Author Archives: keeper

Masquerades disclose the reality of souls

7816“Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant.”

Refreshingly aimless

You should always have a goal with a deadline. (Goals are dreams with a deadline.)

But sometimes, it is refreshing to go out for a run with no particular destination.

After a while, if you manage to tell your body to shut up, it happens to be a nice place for your thoughts to be.

Then back to work.

Exploiting parallel universes to make things zip

In distributed computing, making something faster doesn’t always mean “do less work.”

It usually means “doing more work… in parallel”.

To do more things in parallel, it means dividing work into smaller pieces that don’t depend on each other.

For instance, each room at the Inn is made up of many pieces that fit together like a puzzle. The posts… the pictures… the recommendations… the featured gallery in the sidebar… the private messages.

Every room is dynamic – no two are alike. And each room is conjured into existence a split second before each guest steps into it.

If each piece was retrieved one at a time, you would cry waiting. But fetch all pieces simultaneously, and you travel faster than light.

I can’t help myself

The smart thing to do is build small. Build simple.

That’s what everyone says you should do.

But I see an alien and beautiful world that I wish others could see too.

If it’s too simple, it might not make sense. 

But I must make it simple.

Because you can’t pray these balls into flight

Otto Lilienthal - The Father of Flight

Otto Lilienthal – The Father of Flight

Otto studied birds. He had a dream that man could fly. He threw himself off hills to chase his dream.

Only science could lift those brass balls into the air.

He made gliders long before he knew how. He crashed many times before he finally understood. He died long before he was understood.

He proved to the Wright Brothers that you could.

He died 36 hours after a 49 ft crash. His last words to his brother Gustav were, “Sacrifices must be made.”

Otto Lilienthal was the Father of Flight.