Category Archives: Text

“When we talk about Alzheimer’s, about amnesia and memory loss, we skip over something important.  People suffering from this not only forget what was, but they are also completely incapable of making plans, even for the near future.  In fact, the first thing that goes in memory loss is the very concept of the future.”(Georgi Gospodinov, TimeContinue reading “Shelter in Place”

“Who, except the gods/can live time throughforever without any pain?” (Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 458mB.C.) “Pain and death are part of life. To reject them isto reject life itself.” (Havelock Ellis, “On Life and Sex Essays of Life and Virtue,” 1937) “Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn/ And he alone is blessed who ne’erContinue reading “One Good Thing About Pain: It Lets You Know that You’re Still Alive…”

“Quod ali cibus est allis fuat acre venenum.’’(‘’What is food for one man may be bitter poison toothers.”). (Titus Lucretius Carus, Ist Century BC) “It is an old axiom, and well said, that Beauty is in theeye of the beholder.” (Margaret Wolfe Hungerford) “Different strokes for different folks.”(Coined by urban blacks in the 1950s, popularizedContinue reading “What’s Good for You May Not Be Good for Me. And, Vice Versa…”

“There is no rule without an exception.” (Thomas Fuller, MD, Gnomologia, 1732) “No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.” (Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621) “A rule of thumb is a homespun recipe formaking a guess. It’s an easy-to-rememberguide that falls somewhere between amathematical formula and a shot in the dark.”Continue reading “Rules of Thumb: Guessing with Precision”

“To find yourself, you first need to decide if atyour core you are a discovery theorist or acreation theorist: whether your essence alreadyexists, but you need to discover and understandit — or whether it has yet to come into existenceand you need to create it through your choices,beliefs and actions.” (Arthur Brooks, “Three Paths TowardContinue reading “The Meaning of Life: An Addendum”

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” The Dalai Lama “I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.” George BernardContinue reading “What’s It All About, Alfie?”

“Winners make the effort, while losers make excuses.” Frank Sonnenberg) “You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.” (Lou Holtz) “The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.” (Walt Disney) (Orrin Woodward) “Work smarter, not harder.” (Allen F.Continue reading “You Win Some, You Lose Some…”

“Error is the fundamental human condition.” (Kathryn Schultz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error) “To be human is to be erratic.” (Frank Fasano) “fallor ergo sum” (“I err, therefore I am”) (Augustine, 300-400 AD) “Mistakes are a part of life; you can’t avoid them. Allyou can hope is that you don’t make theContinue reading “Please Correct Me If I’m Wrong…”

This artwork accompanied a technical review — “Stochastic Parrots:  How Natural Language Processing Research (NLPR) Has Gotten Too Big for Our Own Good.”E. Sanchez & M. Gasser (scienceforthepeople.org) “More recently, the law of unintended consequences has come to be used as an adage or idiomatic warning that an intervention in a complex system tends toContinue reading “Artificial Intelligence:  Have We Outsmarted Ourselves?”