Consumption Weeks 52
My notes from some of the media I consumed this week.
Contents
11 Great Christopher Hitchens Quotes
- “I’ll try anything once except incest and folk dancing.”
- “To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? To whom would you delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read?”
- “I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.”
- “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realise that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”
- “If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say, ‘I’m still waiting to hear what your point is.’
- I’m very depressed how in this country you can be told, ‘That’s offensive!’ as if those two words constitute an argument.”
- “Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.”
- “I have one consistency, which is being against the totalitarian – on the left and on the right. The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy; the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.”
- “When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms, always be sure to ask which set. It works every time.”
- “The four most overrated things in the world are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.”
- “Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.”
Tags: Quotes, Attitude, Offense, Debate, Cats, Dogs
The Best Ideas of 2023
https://www.sahilbloom.com/newsletter/the-best-ideas-of-2023
- Starting on a Monday, at the end of each weekday, color code the events from that day according to this key: Management (Red), Creation (Green), Consumption (Blue), Ideation (Yellow).
Tags: Time Management, Consumption, Creation
What The Prisoner’s Dilemma Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything
- Typically the best is tit-for-tat: start nice, and retaliate once
- Keys: nice (don’t attack first), forgiving, retaliatory, clear
Tags: Game Theory, Argument, Persuasion, Negotiation
Wireless Millirobots Navigate Blood Vessels with Precision
https://www.azorobotics.com/News.aspx?newsID=14528
- Wireless millirobots have achieved a groundbreaking feat by navigating through a narrow blood vessel in both directions, against and along the arterial flow.
- Globally, one in four individuals succumbs to conditions stemming from blood clots annually. These clots obstruct blood vessels, impeding the delivery of oxygen to specific parts of the body. Millirobots present a promising solution [for] effectively eliminating blood clots from hard-to-reach blood vessels.
Tags: Medicine, Robotics
NTU Singapore spin-off EtaVolt develops new technology that rejuvenates solar panels and protects them from degradation
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1029523
- When intense light and controlled temperature are applied precisely to solar cells, they excite and cause the material molecules to move quickly, thereby changing their arrangement and patching up the ‘holes’ caused by light and heat damage.
Tags: Solar, Sustainability, Innovation
The Self Balancing Monorail
- Very cool tech - from the 1800s!
Tags: Trains, Transport, Innovation, Balance, Engineering
Traffic flow measured on 30 different 4-way junctions
-
1000!
Tags: Roads, Transport, Cars, Infrastructure
The Boxes DO NOT Move: The Wildest Optical Illusion I’ve Ever Seen
Tags: Illusions
The Strange, Broken Economics of Ireland
- Apple made Ireland into the tax haven it is today by inventing the Dutch Sandwich. It’s all moving falsely-valued IP boosting Ireland’s artificial GDP figures.
Tags: Tax, Corporate Greed, Business
What would authoritarian America look like?
https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/what-would-authoritarian-america
- Donald Trump has pledged to become a dictator “on day one.” He proudly boasted that voters most anticipate that a second Trump term will bring “revenge” and “dictatorship.” Trump recently vowed to shoot shoplifters, give the death penalty to drug dealers, and called to execute America’s top general. He’s planning to search for, round up, and deport millions of undocumented migrants—and again echoed the worst dictators in history when told his baying supporters that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Tags: USA, Democracy, Dictatorships, Authoritarianism, Politics
All 272 Tube Stations On The London Underground Bitchily Reviewed
https://londonist.com/london/transport/review-of-every-single-tube-station-on-the-london-underground
Tags: London, Funny
Visualized: The Top S&P 500 Stocks Over 20 Years
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-sp-500-stocks-over-20-years/
Tags: Stocks, Stock Market, Investing
The Events that Defined 2023: Visualized
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-events-that-defined-2023-visualized/
