“Putting gloves on the fighters was a symbolic change that suggested that we were now making it a civilized sport, and it was no longer this crazy gladiatorial throwback to ancient Rome. It's even in our language: If you want to get serious and violent, what do you do? You "take the gloves off." Bare-fisted is supposedly a much more dangerous way to hit someone. But we've got it completely backward. The glove is a weapon. It massively accentuates the ability of the fist to do harm.” IfsWayWantLanguageSportsAbilityCrazyDangerousSeriousWeaponsAncientHarmViolentFighterCivilizedRomeFistsSymbolicGlovesAncient RomeAccentuateThrowback Author:Jonathan Gottschall
“We do not realize how deeply our starting assumptions affect the way we go about looking for and interpreting the data we collect. We should recognize that nonhuman organisms need not meet every new definition of human language, tool use, mind, or consciousness in order to have versions of their own that are worthy of serious study. We have set ourselves too much apart, grasping for definitions that will distinguish man from all other life on the planet. We must rejoin the great stream of life from whence we arose and strive to see within it the seeds of all we are and all we may become.” MenWayNeedsShouldMindHumansMayUseOrderLanguageRealizingConsciousnessStudyToo MuchPlanetsSeriousToolsStriveStartingDefinitionsWorthySeedsVersionsDataStreamsAssumptionOrganismsGraspingInterpretingHuman Language Book:Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind Source: Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind
“You become a serious programmer by going through a stage where you are fully aware of the degree to which you know the specification, meaning both the explicit and the tacit specification of your language and of your problem. "Hey, it works most of the time" is the very antithesis of a serious programmer, and certain languages can only support code like that.” KnowsProblemCertainLanguageSupportStageSeriousDegreesHeyCodeWhere You AreProgrammersExplicitAntithesisTacitSpecifications Author:Erik Naggum
“For if consciousness is based on language, then it follows that it is of much more recent origin than has been heretofore supposed. Consciousness come after language! The implications of such a position are extremely serious.” IfsHas BeensLanguageConsciousnessPositionSeriousImplications Book:The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Source: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
“The seriousness or otherwise of the subject matter is often irrelevent to the question of whether a book is any good. F Scott Fitzgerald wrote a great and beautiful novel which mainly involved shallow people going to parties in a rich guy's house. By contrast, all sorts of terrible books are published every month about men slaughtering people for no reason - a serious matter which, in itself, does not make the author worthy of serious consideration.” PeopleMenDoeBookMatterReasonBeautifulGuyHouseLanguagePartyNovelRichSubjectsSeriousMonthsInvolvedTerribleWorthyConsiderationNo ReasonContrastShallowSeriousnessSubject MatterScott Fitzgerald Author:Declan Lynch
“Dave Stark has taken the best of recent marketplace management concepts and married them to timeless biblical principles of leadership, translating business jargon into ministry language. The combination is an encouraging and practical guide to Christ-centered ministry leadership. This book will be helpful to anyone involved in leading a church or serious about modeling servant leadership.” BookLanguageChristChurchPrinciplesTakenSeriousInvolvedMarriedConceptsManagementGuidesPracticalsCombinationServantHelpfulMinistryTranslateBiblicalTimelessModelingMarketplaceStarksDaveJargonServant Leadership Author:Jonathan Reckford
“I believe that a work of art, like metaphors in language, can ask the most serious, difficult questions in a way which really makes the readers answer for themselves; that the work of art far more than an essay or a tract involves the reader, challenges him directly and brings him into the argument.” WayBelieveArtAsksLanguageI BelieveDifficultChallengesAnswersSeriousReaderArgumentMetaphorWorks Of ArtEssaysDifficult Questions Author:George Steiner
“What finally emerges from the 'clear and present danger' cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished...It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.” EvilLanguageJusticeLibertyPrinciplesCasesTakenClearDangerSeriousDegreesConstitutionCommandScopeUtteranceExplicit Author:Hugo Black
“If during their education our youths become alienated from their language, history, ancestors, culture and civilization, it means there is a very serious educational problem there.” IfsMeanProblemCultureLanguageEducationYouthSeriousCivilizationEducationalAncestor Author:Recep Tayyip Erdogan
“Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party's fortunes from the president's. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn't be left with a ruined brand,- as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.” IfsYearsIdeasHardReasonLeftSpeakLanguagePresidentPartyLeaderPolicySeriousBrokenBuiltFortuneMarketingBrandsThinkerRuinedMarketersFollowershipPushed Away Author:Peggy Noonan
“If ideas are what feed serious literature and arresting language, who today is writing a novel of ideas (which can often mean comedy)? I think of Joshua Cohen. Who else?” IfsThinkingWritingMeanIdeasTodayLiteratureLanguageNovelComedySeriousArresting Author:Cynthia Ozick
“Using the language of heroism, calling Daniel Ellsberg a hero, and calling the other people who made great sacrifices heroes - even though what they have done is heroic - is to distinguish them from the civic duty they performed, and excuses the rest of us from the same civic duty to speak out when we see something wrong, when we witness our government engaging in serious crimes, abusing power, engaging in massive historic violations of the Constitution of the United States. We have to speak out or we are party to that bad action.” PeopleMadeStatesDoneGovernmentActionSpeakLanguageUnitedPartyUnited StatesSacrificeCrimeSeriousDutyHeroCallingConstitutionExcuseWitnessMassiveHeroicHeroismEngagingHistoricViolationCivicsSpeaks OutCivic DutyConstitution Of The United StatesGreat SacrificeBad Actions Author:Edward Snowden
“I grew up bilingual, I grew up speaking Chinese in the home, Mandarin Chinese with my parents, and I learned English because I was born and raised in the U.S. That really gave me an edge. I understand that, from the experts, if you grew up bilingual, your brain kind of gets wired to accept a new language. It was a very serious deal because not only did I have to learn Russian to a high degree in order to function as a necessary member of the crew, but also I knew that the Russians that came over that made an effort and had some success in learning English, those were the folks we trusted.” KindHomeLanguageParentEffortBrainAcceptingSeriousChineseTrusted Author:Leroy Chiao
“The problem with natural language processing and the thing that really holds the technology back, is that when it crashes and burns, it's horrific. I think we would be in a position to really take a serious look at it, once two things happen. The interesting thing about a dialogue-choice system is that we've devoted so much into all kinds of other systems for processing, and dialogue choices use zero processing. So suddenly, if you want to have a great natural language processor, you need to dial down your graphics to make it work.” ThinkingKindProblemChoicesLanguageNaturalInterestingTechnologySeriousThings HappenDialogueAll KindsCrashHorrific Author:Greg Zeschuk