#2501: | When trying to understand the irrational behavior of humans, there are no better research subjects than your own family members. |
#2502: | Bonding happens. Even a sheik with a vast harem has his one favorite concubine, and it's her wits more than her looks that got her there. |
#2503: | The printed book was the internet of its era. Now it's just another medium, useful only when you want to spend 10+ hours with one topic. |
#2504: | There is no subject taught at the lectern that can't be better taught by a talented teacher writing and a motivated student reading. |
#2505: | On my bucket list: Get a tattoo to express my undying love for my girlfriend only to have her leave me two weeks later. |
#2506: | You may reduce the chance of robbery by installing a security system, but you'd reduce it even more by not owning anything worth stealing. |
#2507: | Meaningless Business Slogan #1: "Our People Make The Difference!" |
#2508: | Meaningless Business Slogan #2: "We're In Business For YOU!" |
#2509: | Meaningless Business Slogan #3: "Customer Service Is Our #1 Priority!" |
#2510: | Meaningless Business Slogan #4: "Taste The Difference!" |
#2511: | Meaningless Business Slogan #5: "Four Out Of Five Dentists Surveyed Recommend Sugarless Gum For Their Patients Who Chew Gum." (Duh!) |
#2512: | Meaningless Business Slogan #6: "Fifteen Minutes Could Save You 15% Or More On Car Insurance." (Or it "could" save you nothing.) |
#2513: | Meaningless Business Slogan #7: "The Place For Winners!" (while the casino's profits depend on more people losing than winning) |
#2514: | For many, mathematics is a drug as powerful as cocaine, luring them from reality into the illusion of perfection. |
#2515: | Benford's Law: In any set of numbers from the real world, numbers beginning with digits 1 or 2 are far more likely than 8 or 9. Weird! |
#2516: | Punishment may be just, but humiliation is not. |
#2517: | The maintenance of social order depends not on justice, which is unobtainable, but the illusion of it. |
#2518: | Insurance makes no sense for any loss you can afford to pay for out of pocket. (e.g. extended warrantees, postal insurance, etc.) |
#2519: | Go ahead, shit in the woods. The woods loves it: fertilizer! (No so thrilled with the pee though.) |
#2520: | The trouble with stupid people is they want to be stupid. There's no other explanation. Wisdom is all around them but they won't take it. |
#2521: | "Any idiot can do it!" applies to almost any graceful artform. However, it has to be a special kind of idiot. |
#2522: | Great art is so graceful that it flows out of the artist almost effortlessly. His only skill is in recognizing it. |
#2523: | Life is an imperfect negotiation with reality that rarely let's us achieve any theoretical ideal. |
#2524: | The world's worst jerks, thugs and assholes are those who follow a nice-sounding theory without any room for negotiation. |
#2525: | The job of education is to form young minds that don't have the motivation or direction to form themselves. |
#2526: | My superpowers: SPACIALMAN! - Without electronic help, I always know which way north is and how far it is to the nearest Wal-Mart™. |
#2527: | "Wal-Mart Security Cameras In Use." — Does that mean low-quality, Chinese-made, breaking shortly after first use? |
#2528: | Things haven't been the same at Wal-Mart™ since Sam died. It used to be about quality, not just screwing the little guy. (I mean, that too.) |
#2529: | It's a fact: Girls like bacon. If you want to make a girl do anything you want, cook her some perfectly crisp bacon. She'll be powerless. |
#2530: | Sex jokes are the last resort of the talentless comedian. |
#2531: | If you see a defect in yourself or the life you are living, there's no courage in making jokes about it. The courage lies in changing. |
#2532: | A little money can improve your life a lot, but a lot of money only improves it a little more. |
#2533: | Self-deprecating humor may seem charming at first, but it's usually just an excuse to avoid any real change. |
#2534: | Fashion is porn for women. |
#2535: | The pleasure of Southern California is stepping into the outside air and it feels just like the inside air. |
#2536: | On my bucket list: Move to L.A. to pursue my dream of acting. Land a role as "Beamer" on a TV sitcom. Become typecast and never work again. |
#2537: | Reason in humans is an illusion. Human behavior is dictated by ego, with reason backfilled only later to support the choice already made. |
#2538: | The posted speed limit is shown by signs on the highway. The unposted limit is when cops actually start ticketing. That number is secret. |
#2539: | "Zero Tolerance" is a nice political slogan, but in practice it's impossible. You'd end up throwing everyone in jail! |
#2540: | I'm on I-15 in the Mojave Desert, boxed in by traffic. The posted speed limit is 70 mph, but everyone around me is going 80. Road hogs! |
#2541: | On any open highway in America, there ain't nobody going below the speed limit. There's an unwritten buffer between rules and enforcement. |
#2542: | The trouble with superheroes in real life is they fly into a problem expecting to save people but end up becoming part of the problem. |
#2543: | Sleep is your brain's scheduled maintenance period. You can't cheat on maintenance and expect a safe and healthy waking life. |
#2544: | If you want to become skilled in some art form, it is a mistake to immerse yourself in the work of others. A clear mind is more important. |
#2545: | Some of the most wounded and troubled people are those who grew up in wealth and privilege but must face the world without it. |
#2546: | Any option you can't have seems better than the one you have, because the unavailable one isn't constrained by reality. |
#2547: | Someone who gets mad at inanimate objects is not someone you should be involved with in any intimate way. |
#2548: | @TheBosha "Smoking the salmon." - Don't smoke that shit, bro'! It'll mess with your mind! |
#2549: | "True happiness involves the full use of one's power and talents." — Douglas Pagels via @davidvgoliath |
#2550: | Wisdom is smart enough to know how fragile it is. |
#2551: | The most romantic gesture is not flowers or kisses but a word that shows someone understands you. |
#2552: | You can care about the whole world, but your efforts must focus on the sphere in which you have the most influence. |
#2553: | In the space journey of life, the jump to lightspeed is seeing in your own predicament universal truths. |
#2554: | "Booby traps are aptly named." @bytErrant |
#2555: | The preferable penalty for a romantic mistake is being nice to them for the rest of your life. |
#2556: | If a little of something makes you happy, it doesn't necessarily follow that twice as much of the same thing will make you twice as happy. |
#2557: | The worst mistakes of individuals and nations are when they try to impose a linear prediction on a curve, cycle or feedback loop. |
#2558: | Kilroy Cafe #66: "Life is Logarithmic... Not Linear!" http://bit.ly/bhAX2P A statistical oddity may help you make better personal decisions. |
#2559: | "To be or not to be.—Shakespeare. To do is to be.—Nietzsche. To be is to do.—Sartre. Do be do be do.—Sinatra." unknwn via @rantingrobot |
#2560: | "Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available." —Gregory Benford |
#2561: | There will always be a disconnect between the producers of a product and its consumers, who are encouraged to see mystique that isn't there. |
#2562: | The usual punishment for mistakes in life is some form of imprisonment. |
#2563: | There are many who will wish for something but few who will take the steps necessary to make it happen. |
#2564: | It's hard for me to have much sympathy for your suicidal gestures when you refuse to try anything new. What do you have to lose? |
#2565: | No arrogance can match that of bringing a new child into the world. |
#2566: | Someone who gets mad at inanimate objects and things that can't be changed will eventually blame you for his own problems. |
#2567: | One of my best photos: Crosses on Santa Monica Beach: http://bit.ly/ayR7HS (Aug. 2007) |
#2568: | There is no perfect security. There is only "good enough" security balancing risks and costs. |
#2569: | There is no reasoning with paranoia. Anything you say or do becomes part of the conspiracy. |
#2570: | Why do men walk with elbows turned outward while women walk with elbows inward? (Try it!) |
#2571: | "If you have to ask the people around you if it's a good idea or not, it probably isn't." @aubynr |
#2572: | My naïve youth was everything prior to my current age. |
#2573: | Wise men are forced to speak in riddles because some truths can only be learned by working them out yourself. |
#2574: | You never want to marry someone who worships you as a god, because your powers of rescue will never match their expectations of it. |
#2575: | Your relationship is doomed if your partner worships you but doesn't understand you. Sooner or later, worship will change to paranoia. |
#2576: | The other side of worship is paranoia. In both cases, you are seeing the object of your attention as capable of more than he really is. |
#2577: | The same people who would worship something blindly will also fear it blindly and eventually lash out at it in perceived self-defense. |
#2578: | Boring but true: The romantic relationship most likely to last is when both partners resemble each other in everything but gender. |
#2579: | You gain first-hand knowledge of all the sins and delusions of man by understanding yourself. |
#2580: | The advice a person most needs is the same advice he is unable to accept. |
#2581: | If a word results in anger, there's a good chance that word is accurate. |
#2582: | Today's worshipper is tomorrow's stalker. |
#2583: | Ositos de Goma (con sabores naturales y artficiales) |
#2584: | Our modern economy is powered by the delusions of people who have enough money but who think they need even more. |
#2585: | All human brains are not equal. There are fundamental processing differences between adults as great as between different species. |
#2586: | Can you be too famous, rich or beautiful? Yes! For each, there is a tipping point where the personal cost outweighs the benefit. |
#2587: | In marriage, as in other forms of communism, the fundamental risk is that one party will start taking more than he gives. |
#2588: | You can't change someone's bad habits with words alone, there must also be actual consequences. |
#2589: | Curiosity is the benchmark of intellect. |
#2590: | The stages of curiosity are orientation, exploration, integration and release. |
#2591: | Curiosity is the impulse, when a novelity is detected in ones environment, to actively explore it until it is understood. |
#2592: | Curiosity is rare in adults because it threatens the assumptions they have already invested in. They will look but not explore. |
#2593: | Curiosity is risky. It "killed the cat". The benefit lies in discovering new tools you wouldn't have known about otherwise. |
#2594: | What passes for curiosity in adults is merely "pseudo-curiosity" — exploration only within predetermined bounds. |
#2595: | You can have all the badges of intellect — the degrees, books and published papers — and still be devoid of curiosity. |
#2596: | True curiosity is unbounded, with no preconditions about where it may go. |
#2597: | Self-education consists of trying and failing, then learning from that failure and trying again. |
#2598: | He who is unwilling to fail is unwilling to learn. |
#2599: | There is no passion so violent as when one Britney Spears impersonator thinks another is horning in on her territory. Trust me on this. |
#2600: | "The chief cause of problems is solutions." — Eric Sevareid via @rantingrobot |