“In my daily work, I work on very large, complex, distributed systems built out of many Python modules and packages. The focus is very similar to what you find, for example, in Java and, in general, in systems programming languages.” LanguageFocusExampleBuiltComplexesProgrammingPackagesProgramming LanguagesJavaPythonDaily Work Author:Guido van Rossum
“Since the universe must contain millions of appropriate planets, consciousness in some form - but not with the paired eyes and limbs, and the brain built of neurons in the only example we know - may evolve frequently. But if only one origin of life in a million ever leads to consciousness, then Martian bacteria most emphatically do not imply Little Green Men.” IfsKnowsMenMayLittlesEyeFormUniverseBrainConsciousnessMillionsExamplePlanetsBuiltGreenEvolveAppropriateLimbsNeuronsBacteriaOrigin Of LifeMartians Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History
“Remember, government is not an enlightened organization designed to promote public welfare. It is barbaric, uncivilized force…military and police power put to the service of the insiders who control it. Yes, there are constraints on the way the insiders use their power. There are ‘checks and balances,’ built into the constitution, for example. And there are cultural norms and traditional prohibitions. But eventually, the norms and traditions wear off, like painkillers. And then, the pain of raw government begins again.” WayUseGovernmentPainRememberExampleBalanceBuiltTraditionOrganizationConstitutionPoliceChecksTraditionalWelfareEnlightenedNormConstraintsProhibitionBegin AgainInsidersBarbaricUncivilizedPainkillersPolice PowerPublic Welfare Author:Bill Bonner
“This decade is strewn with examples of bright people who thought they built a better mousetrap that could consistently extract abnormal returns from the financial markets. Some succeed for a time. But while there may occasionally be mis-configurations among market prices that allow abnormal returns, they do not persist.” PeopleMayExampleReturnSucceedBuiltInvestingFinancialDecadesPassiveConsistentlyPersistAbnormalFinancial MarketsConfiguration Author:Alan Greenspan
“Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people, and her example, her assistance, her encouragement, has thrilled two continents in this western world with all those fine impulses which have built up human liberty on sides of the water. She stands, therefore, as an example of independence, as an example of free institutions, and as an example of disinterested international action in the main tenets of justice.” PeopleIfsWorldHumansTwoSelfActionAmericaSidesWaterJusticeLibertyOne ThingExampleFineBuiltEncouragementIndependenceInstitutionsWesternInternationalImpulseContinentsAssistanceSovereigntyGoverningWestern WorldDisinterested Author:Woodrow Wilson
“We discover too late that we have turned a blind eye to the extinction of a species that is essential to the balance of life in a particular context. Or we discover too late that the importation of a foreign life-form, animal or vegetable, has upset local ecosystems, damaging soil or neighbouring life-forms. We discover that we have come near the end of supplies-of fossil-fuels for example -on which we have built immense structures of routine expectation.” EndsEyeFormAnimalExampleParticularBalanceEssentialsLateExpectationsBuiltBlindStructureSpeciesEnvironmentalLocalsUpsetSoilFuelToo LateRoutineVegetablesImmenseFossilsExtinctionStewardshipSuppliesFossil FuelEcosystemsBlind EyesImportation Book:Faith in the Public Square Source: Faith in the Public Square
“I started hiding my paintings in certain ways, like behind panes of glass for example. Then, instead of hiding them I did something quite cold and clinical: I built a wooden box, filled it with enamel paint and dunked the painting in so you could only see a suggestion of it from a controlled point of view.” WayCertainViewsBehindsExamplePaintingColdBuiltFilledPaintGlassesBoxesPoint Of ViewControlledHidingSuggestionsClinicals Author:Oliver Jeffers
“Are not the worst examples of architecture to be found in private enterprise in cheap jerry-built homes?” HomeFoundWorstExampleBuiltArchitectureEnterpriseHousingJerryPrivate Enterprise Author:Hugh Dalton
“What does interest me is how difficult my culture seems to find it to look the dark side of life directly in the eye. It seems to me that if we look back at mediaeval culture, for example, we see a society which faces the reality of death and pain and limitation, because it has to. Our society, which is progressive and technological and seems to have a slightly fanatical utopian edge to it, gets very uncomfortable when anybody highlights the dark side of humanity, or the world we have built, or what we are doing to the rest of life on Earth.” IfsWorldLooksDoeRealitySeemsEyeEarthPainFacesHumanityCultureDifficultSidesInterestDarkExampleBuiltEdgesLimitationUncomfortableOur SocietyProgressiveTechnologicalDark SideHighlightsUtopianRest Of LifeReality Of Death Author:Paul Kingsnorth
“I think the structures of exclusion are more systematically built up in American society, for example, so that young girls interested in science eventually lose their confidence over time. The structures of exclusion work against them. We have other structures of exclusion in India, but not around modern scientific knowledge.” ThinkingYoungGirlLosesModernExampleBuiltIndiaStructureExclusionAmerican SocietyScientific Knowledge Author:Vandana Shiva
“Forward steps are made by giving up old armor because words are built into you - in the soft typewriter of the womb you do not realize the word-armor you carry; for example, when you read this page your eyes move irresistibly from left to right following the words that you have been accustomed to.” GivingHas BeensMadeEyeMovingLeftRealizingStepsExampleGiving UpPagesBuiltFollowingAccustomedWombArmorTypewriters Author:William S. Burroughs