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I talk about the title below, in the social / culture / people section. It’s about being able to sit with sadness or a complex emotion and learning and growing from it. I used to be SUPER reactive and run from all that stuff.

But this is what I wanted to title the newsletter: “One day, O’Brien, you’re going to blow, and you’re going to leave a nasty stain.”

That is from a Conan episode with Steven Wright, which is one of the funnier eps in awhile because you really hear Wright be a natural conversationalist, laugh, and break his schtick and character, that is very much authentically him, anyway. I just love when people have these idiomatic expressions they can pull from a hat, at the perfect time. Before I discovered and got in touch with my reactivity born from self-doubt, insecurity, anxiety, etc, I was this powder keg of energy, in every direction, all at once. I might still be, but this line would have gone a long way to calming me down. I’m still reactive, but I used to be reactive, too! (a Mitch Hedberg joke riff)

 

Conan, talking about him bouncing off the walls when he was 22, or so:

“a writer named Steve Barker who was from the deep south he looked at me one day and he used to like to drink whiskey out of his desk and he just took a long sip of whiskey and he went one day, “O’Brien, you’re going to blow and you’re going to leave a nasty stain.”

It was a centering thing for Conan, and he knew he couldn’t “burn the candle at both ends” or “it will not last the night” (I’m adding the Edna St. Vincent Millay riff)

 

 

By the way, this bidet commercial that Conan reads is the most enjoyable and laugh out loud funny commercial in history. Seriously watch it:

 

 

 

  • Me, with a box of cords and cables I’ve not needed for over 10 years, but am scared to throw away lest I need a rare cable in two weeks:

 

SPACE

 

 

 

  • Watch a Japanese startup test a rocket engine that will run on cow-dung methane: Interstellar Technologies’ Zero rocket will use methane collected from cow manure. The Japanese launch startup Interstellar Technologies performs a combustion chamber static fire test at Japan’s Hokkaido Spaceport as part of the development of the Cosmos engine for its Zero rocket. Image released on Dec. 7, 2023. (Image credit: Interstellar Technologies Inc.) https://www.space.com/japanese-startup-biomethane-rocket-engine-test-video

 

 

 

  • USA BACK ON THE MOON:

Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander is alive and well on the moon News – The day after its tense moon touchdown, private company Intuitive Machines has offered an update on the Odysseus lander. https://www.space.com/intuitive-machines-odysseus-lander-alive-well-update-one

But it’s on it’s side. IT IS REALLY HARD TO LAND ON THE MOON!

 

 

 

 

  • Through the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists observed the intricate outflows of HH 211, hinting at a young binary star system. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, T. Ray (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies)

 

 

  • Rainbow Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall, Image Credit & Copyright: Stefano Pellegrini

Explanation: Yes, but can your aurora do this? First, yes, auroras can look like rainbows even though they are completely different phenomena. Auroras are caused by Sun-created particles being channeled into Earth’s atmosphere by Earth’s magnetic field, and create colors by exciting atoms at different heights. Conversely, rainbows are created by sunlight backscattering off falling raindrops, and different colors are refracted by slightly different angles. Unfortunately, auroras can’t create waterfalls, but if you plan well and are lucky enough, you can photograph them together. The featured picture is composed of several images taken on the same night last month near the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. The planning centered on capturing the central band of our Milky Way galaxy over the picturesque cascade. By luck, a spectacular aurora soon appeared just below the curving arch of the Milky Way. Far in the background, the Pleiades star cluster and the Andromeda galaxy can be found. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231227.html

 

For the full solar eclipse this year, someone made a map of all the sun or lunar themed spots in America…. and those towns in the direct view are gonna have some fun this year, let me tell ya!!

 

 

  • This is really, really far more interesting than I suspected:

What does space smell like? –> The exotic chemistry of planetary and interstellar space produces a bouquet of unusual aromas — if only there were air in space in which to smell them. https://www.space.com/what-does-space-smell-like

“hot metal, burnt meat, burnt cakes, spent gunpowder and welding of metal”

TIL that according to astronauts, space smells like a strange mixture of charred meat and raspberries. : r/todayilearned

 

  • From Space, satellites show how the earthquake lifted up Japan as if a Kaiju or Godzilla were holding a drink tray:

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

  • I know you’ve got to tear up the Uncanny Valley (the thing that creeps people out when a robot looks human but not human enough), and make the robots not spooky nor too human. So think outside the box, right?

THIS ROBOT IS REALLY CUTE.

Samsung has Ballie, a very real, very in production concept of a robotic home companion, and it has a projector which I imagine would be wildly efficient for recipes or youtube clips, etc.

Sorta Adventure Time Jake-ish? Samsung is betting your home needs an AI robot with a projector https://wapo.st/41Q3LNb

 

 

 

  • Uber, AirBnB, Crypto, AI. What’s Amazon but a “counterfeiting maximizer”

CDN media

 

 

  • The history of elevators is pretty fascinating, at least to a guy who has helped with design / build and maintenance / operations, and that’s beyond building hotels… I was the operator for the old historic Otis elevator at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder, Colorado, the oldest operating elevator west of the Mississippi! But of all the stories, and inventions, it’s this breathtakingly scary and wild German one that takes the cake:

The Paternoster, a doorless elevator that looks like a death trap. German gov has tried to ditch them out of safety concerns, but fans have battled back, and there’s still 200+ operating in the country:

 

 

 

  • Speaking of innovative German inventions:

 

 

 

These are really the robots.

 

 

  • Effortlessly functional, wildly necessary consumer technology from Neiman Marcus, in 1982. I guess Darth Vader was really into lounging. To a tune of $32,000. I’ve got to imagine there’s a few of these sitting under a tarp and dust in random houses. They’re not on ebay, and my aunt who works with NM doesn’t know where you’d find one, but maybe “the Texas Warehouse”. LET’S GO!!!

 

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A post shared by HUMANOID HISTORY (@humanoidhistory)

 

  • CHAOS? MADNESS? Efficiency!!!! How about 7 roundabouts in 1? Swindon’s Magical Roundabout!

 

 

  • They won’t embed, but this Chinese stop motion animator for video games is unreal with the cross-pollination of martial arts, stunt work, dance, mime work, acting, and more. Unbelievable talent, and fun to watch! Here’s one vid, but the ones in her suit show precise movements that are then mapped to characters. VERY TALENTED!

https://youtu.be/9bx8EGZ9Gb4?si=153CdkLwypKlrKbI

https://youtu.be/RJNmcHuygUc?si=VDL69mw5bGMUx8JC

https://youtu.be/RJNmcHuygUc?si=HF-i2KT2dWCyvBQd

https://youtu.be/h78951Tp5-Y?si=nzZrIF0IE-Gj80IY

 

 

COMEDY

  • Chris Farley would be 60, this week. Here’s a clip of his epic chaos, entering for an interview with Letterman, 1996.
@alltherightmoviesThe outrageous entrance from CHRIS FARLEY on Letterman.? original sound – All The Right Movies

 

 

  • This is the most important take about comedy in the last 5 years. Anthony Jeselnik on comics acting like the whole point is to get in trouble, when the job is to make people laugh. Doing woke and cancel jokes just to be edgy simply makes you an asshole with a microphone. In the end, the Kaufman lesson is the best, “Art is getting away with it”.
@anthonyjeselnikGreat comedians get away with it.? original sound – Anthony Jeselnik

 

 

  • With NY wit like Sam Morrill, and delivery like a Jewish Sebastien Maniscalco, this is one of the best stand up sets I’ve seen in awhile, and she’s definitely up and coming, or already here! Get on board the Robby Hoffman train early!

 

 

  • Bill Hicks in a normal, calm interview of his process and beliefs, etc. It’s pretty refreshing. I wonder if Lansdale, who wrote Bubba Ho-Tep, had heard of or known of Bill’s script idea for Elvis. It sounds really similar. Coscarelli and him should be asked about it.

 

 

  • THE IMPLICATION: I *LOVE* “It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia”, but that’s because I am on season 8 and it’s my first run through. There’s so many great episodes… The Gang Gets Trapped, The Gang Goes out to Dinner, and more. So many best of moments… but this moment of character development of Dennis going so dark shows his mind… and that he’s DEFINITELY a psychopath and probably a serial killer.

 

 

  • I am not sure if he moved on, or got canned, but whatever the case this writer for The Onion had some of the GREATEST HEADLINES of the last couple years. Supremely talented comedian:

 

 

 

 

MOVIES AND TV

  • This scene where they are very plainly speaking about two different intersecting worlds is marvelous. It’s not too late to start THE WIRE… one of the greatest written and best TV shows in history.

 

 

  • The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated:

 

 

  • Remember this game on the Atari? I’d watch 15 of these as a tentpole franchise. People have been talking about Barbie greenlighting toy films, and Super Mario Bros greenlighting video game adaptations, because you can’t ignore $1 Billion. A whole well written Atari throwback series would be so fun!

CDN media

 

 

  • If you thought Game of Thrones, Raised by Wolves, Devs, Silo, Foundation, Battlestar Gallactica, The Expanse, or other GIANT series like that were a gamble that could prove to be the best ever…. I present the trailer from THREE BODY PROBLEM. If you know the books, you know that this is a giant gamble, and to pull it off will be profound. From the trailer, I’ll say I’m on board with a positive sentiment and high hopes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • The Game Changer Jan Svankmajer, and “Dimensions of Dialogue” Stop Motion 11-min short. It explore 3 ways in which we interact and exchange symbols and ideas, and how it goes wrong and why. To explain the “plot”:

“Eternal conversation” (Dialog v??ný) shows Arcimboldo-like heads gradually reducing each other to bland copies; “Passionate discourse” (Dialog vášnivý) shows a clay man and woman who dissolve into one another sexually, then quarrel and reduce themselves to a frenzied, boiling pulp; and “Exhaustive discussion” (Dialog vy?erpávající) consists of two elderly clay heads who extrude various objects on their tongues (toothbrush and toothpaste; shoe and shoelaces, etc.) and intertwine them in various combinations.

Jan Švankmajer: Dimensions of Dialogue (1982) from özlem kahraman on Vimeo.

 

 

  • I’ve quite the obsession with Eyes Wide Shut. Is it played for face value? Is it a dream-sequence film? Is it just an ego-trip? Are there obvious homo-erotic undertones? What does the rainbow mean? Is it about super secret elitist sex cults, and Kubrick was trying to out them from within Hollywood? Did Kubrick know Tom and Nicole were doomed, and wanted to showcase the vacuousness of power couples? Why the reds and blues, and how they interact, and what did Christmas lights mean in this OH SO VERY “non-Christmas Christmas” film? You can just watch the film, and you don’t need to rabbit hole world history about power and cults… but Stanley built stuff into this dream world that is THERE, but undiscovered or unconfirmed. I’ve two dives here… the former a grounded theory with so much evidence it can look insane… and then a more typical deep dive into the role Tom Cruise played, and what it was to mean, and how Directors hire the best actor for the role, and now always the best actor.

LONG READ #1: The 33 Degrees of Eyes Wide Shut: ciphers, semiotics, and a dedication to discovery: https://33degreesofeyeswideshut.wordpress.com

This is a UNBELIEVABLY wild, deep-dive into the 33 Scottish Rites and Kubrick’s intent with subtext, Freemasonry, and the rational and even-keeled “conspiracy” of Eyes Wide Shut, that very well may be right. This is EXHAUSTIVE, and unless you are a dyed in the wool “True Cinema” or Kubrick fan, this isn’t going to hit home. But it’s some of the most interesting, if not best, niche film historical work I’ve seen, in a long time. Quite enjoyable to think about all this in context of what Stanley was actually doing. The evidence here will do a lot of heavy lifting for you to get past the notion of conspiracy, vs fleshing out the ideas that area apparent throughout the film.

 

Medium Read, #2 – What’s more, this Ebert.com discussion about Cruise in this role as a fish out of water is truly one of the best discussions I’ve seen on the intentionality of a director’s casting, and how that actor can shape or complete a role, even if they’re *not* the best actor, but the right fit for the part. Think of Ben Affleck working with Fincher in Gone Girl, vs Affleck working with Terrance Mallick.  Ben’s not the best actor, but he fits perfectly into one of those roles. I think that this article can dive so deep into the mythology of Stanley Kubrick, and what he was specifically trying to say or do with Cruise and Kidman, will give enough daylight between what’s on the screen, vs the subtext, that the former story about the Freemason subtext in EwS is given credence:

The Joke’s On Him: Tom Cruise and Eyes Wide Shut: I like to think of Cruise in “Eyes Wide Shut” as Rock Hudson turned loose in a Stanley Kubrick neo-noir dream, and not just for the obvious reasons. He’s in there angrily and desperately trying to win something that cannot be won, explain things that can’t be explained, and regain dignity that was lost a long time ago and will never come back. He keeps flashing his doctor’s ID as if he’s a detective (another film noir staple) working a case, and people indulge him not because they truly regard the ID as authority but because Bill’s intensity is just so damned odd that they aren’t sure how else to react. It’s hilarious because Bill doesn’t know how ridiculous it all is, and how ridiculous he is. He’s a movie star who lacks the movie star’s prerogative. Only by surrendering to the flow and accepting defeat can he survive. Only his wife, an awesome force unlocked in one moment, can save him. https://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/the-jokes-on-him-tom-cruise-and-eyes-wide-shut

 

Shorter read and thoughtful dive into the film and it’s intent, Kubricks work, etc: THE END OF THE RAINBOW: EYES WIDE SHUT ANALYSIS https://themitrailleuse.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/eyes-wide-shut/

 

 

 

  • An absolute living legend turns 88. Here she is talking about how she met Scorsese. She is behind most of Scorsese’s competence and masterful final products, since the beginning. One of the most important editors in film history, if not the GOAT.

 

 

 

See… they’re just like us! Christopher Nolan was clowned on by his own Peloton Instructor, in class… by accident. Oh wait, that’s not like us.

 

THE CLIP

 

 

 

  • Don’t call it a comeback, and his “Dream Scenario” is what Cage calls one of his top 5 scripts of his career (it is about a college professor who starts appearing in people’s dreams, inexplicably, and how he handles his newfound weird fame).

Forget Hollywood’s ‘old guard,’ Nicolas Cage says the young filmmakers get him https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220605524/nicolas-cage-dream-scenario

 

 

  • LEGENDARY Tony Scott talking about knowing he was doing soft-core with the volleyball scene in Top Gun:

 

 

MUSIC

  • These stitches are always superb, but from the cat, to the entrants, to Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy, to this guy at the end who basically wrote an entire Tony Award winning song? If that’s from something, and you know what… let me know. Because he’s amazing.

RE: THE GUY AT THE END… I CLOCKED HIM: He is talented across the board, from rock to rap to showtunes. WHAT A VOICE! https://www.tiktok.com/@sebtheoptimist

 

  • Here’s another one, a dryer spittin’ fire!

 

AND ONE LAST ONE:

 

  • This is hard to watch on multiple levels, and it’s hard to not make jokes about this, Elliott Smith, and why he’s no longer here. This is rough… the 1990s were a fever dream of greenlit madness. So bizarre:

 

 

 

  • Kim Wilde… did we all have a crush on her? Here she is performing “Hanging On” in 1986:

 

 

 

  • Arthur Godfrey in the late 1940s had some gems. This one is a cult hit and famous for being weird:

 

The “retire past culture’s” is a real thing: This is about a Dad beating his daughter in front of his son: SLAP ‘ER DOWN AGIN, PAW:

 

 

 

PEOPLE, CULTURE, & SOCIETY

 

  • Equality isn’t easy. Here’s a farcical supposition: What if the government got involved in making sure everything was fair, equal, and even? I present:

HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

A charmingly short story…  ‘Harrison Bergeron’ is dystopian fiction, a story based on a society whose attempt to achieve perfection goes horribly wrong. The society in the story focuses on the ideal of equality where intelligence and strength have been destroyed in the process.

 

  • Like Memento Mori, a Japanese concept recently covered in this newsletter, there is another concept, “Mono No Aware”. It’s wonderful, and I personally naturally feel it to the core of my being. It’s an empathy towards “things” ie anything that exists, with or without existence. It’s the summation in mental yin and yang of loving and living life, but understanding our ultimate impermanence.

Mono no aware https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware

The phrase is derived from the Japanese word mono (?), which means ‘thing’, the particle no, which means ‘of’, and the word aware (??), which was a Heian period expression of measured surprise (similar to ‘ah’ or ‘oh’), translating roughly as ‘pathos’, ‘poignancy’, ‘deep feeling’, ‘sensitivity’, or ‘awareness’. Mono no aware has seen multiple translations, such as ‘pathos of things’ and ‘sensitivity of things’; the Latin phrase “lacrimae rerum” has also been invoked. Awareness of the transience of all things heightens appreciation of their beauty, and evokes a gentle sadness at their passing. Norinaga saw the state of being aware as the fundamental condition of the concept. The term has seen gradual change in its meaning, although “from the beginning it represented a feeling of a special kind: ‘not a powerful surge of passion, but an emotion containing a balance…'”

Mono no aware, literally translated as “the pathos of things,” is a Japanese aesthetic concept that refers to the awareness of impermanence and the transient beauty of things. It encompasses a bittersweet feeling, acknowledging the inevitable passing of all things while appreciating their fleeting splendor. It is a focus on ephemerality, Beauty in transience, Wistful melancholy, Empathy and connection. Mono no aware permeates Japanese culture and manifests in various art forms, such as poetry, haiku, tea ceremony, and traditional gardens. It encourages mindfulness and living in the moment, cherishing the temporary beauty of life.

Two Haiku that relate the feeling of love and longing in life, versus dread and chaos. It’s a balance, and understanding:

 

Red leaves fall, swirling,

Whispering secrets to the wind,

Then silence returns.

The single petal floats down,

Dancing in the morning light,

A final, fragile grace.

 

  • There are so many amazing concepts that talk about things along these lines… ineffable human emotions about our experience in existing, especially about impermenance.

Wabi-sabi

Think “The Art of Andy Goldsworthy”, who experiments with nature as a canvas as married to time. Essentially, Wabi-sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature. It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.

Memento Mori:

Remember that you will die. Essentially remain present with this knowledge, than either ruin the present or worry outside of the present. It’s another Latin phrase that means a lot to the Japanese and their collectivist obsessions with permanence. This is similar to “Tempus Fugit“, in a sense. I spoke about Memento Mori a bit more in the same section of this newsletter:

Newsletter #0053 – “When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground”.

The Korean word “Han”

Which might be an analog of what underpins the concept of “Black Joy” in America, after nearly 500 years of injustice. It’s a brilliant word relating a complex, ambiguous, and deeply personal defining concept:

  1. Kim Yol-kyu defined han as “the collective trauma and the memories of sufferings imposed upon [the Korean people] in the name of oppression over the course of the nation’s five thousand-odd years of history”. Kim said that the meaning of han is ambiguous.
  2. The minjung theologian Suh Nam-dong described han as “a feeling of unresolved resentment against injustices suffered, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against one, a feeling of acute pain in one’s guts and bowels, making the whole body writhe and squirm, and an obstinate urge to take revenge and to right the wrong—all these combined”.
  3. Jon Huer describes han as a generational feeling of “having been ‘wronged’ by a superior agent”, such as fate or the government; he says that the accumulated han in Korea is enormous because of a long history of suffering from invasion, poverty, and international indifference.
  4. According to John M. Glionna, han is “intensely personal, yet carried around collectively, a national torch, a badge of suffering tempered by a sense of resiliency”.

Weltschmerz

The modern meaning of Weltschmerz in the German language is the psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when realizing that someone’s own weaknesses are caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and (physical and social) circumstances.

Lacrimae_rerum

You do not need to fear life if you are a person who understands the complexity of it with empathy and compassion.

A translation by Robert Fagles renders the quote as: “The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart.”[3]

Robert Fitzgerald, meanwhile, translates it as: “They weep here / For how the world goes, and our life that passes / Touches their hearts.”[4]

In his television series Civilisation, episode 1, Kenneth Clark translated this line as “These men know the pathos of life, and mortal things touch their hearts.”[5]

The poet Seamus Heaney rendered the first three words, “There are tears at the heart of things.”[6]

“Here, too, the praiseworthy has its rewards; there are tears for things and mortal things touch the mind. Release your fear; this fame will bring you some safety.” Virgil, Aeneid, 1.461 ff.

Ubi sunt

“where are those that were before us”, a respectful understanding that we’re all here standing on the shoulders of those before us, which may give us exigence to pave the road for those after us, who might not know us, nor be in existence as of now.

Vanitas:

Essentially, like Memento Mori, “remember that you will die”, in painter’s work showing the useless of vanity. It recalls the notion of “This too shall pass”, from beauty to existence. It’s a Dutch painter crew that were like “let’s embed this concept into this eras work, and it did the job. This reminds me of the papal “Sic transit gloria mundi“, where you must note that passing glory and transitory nature of life. Or maybe the idea of carpe diem, and plucking the pregnant and fertile fruit of the moment?

Mortality Salience

This is, essentially, “I’d love to enjoy existence by having a scotch, but I also don’t want to shorten the existence I’m celebrating” caveat to human existence, mortality, and health.  Essentially, mortality salience engages the conflict that humans have to face both their instinct to avoid death completely, and their intellectual knowledge that avoiding death is ultimately futile.

This is relevant, and AWESOME as a more modern concept:

Terror management theory (TMT)

is both a social and evolutionary psychology theory originally proposed by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski[1] and codified in their book The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (2015). It proposes that a basic psychological conflict results from having a self-preservation instinct while realizing that death is inevitable and to some extent unpredictable. This conflict produces terror, which is managed through a combination of escapism and cultural beliefs that act to counter biological reality with more significant and enduring forms of meaning and value

Mottainai

This sense of empathy in wasting, overusing, abusing the environment, another Japanese concept that Americans feel deeply with food waste, or losing our environment by accident or out of corruption or human endeavour.

We often hear in Japan the expression ‘mottainai’, which loosely means ‘wasteful’ but in its full sense conveys a feeling of awe and appreciation for the gifts of nature or the sincere conduct of other people. There is a trait among Japanese people to try to use something for its entire effective life or continue to use it by repairing it. In this caring culture, people will endeavor to find new homes for possessions they no longer need. The ‘mottainai’ principle extends to the dinner table, where many consider it rude to leave even a single grain of rice in the bowl. The concern is that this traditional trait may be lost.

Sehnsucht

Some researchers posit that Sehnsucht has a developmental function that involves life management. By imagining overarching and possibly unachievable goals, individuals may be able to create direction in their life by developing more tangible goals, or “stepping stones” that will aid them on their path toward their ideal self. “[Sehnsucht has] important developmental functions, including giving directionality for life planning and helping to cope with loss and important, yet unattainable wishes by pursuing them in one’s imagination.” It can also operate as a self-regulatory mechanism.

Saudade

is an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone. It is often associated with a repressed understanding that one might never encounter the object of longing ever again. It is a recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events, often elusive, that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused.

 

ABOUT THE NEWSLETTER TITLE:

  • It is a Greek saying. It simply means if you can face the grief, tragedy, sadness, hardship, and the like, and if you can sit with it and learn from it, you can grow at the same time and learn more about yourself. To be fair, the provenance of the exact saying isn’t clear.  For me, I’ve grown a lot to be less reactive (you can always keep growing!), and part of that is being able to sit with an emotion or feeling, instead of mentally running away from it. It’s helped me a lot to shape the world I see, and how I experience it. I guess, I’m glad I’m comfortable with all the emotions involved with the human condition and our collective experience. Life is *WILD*, huh? So, more on the history:

????? ?????. / Páthei máthos. – “(There is) learning in suffering/experience”, or “Knowledge/knowing, or wisdom, or learning, through suffering.” Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Year 177 (The variant ????? ????? means “suffering is learning/learning is suffering.”)

There was a poet who wrote the phrase. It’s quite a brief poem: May 1919, Wisdom through Tears, BY MIRIAM ALLEN DE FORD

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=14399

There’s also the “Wisdom of Tears”, but the provenance of that is also pretty difficult to find.

Not to be too heavy this week. It’s great stuff! =)

 

  • This mall had a commercial director in the mid 1980s, and they still deserve a raise. Holy cow they got the Outrun 80’s aesthetic before people knew it was a thing!

 

 

 

 

  • This is the most effective HR / Worker’s Comp Safety Video I’ve ever seen. WSIB Ontario made a BUNCH of these, and there’s like mini horror movies:

 

VEHICLES

 

 

 

The X-65 is an experimental jet being developed by the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program overseen by DARPA, (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Pentagon’s research and development agency. Since the first aircraft were invented, they have been controlled by moving surfaces such as rudders, flaps, elevators and ailerons.

The CRANE program aims to do away with these entirely and develop an aircraft controlled fully by jets of pressurized air that alter how the surrounding air flows over the aircraft while in flight.

 

 

Landspeeder!

 

 

The 18 Best EVs Coming in 2024 Tesla and BYD battled it out to be the major electric car player in 2023, all while global EV sales approached 10 million. Here are our picks for the best EVs of 2024. https://www.wired.com/story/best-evs-2024/

 

 

THIS IS HILARIOUS AND PERFECT AND TRUE:

By Uncle FishbitsCategories: Newsletter