Thickness and selling books

Interesting:

To help this, you want the retailer to "face out" your book: to turn it so that the cover faces the aisle instead of the spine. This is only possible if your book is thick enough to stand on its own. Thickness is also a psychological cue to the customer that convinces them that the book is complete and, therefore, the only book they need to buy.

Like a treasure found in your own house
An enemy should be received with joy
For he is a friend to the Bodhisattva.

--Shantideva

If you're looking to date, you're batshit insane not to use the dating sites. It expands your options dramatically beyond the workplace or meeting the friend of a friend. I know some girls who don't use them (they see them as the mark of desperation I think), but this stigma will vanish in the next 10 years completely. A woman with a good photo can absolutely clean house on these things.

Marriage is for others

Marriage is ultimately for other people, so that they can understand and accept your relationship. There is no promise you can make in marriage that you could not keep if you were out of it (and you can break any promise you made in marriage including the marriage itself besides).

Stuff you actually have to think about now

Like, will my insurance company actually be solvent when I make a claim?

Assuming that you will be able to handle anything is the first step on the road to breaking.

Assuming that you do not have ignorance in you is the first and most important step to a lifetime of ignorance and hypocrisy.

Excellent book

Travels with Herodotus was a true pleasure to read. (I actually finished this book, and very quickly.) It was a depressing little shock to realize that a writer like that is no longer in our world.

How epic would that be?

I don't have health insurance at the moment, but when I joined AAA I was able to get some amount of medical bills paid in case I get in a car accident. If I recall correctly, it also covers snowboarding accidents, including decapitations.

Amazing game

The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson to Las Vegas in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused. The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other cars on the road. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it is impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly. If the bus veers off the road it will stall and be towed back to Tucson, also in real time. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they will score exactly one point. The player then gets the option to make the return trip to Tucson—for another point (a decision they must make in a few seconds or the game ends).

The drink that makes mating happen

We should have an Alcohol Awareness Day, where we give thanks for alcohol existing throughout history (since you might not be here if it didn't exist).

I swear, the energy I expend being a good person would go a great distance in destroying others.

I wonder if Alan Greenspan feels guilty before he goes to bed.  Does he defend his decisions to himself in his quiet moments?  Is he upset daily at going from a godlike figure to someone that people love to kick?

Folding this hand

I've decided to fold my website for events on a map. It's been nearly a year since I started and this decision took a long time, and has been chock full of pain.

Here's what happens: You keep telling (lying to) yourself that you will work on the site, but you find yourself working on it less and less. The worst part of not making a firm decision is that the idea takes up space in your brain, you feel guilty about not working on it and those thoughts just eat huge chunks out of your quality of life. (That's been awful.)

You can consider this an epic, epic fuckup. (I've forgiven myself.) I will still work on projects on my own in the future, but only if I'm passionate about them (not just to make something good for a money grab). I will have to bear the weight of being a quitter on this project in future projects, but it's something I'm willing to do. I have been sneaking time away from this project to read graphics papers, and so now I can do that without guilt, and also indulge my reading on philosophy and history.

The weight of the world seems lighter...

When I got back to Orange County, the library was hassling me for a proof of address even though I already had a library card here. (I ended up lying and showing them a magazine with my old address.) This seems like the opposite thing society should want: if I was homeless and I wanted to read, society should encourage that, or at least not hinder me too much.

It would be impressive to hear of someone who climbed Everest, but didn't tell anyone about it.

Truth

The soul is in constant danger of falling over.

-- Montaigne

A nice car is a terrible waste of capital, you can buy so many dinners, go on so many trips, spend time reading interesting shit if you make your money follow what actually makes you happy. I fucking love my life now, I'm scared for this time to end.

If someone had told me when I was a little boy that men would be treated as predators until proven otherwise, that would've really bothered me. Women have the nice advantage of being more trusted than men. On the other hand, women have the unpleasant job of weeding out guys that act really gross, so I guess it's just easier for them to toss all men into the same pool, and let the decent ones float to the top. Adults do a good job of hiding the unsightly, unpleasant details of the world from kids.