Call no man happy until he is dead. The phrase is a bit like an optical illusion: its meaning depends on the psychological topography of the person who is looking at the words. Some people see: “Life is suffering that only ends when you are dead”. Others see: “Even if things are good now, the […]
The round things in this picture of clear water aren’t rocks. They are little balls of algae tumbling around the bottom of the Adriatic sea off the Croatian coast. Occasionally they float to the surface of the water. Looking at these little balls is likely having a very different effect on you than it had […]
Last autumn, Microsoft made a subtle change to its Excel spreadsheets, one which flew under the radar for normal mortals. Unlike many other software tweaks, this one made it easier to stop the software automating certain tasks. Specifically, its tendency to automatically convert input into dates. One major reason for the change was the havoc […]
An American: You guys have something called Flying Ant Day. Is this some kind of national holiday? A British person who is tired of ants: I can see how you’d get there, given the past 14 years of British politics. Quite the opposite, though: it’s the summer day we all dread because unlike other commemorative […]
There was a brief moment in my life when I thought it was obvious what an internal world model is. Self-evident, even! It’s the homunculus version of the cosmos as represented inside the confines of our skulls. Like this Emily Dickinson poem I found in one of Maria Popva’s always illuminating articles about consciousness: The […]
Item code: Partial transcriptDate: 20330503 05:06:35Source: NeoBrane 1.8 cortical interface ExoRAM®™ cacheNote: Data retrieval partial due to implant damage got it done last year because Noah told me it did multiple orgasms for men. Before that I had the Neuron.XI. Which was fine, but it didn’t do that. Actually they specifically said it was impossible, […]
Here’s a time capsule. I wrote this in 2011, before flying – along with everything else – felt like it was getting more dangerous. One thing I definitely don’t think we will ever experience again is the joy of flying on a mostly empty plane. It’s not every day that a flight is delayed because […]
If you could record your dreams, would you ever be able to stop watching? That’s a central plot point in Until the End of the World, Wim Wenders’ three- to five-hour arthouse flop/work of staggering genius (depending on which cut you watch) from 1991. He threw cyberpunk, detective noir, and road movie into a blender […]