Mark Reynolds > Recent Status Updates

Jonathan Davis is the narrator. I like him.

"the attractive force between two neutrons is just a few percent too weak" to allow element zero, with two neutrons and no protons.

"But though they had brought wood and kindlings by the advice of Boromir, it passed the skill of Elf or even Dwarf to strike a flame that would hold amid the swirling wind or catching in the wet fuel. At last reluctantly Gandalf himself took a hand. Picking up a faggot he held it aloft, and then with a word of command! At once a great spout of green and blue flame sprang out, and the wood flared and sputtered."

All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
a light from the shadows shall spring;
renewed shall be blade that was broken.
The crownless again shall be king.

Poem by Bilbo Baggins at Rivendell

"I do not think of converting others to Buddhism or merely furthering the Buddhist cause. Rather, I try to think of how I as a Buddhist humanitarian can contribute to human happiness."

"His [CTR Wilson, famous physicist who invented the cloud chamber] mother was a founder of the British Women's Temperance Association, but I do not know whether that was the reason CTR took a cold bath every morning, almost never touched alcohol, and his strongest expletive was 'tut tut.' "

There are a few technical mistakes, but most general readers wouldn't notice.

"Violence is a constant, the religious views are just the accompanying spin."

Thus, it is only logical to try to strike a balance between material developments on the one hand and the development of spiritual, human values on the other. In order to bring about this great adjustment, we need to revive our humanitarian values.

Science and technology, though capable of creating immeasurable material comfort, cannot replace the age-old spiritual and humanitarian values that have largely shaped world civilization, in all its national forms, as we know it today. No one can deny the unprecedented material benefit of science and technology, but our basic human problems remain; we are still faced with the same suffering, fear, and tension.

"It took about twenty minutes to go through ten miles. It was Sunday and the traffic was light."

LA, man.

"Lives up in the Valley. Sepulveda, up by the brewery." The Anheuser-Busch brewery is still there. Since 1954!

I just watched the movie, and I decided to re-read the book. So I pulled out my old, worn, 1973 paperback.

"When a strong emotion comes up, we can train ourselves to come back to our breathing and embrace it with mindfulness."

Colin Hernandez is a jazz aficionado just like many other spies/detectives/protagonists.

So far good.

Thomas quotes one Luther R. Fowler: "If Britain governs much of the world, we wondered if it did not because of the merit, capacity, and good sense of her sons in all lands." Considering all the violence the British empire has wrought, this is about as wrong as can be.

"The main point was for hikers not to distract themselves with their phones or use them to avoid noticing physical or emotional discomfort. Our pain, anxiety, and despair need our presence and attention to transform."

So the year passes on through its series of yesterdays,
and winter comes round again, as nature demands,
ever the same.

"A useful learning tactic, when one is faced with new abstract material, is to proceed slowly from the specific to the general, from the concrete to the abstract. The tremendous success of Euclidean geometry as a deductive system has led people to feel that a subject should be developed in the deductive mode, from general rules to specific examples. They are mistaken, especially when it comes to learning."

"A good analogy for this model making is the construction of a map of a city. The city and the map of the city are two distinct things that no one would confuse. This confusion is harder to avoid in cosmology."

"It is often been said that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (circa 1380) is one of the two long great poems in middle English, the other being Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1385)." But Gawain survived by chance, and was hardly read until the 19th century when it was first printed."