I am a fan of the poetry of Billy Collins. The following stanza is from a poem titled Piano Lessons
I am learning to play
“It Might As Well Be Spring”
but my left hand would rather be jingling
the change in the darkness of my pocket
or taking a nap on an armrest.
I have to drag him in to the music
like a difficult and neglected child.
This is the revenge of the one who never gets
to hold the pen or wave good-bye,
and now, who never gets to play the melody.
Clay Shirky thinks the media has failed to appreciate the full significance of WikiLeaks:
“WikiLeaks allows leakers transnational escape from national controls. Now, and from now on, a leaker with domestic secrets has no need of the domestic press, and indeed will avoid leaking directly to them if possible, to escape national pressure on national publishers to keep national secrets.
WikiLeaks has not been a series of unfortunate events, and Assange is not a magician – he is simply an early and brilliant executor of what is being revealed as a much more general pattern, now spreading.
The state will fight back, of course. They will improve their controls on secrets, raise surveillance and punishment of possible leakers, try to negotiate multilateral media controls. But even then, the net change is likely to be advantageous to the leakers – less free than today, perhaps, but more free than prior to 2006. Assange has claimed, when the history of statecraft of the era is written, that it will be divided into pre- and post-WikiLeaks periods. This claim is grandiose and premature; it is not, however, obviously wrong.”
Barb took the photo above yesterday morning when she took the dogs out for a romp in the snow. This is Hattie, the new pup. Barb is the Alpha Dog, our best photographer and a great human being. Will post more of her pix later.
Barb took the dogs out a few times to play in the snow and as you can see from her video, they love it. Here’s Hattie with her beloved blue ball.
“The new government will be Internet based and require no actual politicians per se, except for the President. Citizens will vote for the laws they want, as often as they want, by Internet. Actually, voting is too strong a term. Think of it as a rolling opinion poll. There’s no need for elections when the preferences of the people are continuously monitored in real time.”
This talk runs 20 min and I realize most of you won’t invest that much time. And I’m not sure I can summarize, but let me try: There are the experiences in our lives… and our memories of those experiences. And they are not the same. Our “happiness” ( a word that no longer has much useful meaning) has more to do with the latter.
As for the future? Kahneman says “we think of our future as anticipated memories.”
My understanding (based on my reading on this topic): The past and the future are delusions, stories. Created by the mind to protect the ego. Only now -this moment- has any reality.
With more 120 logins and passwords to keep up with, a post-it note on the side of my monitor just doesn’t cut it. As for using one password for ALL of my accounts… I won’t dignify that with a comment. This little (6 min) tour doesn’t begin to do justice to 1Password, the Best of Category.