Ah; but my courage fails me, and my heart is sick within me! —Lord, take pity on the Christian who doubts, on the skeptic who would fain believe, on the galley-slave of life who puts to sea alone, in the darkness of night, beneath a firmament illumined no longer by the consoling beacon-fires of the ancient hope.
This is why I must write—to make these searching guesses and to justify all the time and care my parents put into seeding my brain with the words and ideas that were meaningful to them. It’s my way of communicating with my ancestors; of talking to the dead, Ami and Moshe; of reaping what was so lovingly sown. When I write, I reach forward to a time when I won’t exist and backwards to a time before I existed. It’s a magical, light-year state to inhabit, and though the act of writing is brutal on the head, the soul, the confidence, the back, the shoulders, and the ass, the act of having written carries with it a blissful timelessness and quiet pride.
Hacker attempted to poison water supply of Florida city, officials say Guardian
Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer
In the past 120 years, global life expectancy has risen from 32 years to 72 years, an astounding increase. In a thread announcing his new book/TV project, Steven Johnson says:
The doubling of human life expectancy is the single most important development of our era. If a newspaper came out only once a century, that extra lifespan would be the banner headline: world wars, moon landings, the Internet would all be below the fold.
Johnson will explore this century-headlining development in an upcoming PBS series (co-hosted with David Olusoga) and a book, Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer.
A study in how meaningful change happens in society, Extra Life is an ode to the enduring power of common goals and public resources. The most fundamental progress we have experienced over the past few centuries has not come from big corporations or start-ups. It has come, instead, from activists struggling for reform; from university-based and publicly funded scientists sharing their findings open-source-style; and from nonprofit agencies spreading new innovations around the worlds
Humongous wave appears to bear face of Greek sea god Poseidon
Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’.
A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse
I sometimes think I recognize the face
of my own death. Knowing it is nearer
makes me feel it ought to be familiar,
a neutral guest I’ve seen somewhere before.
Even if it’s not a face I know,
can it be ignored,
that shadow presence quiet in a corner?
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
Which is the lesser of two evils here,
which the least boorish way to be a host?
Who is hosting whom? If I’m a host,
I’m also just as much a guest, a ghost.
What heart heard of, ghost guessed. So,
death, I’ll acknowledge you, I’ll be polite,
hand you a drink and let you circulate
and talk with others. You will cycle back.
Precisely: at my back I always hear
and do not hear and see and do not see,
know and do not know you’ll catch up with me.
Since I think I know you from somewhere,
why should I be so sure
that you do not know me at least as well,
my length of days and my Achilles heel,
which in each person’s in a different place?
Sometimes I think I recognize your face.
