“I have mixed feelings about everything including America which i think is normal and healthy. I tell you what really makes me sick is the phrase ‘american exceptionalism’ the idea that we just start with the premise that we are better and so anything we do that benefits us is okay. I mean there’s nothing more insane or inhuman than that. I am a huge fan of people. Most of them. And there are character traits that combine americans that I have enormous affection and love for. and there are things about americaNS and America that I don’t like. I don’t think it’s a healthy attitude toward any group place or person to just love unconditionally to the exclusion of others without examining and trying to fix faults.”

— Comedian and media entrepreneur Louis C. K., whose recent advice on success and hard work is unmissable, shares his mixed feelings on patriotism. (via explore-blog)

(via explore-blog)

Apr. 13 2013

Via

228 notes

“

We have a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants. And it’s a policy unfit for today’s world.

The economy of the last century was primarily based on natural resources, industrial machines and manual labor. Many of these resources were zero-sum and controlled by companies. If someone else had an oil field, then you did not. There were only so many oil fields, and only so much wealth could be created from them.

Today’s economy is very different. It is based primarily on knowledge and ideas — resources that are renewable and available to everyone. Unlike oil fields, someone else knowing something doesn’t prevent you from knowing it, too. In fact, the more people who know something, the better educated and trained we all are, the more productive we become, and the better off everyone in our nation can be.

This can change everything. In a knowledge economy, the most important resources are the talented people we educate and attract to our country. A knowledge economy can scale further, create better jobs and provide a higher quality of living for everyone in our nation.

To lead the world in this new economy, we need the most talented and hardest-working people. We need to train and attract the best.

”

— Thoughtful, necessary Washington Post op-ed on the knowledge economy and immigration reform by Mark Zuckerberg. (via explore-blog)

(via explore-blog)

Apr. 13 2013

Via

196 notes

Finnegans Wake, annotated

Mar. 18 2013

evolutionists:

Sylvia Ballhause.
Cinemas.

evolutionists:

Sylvia Ballhause.

Cinemas.

(via theatlantic)

Mar. 12 2013

Via evolutionists

27,424 notes

explore-blog:

Vocal tract configurations and corresponding mouth configurations for three different vowels, along with sound spectra – from a fantastic 1963 illustrated guide to the science of speech published by Bell Telephone Labs.

Mar. 8 2013

Via

175 notes

“We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,” explained one of my hosts after my talk. “We are scanning them to be read by an AI.”

— Edge: TURING’S CATHEDRAL by George Dyson (via new-aesthetic)

(via new-aesthetic)

Mar. 8 2013

Via edge.org

89 notes