Explorers

“Nowadays being an explorer is a trade, which consists not, as one may think, in discovering hitherto unknown facts after years of study, but in covering a great many miles […]

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Culture and utility

Re-reading a chapter in Marshall Sahlins’ Culture and Practical Reason, Le Penseé Bourgoisie today I could have cited multiple chunks of though-provoking writing. Instead, here’s a simple passage outlining, in […]

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Giving ideas away

I’ve giving a talk – well 5 minutes of comments which will likely be off the cuff etc and probably not not worth posting here – at the first Unrulyversity session of […]

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Imagination

From the 2012 Jefferson Lecture by Wendell E Barry  “The term “imagination” in what I take to be its truest sense refers to a mental faculty that some people have […]

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Gone

From Nigger of the Narcissus by Joseph Conrad: A gone shipmate, like any other man, is gone for ever; and I never met one of them again. But at times […]

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Fiction

“Fiction is the study of the human condition through the medium of interesting lies—scenarios that explore some aspect of what it means to be a person” Charlie Stross

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One equal music

And into that gate they shall enter, and in that house they shall dwell, where there shall be no cloud nor sun, no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light, […]

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Internet punditry (1974)

From Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s 1974 collection of essays “The Consciousness Industry; On Literature, Politics and the Media”: The open secret of the new electronic media, the decisive political factor, which […]

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Three Types of People

I was interested in the following quote from Lynda Gratton from London Business School, in a Lunch with the FT Interview (several weeks ago). Not much more comment to make […]

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Make no little plans

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that […]

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Words, Words, Words

An NYT piece examines the content of previous innaugral speeches from 1789 to yesterday, sizing the words according to the frequency of their use. The words highlighted in yellow were used […]

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Three

This little aphorism was new to me and I like it – but the interweb doesn't say much about who this woman is/was…. "For a list of all the ways […]

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Warning

WARNING by Jenny Joseph When I am an old woman I shall wear purpleWith a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,And I shall spend my pension on […]

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