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"[Nietzsche] has all the psychological penetration of the great novelists who were his contemporaries, minus the characters (his loneliness was so intense he didn't even have them for company)." Geoff Dyer.
“There are three stages of scientific discovery: first people deny it is true; then they deny it is important; finally they credit the wrong person." Alexander Von Humboldt
"Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution." -- attribution is contested. Some claim Milton Friedman. Some a Russian proverb.
Sure, so many good lines in Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," but here is one that is vastly under-appreciated:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument/ Of insidious intent
"Ignorance is bliss. But bliss is boring." Coded message in the show Gravity Falls.
"Where the study of history might seek to discover, explain and understand, possibly to facilitate judgment, our current moment demands decision first, study later (if at all)." William Davies.
"Beauty has been stolen from the people and sold back to them under the concept of luxury." Kanye West
“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language; that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little…” Roland Barthes
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Great piece on Nietzsche's views of education and how his critiques hold up today.
Now that is an interesting town.
Besançon is the historical capital of watchmaking in France. This has led it to become a center for innovative companies in the fields of microtechnology, micromechanics, and biomedical engineering. . .
The greenest city in France,[5] it enjoys a quality of life recognized in Europe. Thanks to its rich historical and cultural heritage and its unique architecture, Besançon has been labeled a "Town of Art and History" since 1986 and its fortifications due to Vauban has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2008.
Cool blog: The Impractical Cogitator.
Fun.
And, yes.
I dig craftsmanship with hand tools. I'll even tolerate the douchie patrons of the work, if it means that powerful play goes on.
Samo Burja: not only a better collapse theorist than me, but a better on the other hand optimist, and even scholar of China during the Warring States period.
It makes perfect sense that "desultory" is used less and less in the language over time.
Ian Welsh gives some nuggets from an absolute "wow" book. Here's a humdinger:
We have been propagandized to view testosterone as related to violence.Nope.Oh, it can be. But what testosterone appears to actually be related to is status seeking. If violence and bullying is what a society rewards with status, then yup, testosterone is about violence.But if hugging and caring for people will get you more status, suddenly high-T individuals are the biggest huggers and carers around. . . And here’s the thing, in hunter-gatherer bands (note the word bands), the high status individuals are caring, wise and slow to anger. The high status caring men also spread their genes around plenty.
In researching how vinegar could disinfect compared to bleach, I came across this gem of an article. What left me quite bemused was the how defensive the article was, written by someone who had clearly been assaulted and damaged by internet culture. It makes me chuckle when I think about it.
