Things form in my brain. They get bigger & bigger until I must write them down to free up some space in my head.
It’s the same way a chicken lays an egg. When people eat that egg, the chicken is probably thinking, Really? You like that? It just came out of my butt.
Mike Reiss in Springfield Confidential
“Computer,” said Zaphod, “tell us again what our present trajectory is.”
“A real pleasure, feller,” it burbled, “we are currently in orbit at an altitude of 300 miles around the legendary planet of Magrathea.”
“Proving nothing,” said Ford. “I wouldn’t trust that computer to speak my weight.”
“I can do that for you, sure,” enthused the computer, punching out more tickertape. “I can even work out your personality problems to 10 decimal places if it will help.”
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
Oliver Burkeman provides an important and insightful reassessment of productivity. The drive to get more done can become an excuse to avoid figuring out what we actually want to accomplish. By confronting this question, we unlock a more meaningful approach to organizing our time.
Cal Newport
He turned to Stephen and said:
—Seriously, Dedalus. I’m stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring us back some money.
—That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your national library today.
—Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.”
Ulysses by James Joyce
How much energy could be harvested from this string of lightning strikes?
On March 27th, 2021, a series of severe thunderstorms crossed middle Tennessee, causing widespread flooding and putting on an impressive lightning show.
While most of the lightning stayed up in the clouds, the occasional bolt went to ground, and “cloud crawlers” put on a spectacular display every so often, too.
Which famous son* of a famous father preferred to spend the night of his old man’s celebrations brawling in a bar five hundred yards from the party, rather than hobnobbing with his family?
Our spies tell us a punch was thrown, and his faithful assistant was unable to Hold It Back. A father-son competition for publicity? Dad definitely won this round.
*As Hold It Back was the name of one of Jonny Rokeby‘s albums, nobody could really be in much doubt which father and son were in question.
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
In this novel forty-one million Englishmen die, but it is only suggested through the hardships of one couple.”
Richard H. Tyre – emphasising that effective writing involves understatement.
Men will gain infinitely more knowledge, insight, and eventually more products, from mastering the depths of the sea than from spending billions more trying to achieve conquest of sterile space.”
Jacques Yves Cousteau [all wet]
Haunting the seas from Norway through Iceland and all the way to Greenland, the Kraken would attack vessels with its strong arms, and having a taste for human flesh would devour the ship’s entire crew at once.
EDGAR
Come on, sir. Here’s the place. Stand still.
How fearful and dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air show scarce so gross as beetles.
GLOUCESTER
Set me where you stand.
King Lear (Act 4, scene 6, by Shakespeare)
On this night in 1846,following the marvellous calculations of Le Verrier of Paris and Adams of Cambridge concerning the celestial phenomenon known as the perturbations of Uranus, Herr Gaulle of Berlin discovered the existence of a new planet, one of the greatest triumps of theoretical astronomy. The planet was named Neptune“
Book of Days by Elizabeth & Gerald Donaldson
