Joseph

“An act of pure attention, if you are capable of it, will bring its own answer,”

’s key point about EdgeRank is that its “two key ingredients” were manually programmed to reflect the judgments of Facebook’s engineers. That is, the programmers wrote the algorithm in code. In the traditiona

Economic miracles stem from discovery, not repeating tasks at greater speed.

The best reason for the layman to spend time studying culture is th at he can learn something useful and enlighten-ing about himself. This can be an interesting process, at times harrowing but ultimately rewarding. One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to... See more

Availability is no longer determined by one’s time, but by one’s attention. The problem, of course, is that our attention is constantly absorbed by the tools we use everyday, making us feel like we’re never truly available. As these tools continue to get nicer, prettier, and more powerful, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop checking them,... See more

The past wasn’t as good as you remember. The present isn’t as bad as you think. The future will be better than you anticipate.

People of the Western world, particularly Americans, tend to think of time as something fixed in nature, something around us and from which we cannot escape; an ever-present part of the environment, just like the air we breathe. That it might be experienced in any other way seems unnatural and strange, a feeling which is rarely modified even when... See more

the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.

Complete attention,” Weil declared, “is like unconsciousness.” As such, it is a state that does not entail a particular action or stance, but instead suggests a form of reception, open and nonjudgmental, of the world.