Ben Carson’s HUD Spends $31,000 on Dining Set for His Office

The White House is proposing to slash department programs for the homeless, elderly and poor.
New York Times
U.S.
Ben Carson’s HUD Spends $31,000 on Dining Set for His Office

By GLENN THRUSH FEB. 27, 2018

WASHINGTON — Department of Housing and Urban Development officials spent $31,000 on a new dining room set for Secretary Ben Carson’s office in late 2017 — just as the White House circulated its plans to slash HUD’s programs for the homeless, elderly and poor, according to federal procurement records.

The purchase of the custom hardwood table, chairs and hutch came a month after a top agency staff member filed a whistle-blower complaint charging Mr. Carson’s wife, Candy Carson, with pressuring department officials to find money for the expensive redecoration of his offices, even if it meant circumventing the law.

Two Buckets of Sourdough Incubating

Cracked whole oats, coarse grain whole wheat flour, Goya coarse cornmeal, hard wheat bread flour, whole wheat sourdough starter, kosher salt Fleishmann's instant yeast for insurance!
My latest craze is using my old hamburger bun tin and mini loaf pans and then slicing the bread sideways. They look like English muffins (round) and rectangular pullman loaves. After 3 days in the fridge they proof, faster in small blobs.

they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures

“I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“What they never tell you about grief is that missing someone is the simple part.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures. ...We tell the story to get them back, to capture the traces of footfalls through the snow.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Hope in the beginning feels like such a violation of the loss, and yet without it we couldn't survive.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship
e
“The real hell of this," he told her, "is that you're going to get through it.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“It's and old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship
e
“Scratch a fantasy and you'll find a nightmare.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Grief is what tells you who you are alone.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course. Until Caroline had died I had belonged to that other world, the place of innocence, and linear expectations, where I thught grief was a simple, wrenching realm of sadness and longing that graduallu receded. What that definition left out was the body blow that loss inflicts, as well as the temporary madness, and a range of less straightforward emotions shocking in their intensity.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“It's taken years for me to understand that dying doesn't end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur, aand epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part-- time and space and heart's weariness are the blander executioners or human connection.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“I'd confused need with love and love with sacrifice.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Near the end I asked him one night in the hospital corridor what he thought was happening, and he said, "Tell her everything you haven't said," and I smiled with relief. "There's nothing," I said. "I've already told her everything.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“The belief that life was hard and often its worst battles were fought in private, that it was possible to walk through fear and come out scorched but still breathing.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Counting on each other became automatic. When I found a sweater in Texas I wanted, I learned to buy two, which was easier than seeing the look of disappointment on Caroline's face when I returned home with only one. When she went out from the boathouse on a windy day, she gave me her schedule in advance, which assuaged her worst-case scenario of flipping the boat, being hit on the head by an oar, and leaving Lucille stranded at home. I still have my set of keys to her house, to locks and doors that no longer exist, and I keep them in my glove compartment, where they have been moved from one car to another in the past couple of years. Someday I will throw them in the Charles, where I lost the seat to her boat and so much else.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“If writers possess a common temperament, it's that they tend to be shy egomaniacs; publicity is the spotlight they suffer for the recognition they crave.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home

“Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part--time and space and the heart's weariness are the blander executioners of human connection.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“The rest of the family tree had a root system soggy with alcohol... One aunt had fallen asleep with her face in the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner; another's fondness for Coors was so unwavering that I can still remember the musky smell of the beer and the coldness of the cans. Most of the men drank the way all Texas men drank, or so I believed, which meant that they were tough guys who could hold their liquor until they couldn't anymore--a capacity that often led to some cloudy version of doom, be it financial ruin or suicide or the lesser betrayal of simple estrangement. Both social drinkers, my parents had eluded these tragic endings; in the postwar Texas of suburbs and cocktails, their drinking was routine but undramatic.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Everything about death is a cliché until you're in it.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“We need imperfection in our relationships, else we would die from the thickness of intimacy.”
― Gail Caldwell

“Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.”
― Gail Caldwell

“in all the years i had blundered along in search of my own footing, she had never given me an inkling of this wish. unburdened by the demands of history or anyone else's dreams, i had wandered toward and finally reached a world far outside the plains i loved and loathed. my mother had neither begrudged me this journey nor expected it, certain that i had to make my own way. but she packed my toolbox with her great wit and forbearance before i went, and she stashed there, for long safekeeping, her desire.”
― Gail Caldwell, A Strong West Wind

“Mostly I couldn't bear... the paltry notion that memory was all that eternal life really meant, and I spent too much time wondering where people got the fortitude or delusion to keep on moving past the static dead.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“Death is a divorce nobody asked for; to live through it is to find a way to disengage from what you thought you couldn't stand to lose.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“We found out that day, fairly quickly, how great and complex our fondness was for each other; I also had my first sense of something central about Caroline that would become a pillar of our friendship. When she was confronted with any emotional difficulty, however slight or major, her response as to approach rather than to flee. There she would stay until the matter was resolved, and the emotional aftermath was free of any hangover or recrimination. My instincts toward resolution were similar: I knew that silence and distance were far more pernicious than head-on engagement. This compatibility helped to ensure that there was no unclaimed baggage between us in the years to come.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“From the first winter afternoon in the Harvard ball fields, "Oh no--I need you" had become an admission and a clarion call--the tenet of dependency that forms the weft of friendship. We needed each other so that we could count the endless days of forests and flat water, but the real need was soldered by the sadder, harder moments--discord or helplessness or fear--that we dared to expose to each other. It took me years to grasp that this grit and discomfort in any relationship are an indicator of closeness, not it's opposite.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

“All of this seems as though it were yesterday, or forever ago, in that crevasse between space and time that stays fixed in the imagination. I remember it all because I remember it all. In crisis with someone you love, the dialogue is as burnished as a scar on a tree.”
― Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

leap from a thin slice of unexamined personal experience

Article

Sanita Clogs

Sanita clogs are half the price of Dansko and even better! Mine just arrived and fit perfectly and feel great.

Krugman: Bonus Bogus

Article
So the real news about the tax cut is that it is – I know you’ll be shocked – mainly a giveaway to corporations. Who could have predicted?

Sarcastic: Real men...

it’s less paradigm of masculinity than pantomime of it.

Portrait of a Turkish Novelist as Prisoner

Opinion | Op-Ed Contributor
Portrait of a Turkish Novelist as Prisoner

By AHMET ALTAN FEB. 28, 2018


Editors’ note: On Feb. 16, a Turkish court sentenced Ahmet Altan, a novelist and former newspaper editor; his brother, Mehmet Altan, an economics professor and political commentator; Nazli Ilicak, a prominent journalist; and three media employees to life imprisonment without parole for involvement in the July 15, 2016, coup attempt in Turkey.

The Altan brothers had appeared on a television program hosted by Ms. Ilicak a day before the coup attempt. Turkish prosecutors claimed that they gave “subliminal messages” announcing the coup on the program.

Turkey says that a network led by Fethullah Gulen, an Islamist cleric based in the United States, orchestrated the coup, which included an attempt on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s life, the bombing of the Parliament and the deaths of more than 270 people. In the purge by the Turkish government that followed, more than 150,000 people have been fired from their jobs, detained or arrested.

Mr. Altan wrote this essay about his imprisonment and sentencing, and about fiction and reality, in his prison cell in the city of Silivri, on the outskirts of Istanbul.

Orhan Pamuk

“Despite the loss they were suffering, they'd both relaxed - as people do when they realize they've run out of chances for happiness”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

It was...

“It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn't know it.”
― Orhan Pamuk

they thought poverty a crime

“These were innocent people, so innocent that they thought poverty a crime that wealth would allow them to forget. --- from the notebooks of Celal Salik”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

Precious Debris

“Sometimes I would see them not as mementos of the blissful hours but as the tangible precious debris of the storm raging in my soul.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

prouder and poorer

“Now everyone is prouder and poorer”
― Orhan Pamuk

Chekhov characters

“For the traveler we see leaning on his neighbor is an honest and well-meaning man and full of melancholy, like those Chekhov characters so laden with virtues that they never know success in life.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

Suicide Sisters

“Ka thought it strangely depressing that the suicide girls had had to struggle to find a private moment to kill themselves. Even after swallowing their pills, even as they lay quietly dying, they’d had to share their rooms with others.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

We Have Heart

“We had no desire to live in Istanbul, nor in Paris or New York. Let them have their discos and dollars, their skycrapers and supersonics transports. Let them have their radios and their color TV, hey, we have ours, don't we? But we have something they don't have. Heart. We have heart. Look, look how the light of life seeps into my very heart”
― Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

A Strangeness in My Mind + The Museum of Innocence

“A writer in someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is.”
― Orhan Pamuk

“WHAT MAKES CITY LIFE MEANINGFUL IS THE THINGS WE HIDE.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

“The power of things inheres in the memories they gather up inside them, and also in the vicissitudes of our imagination, and our memory--of this there is no doubt.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

everyday stories

“We don't need more museums that try to construct the historical narratives of a society, community, team, nation, state, tribe, company, or species. We all know that the ordinary, everyday stories of individuals are riches, more humane, and much more joyful.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Innocence of Objects

The Past

“‎The past is always an invented land.”
― Orhan Pamuk

Less Visible

“Age had not made him less handsome, as is so often the case; it had simply made him less visible.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

My idea of a vacation

My sister commuted for 6 months to Saudi Arabia. Her son lives in Equador teaching English. My half-brother went to Italy for paperwork to get an Italian passport and to Costa Rica for vacation, all in the past 2 months. They all laugh at me because I prefer to walk around rather than drive. I don't have a phone either, by choice. Yet I travel every day, between my eyes and my ears. I travel to the LIBRARY, through space and time. My idea of a vacation is a walk with my dog Romeo, or reading with Romeo on my lap.

Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

“After a time, my hand had become as skilled as my eyes. So if I was drawing a very fine tree, it felt as if my hand was moving without me directly it. As I watched the pencil race across the page, I would look on it in amazement, as if the drawing were the proof of another presence, as if someone else had taken up residence in my body. As I marveled at his work aspiring to become his equal, another part of my brain was busy inspecting the curves of the branches, the placement of mountains, the composition as a whole, reflecting that I had created this scene on a blank piece of paper. My mind was at the tip of my pen, acting before I could think; at the same time it could survey what I had already done. This second line of perception, this ability to analyze my progress, was the pleasure this small artist felt when he looked at the discovery of his courage and freedom. To step outside myself , to know the second person who had taken up residence inside me, was to retrace the dividing line that appeared as my pencil slipped across the paper, like a boy sledding in the snow.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

With the death of my father

“With the death of my father, it wasn't just the objects of everyday life that had changed; even the most ordinary street scenes had become irreplaceable mementos of a lost world whose every detail figured in the meaning of the whole.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“What was the difference between love and the agony of waiting? Like love, the agony of waiting began in the muscles and somewhere around the upper belly but soon spread out to the chest, the thighs, and the forehead, to invade the entire body with numbing force.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“It's important, no doubt, to understand the person we love. If we cannot manage this, it's necessary, at least, to believe we understand them. I must confess that over the entire eight years I only rarely enjoyed the contentment of the second possibility, let alone the first.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

with a book in your hand

“Because, as I would always tell myself so many years later, lying here in my bed: You can't start out again in life, that's a carriage ride you only take once, but with a book in your hand, no matter how confusing and perplexing it might be, once you've finished it, you can always go back to the beginning; if you like, you can read it through again, in order to figure out what you couldn't understand before, in order to understand life, isn't that so, Fatma?”
― Orhan Pamuk, Sessiz Ev

love and pain in another's heart

“How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known? Even if the world's rich and powerful were to put themselves in the shoes of the rest, how much would they really understand the wretched millions suffering around them? So it is when Orhan the novelist peers into the dark corners of his poet friend's difficult and painful life: How much can he really see?”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

a happiness all can share

“After all, isn't the purpose of the novel, or of a museum, for that matter, to relate our memories with such sincerity as to transform individual happiness into a happiness all can share?”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

colors, details and irony

“The knowledge that she could learn to love a man had always meant more to her than loving him effortlessly, more even than falling in love, and that was why she now felt that she was on the threshold of a new life, a happiness bound to endure for a very long time.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“...The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion; if you want to live in the paradise where happy mares and stallion live, open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

Kitchen Discovery

I baked brown rice mixed with wild rice in my Instapot and then added it to my homemade buttermilk coleslaw.

Civilized People

“In Europe the rich are refined enough to act as if they're not wealthy. That is how civilized people behave. If you ask me, being cultured and civilized is not about everyone being free and equal; it's about everyone being refined enough to act as if they were. Then no one has to feel guilty.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

When you are a Woman

“Let me first state forthright that contrary to what we've often read in books and heard from preachers, when you are a woman, you don't feel like the Devil.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

Ordinary Miracle

“...the endless repetition of an ordinary miracle.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

Let's Do Some Dreaming

“We live but for a short time, we see but very little, and we know almost nothing; so, at least, let's do some dreaming. Have yourself a very good Sunday, my dear readers.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book

Lets You Hide

“Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“In a city, you can be alone in a crowd, and in fact what makes the city a city is that it lets you hide the strangeness in your mind inside its teeming multitudes.”
― Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind

Let everyone know

“Let everyone know, I lived a very happy life.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

A Palace

“The entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room.”
― Orhan Pamuk

Depth of our Souls

“Most of the time it's not the Europeans who belittle us. What happens when we look at them is that we belittle ourselves. When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the depths of our souls. The day arrives when the guilty must return to save those who could not find the courage to leave.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

Painting Taught Literature

“Painting taught literature to describe.”
― Orhan Pamuk

Malady that Blinds Us

“I realized that the longing for art, like the longing for love, is a malady that blinds us, and makes us forget the things we already know, obscuring reality.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

Snow

“The sight of snow made her think how beautiful and short life is and how, in spite of all their enmities, people have so very much in common; measured against eternity and the greatness of creation, the world in which they lived was narrow. That's why snow drew people together. It was as if snow cast a veil over hatreds, greed, and wrath and made everyone feel close to one another.”
― Orhan Pamuk

The Black Book

“When you look into the faces of these quiet creatures who don't know how to tell stories--who are mute, who can't make themselves heard, who fade into the woodwork, who only think of the perfect answer after the fact, after they're back at home, who can never think of a story that anyone else will find interesting--is there not more depth and more meaning in them? You can see every letter of every untold story swimming on their faces, and all the signs of silence, dejection, and even defeat. You can even imagine your own face in those faces, can't you?”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book

Need the Pain of Loneliness

“I need the pain of loneliness to make my imagination work.”
― Orhan Pamuk

Listen to Me!

“Listen to me: Life is not about principles; it's about happiness.'
'But if you don't have any principles, and if you don't have faith, you can't be happy at all,' said Kadife.
'That's true. But in a brutal country like ours, where human life is cheap, it's stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs? High ideas? Only people in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.'
'Actually, it's the other way round. In a poor country, people's sole consolation comes from their beliefs.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

seeing the world with words

“Over time, I have come to see the work of literature less as narrating the world than "seeing the world with words."

From the moment he begins to use words like colors in a painting, a writer can begin to see how wondrous and surprising the world is, and he breaks the bones of language to find his own voice. For this he needs paper, a pen, and the optimism of a child looking at the world for the first time. ”
― Orhan Pamuk, Other Colors: Essays and A Story

Losing Time

“In poetically well built museums, formed from the heart's compulsions, we are consoled not by finding in them old objects that we love, but by losing all sense of Time.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

Random Incidents

“Ka knew very well that life was a meaningless string of random incidents”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

Barnyard Bliss: Cowspotted!

https://barnyardbliss.com/collections/cow-print

...every person has a star

“Heaven was the place where you kept alive the dreams of your memories.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is: when I speak of writing, what comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or literary tradition, it is a person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and alone, turns inward; amid its shadows, he builds a new world with words.”
― Orhan Pamuk

“I think a lot about the poems I wasn't able to write...I masturbrated...Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in your own scent. The issue is the same for all real poets. If you've been happy for too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you've been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic power...Happiness and poverty can only coexist for the briefest time. Afterword either happiness coarsens the poet or the poem is so true it destroys his happiness.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“Colour is the touch of the eye,
Music to the deaf,
A word out of darkness.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“Clocks and calendars do not exist to remind us of the Time we've forgotten but to regulate our relations with others and indeed all of society, and this is how we use them.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“...every person has a star, every star has a friend, and for every person carrying a star there is someone else who reflects it, and everyone carries this reflection like a secret confidante in the heart.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

On the Road

“The thing that binds us together is that we have both lowered our expectations of life.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere”
― Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

“It's such a shame that we know so little about our own country, that we can't find it in our hearts to love our own kind. Instead we admire those who show our country disrespect and betray its people.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well. ”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“The gap between compassion and surrender is love’s darkest, deepest region.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“If we give what we treasure most to a Being we love with all our hearts, if we can do that without expecting anything in return, then the world becomes a beautiful place.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“The real question is how much suffering we've caused our womenfolk by turning headscarves into symbols - and using women as pawns in a political game.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

the only consolation

“There's a lot of pride involved in my refusal to believe in god.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“[N]othing is as surprising as life. Except for writing. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the only consolation.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book

“Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

“She looked out the window; in her eyes was the light that you see only in children arriving at a new place, or in young people still open to new influences, still curious about the world because they have not yet been scarred by life.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“As always after drinking too much, I felt like my own ghost trying to take it's first solo walk outside the body.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“When two people love each other as we do, no one can come between them, no one," I said, amazed at the words I was uttering without preparation. "Lovers like us, because they know that nothing can destroy their love, even on the worst days, even when they are heedlessly hurting each other in the cruelest, most deceitful ways, still carry in their hearts a consolation that never abandons them." (p.191)”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

Not Stupid!

“We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

Two Eternities

“Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

A Letter

“A letter doesn't communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it, touching it and fondling it. Thereby, intelligent folk will say, 'Go on then, read what the letter tells you!' whereas the dull-witted will say, 'Go on then, read what he's written!”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

Orhan Pamuk

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

“Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

“Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant "now," even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“There are two kind of men,' said Ka, in a didatic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until he's seen how the girls eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she's angry at her father, and what sort of stories people tell about her. The second type of man -- and I am in this category -- can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“My unhappiness protects me from life.”
― Orhan Pamuk

“Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy," said my father as he watched the three beauties. "But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“People only tell lies when there is something they are terribly frightened of losing.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this life because of these musicales going on in my head.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

“When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, gets to know the streets so well after a number of years that in a fit of melancholy, perhaps stirred by a light snow falling ever so sorrowfully, you'll discover your legs carrying you of their own accord toward one of your favourite promontories.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him.”
― Orhan Pamuk

“When we lose people we love, we should never disturb their souls, whether living or dead. Instead. we should find consolation in an object that reminds you of them, something...I don't know...even an earring”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“What is the thing you want most from me? What can I do to make you love me?'

Be yourself,' said Ipek.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“In a brutal country like ours, where human life is 'cheap', it's stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs? High ideas? Only people in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a colour?

Colour is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness. Because I’ve listened to souls whispering – like the susurrus of the wind – from book to book and object to object for tens or thousands of years, allow me to say that my touch resembles the touch of angels. Part of me, the serious half, calls out to your vision while the mirthful half sours through the air with your glances.

I’m so fortunate to be red! I’m fiery. I’m strong. I know men take notice of me and that I cannot be resisted.

I do not conceal myself: For me, delicacy manifests itself neither in weakness nor in subtlety, but through determination and will. So, I draw attention to myself. I’m not afraid of other colours, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How wonderful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise and heartbeats quicken. Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see. I am everywhere. Life begins with and returns to me. Have faith in what I tell you.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

“Whatever anybody says, the most important thing in life is to be happy.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

Irrationality

“Irrationality is part of everyday rationale.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Elif Shafak

“It was a modest, out-of-the-way place in downtown Tucson, the only shrine in America dedicated to the soul of a sinner, reported the historical plaque there. [...] He went there because that was the one holy place that didn't compel him to change into someone else in order to welcome him.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

There are times

“No matter what might pour down, no matter how heavy the cloudburst or how icy the sleet, you should never ever utter profanities against whatever the heavens might have in store for us. Everybody knows this.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“There are times when we all need the company of the bad,”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Play now! Be friends!” Being of the same age group automatically meant getting along well; somehow peers were regarded as the broken pieces of the same puzzle, expected to suddenly make it complete when brought side by side.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“There are things so awful in this world that the good-hearted people, may Allah bless them all, have absolutely no idea of. And that's perfectly fine, I tell you: it is all right that they know nothing about such things because it proves what good-hearted people they are. Otherwise they wouldn't be good, would they? But if you ever step into a mine of malice, it won't be one of these people you will ask help from.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

In Resistance Lies the Key to Life

“To her way of thinking, anyone who can't rise up and rebel, anyone devoid of the ability to dissent, cannot really be said to be alive. In resistance lies the key to life. The rest of the people fall into two camps: the vegetables, who are fine with everything, and the tea glasses, who, thought not fine with numerous things, lack the strength to confront. It is the latter that are the worse of the two.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

"Selon sa façon de penser, quiconque ne peut pas se lever et se rebeller, quiconque n'est pas capable de s'opposer, ne peut pas vraiment être considéré comme vivant. En résistance réside la clé de la vie. Le reste du peuple se divise en deux camps: les légumes, qui conviennent à tout, et les verres à thé, qui, pensant ne pas convenir à de nombreuses choses, n'ont pas la force de se confronter. Ce sont ces derniers qui sont les pires des deux. "
- Elif Shafak, le bâtard d'Istanbul

L'aube approche.

“L'aube approche. Elle n'est plus qu'à quelques pas de cette zone étrange qui sépare la nuit du jour. Ce moment où il est encore possible de tirer du réconfort des rêves mais trop tard pour s'y replonger.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

"Dawn is approaching. She is only a few steps away from this strange area that separates the night from the day. This moment when it is still possible to draw comfort from dreams but too late to plunge back into it. "
- Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

in love with the chaotic beauty

“I know every single street in this town. And I love strolling these streets in the mornings, in the evenings, and then at night when I am merry and tipsy. I love to have breakfasts with my friends along the Bosphorus on Sundays, I love to walk alone amid the crowds. I am in love with the chaotic beauty of this city, the ferries, the music, the tales, the sadness, the colors, and the black humor.....”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

satisfied at the end of the day

“Don't underestimate the good in you”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Since when is being a rotten drunkard a symbol of freedom?”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“How amazing was this ability to achieve plenty by achieving little, to go home empty-handed yet still satisfied at the end of the day!”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic

“Though books were potentially harmful, novels were all the more dangerous. The path of fiction could easily mislead you into the cosmos of stories where everything was fluid, quixotic, and as open to surprises as a moonless night in the desert. Before you knew it you could be so carried away that you could lose touch with reality—that stringent and stolid truth from which no minority should ever veer too far from in order not to end up unguarded when the winds shifted and bad times arrived. It didn’t help to be so naïve to think things wouldn’t get bad, for they always did. Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic for those compelled to be realistic in life, and words could be poisonous for those destined always to be silenced.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Once a pomegranate breaks

“There is no together anymore. Once a pomegranate breaks and all its seeds scatter in different directions, you cannot put it back together.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“From her he had learned two fundamental things about love: first, that unlike what the romantics so pompously argued, love was more a gradual course than a sudden blossoming at first sight, and second, that he was capable of loving.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

The Past

“Was it really better for human beings to discover more of their pasts? And then more and more...? Or was it simply better to know as little of the past as possible and even to forget what small amount was remembered?”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“The past is anything but bygone”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Internalized the Narrative

“It is a scientifically known fact that collectivities are capable of manipulating their individual members’ beliefs, thoughts, and even bodily reactions. You keep hearing a certain story over and over again, and the next thing you know you have internalized the narrative. From that moment on it ceases to be someone else’s story. It is not even a story anymore, but reality, your reality!”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Elif Shafak

“...when women survive an awful marriage or love affair, and all that shit, they generally avoid another relationship for quite some time. With men, however, it is just the opposite; the moment they finish a catastrophe they start looking for another one. Men are incapable of being alone.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

our ancestors breathe through our children

“You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Perhaps this is why lunatics have a harder time dating, not because they are off the wall but because it is hard to find soemone who is willing to date so many people in one person.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman!”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“The past lives within the present, and our ancestors breathe through our children.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic for those compelled to be realistic in life, and words could be poisonous for those destined always to be silenced.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“We're stuck. We're stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalist, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the general public and the remaining half of the state on their side.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Ways of loving from a distance, mating without even touching-Amor platonicus! The ladder of love one is expected to climb higher and higher, elating the Self and the Other. Plato clearly regards any actual physical contact as corrupt and ignoble because he thinks the true goal of Eros is beauty. Is there no beauty in sex? Not according to Plato. He is after `more sublime pursuits.' But if you ask me, I think Plato's problem, like those of many others, was that he never got splendidly laid.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“That was the one thing about the rain that likened it to sorrow: You did your best to remain untouched, safe and dry, but if and when you failed, there came a point in which you started seeing the problem less in terms of drops than as an incessant gush, and thereby you decide you might as well get drenched.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“It is so demanding to be born into a house full of women, where everyone loves you so overwhelmingly that they end up suffocating with their love; a house where you, as the only child, have to be more mature than all the adults around....
But the problem is that they want me to become everything they themselves couldn't accomplish in life.....
As a result, I had to work my butt off to fulfill all their dreams at the same time.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Mourning is like virginity. You should give it to the one who deserves it most.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“It never took her long to darken any conversation, as from birth she was inclined to see misery in each and every story, and to fabricate some when there was none.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Time

“Because time is a drop in the ocean, and you cannot measure off one drop against another to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Elif Shafak

“Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

Disappear while you are alive!

“Disappear while you are alive! The less you talk about yourself, the less you think about yourself, the journey to disappearance begins! Forget about yourself! Disappear!”
Mehmet Murat ildan

Turkish Playwright, Novelist & Thinker Mehmet Murat ildan's Web Site ~ Let the boundlessness be your boundary!

PERSONAL STATEMENT
https://mehmetmuratildanresmiwebsitesi.wordpress.com/blog/
23
Sunday
Oct 2016

Posted by Mehmet Murat ildan
PERSONAL STATEMENT

“I am a professional freelance author & thinker with 11 books in print, mostly plays, two crime fiction and one love novel; half a dozen plays yet to be published. I am holding a PhD degree in Economics, but I got my real diploma from Master William Shakespeare, my greatest inspiration and my best teacher in Literature.

I don’t believe in any religion nor any ideology or political thought. I believe in existence, pure love and a friendly God (a personal unknown god) and of course strongly believe in Almighty Science, the real hero of humanity!

I create quotes & quotations in my works. I like quotes such as: “Veritas Vos Liberabit,” The Truth shall make you free; and “Omne Possibile,” Everything is possible!

I have more than two thousand quotations of my own. I have been creating quotations since my high school years. Some of my collected quotes are from my published books and some are written independently from my books. I would like to have a vast collection of maxims, just like Master François de La Rochefoucauld’s The Maximes. “A Book of 10 000 Quotations” is my life-long project. At the moment I am working on this project eagerly and create many quotes both in Turkish and in English.

I use my middle name, Murat. I have lots of dreams. One of them is to go to Machu Picchu, the ancient Inca city in Peru. My favourite animal is elephant. My astrological sign is Taurus.”

Street

Even in the prettiest street we feel that something very important is missing if there isn’t any street musician around!
- Mehmet Murat ildan

Mehmet Murat ildan

“He who hides himself amongst the shadows deserves to live inside the dark shadows! Meet with the light to deserve the light!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

Kelseyleigh Reber

“This world owes us nothing. Existence is not indebted to us. Humanity lives under this misconception that we deserve life’s blessings, that we deserve happiness. But in truth, life owes us nothing”
― Kelseyleigh Reber, If I Resist

Jodi Aman

“Believing that you don’t deserve to heal is one of the biggest blocks to healing.”
― Jodi Aman

An Instant Recognition

“I think there is in friendship, an instant recognition – a kind of loving. It needs just a word, in passing, the touch of a hand – yet parting is loss and the tiny ache of regret stays with us always.”
― Helen Exley

(From a schoolboy's essay, 1903.)”

“The house-cat is a four-legged quadruped, the legs as usual being at the corners. It is what is sometimes called a tame animal, though it feeds on mice and birds of prey. Its colours are striped, it does not bark, but breathes through its nose instead of its mouth. Cats also mow, which you all have heard. Cats have nine liveses, but which is seldom wanted in this country, coz' of Christianity. Cats eat meat and most anythink speshuelly where you can't afford. That is all about cats."

(From a schoolboy's essay, 1903.)”
― Helen Exley, Cat Quotations

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Divided and Conquered: An Analysis of Man-made Weapons of Mass Separation
http://www.mokokoma.com/bio/
psst @ mokokoma . com

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I am a philosopher, a social critic, a satirist, an aphorist, an essayist, a cartoonist, a graphic designer, and an iconoclast. I was born, bred, and is based, within the borders of some figment called South Africa.

I study human beings, and after some of my observations, I either write or draw. I share my observations through satirical aphorisms, essays, books, and cartoons, which I use to unseriously explore serious issues.

A comedian strives to make people laugh; sometimes, that leaves them thinking; I strive to make people think; sometimes, that leaves them laughing. On the whole, my work is an attempt to link our beliefs, actions, institutions, ignorance, and arrogance, with human suffering.

Projects + Elsewhere

Designs + Drawings: Prints, t-shirts, tote bags, phone covers, etc.
Books + Essays: Read samples of my published writings.
Forget About Team Building: The only way to truly unite workers.
Social Media: Twitter + Facebook + Instagram + Pinterest.
The most convenient and least noisy way to follow my work.

Orderly

“Those proud of keeping an orderly desk never know the thrill of finding something they thought they had irretrievably lost.”
― Helen Exley

Helen Exley

Helen Exley —
'Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life'.'

Erich Fromm

“To be loved because of one's merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt; maybe I did not please the person whom I want to love me, maybe this, or that - there is always a fear that love could disappear.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“You often say; I would give, but only to the deserving, The trees in your orchard say not so , nor the flocks in your pasture.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and nights is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream. See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you , who deem yourself a giver , is but a witness.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Lone Star Tick

http://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-allergies/types-food-allergy/meat-allergy

Piss Stop

Article

Farhad Manjoo: Cameras With Brains!

Technology
The Sublime and Scary Future of Cameras With A.I. Brains

Farhad Manjoo

STATE OF THE ART FEB. 27, 2018

Something strange, scary and sublime is happening to cameras, and it’s going to complicate everything you knew about pictures. Cameras are getting brains.

Until the past few years, just about all cameras — whether smartphones or point-and-shoots or CCTV surveillance — were like eyes disconnected from any intelligence.

They captured anything you put in front of them, but they didn’t understand a whit about what they were seeing. Even basic facts about the world eluded them. It’s crazy, for instance, that in 2018, your smartphone doesn’t automatically detect when you’ve taken naked pictures of yourself and offer to house them under an extra-special layer of security.

But all this is changing. There’s a new generation of cameras that understand what they see. They’re eyes connected to brains, machines that no longer just see what you put in front of them, but can act on it — creating intriguing and sometimes eerie possibilities.

At first, these cameras will promise to let us take better pictures, to capture moments that might not have been possible with every dumb camera that came before. That’s the pitch Google is making with Clips, a new camera that went on sale on Tuesday. It uses so-called machine learning to automatically take snapshots of people, pets and other things it finds interesting.

Others are using artificial intelligence to make cameras more useful. You’ve heard how Apple’s newest iPhone uses face recognition to unlock your phone. A start-up called Lighthouse AI wants to do something similar for your home, using a security camera that adds a layer of visual intelligence to the images it sees. When you mount its camera in your entryway, it can constantly analyze the scene, alerting you if your dog walker doesn’t show up, or if your kids aren’t home by a certain time after school.

It doesn’t take long to imagine the useful and very creepy possibilities of cameras that can decipher the world. Digital cameras brought about a revolution in photography, but until now, it was only a revolution of scale: Thanks to microchips, cameras got smaller and cheaper, and we began carrying them everywhere.

Now, A.I. will create a revolution in how cameras work, too. Smart cameras will let you analyze pictures with prosecutorial precision, raising the specter of a new kind of surveillance — not just by the government but by everyone around you, even your loved ones at home.

The companies making these devices are aware of the privacy dangers. Many are moving into the field gingerly, slathering their products with safeguards that they say reduce the creepiness.

Take Google’s Clips, which I’ve used for the past week and half. It’s one of the most unusual devices I’ve ever encountered. The camera is about the size of a tin of mints, and it has no screen. On its front, there’s a lens and a button. The button takes a picture, but it’s only there if you really need it.

Instead, most of the time, you just rely on the camera’s intuition, which has been trained to recognize facial expressions, lighting, framing and other hallmarks of nice photos. It also recognizes familiar faces — the people you’re with more often are those it deems most interesting to photograph.

Clips, which sells for $249, makes taking pictures unconscious and all but invisible. Carry it around wherever you go; the camera has a handy case with a big bendy clip, so it can be affixed to your jacket, set on a tabletop, carried in your palm or placed anywhere else with a view.

From there, it’s all A.I.

Clips watches the scene, and when it sees something that looks like a compelling shot, it captures a 15-second burst picture (something like a short animated GIF or Live Photo on your iPhone).

I took a trip with my family to Disneyland last week, and over two highly photographable days, I barely took a photo. Instead, this tiny device automatically did the work, capturing a couple hundred short clips of our vacation.

Some of them were quite good, getting the high points of our trip in the same way I might have with my phone. Here’s a clip of my son driving a car.
Photo

But what was really interesting was the stuff I wouldn’t have consciously captured. I got dozens of pictures like these:
Photo
Photo
Photo

Aesthetically, these pictures aren’t masterworks. Emotionally, they’re on a higher plane. Clips caught moments of my kids goofing off and fighting in Disney’s endless lines, playing catch at home, dancing like adorable maniacs — moments too spontaneous or seemingly slight for me to have caught with my camera, but which will probably paint a more accurate and edifying picture of our lives in 30 years.

Regular readers of this column know that capturing moments of my kids’ childhood is an acute anxiety of mine; I’ve even wired my home with cameras to preserve a kind of reality show of life in my house.

But you don’t have to be as crazy as I am to share slivers of this fear — that your kids or your pets are constantly doing things you’ll later want to remember, but which smartphones often miss. An intelligent camera gets these times because it doesn’t ask you to break the moment to capture it.

But, obviously, setting up a camera that doesn’t need to be specifically triggered to take a picture is problematic. It raises the worry of spying — both that Google can spy on you, or that you can use it to spy on others.

Google addresses that creepiness in two ways. The device is mostly unconnected from the internet. It can take pictures without a connection, and it requires your phone for viewing or saving the clips. But even then, all its A.I. happens on the device, and it doesn’t even need you to have a Google account, the company said.

“We spent a lot of time thinking about privacy, and making sure this was a device people would actually want,” said Eva Snee, who heads Google’s research on how people interact with Clips. “What we learned was that cameras don’t creep people out when they’re used deliberately and the person is part of the process.”

Clips also raises the memory of other products in this vein, including Snap’s Spectacles and Google Glass, the search company’s failed attempt to get consumers to use glasses that can take photos.

To ensure that, Clips is designed to look like a camera. When it’s on, it flashes a white LED to signal that it could be recording. It also does not record audio, because that might have felt too much like spying.

Lighthouse, which I’ve also used for a few weeks, is meant to be an upgrade over the internet-connected home security cameras that have become popular. Those devices can be annoying because they freak out every time they spot any movement.

Lighthouse’s special trick is a camera system that can sense 3D space and learn and recognize faces — intelligence meant to avoid false alarms. It also has a nifty natural-language interface, so you can ask it straightforward questions: “What did the kids do when I was gone?” will show you clips of your kids when you were gone.

Lighthouse, which sells for $299 and requires a $10 monthly subscription, feels like a work in progress. It was mostly accurate in differentiating people in my house, but it was also tripped up into thinking I had an intruder by a mylar balloon floating around my living room.

The company is young and I expect its software to improve. I can see it being of genuine use to people who wonder what’s happening at home when they’re away. Want to know if your dog is jumping on your couch? Ask Lighthouse; it can recognize dogs jumping around couches, and will instantly show you the clip. (Well, it can get close. I don’t have a dog, so when I asked Lighthouse that question, it pulled up a clip of my kid kicking his stuffed tiger off the couch.)

But what if it’s your spouse, not your pooch, you’re worried about? I trust my wife, but for the sake of this column, I asked the device to show me any clips of her in the house with an unfamiliar person. There she was one evening, with the babysitter, whom Lighthouse hadn’t seen before.

It was a case of straight-up spying on my family. But it’s an obvious possibility with a camera that understands the world so well.

Alex Teichman, Lighthouse’s chief executive, said it could add safeguards against inter-family spying, for instance by restricting face identification only to unrecognized faces. He also pointed out that the system has numerous fine-grained privacy controls that allow you to turn off any recording when certain family members are present.

I found his response credible. Both Lighthouse and Clips are well-crafted against abuse. It should be noted that neither one allows for much more spying than we can already accomplish with smartphones; constant social surveillance is the norm in 2018.

But they are guides to the future. Tomorrow, all cameras will have their capabilities. And they won’t just watch you — they’ll understand, too.

Email: farhad.manjoo@nytimes.com; Twitter: @fmanjoo.

White Noise

Every spring I get excited about working outdoors except for one thing. The LOUD family. They shout into their phones from dawn until well past midnight. They talk louder than most people probably because they have damage from attending too many heavy metal rock concerts. So I resort to the tried and true solution. I go inside and when I open my window I have to run my fan to generate white noise.

Plucky Gutty Spunky

Dictionary
stout·heart·ed
ˌstoutˈhärdəd/
adjective
adjective: stout-hearted; adjective: stouthearted

courageous or determined.
synonyms: brave, determined, courageous, bold, plucky, spirited, valiant, valorous, gallant, fearless, doughty, intrepid, stalwart; intrepid, stalwart; informal gutsy, gutty, spunky

Jennifer Finney Boylan

Opinion | Contributing Op-Ed Writer
It’s Not a Disaster Movie. It’s Reality.

Jennifer Finney Boylan FEB. 27, 2018

In the 1980 disaster spoof “Airplane!,” there’s a great running gag by Lloyd Bridges, who plays a control-tower supervisor. As trouble rears its head, he mutters, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking” (and lights up a cigarette). Later, when the situation has grown even more dire (and absurd), he laments, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines” (and swallows a handful of pills with a glass of milk). Finally, at the climax, he declares, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin’ glue!” and — well, you get the idea.
I know that the current administration isn’t that of Robert F. Kennedy, of course. But somehow I also keep hoping that things have gotten as bad as they’re going to get. Surely, I think, Republicans have done as much damage as they can possibly do to families like mine.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to look for justice.

Jennifer Finney Boylan (@JennyBoylan), a contributing opinion writer, is a professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University and the author of the novel “Long Black Veil.”

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

Sexy Eggplant

Yes, I think the eggplant is very sexy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/dining/eggplant-recipes.html

German Style Coleslaw

I am a coleslaw freak!
https://www.kitchenproject.com/german/recipes/Salat/ColeSlaw/index.htm

Faraday Cage

Faraday cage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Faraday cage demonstration on volunteers in the Palais de la Découverte in Paris
An American soldier in 1944 being treated with a diathermy machine, which produces radio waves, so to keep it from causing interference with other electronic equipment in the hospital, the procedure was conducted inside a Faraday cage
Faraday shield at a power plant in Heimbach, Germany
Faraday bag
Faraday bags are a type of Faraday cage made of flexible metallic fabric. They are typically used to block remote wiping or alteration of wireless devices recovered in criminal investigations, but may also be used by the general public to protect against data theft or to enhance digital privacy.

A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure used to block electromagnetic fields. A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material or in the case of a Faraday cage, by a mesh of such materials. Faraday cages are named after the English scientist Michael Faraday, who invented them in 1836.[1]
File:Faraday cage - FISL 14 - 2013-07-03.ogvPlay media
Video of a Faraday cage shielding a man from electricity

A Faraday cage operates because an external electrical field causes the electric charges within the cage's conducting material to be distributed such that they cancel the field's effect in the cage's interior. This phenomenon is used to protect sensitive electronic equipment from external radio frequency interference (RFI). Faraday cages are also used to enclose devices that produce RFI, such as radio transmitters, to prevent their radio waves from interfering with other nearby equipment. They are also used to protect people and equipment against actual electric currents such as lightning strikes and electrostatic discharges, since the enclosing cage conducts current around the outside of the enclosed space and none passes through the interior.

Faraday cages cannot block stable or slowly varying magnetic fields, such as the Earth's magnetic field (a compass will still work inside). To a large degree, though, they shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. For example, certain computer forensic test procedures of electronic systems that require an environment free of electromagnetic interference can be carried out within a screened room. These rooms are spaces that are completely enclosed by one or more layers of a fine metal mesh or perforated sheet metal. The metal layers are grounded to dissipate any electric currents generated from external or internal electromagnetic fields, and thus they block a large amount of the electromagnetic interference. See also electromagnetic shielding. They provide less attenuation from outgoing transmissions versus incoming: they can shield EMP waves from natural phenomena very effectively, but a tracking device, especially in upper frequencies, may be able to penetrate from within the cage (e.g., some cell phones operate at various radio frequencies so while one cell phone may not work, another one will).

A common misconception is that a Faraday cage provides full blockage or attenuation; this is not true. The reception or transmission of radio waves, a form of electromagnetic radiation, to or from an antenna within a Faraday cage is heavily attenuated or blocked by the cage, however, a Faraday cage has varied attenuation depending on wave form, frequency or distance from receiver/transmitter, and receiver/transmitter power. Near-field high-powered frequency transmissions like HF RFID are more likely to penetrate. Solid cages generally provide better attenuation than mesh cages.

History

In 1836, Michael Faraday observed that the excess charge on a charged conductor resided only on its exterior and had no influence on anything enclosed within it. To demonstrate this fact, he built a room coated with metal foil and allowed high-voltage discharges from an electrostatic generator to strike the outside of the room. He used an electroscope to show that there was no electric charge present on the inside of the room's walls.

Although this cage effect has been attributed to Michael Faraday's famous ice pail experiments performed in 1843, it was Benjamin Franklin in 1755 who observed the effect by lowering an uncharged cork ball suspended on a silk thread through an opening in an electrically charged metal can. In his words, "the cork was not attracted to the inside of the can as it would have been to the outside, and though it touched the bottom, yet when drawn out it was not found to be electrified (charged) by that touch, as it would have been by touching the outside. The fact is singular." Franklin had discovered the behavior of what we now refer to as a Faraday cage or shield (based on Faraday's later experiments which duplicated Franklin's cork and can).[2] Additionally, Giovanni Battista Beccaria discovered this effect a long time before Faraday too.[3]

Operation
Animation showing how a Faraday cage (box) works. When an external electrical field (arrows) is applied, the electrons (little balls) in the metal move to the left side of the cage, giving it a negative charge, while the remaining unbalanced charge of the nuclei give the right side a positive charge. These induced charges create an opposing electric field that cancels the external electric field throughout the box.

Continuous

A continuous Faraday shield is a hollow conductor. Externally or internally applied electromagnetic fields produce forces on the charge carriers (usually electrons) within the conductor; the charges are redistributed accordingly due to electrostatic induction. The redistributed charges greatly reduce the voltage within the surface, to an extent depending on the capacitance, however, full cancellation does not occur.[4]

Interior charges

If a charge is placed inside an ungrounded Faraday cage, the internal face of the cage becomes charged (in the same manner described for an external charge) to prevent the existence of a field inside the body of the cage, however, this charging of the inner face re-distributes the charges in the body of the cage. This charges the outer face of the cage with a charge equal in sign and magnitude to the one placed inside the cage. Since the internal charge and the inner face cancel each other out, the spread of charges on the outer face is not affected by the position of the internal charge inside the cage. So for all intents and purposes, the cage generates the same DC electric field that it would generate if it were simply affected by the charge placed inside. The same is not true for electromagnetic waves.

If the cage is grounded, the excess charges will go to the ground instead of the outer face, so the inner face and the inner charge will cancel each other out and the rest of the cage will retain a neutral charge.

Exterior fields
Skin depth vs. frequency for some materials at room temperature, red vertical line denotes 50 Hz frequency:

Mn-Zn – magnetically soft ferrite
Al – metallic aluminum
Cu – metallic copper
steel 410 – magnetic stainless steel
Fe-Si – grain-oriented electrical steel
Fe-Ni – high-permeability permalloy (80%Ni-20%Fe)

Effectiveness of shielding of a static electric field is largely independent of the geometry of the conductive material, however, static magnetic fields can penetrate the shield completely.

In the case of a varying electromagnetic fields, the faster the variations are (i.e., the higher the frequencies), the better the material resists magnetic field penetration. In this case the shielding also depends on the electrical conductivity, the magnetic properties of the conductive materials used in the cages, as well as their thicknesses.

A good idea of the effectiveness of a Faraday shield can be obtained from considerations of skin depth. With skin depth, the current flowing is mostly in the surface, and decays exponentially with depth through the material. Because a Faraday shield has finite thickness, this determines how well the shield works; a thicker shield can attenuate electromagnetic fields better, and to a lower frequency.
Faraday cage
Faraday cages are Faraday shields which have holes in them and are therefore more complex to analyze. Whereas continuous shields essentially attenuate all wavelengths shorter than the skin depth, the holes in a cage may permit shorter wavelengths to pass through or set up "evanescent fields" (oscillating fields that do not propagate as EM waves) just beneath the surface. The shorter the wavelength, the better it passes through a mesh of given size. Thus to work well at short wavelengths (i.e., high frequencies), the holes in the cage must be smaller than the wavelength of the incident wave. Faraday cages may therefore be thought of as high pass filters.

Standing Room Only

https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-minute-lose-weight-by-just-standing/

Mrs. Malaprop and the Origin of Malapropisms

https://www.thoughtco.com/mrs-malaprop-and-origin-of-malapropisms-3973512

Humanities › Literature
Mrs. Malaprop and the Origin of Malapropisms

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by Wade Bradford
Updated March 18, 2017

The character Mrs. Malaprop is a humorous aunt who gets mixed up in the schemes and dreams of young lovers in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 comedy-of-manners The Rivals.

One of the funniest aspects of Mrs. Malaprop's character is that she often uses an incorrect word to express herself. The popularity of the play and of the character led to the creation of the literary term malapropism, meaning the the practice (whether by intent or by accident) of using an incorrect word that sounds similar to the appropriate word.

Mrs. Malaprop's name comes from the French term malapropos, meaning “inappropriate”

Here are a few examples of Mrs. Malaprop's wit and wisdom:

"We will not anticipate the past, our retrospection will now be all to the future."

"The pineapple of politeness" (Instead of "pinnacle of politeness.")

"She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile" (Instead of "alligator on the banks of the Nile.")

Malapropism in Literature and Theater

Sheridan was by no means the first or last to use malapropism in his work. Shakespeare, for example, invented several characters whose traits are similar to those of Mrs. Malaprop. A few examples include:

Mistress Quickly, a lower-class inn keeper who appears in multiple plays (Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor). A friend of Falstaff's, she says he is "indicted to dinner" rather than "invited to dinner."
Constable Dogberry, a character in Much Ado About Nothing, who "comprehended auspicious persons" rather than "apprehending suspicious persons." Dogberry's malapropisms became so famous that the term "Dogberryism" was coined -- a term that is essentially synonymous with malapropism.

Many other writers have created Malaprop-type characters or characterizations. For example, Charles Dickens created Oliver Twist's Mr. Bumble, who said of the orphans he routinely starved and beat: "We name our fondlings in alphabetical order." Comedian Stan Laurel, in Sons of the Desert, refers to a "nervous shakedown," and calls the exalted ruler the "exhausted ruler."

TV's Archie Bunker of the sitcom All in the Family was characterized by his constant malapropisms. Just a few of his best-known malapropisms including:

A house of "ill refute" (rather than ill repute)
An "ivory shower" (rather than an ivory tower)
A "pig's eye" (rather than a pig sty)
"Nectarines of the gods" (rather than nectar of the gods)

The Purpose of Malapropism

Of course, malapropism is an easy way to get a laugh -- and, across the board, characters who use malapropisms are comic characters. Malapropism, however, has a subtler purpose. Characters who mispronounce or mis-use common words and phrases are, by definition, either unintelligent or uneducated or both. A malapropism in the mouth of a supposedly intelligent or capable character instantly lowers their credibility.

One example of this technique is in the movie Head of State. In the movie the sleazy Vice President mispronounces the word "facade" (fah-sahd), saying "fakade" instead. This signals to the audience that he, himself, is not the educated and intelligent man he appears to be.

Civil Rights

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/nyregion/gender-discrimination-civil-rights-lawsuit-zarda.html

Juniper Pollen

Our house is surrounded by Juniper bushes emitting pollen!

Melody Moezzi

Article

Gabe Howard

video

Aquarium, Sewing, and Running

My various returning obsessions are building an aquarium in my living room and sewing curtains, dresses and sleeveless blouses, and running with my dog. Twice a year for three month stints, I return to these obsessions (in transmit mode).

Proudly Antisocial

I'll have to admit I love walking my dog and running into people but other than that I am proudly antisocial. We don't entertain, I say bragging to my brother. We don't travel, I add. We like our homey solitude. Our idea of fun is reading and baking, and staring out the window, I add.

Praise for the Paper Planner

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/smarter-living/paper-planner-guide.html

Wholegrain Sourdough

Bread porn! And two videos on making wholegrain sourdough breads.
https://breadtopia.com/whole-grain-sourdough/

Sushi Chef

Milan-based Sushi Chef Yujia Hu creates edible sushi-sneakers called "Shoe-Shi"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4511870/Chef-creates-edible-miniature-shoes-using-SUSHI.html

Meet Guillaume Delaunay, or "Gui" for short

Guillaume Delaunay
image illustrant un acteur image illustrant français
Cet article est une ébauche concernant un acteur français.

Vous pouvez partager vos connaissances en l’améliorant (comment ?) selon les conventions filmographiques.
Guillaume Delaunay
Données clés Naissance 2 juillet 1975
Vendée
Drapeau de la France France
Nationalité Drapeau de la France Française
Profession Acteur

modifier Consultez la documentation du modèle

Guillaume Delaunay est un acteur français.

Sommaire

1 Carrière
2 Filmographie
2.1 Cinéma
2.2 Télévision
2.3 Court métrage ou clip
3 Théâtre
4 Liens externes

Carrière
Filmographie
Cinéma

2006 : Jean-Philippe de Laurent Tuel : petit rôle (non crédité)
2007 : Zone Libre de Christophe Malavoy : le garde du corps du Docteur Lejeune
2007 : Sa majesté Minor de Jean-Jacques Annaud : Le centaure
2009 : La loi de Murphy de Christophe Campos : Infirmier
2010 : Protéger et servir d'Eric Lavaine : complice de Romero
2011 : Le Dossier Toroto de Jean-Pierre Mocky : Vitupin 1
2011 : Eyes Find Eyes de Jean-Manuel Fernandez et Sean Price Williams : Jean-Paul
2011 : Jean-Luc persécuté de Emmanuel Laborie : Jean-Luc
2012 : Les Infidèles, segment "Ultimate Fucking" réalisé par Jan Kounen : Homme camionnette 2
2012 : Le Mentor de Jean-Pierre Mocky : le géant du vestiaire
2013 : Michael Kohlhaas d'Arnaud des Pallières : le géant
2013 : The Harry Hill Movie de Steve Bendelack : Kisko
2013 : Longtails de Elizabeth Arends : Vince
2014 : Hysteria (Eliza Graves) de Brad Anderson : Arthur Timbs
2014 : Calomnies de Jean-Pierre Mocky : Garpa
2014 : Qui de loin semblent des mouches de Yann Schwartz et Jean-Charles Vidal : Cardo
2015 : Les compagnons de la Pomponette de Jean-Pierre Mocky
2015 : Tale of Tales de Matteo Garrone : L'ogre
2015 : Victor Frankenstein de Paul McGuigan : La création de Victor Frankenstein

Télévision

2010 : Colère de Jean-Pierre Mocky
Grosland magzine
2006 PJ épisodes 110 et 111; Claire de la Rochefoucauld
2004 La vie à mains nues; Sébastien Grall
2004 Mis en bouteille au château; Marion Sarrault
2013 : Nicolas Le Floch : Le sang des farines de Philippe Bérenger, dans le rôle de Rabouine
2013 : Nicolas Le Floch : Le crime de l’hôtel Saint-Florentin de Philippe Bérenger, dans le rôle de Rabouine

Court métrage ou clip

2011 la campagne Orc vs. Xperia (Sony Ericson) ; rôle de l'Orc
2010 La Femme à cordes ; rôle : l'homme.
2008 Gri Gri, avec Diam's
RMI Professeur Chaos, un clip de Charbel Ka ; rôle : Major d'homme
2007 Mr W. (European commercial: Epuron) ; rôle-titre (Nickname “Gui”)
2005 Nouvelle génération, Artemio Benki ; rôle : l'homme au couteau
2005 Chapitö - Court-métrage de Franck SÉGARD & Nicolas HUMBERT ; rôle : Séraphin
2005 Sur la route, Benjamin Papin
2004 Entre ciel et terre, un film de Delphine Lemoine
2004 Ceci n'est pas une cerise, un film de Julien Lepreux
2004 Close up, un film de Claude Farge ; rôle : 2e garde du corps
2003 Jour et nuit, un film de Armelle Verenka

Théâtre

Sainte Jeanne des abattoirs mise en scène: Nathalie Guilmard
Liens externes

http://www.protegeretservir-lefilm.com/ [archive]
http://laloidemurphy.gaumont.fr/ [archive]
http://www.tfmdistribution.com/zonelibre/ [archive]
http://www.crrav.com/fichefilm.php?id=75&page=2&perpage=20 [archive]
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2010/dec/24/environment-adverts [archive]

Portail du cinéma Portail du cinéma Portail de la France Portail de la France

I LOVE Paul Krugman!

Opinion | Op-Ed Columnist
The Force of Decency Awakens

Paul Krugman FEB. 26, 2018

A funny thing is happening on the American scene: a powerful upwelling of decency. Suddenly, it seems as if the worst lack all conviction, while the best are filled with a passionate intensity. We don’t yet know whether this will translate into political change. But we may be in the midst of a transformative moment.

You can see the abrupt turn toward decency in the rise of the #MeToo movement; in a matter of months ground that had seemed immovable shifted, and powerful sexual predators started facing career-ending consequences.

You can see it in the reactions to the Parkland school massacre. For now, at least, the usual reaction to mass killings — a day or two of headlines, then a sort of collective shrug by the political class and a return to its normal obeisance to the gun lobby — isn’t playing out. Instead, the story is staying at the top of the news, and associating with the N.R.A. is starting to look like the political and business poison it should have been all along.

And I’d argue that you can see it at the ballot box, where hard-right politicians in usually reliable Republican districts keep being defeated thanks to surging activism by ordinary citizens.

This isn’t what anyone, certainly not the political commentariat, expected.

After the 2016 election many in the news media seemed all too ready to assume that Trumpism represented the real America, even though Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote and — Russian intervention and the Comey letter aside — would surely have won the electoral vote, too, but for the Big Sneer, the derisive tone adopted by countless reporters and pundits. There have been hundreds if not thousands of stories about grizzled Trump supporters sitting in diners, purportedly showing the out-of-touchness of our cultural elite.

Even the huge anti-Trump demonstrations just after Inauguration Day didn’t seem to move the conventional wisdom. But those pink pussy hats may have represented the beginning of real social and political change.

Political scientists have a term and a theory for what we’re seeing on #MeToo, guns and perhaps more: “regime change cascades.”

Here’s how it works: When people see the status quo as immovable, they tend to be passive even if they are themselves dissatisfied. Indeed, they may be unwilling to reveal their discontent, or to fully admit it to themselves. But once they see others visibly taking a stand, they both gain more confidence in their dissent and become more willing to act on it — and by their actions they may induce the same response in others, causing a kind of chain reaction.

Such cascades explain how huge political upheavals can quickly emerge, seemingly out of nowhere. Examples include the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848, the sudden collapse of communism in 1989 and the Arab Spring of 2011.

Now, nothing says that such cascades have to be positive either in their motivations or in their results. The period 2016-17 clearly represented a sort of Alt-Right Spring — springtime for fascists? — in which white supremacists and anti-Semites were emboldened not just by Donald Trump’s election but by the evidence that there were more like-minded people than anyone realized, both in the U.S. and Europe. Meanwhile, historians have described 1848 as a turning point where history somehow failed to turn: At the end of the day the old, corrupt regimes were still standing.

I nevertheless find the surge of indignation now building in America hugely encouraging. And yes, I think it’s all one surge. The #MeToo movement, the refusal to shrug off the Parkland massacre, the new political activism of outraged citizens (many of them women) all stem from a common perception: namely, that it’s not just about ideology, but that far too much power rests in the hands of men who are simply bad people.

And Exhibit A for that proposition is, of course, the tweeter in chief himself.

At the same time, what strikes me about the reaction to this growing backlash is not just its vileness, but its lameness. Trump’s response to Parkland — let’s arm teachers! — wasn’t just stupid, it was cowardly, an attempt to duck the issue, and I think many people realized that. Or consider how the Missouri G.O.P. has responded to the indictment of Gov. Eric Greitens, accused of trying to blackmail his lover with nude photos: by blaming … George Soros. I am not making this up.

Or consider the growing wildness of speeches by right-wing luminaries like Wayne LaPierre of the N.R.A. They’ve pretty much given up on making any substantive case for their ideas in favor of rants about socialists trying to take away your freedom. It’s scary stuff, but it’s also kind of whiny; it’s what people sound like when they know they’re losing the argument.

Again, there’s no guarantee that the forces of decency will win. In particular, the U.S. electoral system is in effect rigged in favor of Republicans, so Democrats will need to win the popular vote by something like seven percentage points to take the House. But we’re seeing a real uprising here, and there’s every reason to hope that change is coming.

Follow me on Twitter (@PaulKrugman) and Facebook.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

Aquarium Dreams

How to set up an aquarium!

Magic Carpet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_1T2_l43Xo
Craig Milton
Published on Oct 5, 2010
This is an awesome video showing the incredible work high power line maintenance crews do on a daily basis to maintain our electrical grids... I've been asked many times where this came from, it's an excerpt from an IMAX production called "Straight Up: Helicopters in Action", I've included a link to the movie on IMBD:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330936/?...

Production is by SK Films
http://skfilms.ca/straight-up/

(I uploaded this video years ago, but have just found a better quality sample)

Fear: Electricity Heights Women

Tenebrus Luminous

adjective | TEN-uh-brus

Definition

1 shut off from the light : dark, murky

2 hard to understand : obscure

3 causing gloom

Tenebrous means "obscure" or "murky," but there's nothing unclear about its history. Etymologists know that the word derives from the Latin noun tenebrae, which means "darkness." Tenebrous has been used in English since the 15th century, and in the 20th century it was joined by some interesting relations. Tenebrionid is the name of a nocturnal beetle that is usually dark-colored and is also called a darkling beetle. Tenebrism refers to a style of painting—associated with the Italian painter Caravaggio—in which most of the figures are engulfed in shadow but some are dramatically illuminated by concentrated light.


Definition of luminous
1 a : emitting or reflecting usually steady, suffused, or glowing light

luminous objects—the nebula. the stars, the planets —Lincoln La Paz

b : of or relating to light or to luminous flux
2 : bathed in or exposed to steady light

luminous with sunlight

3 : clear, enlightening

a luminous explanation

4 : shining, illustrious

a luminous film star

a luminous performance

Mr. W

French Commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzU5VBfkPO8

Open Mind & A Thirst for Knowledge

Source

Successful people tend to always want to continue learning. It is likely part of what makes them successful in the first place. Entrepreneurial people in general and many highly successful people have an innate desire for an endless supply of information. They want to learn and discover new and different things to feed their curiosity and zest for life.

Just Because You’re Considered An Expert In Your Field, Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Need To Learn Anything More

It is incredibly arrogant for someone who is an expert at something to think that they don’t need to learn (or can’t be taught) anything more. We can always learn something new and often, if you are open to it, you can learn something new from the most unlikely sources. Sometimes it is actually good to unlearn something. Tests have been done with groups of adults and groups of children where a common, every day task is presented to each group but is switched up somehow, like putting a doorknob on the same side as the hinge of a swing door. The adults will try turning the knob and pushing the door once or twice and give up; whereas the group of children will continue to fiddle around with the doorknob and the door in general and eventually find that the door swings open when they push the opposite side.

Education Comes From So Many Different Things, Not Just Formal Training/Schooling

Getting a formal education is a very important and valuable thing but getting a degree doesn’t necessarily always equate to being able to do a job. Nor does the lack of having a formal education equate to someone being unable to do a great job. Common sense, negotiation skills, sales ability and general business savvy are just a few of the traits of successful business people that come from for more than a formal education.

Find Opportunities To Learn New Things

Learning should be seen as something exciting. Living a life full of wonder and a thirst for knowledge keeps you young. In fact, learning and challenging yourself through puzzles, crosswords and brainteasers, etc. has been shown in studies to slow the onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone And You’ll Be Amazed At What You Learn

You would really have to go through life with blinders on in order to stop yourself from learning. We have opportunities to learn new things in just about everything we do and from everyone we meet each and every day. To shut yourself off from that and just want to stay in your comfort zone is to stifle your growth and limit your life. When you learn, you live a greater life.

Learning New Things Will Only Make You More Successful

Being open to learning new things will make you more successful, regardless of what job you have. If you manage people, then carrying this philosophy forward one step further into realizing that not only are you in your job to help teach and mentor your staff, but that you are also able to learn a considerable amount from them as well; then you are among the elite of excellent managers. It takes the strongest leader possible to know that they can learn from everyone around them and it will ultimately lead to greater success.

Fuel your passions and shatter the boundaries of your dreams.

A Few Quotes

1. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

– Steve Jobs, Cofounder & CEO of Apple Inc.

2. “Bring your whole self to work. I don’t believe we have a professional self Monday through Friday and a real self the rest of the time. It is all professional, and it is all personal.”

–Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

3. “Do something you are passionate about, do something you love. If you are doing something you are passionate about, you are just naturally going to succeed, and a lot of other things will happen that you don’t need to worry about. There are so many opportunities and choices that women can make or anyone can make about what they do. Do something you are passionate about. Life is too short.”

– Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors

4. “There is an opportunity to create a new vision of the American Dream. A new vision that says achieving balance in your life is more important than the balance in your checking account. A new vision that says what you do does not define who you are.”

– Chris Gardner, Entrepreneur, Investor

5. “Let excellence be your brand. When you are excellent, you become unforgettable. Doing the right thing, even when nobody knows you’re doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you.”

– Oprah Winfrey, Media Proprietor

6. “Success is no longer a simple ascension of steps. You need to climb sideways and sometimes down, and sometimes you need to swing from the jungle gym and establish your own turf somewhere else on the playground.”

– Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder, LinkedIn

source