, to give the literal meaning "good stress".  The Oxford English Dictionary traces early use of the word (in psychological usage) to 1968.

Eustress is the positive cognitive response to stress that is healthy, or gives one a feeling of fulfillment or other positive feelings.  Hans Selye created the term as a subgroup of stress to differentiate the wide variety of stressors and manifestations of stress.

-- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What Matters Most

What matters most is that we learn from living.

-- Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013), British writer, born Doris May Tayler, 2007 Nobel laureate in Literature, as quoted in Permission to Play : Taking Time to Renew Your Smile (2003) by Jill Murphy Long, p. 147

Tuning Our Opinions

[W]e consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor's pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound.

-- Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910), known as Mark Twain, American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer, "The Privilege of the Grave" (1905), published in 2010, the author having requested it not be published until 100 years after his death

Unjustly

[V]iolence done ... is always sure to be injustice done; for violence does even justice unjustly.

-- Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881), Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher, Past and Present (1843) Book I, Chap. III

RIP Dr Don Bitzer

I just learned an hour ago that yesterday [10 December 2024], Don Bitzer, creator of the PLATO system, and friend to us all, passed away at age 90 in North Carolina.

I'm at a loss for words at the moment and can't think of much to say that I didn't say in my book, which, in hindsight, may kinda sorta be the closest attempt at a biography of Don, but I will say that I never ever met a more generous, supportive, enthusiastic person in the world.  He and his wife Maryann, who passed away in 2022, were incredibly generous.

He was an inspiration to us all, and to the world, which he made a better place.

-- Brian Dear, author of "The Friendly Orange Glow", announcing the passing of Dr Donald L Bitzer

[Meta - I got my start in computing through the good graces of Dr Bitzer in March 1974, and it led to my lifelong career.  And of course "trvth" itself originated on the University of Illinois PLATO system in notesfile =pad in February 1981, and has always been maintained on some PLATO system, somewhere.  Currently these posts are hosted in notesfile =pad on the "cyber1" CYBIS system (more info at cyber1.org).]

Problems And Mysteries

Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries.  When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for.  When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like. 

-- Steven Pinker (1954 -), Canadian-born American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and popular science writer, How the Mind Works, explaining Noam Chomsky's position

Half Done

Dimidium facti qui coepit habet; sapere aude; 

incipe!

He who has begun has half done.  Dare to be wise; begin!

-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 - 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus, Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC) Book I, epistle ii, lines 40–41

The Wise Man Knows

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

-- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), English poet, playwright, and actor, Touchstone, As You Like It (1599), Act V, Scene i

The Wit Of Fools

Le silence est l'esprit des sots
Et l'une des vertus du sage.

Silence is the wit of fools, 
and one of the virtues of the wise.

-- Bernard de Bonnard (1744 - 1784), French poet, "Le Silence," L'Almanach des Muses (1776)

Pseudonym

Le hasard, c'est peut-être le pseudonyme de Dieu, quand il ne veut pas signer. 

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign.

-- Théophile Gautier (1811 - 1872), French poet, dramatist, and novelist, La Croix de Berny (1845), letter III: Edgard Meilhan au Prince de Monbert

No Longer A Boy

It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy.  From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem -- and in my esteem age is not estimable.

-- George Gordon (Noel) Byron, (1788 - 1824), generally known as Lord Byron, English poet, from The Works of Lord Byron, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1901), vol. V: Letters and Journals, ch. XXIII: "Detached Thoughts" (15 October 1821 - 18 May 1822), paragraph 72 (p. 445)

An Education

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know.  It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.  It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it.

-- William Feather (1889 - 1981), American publisher and author, as quoted in Telephony, Vol. 150 (1956), p. 23