advising is fun because
if you give someone ideas, and they put in the work to bring them to life, it's like
Emerson gets me: quote of the day
"It [providence] has shown the heaven and earth to every child, and filled him with a desire of the whole; a desire raging, infinite; a hunger, as of space to be filled with planets; a cry of famine, as of devils for souls. Then for the satisfaction, - to
The story is not about the rise of bullies and authoritarians. The story is about how we respond.
The beautiful grimy buzzing streets of San Francisco
Spending a week in SF, first impression is the beautiful buildings, the busy foot traffic, and the grime. It feels like a city where everyone is pushing to the limit all the time, with clean airy offices but streets too busy for planters, despite the friendly climate. And the homeless.
on meritocracy and the estate tax
Of all the flimsy excuses of why children of the rich and powerful should have privileges from birth, meritocracy is perhaps the most blatantly illogical. Divine right of kings is more rational.
its not so much that the perfect is the enemy of the good, its that the ideal is the enemy of the real
cancer and greedy dictators
to write up properly: very close analogy - pull from GrannyD's speech; and the guy on Trevor Noah this week about data-basd and fact-based agencies having most problem with Trump cancer cells defect in repair = repressing dissent/truth the pathway to cancer is similar to the pathway to
Ayn Rand and Communist Propaganda
Had a really interesting conversation with some long time Russian friends of mine. My friend Inna told me that because of all the discussions about it she decided to read Ayn Rand's book; she said it was practically unreadable, and really reminded her of communist propaganda pieces. The
Vizzini...
Just finished "Its kind of a Funny Story", great book, looked up the author and found he committed suicide in 2013, 9 years after he wrote the book about depression and real friends and creativity and his 5 days in a psych ward. And tried to find his
The Jazz Fix: a riff-off of solutions to political corruption and gridlock
Fun times and cool stuff at Unrig the System - it was lovely spending days in the company of organizers and activists, and tech innovators working on fixing things. Wrote it up on Medium here: The Jazz Fix: a riff-off of solutions to political corruption and gridlock