discovered contrapoints and philosophytube.
chuck berry the louis armstrong of rock and roll, make no mistake.
can’t write down the simpsons’ nelson’s “haha” in a way that retains the higher-pitch-ha lower-pitch-ha sounds. the pitch changes the meaning from “laughing with” to “laughing at” the latin alphabet loses this nuance, would other writing systems retain it?
read..
(1) reminiscences of bletchley park
i presented myself at the gates of bletchley park, to be greeted by a somewhat strange individual whose first question was “do you play chess?” the questioner was none other than alan turing.
it is a rare experience to meet an authentic genius. those of us privileged to inhabit the world of scholarship are familiar with the intellectual stimulation furnished by talented colleagues. we can admire the ideas they share with us and are usually able to understand their source; we may even often believe that we ourselves could have created such concepts and originated such thoughts.
first, mathematics is a single discipline, an integrated whole. its subdivision into artificial watertight compartments is, at best, an administrative convenience, at worst, an inhibiting straitjacket. second, the distinction between pure and applied mathematics has been grossly exaggerated and should be allowed, indeed encouraged, to lapse. and third, no mathematical activity can be successful unless it is undertaken with a combination of real enthusiasm and extensive knowledge and skill.
“a book on the human soul merits that it be given human clothing.”
bouland’s gesture, however compassionate in intent toward houssaye, concealed an unedifying history: the skin had been removed without consent from a mentally ill patient who had died in an asylum, her body left unclaimed.
in the revolutionary french republic, the medical profession became a significant arm of the state for the first time. care of the sick, previously dispensed by church charities, was taken over by public hospitals… this new generation of professionals was taught to observe pathological disorders dispassionately and developed a “medical gaze” in which the patient was reduced to an object of study.
“anthropodermic bibliopegy“
burke and hare supplied cadavers to the leading scottish anatomist robert knox for his hugely popular twice-daily anatomy lectures at the university of edinburgh, until they were tried and convicted of murdering sixteen of the people whose bodies they had supplied.
distrusted the trusted news initiative. is a sea bass just a bassist on a boat?
rewatched seasons one and two of pose.
everyone needs somebody to make them feel superior. that line ends with us.
how lucky are we? we create ourselves.
they’re working on new drugs everyday. you just got to stay alive long enough for something better to come along.
read the autocrat of the breakfast-table by oliver wendell holmes sr. noted points of agreement:
ocean boners
the sea is ferae naturae... [it] remembers nothing. it is feline. it licks your feet — its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you; but it will crack your bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened. the mountains give their lost children berries and water; the sea mocks their thirst and lets them die. the mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable tranquillity; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence… [it] smooths its silver scales until you cannot see their joints — but their shining is that of a snake’s belly.
logic is evil
you can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove anything that you want to prove. you can buy treatises to show that napoleon never lived, and that no battle of bunker-hill was ever fought. the great minds are those with a wide span, which couple truths related to, but far removed from, each other… i value a man mainly for his primary relations with truth, as I understand truth—not for any secondary artifice in handling his ideas. some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. i should not trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good chess-player. either may of course advise wisely, but not necessarily because he wrangles or plays well.
mediocre jealousy
unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. it spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the rinsings of an unwashed wineglass spoil a draught of fair water. no wonder the poor fellow we spoke of, who always belongs to this class of slightly flavored mediocrities, is puzzled and vexed by the strange sight of a dozen men of capacity working and playing together in harmony. he and his fellows are always fighting. with them familiarity naturally breeds contempt.
fifteen minutes of fame
you long to “leap at a single bound into celebrity.” nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable. fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else — very rarely to those who say to themselves, “go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!” the struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in notoriety—that ladder is easy to climb, but it leads to the pillory which is crowded with fools who could not hold their tongues and rogues who could not hide their tricks.
ben shapiro
they are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or two which they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? i allow no “facts” at this table. what! because bread is good and wholesome and necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust a crumb into my windpipe while I am talking? [all generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called “facts.” ]
bacchanalia
there are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation which… might be considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. when the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the cold nature warmed… just at the moment when the whole human zoöphyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, and is ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution-box,—it would be hard to say that a man was, at that very time, worse, or less to be loved… whenever the wandering demon of drunkenness finds a ship adrift — no steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course —he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for the maelstrom.
slavoj zizek
there are men of esprit who are excessively exhausting to some people. they are the talkers who have what may be called jerky minds. their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence. they say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. after a jolting half-hour with one of these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. it is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel.
and points of contention:
cat-calling.
it is astonishing how morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest demonstration of this kind. when a lady walks the streets, she leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a right to see them.
puns. descriptivism > prescriptivism.
a pun is primâ facie an insult to the person you are talking with. it implies utter indifference to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious… i speak of geological convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of noah’s ark; also, whether the deluge was not a deal huger than any modern inundation. people that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. they amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism.
rejected doom mongers and polyannas alike. the latter, for self evident reasons. the former, for denouncing the whole american experiment as a failure. usa no longer a hyper power but still one power among many. if your stock-in-trade is going to be that of the last roman who foresees the end of our oh-so noble republic, then play the role with some dignity. discard the cardboard sign, don a toga, versace.
got shot again.
read about the long shadow of jacobson v. massachusetts.
beyond vaccinations, jacobson was also cited as support for a wide range of public health and safety measures. in the foundational zoning case euclid v. amber realty company, it served as support for single-family zoning intended in part to provide more healthful living conditions. it was also used to uphold food and drug safety laws, coal mine safety laws, a law banning child labor in hazardous jobs, and medical licensing laws.
after 1937, jacobson was frequently cited in cases involving religious freedom, most notably in prince v. massachusetts, where the court rejected a religious exemption from child labor laws. it was also still cited, however, for broader propositions such as the breadth of government power to act in emergencies, the state’s power to force individuals to get treatment for drug addiction,117 the federal government’s power to strip citizenship from people who refuse military service
it was the sole citation in a legal opinion that has now become infamous: the ruling in buck v. bell, which upheld the forced sterilization of a woman said to have had a hereditary mental disability. justice Holmes’s majority opinion cited jacobson to support the following sentence: “the principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the fallopian tubes.”
asking a person to get a vaccination, on penalty of a small fine, is a far cry from forcing a woman to carry an unwanted fetus against her will for weeks, much less all the way to term… the notion that covid-19 has somehow demoted roe and casey to second-class rights, enforceable against only the most extreme and outlandish violations
from vaccines to abortionswatched under the shadow (2016). high stakes babadook set against backdrop of tehran during iran-iraq war. magnificent eyes, entire cast.
flew to fort worth for an appointment with an amazonian.
don’t usually care for bob dylan, maybe i’ll like him more after he’s dead.
Kartika Upadhyaya 