When it works, it's amazingly impactful, but when it doesn't work, it's not only creepy but off-putting. What a marketer might think is endearing, by knowing a little bit about you, actually crosses the line pretty easily.
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
Yes! Ready money is Aladdin's lamp.
When you're young, you look at television and think, "There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down." But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.
We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
Ethics versus Morals. Ethical behavior may be defined as acting after thinking about what would produce the greatest good for the greatest number affected. Morals are a codification of prior ethical decisions, simplified into easy-to-grasp rules. Morals exist because most people are very uncomfortable with the uncertainties of attempting to figure out what the right course of action might be, and most and are reluctant to take responsibility for having made mistakes. Being ethical means making decisions based on inadequate data and acting anyway. Ethical actions frequently work out badly; the actor has no one to blame for the results but themselves. Acting ethically while still desiring certainties means being uncomfortable. Moral acts also often work out badly. The apparent advantage to being moral is that when a moral act works out badly no one is to blame because the actor did what was supposed to be done. Being moral is comfortable because a moral person always knows what should be done, did it and is not to blame for the outcomes.
It's a kind of theater. Sometimes, a car will fly by in the air.
Anything you put in that book, any little change you make, has huge implications not only for psychiatry but for pharmaceutical marketing, research, for the legal system, for who's considered to be normal or not, for who's considered disabled.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make -- leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone -- we all dwell in a house of one room -- the world with the firmament for its roof -- and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.
The one thing that unifies men in a given age is not their individual philosophies but the dominant problem that these philosophies are designed to solve.
After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned. For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples' business is not being done.
Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.
I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
If those in charge of our society -- politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television -- can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Palm Pre+ (Verizon) for me today. I've been carrying a Palm Centro as my combination cell phone/calendar/contacts/clock/music system/data caddy for the past year and a half or so. From the little I've played with it so far, the Pre does *not* feel like a Palm. It does feel like a slick high-tech device.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
I need a better word than unprecedented or amazing to describe what's happened with the text-message program.
Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?" But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.
$500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus.
I'm still looking to understand the magnitude of the event.
For the year 2009, driving my 1999 Saturn which now has >217,000 miles, with past years' stats for comparison:2009 2008 2007 2006 2009 delta % delta
Total miles : 27,307 24,346 25,847 25,111 +2957 +12.1%
Total cost : $1,809.71 $2,188.79 $2,231.76 $1,942.72 -$379.08 -17.3%
Total gallons : 793.73 686.27 812.14 776.47 +107.46 +15.6%
Avg gallons/day : 2.174 1.875 2.225 2.127 +0.299 +15.9%
Avg days/fillup : 4.9 5.3 4.7 4.9 -0.4 - 7.5%
Avg miles/day : 74.81 66.52 70.81 68.80 +8.29 +12.4%
Avg cost/day : $4.90 $5.92 $6.00 $5.27 -$1.02 -17.3%
Avg cost/gal : $2.28 $3.14 $2.75 $2.50 -$0.86 -27.3%
Avg miles/gal : 34.95 35.48 32.24 32.77 -0.53 - 1.5%
He just needs a little more help getting on top of the plane now.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
If you want your children to have a peaceful life, let them suffer a little hunger and a little coldness.
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.
It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.
After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.
AI
POE
GRAY
DANTE
HORACE
KHAYYAM
KALIDASA
SOPHOCLES
BAUDELAIRE
SHAKESPEARE
LI
TU
SU
ARISTOPHANES
appleman@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for -- in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.
People who have something really private to say probably shouldn't do it in a text on their cellphone.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
One must be very naive or dishonest to imagine that men choose their beliefs independently of their situation.
All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause -- there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once.
The absence of a time frame for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.
If the world were a village of 100 people ....
