I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
The above may be fiction, but it’s good fiction.
It’s turtles all the way down:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever”, said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
In other news, the pope now acknowladges that god was behind the big bang.
My favourite story of all time, which I feel like posting today, has been told in many different ways:
An old Chinese mandarin, during the minority of the young Emperor, had been governing the country for him. When the Emperor came of age the old man gave him back the ring which had served as emblem of his vicariate, and said to his young sovereign: “In this ring I have set an inscription which your dear Majesty may find useful. It is to be read in times of danger, doubt and defeat. It is to be read, as well, in times of conquest, triumph and glory.” The inscription in the ring read: “This, too, will pass.” The sentence is not to be taken to mean that, in their passing, tears and laughter, hopes and disappointments disappear into a void. But it tells you that all will be absorbed into a unity. Soon we shall see them as integral parts of the full picture of the man or woman.
When I remind myself of this story or tell it to friends in need, I usually exaggerate it wildly and tweak the story to suggest the many years it took to research an ultimate final answer to all questions. This answer would then be wrapped in an envelope and given to the emperor to open only when in dire need, for instance, after having been chased up a hill by a raging lynch-mob. “This too, shall pass” may be big picture, but it is true.
My favourite scientist, Stephen Hawking:
There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, (and) science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.
Twitter has a new experiment that allows you to embed tweets. It works, but it’s not superb, and if they plan to roll this out of their labs (which they should, embedding is caring) it should be a simple button attached to each tweet:
[raw]
There is a broad consensus that Uwe Boll defies the infinite monkey theorem. Given eternity, infinite Uwe Bolls could not write Shakespeare.
Joen
noscope
[/raw]
It could work.
One reason to follow me on Twitter is my themed tweets, of which the most recent theme, “Tips For Successful Living” is archived below in chronological order:
Upcoming themes include but are not limited to:
