quotes at random, no. 44 - atldr

[fiefoe]

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n05/peter-campbell/why-does-it-take-so-long-to-mend-an-escalator/print

• Most of those who use escalators regularly become calmly capable.
• feel the admonitory wind of an advancing train
• (A handful of screws can be absurdly destructive and workers on the Underground are obliged – it’s a rule – to double-bag small metal items.)
• "It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it away was to deny its value and, by extension, the value of individuals generally." - Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/

• The problem isn’t you are a bad manager of your time – you are a bad tactician in the war inside your brain.
• In the struggle between should versus want, some people have figured out something crucial – want never goes away. <> Procrastination is all about choosing want over should because you don’t have a plan for those times when you can expect to be tempted.
• The trick is to accept the now you will not be the person facing those choices, it will be the future you – a person who can’t be trusted.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html

• Until artificial rubber was invented by the colony-impaired Germans, no modern economy could exist without the natural stuff.
• So far, it was all according to the general plan that the British had in mind: find some useful DNA in the Americas, stockpile it at Kew Gardens, propagate it to other botanical gardens around the world, make money off the proceeds, and grow the economy.
•  This kernel was really nothing more than a protocol, a set of rules.
• The cable, therefore, consists of an inner core of four optical fibers, coated with plastic jackets of different colors so that the people at opposite ends can tell which is which, plus a thin copper wire that is used for test purposes. The total thickness of these elements taken together is comparable to a pencil lead; they are contained within a transparent plastic tube. Surrounding this tube is a sheath consisting of three steel segments designed so that they interlock and form a circular jacket. Around that is a layer of about 20 steel "strength wires" - each perhaps 2 mm in diameter - that wrap around the core in a steep helix. Around the strength wires goes a copper tube that serves as the conductor for the 10,000-volt power feed. Only one conductor is needed because the ocean serves as the ground wire. This tube also is watertight and so performs the additional function of protecting the cable's innards. It then is surrounded by polyethylene insulation to a total thickness of about an inch. To protect it from the rigors of shipment and laying, the entire cable is clothed in good old-fashioned tarred jute, although jute nowadays is made from plastic, not hemp.

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