climate, photos, miscellany
While it can be overwhelming at times, I think school during term-time sets a good tempo for life overall. By contrast, working in a job that can be expected to continue indefinitely lacks contrast and rhythm; it risks becoming a dispiriting grind. Totally unstructured time, on the other hand, is rarely as good for advancing [...]
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“What is inherently wrong with torture? Investigation as to what is wrong with torture, independent of its bad effects, may throw some light on why torture is practised and how academics obscure the purpose of torture when they debate its justification as a way of extracting information to save multiple lives in a ticking bomb [...]
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“The process of relaying intelligence can distort its meaning. Content can be altered unconsciously in transmission. Garbled data are made to appear more coherent when relayed in conversation, allowing actual disjunctions between facts to be replaced by false connections; lengthy information can be made shorter; details are suppressed subconsciously if they are not consistent with [...]
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“The [Central Intelligence] Agency’s position is that it evaluates and trains its senior offices in management ability, but there is a substantial difference between the two concepts: leadership requires inspiring people, while management involves stewardship of resources. The U.S. military observes this distinction: their doctrine is that one leads people and manages non-human resources. Managing, [...]
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“History is a bath of blood,” wrote William James, whose 1906 antiwar essay is arguably the best ever written on the subject. “Modern war is so expensive,” he continued, “that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of [...]
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Presumably after considering the consequences of doing so, Google has become a sort of unusual executor of the digital estates of users who opt in to their ‘Inactive Account Manager’ feature. They are given the option to set how long a ‘timeout period’ must pass before the system kicks in. They are then allowed to [...]
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“The human solution to the problem of sampling is motivation. We are always engaged with the environment – are always “being-in-the-world” – and are never dispassionate observers. We are always pursuing the limited goals we construe as valuable, from our particular idiosyncratic perspectives. We pay attention to, and remember, those events we construe as relevant, [...]
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“One of these ‘hostile brothers’ or ‘eternal sons of God’ is the mythological hero. He faces the unknown with the presumption of its benevolence – with the (unprovable) attitude that confrontation with the unknown will bring renewal and redemption. He enter[s], voluntarily, into creative ‘union with the Great Mother,’ builds or regenerates society, and brings [...]
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Content copyright Milan Ilnyckyj (2003-2013). May be used non-commercially with attribution. For more details see this page.