Everyone tends to remember the past with greater fervor as the present gains greater importance.
— Italo Svevo, born in 1861
How the 'Underground Grammarian' Taught Me to Tell Reason from Rubbish - Quillette
Tyranny is always and everywhere the same, while freedom is always various. The well and truly enslaved are dependable; we know what they will say and think and do. The free are quirky. Tyrannies may be overt and violent or covert and insidious, but they all require the same thing, a subject population in which the power of the word is dulled and, thus, the power of thought occluded and the power of deed brought low.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: If You Are Looking for Reasons to Be Happy, You’ll Probably Find Them. And vice versa.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Study: High blood pressure speeds cognitive decline in middle-aged, older adults. Get it checked
First Known When Lost: Companion.
Our quickly passing interval of "silent friendship" with the moon, with all the beautiful particulars of the World, is no small thing. And the thought that the World will go on without us, the moon and the seasons forever coming and going, can be a source of comfort and serenity.
Why Do Some People Succeed after Failing, While Others Continue to Flounder?
China Brings Moon Rocks to Earth, and a New Era of Competition to Space New York Times
CYBERSECURITY: Researchers find credit card ‘skimmers’ inside social media buttons.
The Ferrante Letters, a supposedly experimental critical project, ventures little beyond textual analysis. Quelle horreur! Ferrante
“Fail fast,” “fail better” — we celebrate failure as something inevitable on the path to success. That’s nonsense fail FASTER
Genius is, among other things, a personality-laundering scheme. Boorish behavior is reclassified as charming idiosyncrasy. Agnes Callard explains Genius
The science of personal space. Lessons from zebras, porcupines, and people show how close is too close for comfort
Losing Count: The Sordid Business of BookkeepingThe Drift
EY fraud unit found ‘red-flag indicators’ at Wirecard in 2018 FT
SPACE: Rocket Lab launches Japanese Earth-imaging satellite into orbit from New Zealand
Don Boudreaux open letter to me. Here is my original post, and here is AIER being useful. If the GBD had been this second link here, I would be wrong. But it wasn’t
Chinese to vaccinate 50 million for lunar new year
Model and evidence for the IPO market being efficient
Why Iger is a bad pick for ambassador to China 🇨🇳
Whether you agree or not, the method and approach of the government/CDC here on vaccine allocation are so low quality as to almost defy belief. Again, whether or not you are convinced by Matt Yglesias, his simple Substack on this same questiondid a better job (and at a profit, presumably!). A useful reminder for those of you who “blame the CDC problems on Trump.” Here is related NYT coverage. And never forget Glazer. Why do we not prioritize men, who are at higher risk? And from “an expert in ethics.”
“Atlantic City has launched an auction in which the winner will get to virtually push the button that starts the long-anticipated implosion of the former Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino building.” Link here