the ħive

From one perf optimization article: “However, one of the few things in the known universe faster than the speed of light is users impatience. ”

— Dimo Belov (@DimoBelov) August 6, 2019

The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.”

The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view...”

—Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling (1988)

via https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallacy-of-gray

also:

A guilty system recognizes no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody’s either for it or against it, we’re against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you amongst its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximize that effect, and some try to minimize it. You come from one of the latter and you’re being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible.

—Iain M. Banks, Player of Games (1988)

citing out of context here, but still worth it

As Michael Clarke memorably put it nearly a decade ago: when Tim Berners-Lee created the Web in 1991, it was with the aim of facilitating scientific communication and the dissemination of scientific research. The extent to which the Web hasn’t disrupted the scientific publishing industry (while, at the same time, dramatically reshaping nearly all other retail services) is therefore surprising.

“Rise of the platforms”, Nature Physics 15, 871 (2019)

If data is the new gold, then we’ve been living in the Wild West.

― Hannah Fry, “Hello World” (2018)

This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.

A plaque penned by Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason will memorialize Okjökull, Iceland’s first glacier lost to climate change.

Seems relevant to add this quote:

Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

― Kurt Vonnegut

We need a civilised world that goes on for all our grandchildren and beyond in which these guitars can be played and songs can be sung.

Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour auctioned off his guitars for $21.5 million and donated the money to public-interest environmental-law firm ClientEarth.

Some people have got a mental horizon of radius zero and call it their point of view.

— David Hilbert

Cause I’ve got the brains, they’re there in my head
All that remains is just to get out of bed
I’m missing the best part of the day
Stealing tomorrow to help me get over today

— The Fratellis, “Lazybones”