19,032 Days Straight

After 19,032 days straight, world record holder Ron Hill calls time on longest recorded running streak

The longest recorded running streak in history ended on Saturday when England's Ron Hill completed a one-mile run. The 78-year-old former Olympian did not run on Sunday for the first time in 52 years and 39 days - a streak that dates back to December 21, 1964.

-- Headline and snippet from the Sydney Morning Herald, 31 January 2017


http://www.smh.com.au/sport/athletics/after-19032-days-straight-world-record-holder-ron-hill-calls-time-on-longest-recorded-running-streak-20170131-gu24re.html

The Homeless, Tempest-Tost

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

-- Excerpt from Emma Lazarus's sonnet "The New Colossus" (1883), inscribed since 1903 on a plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty

The Smarter You Get

The more injuries you get, the smarter you get.

-- Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov (27 January 1948-), Soviet-born Russian American dancer, choreographer, and actor, in an interview with Barbara Isenberg, "To Mikhail Baryshnikov, time is a great teacher", Los Angeles Times, 30 August 2009

I Can't Imagine

Absolutely not.  Moreover, I can't imagine that I would be asked that.

-- Now-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, when asked at his confirmation hearing, "If you were  ordered by the President to restart the CIA use of enhanced interrogation techniques that fall outside of the Army Field Manual, would you comply?",  12 January 2017

Pain Nourishes Courage

Pain nourishes courage.  You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.

-- Mary Tyler Moore (29 December 1936 - 25 January 2017), American actress and comedian, as quoted in The Reader's Digest, Vol. 128 (1986), p. 137

3,391 Guns

3,391 guns

You cannot bring guns onto an airplane in a carry-on bag.  That line in the airborne social contract was apparently news to the flyers responsible for the 3,391 guns confiscated by the Transportation Security Administration in 2016.  That’s a record and up 30 percent from 2015.  Eighty-three percent of them were loaded.

-- Walt Hickey, in FiveThirtyEight's "Significant Digits" newsletter, 17 January 2017, citing USA Today as its source

USA Today does note that TSA screen 738 million passengers in 2016, up just 6 percent from 2015

Alt Right Alt Facts Alt Reality

A fact is a piece of information presented as having objective reality.

-- @MerriamWebster on Twitter, noting "Lookups for 'fact' spiked after Kellyanne Conway used the phrase 'alternative facts.'" 11:32 AM 22 January 2017

POTUS 45

From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.  ... The time for empty talk is over.  Now arrives the hour of action.

-- Donald J Trump, 45th President of the United States, in his inaugural address, 20 January 2017

Present

I am confident that my vote represents the view of the vast majority of my constituents.  In that respect, the decision was easy.  Unfortunately, I have learned that what is popular with constituents does not always align with what is popular in Springfield.

-- Illinois Representative Scott Drury (D-Highwood), on voting "Present" on Michael Madigan's reelection as House Speaker, 11 January 2017

Change Them Yourself

They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

-- Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987), American painter, filmmaker, publisher, actor, and major figure in the Pop Art movement, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975) Ch. 7: Time

The Time Is Always Right

The time is always right to do what’s right.

-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), American Baptist minister, doctor, civil rights activist, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1964, Speech delivered in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College (22 October 1964), as reported in "When MLK came to Oberlin" by Cindy Leise (The Chronicle-Telegram, 21 January 2008)

First Essential Step

The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents.  But it is vital to remember that information -- in the sense of raw data -- is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight.  But information is the first essential step to all of these.

-- Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (1917 – 2008), British author, inventor, and futurist, as quoted in "Humanity will survive information deluge -- Sir Arthur C Clarke" in OneWorld South Asia (5 December 2003)

Not You

Not you.  Your organization is terrible. ...  I'm not going to give you a question.  You are fake news.

-- President-elect Donald Trump, to CNN reporter Jim Acosta during a press conference, 11 January 2017

None Of This Happens On Its Own

Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted.  All of us, regardless of party, should be throwing ourselves into the task of rebuilding our democratic institutions.  When voting rates in America are some of the lowest among advanced democracies, we should be making it easier, not harder, to vote.  When trust in our institutions is low, we should reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics and insist on the principles of transparency and ethics in public service.  When Congress is dysfunctional, we should draw our congressional districts to encourage politicians to cater to common sense and not rigid extremes.  But remember, none of this happens on its own.  All of this depends on our participation, on each of us accepting the responsibility of citizenship, regardless of which way the pendulum of power happens to be swinging.

-- President Barack Obama in his farewell address, 10 January 2017

One Pair Of Pants

You can only wear one pair of pants at a time.

-- Charles F. Feeney (1931-), Irish-American businessman and philanthropist, named by Forbes as the #1 most generous philanthropist, based on giving as a percentage of current net worth, with lifetime giving of $7.5 billion (373,000% of current net worth)

To Be Art

I don’t want life to imitate art.  I want life to be art.

-- Carrie Frances Fisher (21 October 1956 - 27 December 2016), American actress, screenwriter and novelist, most famous for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars films; daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, Postcards from the Edge (1987)

Non-Sponsored Sleepovers

We appreciate that people are interested in Ikea and want to create fun experiences. However, the safety and security of our co-workers and customers is our highest priority and that's why we do not allow sleepovers in our stores.

-- Ikea UK spokesperson in a statement to the BBC after about 10 "non-sponsored sleepovers", prompted by an August YouTube video which now has 1.7 million views, 21 December 2016

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38390497

No Cuts

I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.  Huckabee copied me.

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) in a tweet from 10:38 AM, 7 May 2015 quoted on the floor of the Senate by Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 4 January 2017

#9, Courtesy of #4

I'd like to declare a big Hello, World! on behalf of Delilah Daix (pronounced Day) Rickard, born 6:55AM today, weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces and 20 inches long.  She is grandkid #9.

Happy New Year!

May the good Lord watch over you, loved ones be near you, friends stand by you, and fortune shine on you in the coming new year.

RIP Zsa Zsa

A man in love is incomplete until he has married.  Then he's finished.

-- Zsa Zsa Gabor (born Sári Gábor, 6 February 1917 - 18 December 2016), Hungarian-American actress and socialite, Newsweek, 28 March 1960

Campanology

Origin of campanology (the principles or art of making bells, bell ringing, etc.)

The Late Latin noun campāna (plural campānae) meant "bell," so called because bells were made in Campania (which means "wide, level plain"), whose chief city has always been Naples. About 400 A.D. St. Paulinus of Nola (c354–c431), bishop of Nola, commissioned a large bell to be cast to summon Christians to worship.  The Italian word for bell is campana, which has the derivatives campanile, the distinctive bell tower of an Italian church (as opposed to a steeple) and campanilismo, local rivalry, usually petty, sometimes fierce.  The word entered English in the 1820s in the sense "the art of bell ringing."

-- From Dictionary.com Word of the Day, 5 December 2016

A Rusty Elevator

Old men only lie in wait for people to ask them to talk.  Then they rattle on like a rusty elevator wheezing up a shaft.

-- Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920 - 2012), American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer, Dandelion Wine (1957)

Get Close Enough

It's sad to say, but a lot of times when you go to these competitions, you're like: Just get close enough to top three because you never know who's going to test positive.

-- American high jumper Chaunte Lowe, who finished sixth at the 2008 Summer Olympics but last week was awarded the bronze medal when three athletes ahead of her were disqualified after testing positive for drugs, New York Times, 22 November 2016

That Should Stop

We should buckle up for a pretty rocky six months or year in the China-U.S. relationship.  There was a sort of delusion based on overly optimistic ideas about Trump.  That should stop.

-- Wang Dong, associate professor, Peking University, New York Times, 4 December 2016

I Could Have Walked Out

I could have walked out, and you know, that's just what I was thinking, but then I just like, I don't know, I don't want to say spur of the moment, but, you know, I just finally decided I had to do it.

-- Dylann S. Roof, in a videotaped interview shown at his trial, describing how he almost decided not to open fire during a June 2015 Bible study session at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., New York Times, 10 December 2016

Godspeed

Godspeed, John Glenn.

-- Scott Carpenter, as mission controller, as Glenn was about to launch into orbit on Friendship 7, 20 February 1962

John Herschel Glenn, Jr. (18 July 1921 - 8 December 2016), (Col, USMC, Retired),  was a Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States senator. Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth, and the fifth person in space

Invisible Hand

When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent.  Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people's free enterprise system gets amputated.  Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets.  Republicans oppose this, remember?  Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember?  Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.

-- Former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin in an article on the Young Conservative website, 2 December 2016

Cartoon Thunderstorms

I think it's still possible to make energetic, thrashy music without necessarily walking around being these sulky, angry, sullen, dark people with black cartoon thunderstorms over their heads.

-- Lars Ulrich, drummer for the rock band Metallica, New York Times, 17 November 2016

Too Interesting And Dangerous

The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency.  We need all the fallibility we can get.  Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds.  That way we can keep open all the options, as we have in the past.

-- Lewis Thomas (1913 - 1993), physician, author, administrator, educator, policy advisor and researcher, Dean of Yale Medical School, Dean of the New York University School of Medicine, and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, "Computers" (1974)

Joy In Playing

I'm very happy that at the end of the match I managed to find joy in playing. That's the most important thing.

-- Chess World Champion Magnus Carlsen, after defeating challenger Sergey Karjakin, 30 November 2016

Dad Strength

Dad-Strength: That energy that a father can transfer to his child through his embrace. Useful for soothing injuries, persevering through hardship, restoring hope, and overcoming obstacles.

-- Don Appleman

Appointments

Trump's appointments over the next six weeks will be very significant because they can show whether he wants to create some unity in the country, or whether he really intends to deliver on his ideas.

-- Presidential historian Robert Dallek, New York Times, 13 November 2016

A Good Rule

This a good rule: Don't answer any questions when they start yelling at you.

-- President Barack Obama to president-elect Donald Trump after they met for the first time at the White House, 10 November 2016

Tinnunculite

Tinnunculite: A mineral that grows in the feces of the Kestrel after being cooked by underground coal fires.

Tremendous Potential

As I've said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign, but rather an incredible and great movement made up of millions of hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their families.

It's a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs who want and expect our government to serve the people, and serve the people it will.

Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream.  I've spent my entire life and business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world.  That is now what I want to do for our country.

Tremendous potential.  I've gotten to know our country so well -- tremendous potential.  It's going to be a beautiful thing.  Every single American will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential.  The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

-- Republican President-elect Donald J. Trump in his victory speech, 9 November 2016

Election 2016

Well, this election certainly isn't going as the pollsters predicted.

Rock The Vote!

Rock the vote, people!

Just A Headline

I'm just a headline -- the bad president, the bad guy, who is killing the good guys.  You know this narrative.  The real reason is toppling the government.

-- Syrian President Bashar al Assad, welcoming a group of Western visitors to his palace in Damascus, New York Times, 2 November 2016

Cubs Win!

Hey hey, holy mackerel!

Extraordinary

It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election.

-- John D. Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, on the announcement from the FBI that it was investigating newly-surfaced emails related to Mrs. Clinton's handling of classified information, New York Times, 29 October 2016

Do Democracy

If we are to be a great democracy, we must all take an active role in our democracy.  We must do democracy.  That goes far beyond simply casting your vote.  We must all actively champion the causes that ensure the common good.

-- Martin Luther King III (1957-), human rights advocate and community activist, first son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., Speech at the Democratic Convention (28 August 2008)

Ultra

I need a beer and my wife right now.

-- Ultramarathon runner Pete Kostelnick, after completing a record-setting run across the United States

Kostelnick kept a rigid routine, sleeping in an RV on the route until 3 a.m.  He would then run 40 miles in roughly seven hours -- a nine- to 10-minute per-mile pace.  He'd take a short break for lunch, then continue for 30 miles or more into the night.  He spent upwards of 14 hours running each day for six straight weeks.

The 29-year-old from Lincoln, Nebraska, left San Francisco's City Hall on September 12 -- his birthday -- at 8 a.m.  He then headed east for 3,067 miles, completing the trek in 42 days, 6 hours, and 30 minutes.  The feat is unprecedented, and ends one of the oldest ultrarunning records recognized by Guinness World Records [by more than 4 days].

Runners World, 24 October 2016
http://www.runnersworld.com/ultrarunning/ultrarunner-pete-kostelnick-smashes-record-for-run-across-us

Fail Forward

The conceit of "data journalism," at least as I see it, is to apply the scientific method to the news.  That means observing the world, formulating hypotheses about it, and making those hypotheses falsifiable.  (Falsifiability is one of the big reasons we make predictions.)  When those hypotheses fail, you should re-evaluate the evidence before moving on to the next subject.  The distinguishing feature of the scientific method is not that it always gets the answer right, but that it fails forward by learning from its mistakes.

-- Nate Silver (1978-), American statistician and writer, How I Acted Like A Pundit And Screwed Up On Donald Trump (18 May 2016)

Suspense

CHRIS WALLACE: But, sir, there is a tradition in this country -- in fact, one of the prides of this country is the peaceful transition of power and that no matter how hard-fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign, that the loser concedes to the winner -- not saying that you're necessarily going to be the loser or the winner, but that the loser concedes to the winner and that the country comes together, in part for the good of the country.  Are you saying you're not prepared now to commit to that principle?

DONALD TRUMP: What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time.  I'll keep you in suspense.  OK?

-- Exchange between the moderator and the Republican candidate during the 3rd and final Presidential Debate, 19 October 2016

2.7 Inches Per Year

Australia moves 2.7 inches a year because of its position on a remarkably active tectonic plate.  The country has issued a reset of its official coordinates four times in the past 50 years and will issue a fifth at the end of the year. 

The next adjustment, due at the end of the year, will be about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet).

-- New York Times, via Walt Hickey in Significant Digits, FiveThirtyEight.com, 13 October 2016

Fire In A Dark Night

The idea for a novel is like a little tiny fire in a dark night.  And, one by one, the characters come and stand around it and warm their hands.

-- Thomas Williams (1926-1990), American novelist, as quoted by Stephen King in an interview with Jeffrey Brown at the Library of Congress National Book Festival, NewsHour Bookshelf, 6 October 2016

Poetic Expressions

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016 is awarded to Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

-- Statement of the Nobel Academy, 13 October 2016

At A Deeper Level

The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level.

-- Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (1900 – 1958), Austrian-Swiss physicist, one of the pioneers of quantum physics, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945, to Jagdish Mehra, in Berkeley, California (May 1958), as quoted in The Historical Development of Quantum Theory (2000) by Jagdish Mehra

I'm The Slime

I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I'm the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I'm the slime oozin' out
From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help . . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold

-- Frank Zappa (1940-1993), excerpt from the lyrics to "I'm The Slime" (1973)