MargaretC
@margaretc
MargaretC
i wish more people knew psychological impact of using the word “but” -
it can negate all that came before it in the listener’s ears. often acting as an unintentional dismissal
nibras ꩜ i love نبراس ◡̈x.comThe problem with expertise is that it's entirely backward-facing. Worse, the more experience we have the more we imagine we "know" what will happen when of course we don't. Peter Drucker's maxim still holds: "The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different". With AI, the right questions to ask are "how different, how fast, and... See more
Ethan Mollick • Confronting Impossible Futures
Iwakan is one of my favorite Japanese phrases. It consists of three Chinese characters, 違 ( i , meaning difference, deviation), 和 ( wa , meaning harmony, peace) and 感 ( kan , meaning feeling, sense), that together form a single word that loosely translates as a ‘sense of disharmony’. In daily interactions, I use the term casually when something... See more
Jack Ross • Disharmony as Intelligence - Tetragrammaton
Queneau’s stochastic method might put you in mind of one of those invariably lame improvisational comedy setups whereby a performer has to switch registers according to an audience’s shouted commands — delivering, say, a funeral eulogy first as infomercial sales patter, then as rap-battle braggadocio, then as bawdy Elizabethan comedy. And the book... See more
Staff Pick: Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau - The Millions
In the introduction to that (1963) edition, Queneau explains that the idea for the Exercises came to him in the 1930s, after he and his friend Michel Leiris had attended a concert at the Salle Pleyel where Bach's The Art of Fugue had been played. What particularly struck Queneau about this piece was that, although based on a rather slight theme, its variations "proliferated almost to infinity." It would be interesting, he thought, to create a similar work of literature.
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Peak Human. By Johan Norberg. Atlantic Books; 400 pages; $32.99 and £22
The way to start a “golden age” is to erect big, beautiful barriers to keep out foreign goods and people. That, at least, is the view of the most powerful man on the planet. Johan Norberg, a Swedish historian, makes the opposite case. In “Peak Human”, Mr... See more
Peak Human. By Johan Norberg. Atlantic Books; 400 pages; $32.99 and £22
The way to start a “golden age” is to erect big, beautiful barriers to keep out foreign goods and people. That, at least, is the view of the most powerful man on the planet. Johan Norberg, a Swedish historian, makes the opposite case. In “Peak Human”, Mr... See more
How golden ages really start—and end
the accumulation of learning, an inevitable byproduct of the process of growing up, takes us not closer to but further away from our creative source
Maria Popova • Beethoven’s Advice on Being an Artist: His Touching Letter to a Little Girl Who Sent Him Fan Mail
Way Out There is an account of J. Robert Harris’s extraordinary exploits while backpacking in some of the world’s most tantalizing places―largely alone and unsupported. And after almost fifty years of wilderness travel, “J. R.,” as he’s known, has plenty of tales to tell! His stories are by turns funny, tragic, and uplifting, and are all told in... See more