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HALF_APHORISMS
January 19, 2004
Theory by all means,
but practice first. So why am I
writing
aphorisms?
Always reinvent the wheel (Oct 5, 2016)
first to understand someone
else's.
HOMILETICS
Freedom to be normal
isn't really freedom.
Tolerance of trivial
differences is not a GREENISH-TINGE
trivial thing.
Determining which
difference makes
a difference is
non-trivial.
Always act like you belong
there, even if you're getting
ready to jump out of the way.
A people determined to live like
animals will die like animals. (I must've stolen
this from some-
where. Pick better
places to steal.)
The Maginot line forms on the right. (January 10, 2006)
Like minds think gratingly. (March 25, 2006)
(April 6, 2003)
The hair dye is always redder on
the woman at the other table.
(February 6, 2003)
Do I repeat myself?
Very well, I repeat myself.
I contain multitudes
(pedants, fanatics, amnesiacs...).
Here stands a man who made
himself an idiot in hopes
of becoming a savant...
(July 23, 2004)
Don't be afraid to work backwards.
Create something to
fit a good title.
THE_IRON_KEY
Do something new
to fill a gap
between existing
parts.
(September 12, 2005 -
May 28, 2007)
For every attempt at generalizing a correct rule,
someone will find the wrong way to follow it.
(June 27, 2007)
"I don't think there are (Aug 26, 2017)
very many consumers left." We've all
-- Bruce Sterling been consumed.
("Web 2.0" talk)
An alternate "broken-windows theory":
If you break *enough* windows,
they'll have to give up on the Similar to the
"broken-windows theory". Bush/Cheney
strategy of
outrage fatigue.
(January 2007)
Don't plan on suddenly
becoming someone else.
You're what you've got to
work with. So now what?
(December 1, 2007)
Demanding politeness is never polite.
(July 21, 2017)
When you're in enemy territory, you need to be polite.
Annoying, but there it is.
(And maybe you're always in enemy territory.)
Everything I know about playing pool,
I learned from Scientific American. (~1990)
(I suck at playing pool.)
October 21, 2007
The fault lies not in
our mechanisms, but --
"We've all got to be our
own editors now."
-- caller to "Puzzling Evidence",
KPFA, October 26, 2007
(maybe "Suicide Man")
(early 2008)
If you're stuck with madness
you might as well presume
there's method in it.
Or that a method can
be created using it.
(June 1. 2008)
An intelligent person can usually
find a better way of doing anything,
including being stupid.
(March 24, 2009)
It is easier to create complexity
than it is to remove it.
Human projects are anti-entropic?
Unless "complexity" is a euphemism
for "chaos".
January 23, 2010
If necessity is the mother of invention,
then it's good to have necessities.
Or to be short on
the necessities?
February 12, 2010
Battle not with monsters,
lest ye turn them into human beings.
(And then you have real problems.)
February 20, 2010
Choose the least obvious thing that works.
March 1, 2010
A quarter-aphorism:
Well _______ is half-baked.
overrun snaked?
spun slaked?
braked, I think:
Well braked is half-baked.
raked?
Mar 12, 2010
"The Poet's Choice" might be
renamed "The Standards Body's Choice"
May 1, 2010
The amount of money and time expended on
schemes intended to save both is awe-inspiring
to contemplate.
Oct 12, 2010
Take it seriously.
But seriously, folks.
November 30, 2013
God may not play dice,
but he does play whack-a-mole.
April 5, 2014
My brain is like a sponge--
if you don't squeeze it out at night
it smells funny, and needs to be
microwaved again.
July 23, 2014
The conscious
consciousness
is not worth
condescending. GORNICK
(Um...)
October 29, 2016
The opera isn't over until
you push the fat man in
front of the trolley.
May 2016
Intellectual history always repeats itself,
the first time as farce.
You thought it was a joke, but no
idea is too absurd to inhabit a human mind.
May 10, 2017
Overstatement is dead.
April 20, 2018
Reasons for contempt and reasons for humility
are always close at hand.
April 24, 2018
The finger must point, and it must point elsewhere.
October 22, 2018
Those who rein are never reigned. On the plains.
June 2, 2019
An old one with me:
When one thing that should work doesn't work,
do something else that should work.
(When something that shouldn't work actually does,
what then?)
March 23, 2020
Nothing is more certain in life than the knowledge
that somewhere out there another writer is
crafting an aphorism about embracing uncertainty.
March 30, 2020
The two great consolations in life are religion and pornography.
(Strangely, religious pornography rarely seems to work well.)
June 3, 2021
We shall prevail, one motivational slogan at a time.
December 15, 2019
Assume the best.
Plan for the worst.
State the obvious.
May 12, 2022
If you plant an inspirational homily in the wilderness
who can tell what will spring forth years hence?
And the explosive growth of an invading species can
(usually) be reigned in somehow.
May 12, 2022
Flat, unqualified statements invariably provoke contradiction.
Need to inspire action? Tell yourself it's impossible.
April 8, 2018
"Every generation thinks it invented sex ..."
And they're right! Referencing Heinlein
(without apologies).
April 8, 2018
"Every generation thinks it invented sex ..."
When really it has yet to be invented.
October 05, 2022
Remember, it's not the idea, it's the execution.
(Bring me my guillotine...).
February 2, 2023
Or some combination of the two,
somewhere in between,
of off of this axis entirely.
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