Category: philosophy
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Sisyphus, “Say Anything”, The Seeker
The tragic part of living a life of “quiet desperation” (in the Henry David Thoreau sense) is usually the lost opportunity to do good as opposed to “intentional malice.” For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Sonnet 94 (William Shakespeare) In 2023 Merriam-Webster tells us that a…
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Feedback, praise, and constructive criticism
Starting with a definition: Communication is “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior” (thank you Merriam-Webster — emphasis mine) Notice the emphasis on “information is exchanged.” If INFORMATION is NOT being EXCHANGED then you don’t have “communication.” Two people yelling at each other might…
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Science Fiction, “social commentary”, and “Politics”
FIRST I will say that I am a fan of William Shatner OC. The “OC” stands for “Order of Canada” – which is an honor of merit bestowed by the Canadian government. The 2019 announcement specifically mentions Captain James T Kirk/Star Trek but these types of honors tend to be conferred because of a combination…
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Team building
The word “team” implies a coordinated ensemble. The word comes into the English language via Old High German with obvious “draft animal” connotations. Since modern English is a combination of Germanic and French/Latin vocabularies, we tend to have multiple words for the same concept – e.g. the French/Latin companion to “team” is probably “companion”/”company” (please…
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Random thoughts on Time, Distance, and Faster Than Light Travel
The good folks at Merriam-Webster give us 14 definitions for “time” as a noun, another 5 as a verb, and then 3 more as an adjective. A quick peek at the etymology tells us that the “time” came into the English language by way of Old English and (Old Norse) words for “tide.” That “time”…
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Mr Warhol and photography copyrights
Since Andy Warhol died in 1987 – the Supreme Court was probably/technically ruling against his “estate” in their recent decision. Mr Warhol had used a photograph of Prince (“The Artist”) in a 1980’s painting (“Orange Prince”) – money changed hands among the concerned parties back in the early 1980’s so there wasn’t any problem until…
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In Memoriam 16
… then THIS poem is directly about Arthur Henry Hallam — “who died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage in Vienna in 1833, aged 22.” (Thank you Google and probably wikipedia) Published in 1850 – which is the same year Alfred Tennyson married Emily Sellwood. Arthur Hallam’s death would have been 3 or 4 years earlier…
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Tennyson – Ulysses
also learned how to add subtitles with Davinci Resolve – which is not complicated but is time consuming. I’m sure there is a better way to create the subtitle file for youtube upload – e.g. there is “markup” in the subtitles which I didn’t intend. The picture is where Tennyson lived from 1853 until his…
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experience, time in service, and understanding
Another of my quixotic projects is making a video production of reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays – which I’m sure would appeal to maybe a handful of folks worldwide. BUT considering my track record in “estimating market potential” something that I think has zero potential would probably perform better than the ideas that I think…
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leadership is communication, “winning”
I wrote a long post that either needs editing or deletion – but at least it served as “pre writing” for this post. status quo If you want to be precise the “status quo” is simply the “current situation.” Which technically means that whatever is happening at the moment is the “status quo.” Usually the…