Sometimes Language Matters. Sometimes It Doesn't.

sometimes language matters. sometimes it doesn't.

The importance of discernment.

So I’ve gotten a bunch of asks and tweets asking me whether or not we should be worried about the impending explosion of the largest volcano on Earth (which I happen to live very nearby). No, you should not.

This latest round of speculation was sparked by a YouTube video…yes, literally a single...

I don't even remember why I started, only that it was a long time ago on a whim. Something about making a clever statement on the nature of capitalism, I think. And then I kept it going, kind of like a silly ritual for when folks would come back from trips. And when I started going to conventions, it became an exercise in researching design, exploring the many ways to summarize oneself on a tiny piece of cardboard. It was a mnemonic device, each card holding a specific memory of the person I received it from, or at least that was an idea. And I kept taking them, piles and piles of them, filling up books and bags and tiny novelty filing cabinets. But now that I've dug around my life, I can honestly say they don't have much meaning for me any more. The world has changed, and I have changed. And I think it's good to release the past in this way. So thank you, to everyone that's ever given me one of their tiny pieces of cardboard, thank you for the memories.

it's taoism. or is it supposed to be something else?

The romanization of Chinese pronunciation is a tricky beast. The current convention of this particular word is with a hard "D" sound, as in "dare" or "danger."

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

"I can’t stand moral absolutism. You know, there’s always that guy who wants to point out that Martin Luther King cheated on his wife— as if he obviously couldn’t have been a great person if he did something like that. Or someone will bring out an inspirational quote, and get you to agree, and then inform you that Hitler said it. As if a good thought couldn’t come from Hitler. Moral absolutism keeps us from learning from the past. It’s easy to say: ‘Hitler was a demon. Nazis were all bad seeds.’ That’s simple. It’s much harder to say: ‘Is that humanity? Is that me?’"