What Matters

What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.

-- Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, (6 March 1927 - 17 April 2014), Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist, attributed

Big Mistakes

Xi Jinping is susceptible to making big mistakes because there are now almost no checks or balances. Essentially, he has become emperor for life.

-- Willy Lam, author of a 2015 biography of President Xi, on China’s moves to abolish term limits, New York Times, 26 February 2018

Sesquicentennial

Illinois Industrial University, later to become the University of Illinois, opened March 2, 1868, with 77 students and 4 faculty members.

The Urbana campus of the University of Illinois now employs 2,548 Academic staff, 7,801 Administrative staff, and serves a student body of 45,813.

General Principle

The general principle that motivates and binds people is "story".  The universal elements of a story are characters, a clear goal, and impediments to reaching that goal.  Every national story, without exception, is cast in these terms (usually with considerable distortion of the facts).

The best and most compelling stories involve righteous sounding goals and enormous obstacles.  We are fundamentally "wired" to be captivated by such narratives, and it's the most powerful force holding us together, much stronger than profit or self-interest.

-- Duncan McKenzie, in an on-line discussion about national identity, 1 March 2018

Free To Starve, Beat, Or Lash?

No one can claim, nor since the time of slavery has anyone to my knowledge successfully claimed, that persons held within the United States are totally without constitutional protection.  Whatever the fiction, would the Constitution leave the Government free to starve, beat, or lash those held within our boundaries?  If not, then, whatever the fiction, how can the Constitution authorize the Government to imprison arbitrarily those who, whatever we might pretend, are in reality right here in the United States?  The answer is that the Constitution does not authorize arbitrary detention.  And the reason that is so is simple: Freedom from arbitrary detention is as ancient and important a right as any found within the Constitution’s boundaries.

-- Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the minority with Justice Ginsburg and Justice Sotomayor in dissent in Jennings v Rodriguez, in which the majority held that a noncitizen can be held indefinitely without appeal to the courts for a bail hearing, 27 February 2018

Undesirable Elements

We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view.

-- Edward Paul Abbey (1927 - 1989), American writer noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, and criticism of public land policies, Abbey's Road (1979)

Pistolero

Teachers have to teach, and that's what they should be doing.  It doesn't matter what a pistolero you are, or think you are.  You don't need to be in school in charge of protecting children.

-- Joel Myrick, a former assistant principal who survived a school shooting, on moves to arm teachers, New York Times, 22 February 2018

Prolong Civilization

Asimov certainly was influential because he was seriously paralleling Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but he applied that to a sort of modern galactic empire.  The lesson I drew from that is you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age, and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one.

-- Elon Musk (1971-), South African-born Canadian American entrepreneur, engineer, and inventor, on the influence of Isaac Asimov on his life goals, in an interview with Neil Strauss, 15 November 2017

RIP Billy Graham

I feel sorry for the man who has never known the bracing thrill of taking a stand and sticking to it fearlessly. Moral courage has rewards that timidity can never imagine. Like a shot of adrenaline, it floods the spirit with vitality.

-- William Franklin Graham, Jr. (7 November 1918 - 21 February 2018), better known as Billy Graham, Evangelical Christian and an evangelist, "A Time for Moral Courage", Reader’s Digest (July 1964)

I Love A Parade

I think confidence is silent and insecurity is loud.  America is the most powerful country in all of human history, everybody knows it, and we don't need to show it off.

-- Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, on President Trump’s desire to hold a military parade in Washington, New York Times, 8 February 2018

Throwing Stones

Picture a bright blue ball, just spinning, spinnin free,
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky,
Brush in some clouds and sea,
Call it home for you and me.
A peaceful place or so it looks from space,
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace
Is the human face,
But afraid we may lay our home to waste.

There's a fear down here we can't forget.
Hasn't got a name just yet.
Always awake, always around,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

-- Grateful Dead lyrics by John Perry Barlow, Throwing Stones (with Bob Weir), recorded on In the Dark for Arista Records (1987), Cora, WY, August through December, 1982

Calculations

www.salon.com Would Like To Use Your Computing Power

You can support www.salon.com by allowing them to use your processor for calculations.  The calculations are securely executed in your Browser's sandbox.  You don't need to install anything.

-- Pop-up at Salon.com offering an ad-free experience in exchange for allowing cryptocurrency mining with your spare CPU cycles, as quoted in Ars Technica, 13 February 2018

Snowman Of Peace

The female ice hockey players from the two Koreas are now holding a small snowball in their hands.  Now, if we put our hearts and minds together, it will continue to grow larger and larger and turn into a snowman of peace.

-- President Moon Jae-In of South Korea, referring to the joint Korean women's ice hockey team and prospects of warming relations with North Korea, New York Times, 11 February 2018

Feel Uncomfortable

The reason I'm here tonight is to put people on the spot.  I want people to feel uncomfortable.  I want them to have to answer people at home who said, "How come you were against President Obama's deficits and then how come you're for Republican deficits?"

-- Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), on why he is holding up the Senate vote on a budget deal, 8 February 2018

RIP John Perry Barlow

Imagine discovering a continent so vast that it may have no end to its dimensions.  Imagine a new world with more resources than all our future greed might exhaust, more opportunities than there will ever be entrepreneurs enough to exploit, and a peculiar kind of real estate that expands with development.  Imagine a place where trespassers leave no footprints, where goods can be stolen infinite number of times and yet remain in the possession of their original owners, where business you never heard of can own the history of your personal affairs ....

-- John Perry Barlow (3 October 1947 - 7 February 2018), American writer and internet activist, who co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as quoted in Who Controls the Internet? : Illusions of a Borderless World (2006) by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu

Starman

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful launch system on Earth, roared into the sky on Tuesday afternoon atop a pillar of smoke.

The rocket's three reusable boosters lifted the vehicle skyward, ultimately helping send Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster on a journey toward Mars orbit.

"It looks so ridiculous and impossible.  You can tell it's real because it looks so fake, honestly," Musk said at the post-launch press conference.

But he added: "The imagery of it is something that's going to get people excited around the world, and it's still tripping me out.  I'm tripping balls here."

-- Elon Musk, as quoted in Business Insider, 6 February 2018

It Will Fluctuate

When asked what the stock market will do: It will fluctuate

-- J. P. Morgan, quoted by Benjamin Graham in The Intelligent Investor (Collins Business, revised 2003), p. 54

Money Quote

Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.

-- Money quote from the House Intelligence Committee's "Nunes Memo", publicly released 2 February 2018

On Mars

I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact.

-- Elon Musk, SpaceX and Tesla founder, in a keynote address at SXSW, 9 March 2013

Grave Concerns

Washington, D.C.
FBI National Press Office

January 31, 2018
FBI Statement on HPSCI Memo

The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.

With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.

-- Statement issued by the FBI in response to a memo drafted by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, which calls into question FBI procedure with respect to a FISA warrant to surveil then-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page

Pizza, Funnel Cake, And Fries

The only thing you could argue is that New Jerseyans are more flammable than people in the other 49 states.  Because we eat so much oily pizza, funnel cake and fries, maybe you could make that argument.  Otherwise, it's simply ridiculous.

-- Declan J. O'Scanlon Jr., a Republican assemblyman from Monmouth County, on New Jersey's distinction as the last state in the nation where drivers are not allowed to pump their own gasoline, New York Times, 6 January 2018

Sediment

This is a field where one does not write a principia, which holds up for two hundred years.  This is not a field where one paints a painting that will be looked at for centuries, or builds a church that will be admired and looked at in astonishment for centuries.  No.  This is a field where one does one's work and in ten years it's obsolete, and really will not be usable within ten or twenty years. ...

It's sort of like sediment of rocks.  You're building up a mountain and you get to contribute your little layer of sedimentary rock to make the mountain that much higher.  But no one on the surface, unless they have X-ray vision, will see your sediment.  They'll stand on it.  It'll be appreciated by that rare geologist.

-- Apple Founder Steve Jobs (1955-2011), discussing his legacy in an interview at NeXT (1994)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zut2NLMVL_k

Other People Annoy Me

I find that the more empathy I have, the less other people annoy me.

-- Alan Alda (28 January 1936 -), American actor, director, and author, on the Hidden Brain podcast, January 2018

A Different Road

To oppose something is to maintain it.

They say here "all roads lead to Mishnory." To be sure, if you turn your back on Mishnory and walk away from it, you are still on the Mishnory road.  To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar.  You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road.

-- Ursula K Le Guin (21 October 1929 - 22 January 2018), American writer, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards; The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 11 "Soliloquies in Mishnory" (p. 151)

Old Measurements

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Irish playwright, 1925 Nobel Laureate for Literature, Man and Superman (1903) p. 37

Allies Of The Truth

Together, united in the purpose to do our jobs under the Constitution, without regard to party or party loyalty, let us resolve to be allies of the truth -- and not partners in its destruction.

-- Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), in a speech condemning President Trump's attacks on the media as Stalin-like , 17 January 2018


http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/17/politics/jeff-flake-speech/index.html

Wow Much Coin How Money So Crypto

It says a lot about the state of the cryptocurrency space in general that a currency with a dog on it which hasn't released a software update in over 2 years has a $1B+ market cap.

-- Jackson Palmer, creator of Dogecoin, as quoted in a web article by Akshay Gangwar, 7 January 2018

Water Ice Cliffs On Mars

Thick deposits cover broad regions of the Martian mid-latitudes with a smooth mantle; erosion in these regions creates scarps that expose the internal structure of the mantle.  We investigated eight of these locations and found that they expose deposits of water ice that can be >100 meters thick, extending downward from depths as shallow as 1 to 2 meters below the surface.  The scarps are actively retreating because of sublimation of the exposed water ice.  The ice deposits likely originated as snowfall during Mars' high-obliquity periods and have now compacted into massive, fractured, and layered ice.  We expect the vertical structure of Martian ice-rich deposits to preserve a record of ice deposition and past climate.

-- Exposed subsurface ice sheets in the Martian mid-latitudes, Abstract, Colin M. Dundas, Ali M. Bramson2, Lujendra Ojha3, James J. Wray4, Michael T. Mellon5, Shane Byrne2, Alfred S. McEwen2, Nathaniel E. Putzig6, Donna Viola2, Sarah Sutton2, Erin Clark2, John W. Holt7, Science, 12 January 2018: Vol. 359, Issue 6372, pp. 199-201

One Must Improvise

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient.  One must improvise as well.

-- Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992), Russian-born American biochemist, prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction, Foundation (1951) Part V, The Merchant Princes, section 3

[T]hroughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. ...  I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try).  I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!

-- President Donald Trump, posting as @realDonaldTrummp in a series of tweets, 6 January 2018

50th Known Mersenne Prime Found!

January 3, 2018 -- Persistence pays off.  Jonathan Pace, a GIMPS volunteer for over 14 years, discovered the 50th known Mersenne prime, 277,232,917-1 on December 26, 2017.  The prime number is calculated by multiplying together 77,232,917 twos, and then subtracting one.  It weighs in at 23,249,425 digits, becoming the largest prime number known to mankind.  It bests the previous record prime, also discovered by GIMPS, by 910,807 digits.

Just how big is a 23,249,425 digit number?  It's huge!!  Big enough to fill an entire shelf of books totalling 9,000 pages!  If every second you were to write five digits to an inch then 54 days later you'd have a number stretching over 73 miles (118 km) -- almost 3 miles (5 km) longer than the previous record prime.

-- Statement by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) announcing M77232917, 3 January 2018

We Live In The Future

We live in the future: car features being brainstormed in real time on a global social network, over Christmas, to be implemented the next quarter.

-- Jason Calacanis (1970-), American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, and blogger, posting as @Jason on Twitter at 13:46 on 26 December 2017, in a thread in which Tesla owner Dustin Moskovitz tweeted a feature request to Elon Musk at 12:36, and Musk replied "Done" at 12:45, just 9 minutes later

It's All Of That

The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers.  They didn't have any lawyers.

Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.

-- Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, quoted in Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, per an article in The Guardian, 3 January 2018

2018

I am pleased to welcome you to 2018.

Fire And Fury

Imagine how future historians might try to summarize 2017: A U.S. president, his family and his political aides came under investigation by a special counsel for possibly helping a foreign government meddle in the election.  Talk of impeachment swirled through Congress, where the fracturing Republican Party was in the midst of an identity crisis -- and the Democrats were, too.  Twitter became a source of official U.S. policy.  A wave of sexual harassment allegations took down U.S. senators and congressmen, top judges and reporters, and high-profile political candidates -- but not the president, who had been caught on tape admitting to grabbing women "by the pussy."  We learned that the Pentagon has secretly been studying UFOs.  All while the leaders of North Korea and the United States exchanged threats to rain down nuclear "fire and fury like the world has never seen."

-- Elizabeth F. Ralph, in Politico Magazine, 29 December 2017

Pretty Simple

Because we are rich as hell and we don’t need it all, and other people need it.  And you are an ass if you don’t give it.  Pretty simple.

-- NBA San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, on why it's important to give to charity, quoted on Twitter by Tom Osborn of the San Antonio Express-News, 27 December 2017

Rich Period

The Twitter Archive may prove to be one of this generation's most significant legacies to future generations.  Future generations will learn much about this rich period in our history, the information flows, and social and political forces that help define the current generation.

-- The Library of Congress in a statement announcing as of 1 January 2018 it will no longer archive every public tweet, a practice dating to 2010 and encompassing every tweet since the 2006 founding of Twitter, 26 December 2017

Drawing Lots

Democrats have lost their one-vote lead in a state election that will determine control over the Virginia House of Delegates.  The race is now a tie, and the State Board of Elections will determine a winner by drawing lots.  If Democrat Shelly Simonds wins, Democrats will break the GOP’s 20-year chokehold on power in the House.  If Republican David Yancey wins, the GOP will retain unified control of the state legislature.

-- Mark Joseph Stern, at Slate.com, 20 December 2017

Pace Of Disruption

The pace of disruption has only hastened.

-- Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive and chairman, on how shifts in viewing habits led to his company's decision to buy most of 21st Century Fox, New York Times, 15 December 2017

Tossed Into The Wrangling

It crushes me to think we're in an environment where kids' health is up for debate - that this somehow got tossed into the wrangling.

-- Dr Todd Wolynn, a pediatrician in Pittsburgh, on Congress's inability to agree how to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program, which ran out of money on 30 September, New York Times, 6 December 2017

Slender Threads

Now and then it occurs to one to reflect upon what slender threads of accident depend the most important circumstances of his life; to look back and shudder, realizing how close to the edge of nothingness his being has come.

-- Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (1878 - 1968), prolific American author who wrote in many genres, often advocating Socialist views, 100%: the Story of a Patriot, Section 1 (1920)

Stinging Disrespect

I have deep respect for the career Foreign and Civil Service staff who, despite the stinging disrespect this Administration has shown our profession, continue the struggle to keep our foreign policy on the positive trajectory necessary to avert global disaster in increasingly dangerous times.  With each passing day, however, this task grows more futile, driving the Department's experienced and talented staff away in ever greater numbers.

-- Elizabeth Shackelford, a political officer based in Nairobi for the U.S. mission to Somalia, in her resignation letter addressed to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, 7 November 2017

Decency Wins

I'm standing by to hear from the loser, Roy Moore.

-- Wolf Blitzer on CNN, just after CNN called tonight's special Senate election in Alabama for Democrat Doug Jones, about an hour ago, 12 December 2017

Don't Believe It

When we say, "This is going to create eight million jobs," people don't believe it.  And they don't care.  They care about one job: their job.

-- Corry Bliss, executive director of the American Action Network, a conservative group helping lead the effort to sell the Republicans' tax overhaul to voters who doubt it will benefit them, New York Times, 7 December 2017

Losing

When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing

-- White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, @SarahHuckabee via Twitter, 2:12 PM - 3 November 2016

Some Irony

[T]oday I am announcing that, in the coming weeks, I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.

I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party.

-- Senator Al Franken (D-MN), in a speech on the Senate floor announcing his resignation after multiple allegations of sexual impropriety, 7 December 2017

Not Constrained By The Facts

Promoting public confidence in our work is sometimes challenging, particularly in the modern era of nonstop so-called breaking news.  Talking heads and commentators are not constrained by the need to find credible eyewitnesses and determine the facts beyond any reasonable doubt before reaching a verdict.  Sometimes critics are not constrained by the facts at all.  But we must remain focused on the things that matter.

-- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in Opening Remarks at the 2017 Criminal Division Awards Ceremony, Washington, DC, 5 December 2017

RIP John Anderson

I had no great sense of failure.  I didn’t come out of the campaign with the sense that I’d thrown my career away or thrown my life away on what was a fruitless, feckless endeavor.  I felt that I had made my mark on the pages of history and laid down some markers for others possibly to follow.

-- John B. Anderson (15 February 1922 - 4 December 2017), American poliitician and social activist, Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and 1980 independent candidate for President of the United States, as quoted in No Holding Back : The 1980 John B. Anderson Presidential Campaign (2011) by Jim Mason, p. 412

I cast my first vote for president for John Anderson.

I'd Say So

When you're choosing Michigan's next attorney general, ask yourself this: Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting?

Is it the candidate who doesn't have a penis?

I'd say so.

-- Michigan attorney general candidate Dana Nessel, in a campaign ad released on Youtube, Detroit Free Press, 30 November 2017

Set Things Right

I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right.

-- Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in a statement after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, 1 December 2017