“
Max had long since learned that problems never go away: they just change faces.
”
”
B.B. Griffith (Blue Fall (The Tournament, #1))
“
I thought they was hard and I acted hard." He paused, then whimpered in confession, "But I ain't hard, Mr. Max. I ain't hard even a little bit...." He rose to his feet. "But.... I-I won't be crying none when they take me to that chair. But I'll b-b-be feeling inside of me like I was crying.... I'll be feeling and thinking that they didn't see me and I didn't see them....
”
”
Richard Wright
“
Now, anyway, we knew who was which blood type.
In addition to the beating he'd received from Chloe, Max was also starting to blister up (type A). The McKinley twins were hiding from us - they clearly had the paranoia (type AB). Ulysses was chattering to himself in Spanish, a rapid-fire monologue that made me pretty sure he had the paranoia type - type AB - as well as the twins.
Batiste had type B, the blood type that exhibited no symptoms, as did Alex, Jake, and Sahalia (sterility and reproductive failure - hooray!).
"We have to get them clean," Brayden said.
"You think?" I sort of shouted at him (type O).
”
”
Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14 (Monument 14, #1))
“
If it is true that a picture paints a thousand words, then there was a Roman centurion who got a dictionary full. All he did was see Jesus suffer. He never heard him preach or saw him heal or followed him through the crowds. He never witnessed him still the wind; he only witnessed the way he died. But that was all it took to cause this weather-worn soldier to take a giant step in faith. “Surely this was a righteous man.”1 That says a lot, doesn’t it? It says the rubber of faith meets the road of reality under hardship. It says the trueness of one’s belief is revealed in pain. Genuineness and character are unveiled in misfortune. Faith is at its best, not in three-piece suits on Sunday mornings or at V.B.S. on summer days, but at hospital bedsides, cancer wards, and cemeteries. Maybe that’s what moved this old, crusty soldier. Serenity in suffering is a stirring testimony. Anybody can preach a sermon on a mount surrounded by daisies. But only one with a gut full of faith can live a sermon on a mountain of pain.
”
”
Max Lucado (No Wonder They Call Him the Savior -: Discover Hope in the Unlikeliest Place?Upon the Cross (The Bestseller Collection Book 4))
“
Max kept repeating, ‘As hire As. Bs hire Cs. So the first B you hire takes the whole company down.
”
”
Jimmy Soni (The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley)
“
Niv" Max repeated. "Spelled N-I-V?"
"Yes"
"N-I-V", she repeated. "As in New International Version?" I tilted my head to the side. "New International version of what?" "The B-I-B-L-E -- and now, I am officially going to have Sunday school songs running on a loop all night.
”
”
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games, #3))
“
He comes from the grave, his body a home of worms and filth. No life in his eyes, no warmth of his skin, no beating of his breast. His soul, as empty and dark as the night sky. He laughs at the blade, spits at the arrow, for they will not harm his flesh. For eternity, he will walk the earth, smelling the sweet blood of the living, feasting upon the bones of the damned. Beware, for he is the living dead. —OBSCURE HINDU TEXT, CIRCA 1000 B.C.E.
”
”
Max Brooks (The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead)
“
Antes de conocerlo se había sentido muy sola. Le conté que por las mañanas yo decía el nombre de Max incluso antes de abrir los ojos. Ella me dijo que su vida había sido como escuchar un disco horrible una y otra vez, cada día, y en un instante le habían dado vuelta al disco, y sonaba música. Max la oyó y me sonrió. Ves, amor, ahora estamos en la cara B. (Del cuento Hasta la vista)
”
”
Lucia Berlin
“
The future pushed forward. Max went frail and splintered and perished (he went to sleep and stopped breathing). I took over his shop with his boyfriend, until he went frail and splintered and perished. Then it was me and Eugene, until he went frail and splintered and perished. The polar bears went extinct. East Boston sunk beneath the ocean. The west coast burned to cinder. Thousands died in a tube shot through space, floating frozen and static forever.
I’m still here. Here for some time.
”
”
B.R. Yeager (Negative Space)
“
Examples abound: one final one. On the copyright page of his first book, The Works of Max Beerbohm, Max found the imprint
London: JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head
New York: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Beneath it, he wrote in pen:
This plain announcement, nicely read.
Iambically runs.
The effortless a-b-a-b rhyming, the balance of "plain" and "nicely," the need for nicety in pronouncing "Iambically" to scan - this is quintessential light verse, a twitting of the starkest prose into perfect form, a marriage of earth with light, and quite magical. Indeed, were I a high priest of literature, I would have this quatrain made into an amulet and wear it about my neck, for luck.
----John Updike, writing about the poetry of Max Beerbohm
”
”
John Updike (Assorted Prose)
“
Cynnie’s disappeared while I’ve shut up shop. So has Ty, without even giving me a hug. He’s getting a dozen noogies for that the next time I see him. I lock up, checking and double-checking my security. On the way back from checking the manual lock on the fire escape door, I find the dress Cynnie was wearing draped across the foot of the staircase up into the loft like a fallen flower petal.
“Baby?”
Her wild giggle answers me.
Grinning, I scoop up the dress and carry it up the stairs.
I expect her to be n*ked in the bed, but she’s not. There’s no sign of her.
“Baby, where are you?”
Another wild giggle. With the open plan of my apartment, the stairwell, and the screen of trees in the loft, the acoustics can be weird. I was sure the first giggle came from upstairs. Now, it sounds like her giggle is coming from downstairs.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, bumble baby,” I call.
Insane giggles. I spin around in place on the landing, trying to locate the source of those irresistible giggles.
“When I find you, I’m going to b*te my bumble very hard on her b*ttom,” I growl.
“I sting you!”
That was definitely from my bedroom. I tear through the doorway and look around. No naughty bumble in my bed. I yank open the closet doors. No naughty bumble in my closets. There aren’t many hiding places in my bedroom. There’s no way she could fit between the trees.
Then I spot the black rectangle half-hidden in the rumpled bedding. A phone. She’s put it on speaker and dimmed the screen. That sneaky little bee.
I grab the phone and growl into it. “I’m going to find you.”
“I fly away!”
“You’ll never get away from me, little girl. And when I catch you, I’m going to eat you up.” I grip the phone, so turned on my hand shakes, muscles bunching. I pant into the phone. “I’m going to find you, wherever you are, and rail you into the ground.”
She squees. There’s a very faint echo, and I realize where she is.
Game on.
”
”
E.J. Frost (Max's Bumble (Daddy P.I. Casefiles, #3))
“
When I started in real estate, despite high ambition, I was constrained by the same 24 hours as everyone else. My early success came from a grueling schedule, long hours, and the high price of near burn-out. In self-defense, I devised a system that featured direct marketing in place of traditional prospecting plus a highly effective team, with all the non-rainmaker tasks delegated to them. This took me to the top of the profession, twice #1 in RE/MAX worldwide in commissions earned, and 15 years as one of the top agents—working less hours than most. While an active agent, I consistently sold over 500 homes a year, even while starting and developing a second business, training and coaching more millionaire agents than any other coach. Without the inspiration of Dan Kennedy’s direct marketing methods and his extraordinary, extreme time-management philosophy, these achievements simply would not have been possible. LEVERAGING yourself, by media in place of manual labor, and with other people is very intimidating to most real estate agents and to most small businesspeople. It frankly is not easy to get right, but it is the quantum leap that uniquely and simultaneously lifts income and supports a great lifestyle. —CRAIG PROCTOR, CRAIGPROCTOR.COM
”
”
Dan S. Kennedy (No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Guide to Time Productivity and Sanity)
“
After this interlude we return to the question of the parcel. Yes, says the Postmaster, it has been here – actually here in the office! But it is here no longer. It has been removed to the custody of the Customs. Monsieur B. must realize that parcels are subject to Customs dues. B. says that it is personal wearing apparel. The Postmaster says: ‘No doubt, no doubt; but that is the affair of the Customs.’ ‘We must, then, go to the Customs office?’ ‘That will be the proper procedure,’ agrees the Postmaster. ‘Not that it will be any use going today. Today is Wednesday, and on Wednesdays the Customs are closed.’ ‘Tomorrow, then?’ ‘Yes, tomorrow the Customs will be open.’ ‘Sorry,’ says B. to Max. ‘I suppose it means I shall have to come in again tomorrow to get my parcel.’ The Postmaster says that certainly Monsieur B. will have to come in tomorrow, but that even tomorrow he will not be able to get his parcel. ‘Why not?’ demands B. ‘Because, after the formalities of the Customs have been settled, the parcel must then go through the Post Office.’ ‘You mean, I shall have to come on here?’ ‘Precisely. And that will not be possible tomorrow, for tomorrow the Post Office will be closed,’ says the Postmaster triumphantly. We go into the subject in detail, but officialdom triumphs at every turn. On no day of the week, apparently, are both the Customs and the Post Office open!
”
”
Agatha Christie (Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir)
“
SUPPLEMENT DAILY DOSAGE Vitamin A 10,000 IU or 6 mg beta-carotene (choose mixed carotenes if available) B-complex vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5: 50 mg B6: 50 mg, or 100 mg if nauseated (can be higher: if necessary up to 250 mg to prevent nausea) B12: 400 mcg Choline, Inositol, PABA: 25 mg Biotin: 200 mcg Folic acid: 500 mcg (increase this to 1000 mcg if you have suffered a previous miscarriage, if there is a history of neural tube defects in your family, or if you are over 40 years of age) Vitamin C 1–2 g (take the higher dose if you are exposed to toxicity or in contact with, or suffering from, infection) Bioflavonoids 500–1000 mg (helpful for preventing miscarriage and breakthrough bleeding) Vitamin D 200 IU Vitamin E 500 IU (increasing to 800 IU during last trimester) Calcium 800 mg (increasing to 1200 mg during middle trimester when your baby’s bones are forming, or if symptoms such as leg cramps indicate an increased need) Magnesium 400 mg (half the dose of calcium) Potassium 15 mg or as cell salt (potassium chloride, 3 tablets) Iron Supplement only if need is proven; dosage depends on serum ferritin levels (stored iron) If levels < 30 mcg per litre, take 30 mg If levels < 45 mcg per litre, take 20 mg If levels < 60 mcg per litre, take 10 mg This test for ferritin levels should be repeated at the end of each trimester, and we give further details in Chapter 11. Manganese 10 mg Zinc 20–60 mg, taken last thing at night on an empty stomach (dose level to depend on results of zinc taste test, which ideally should be performed at two monthly intervals during your pregnancy; see page 172–174 for details) Chromium 100–200 mcg (upper limit applies to those with sugar cravings or with proven need) Selenium 100–200 mcg (upper limit for those exposed to high levels of heavy metal or chemical pollution). Selenium is best taken away from vitamin C, but can be taken with zinc. Iodine 75 mcg (or take 150 mg of kelp instead) Acidophilus/Bifidus Half to one teaspoonful, one to three times daily (upper limits for those who suffer from thrush) Evening primrose oil 500–1000 mg two to three times daily MaxEPA (or deep sea fish oils) 500–1000 mg two to three times daily Garlic 2000–5000 mg (higher levels for those exposed to toxins) Silica 20 mg Copper 1–2 mg (but only if zinc levels are adequate) Hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes For those with digestive problems. There are numerous proprietary preparations which contain an appropriate combination of active ingredients. Ask your health practitioner, pharmacist or health food shop for guidance, and take as directed on the label. Co-enzyme Q10 10 mg daily
”
”
Francesca Naish (The Natural Way To A Better Pregnancy (Better babies))
“
In Leibniz we can already find the striking observation that *cogitatur ergo est* is no less evident than *cogito ergo sum*. Naturally, *est* here does not mean existence or reality but being of whatever kind and form, including even ideal being, fictive being, conscious-being [*Bewusst-Sein*], etc. However, we must go even beyond this thesis of Leibniz. The correlate of the act of *cogitatio* is not, as Leibniz said, being simply, but only that type of being we call "objectifiable being." Objectifiable being must be sharply distinguished from the non-objectifiable being of an act, that is, from a kind of entity which possesses its mode of being only in performance [*Vollzug*], namely, in the performance of the act. "Being," in the widest sense of the word, belongs indeed to the being-of-an-act [*Akt-Sein*], to *cogitare*, which does not in turn require another *cogitare*. Similarly, we are only vaguely "aware" of our drives [*Triebleben*] without having them as objects as we do those elements of consciousness which lend themselves to imagery. For this reason the first order of evidence is expressed in the principle, "There is something," or, better, "There is not nothing." Here we understand by the word "nothing" the negative state of affairs of not-being in general rather than "not being something" or "not being actual." A second principle of evidence is that everything which "is" in any sense of the possible kinds of being can be analyzed in terms of its character or essence (not yet separating its contingent characteristics from its genuine essence) and its existence in some mode.
With these two principles we are in a position to define precisely the concept of knowledge, a concept which is prior even to that of consciousness. Knowledge is an ultimate, unique, and underivable ontological relationship between two beings. I mean by this that any being A "knows" any being B whenever A participates in the essence or nature of B, without B's suffering any alteration in its nature or essence because of A's participation in it. Such participation is possible both in the case of objectifiable being and in that of active [*akthaften*] being, for instance, when we repeat the performance of the act; or in feelings, when we relive the feelings, etc. The concept of participation is, therefore, wider than that of objective knowledge, that is, knowledge of objectifiable being. The participation which is in question here can never be dissolved into a causal relation, or one of sameness and similarity, or one of sign and signification; it is an ultimate and essential relation of a peculiar type. We say further of B that, when A participates in B and B belongs to the order of objectifiable being, B becomes an "objective being" ["*Gegenstand"-sein*]. Confusing the being of an object [*Sein des Gegenstandes*] with the fact that an entity is an object [*Gegenstandssein eines Seienden*] is one of the fundamental errors of idealism. On the contrary, the being of B, in the sense of a mode of reality, never enters into the knowledge-relation. The being of B can never stand to the real bearer of knowledge in any but a causal relation. The *ens reale* remains, therefore, outside of every possible knowledge-relation, not only the human but also the divine, if such exists. Both the concept of the "intentional act" and that of the "subject" of this act, an "I" which performs acts, are logically posterior. The intentional act is to be defined as the process of becoming [*Werdesein*] in A through which A participates in the nature or essence of B, or that through which this participation is produced. To this extent the Scholastics were right to begin with the distinction between an *ens intentionale* and an *ens reale*, and then, on the basis of this distinction, to distinguish between an intentional act and a real relation between the knower and the being of the thing known."
―from_Idealism and Realism_
”
”
Max Scheler (Selected Philosophical Essays (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy))
“
Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; atoms and void [alone] exist in reality. —Democritus, ca. 400 B.C.
”
”
Max Tegmark (Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality)
“
Max was fascinated by the woman and more than a little curious about what she might be up to. Sarah Johnson had come from a two-parent, affluent home with a squeaky-clean past. She'd been the golden girl, high school cheerleader, valedictorian and had apparently glided through college without making a ripple, coming out with a bachelor of arts degree in literature. She'd married well, had six children and then one winter night, for some unknown reason, she'd driven her car into the Yellowstone River. Her body was never found. Because there were no skid marks on the highway, it had looked like a suicide. Foul play had never been suspected.
That was twenty-two years ago. Now she was back - with no memory of those years or why she'd apparently tried to take her own life.
Max wanted this story more than he wanted a hot cup of coffee this morning.
”
”
B.J. Daniels (Lucky Shot (The Montana Hamiltons, #3))
“
A wave rocked her and he grabbed for her, pulling her against him. His warm, wet skin brushed against hers, and then his arms were around her, his mouth on hers as he tangled his legs with hers.
Kat lost herself in his kiss, in his mouth, in his touch, as the ocean waves gently rocked them and the sky paled into twilight. A rogue wave dropped over them, driving them underwater - and apart. Kat kicked her way to the surface, coughing on the salt water.
Max came up looking as surprised by the kiss as the wave that had almost drowned them. "I didn't mean for that to happen. But you looked so damned... kissable.
”
”
B.J. Daniels (Lucky Shot (The Montana Hamiltons, #3))
“
It beats where my parents first made out. They went to the West Yellowstone dump. They sat in the dark and waited for the bears to come out."
Max laughed, smiling over at her. "And then what?"
"About the time the bars in town closed, the grizzlies would chase away the black bears. Everyone who was parked at the edge of the dump would turn on their headlights and watch the grizzlies dig in the garbage."
"You Montanans really are a romantic bunch.
”
”
B.J. Daniels (Lucky Shot (The Montana Hamiltons, #3))
“
First slow dance, you get out there and ask her. Promise?"
Max knocked back his shot. "Fine, I can probably manage that."
I chugged my water as another good song came on. So I grabbed his hand. "Don't be self-conscious. I'm going to teach you some move. Nothing fancy."
He watched me for a few seconds than shook his head. "My pelvis only moves that way under one circumstance. This isn't it.
”
”
Ann Aguirre (I Want It That Way (2B Trilogy #1))
“
If husband took his retirement benefit after FRA and widow takes the survivor’s benefit at or after her own FRA, she will, indeed, receive his actual retirement benefit—his full retirement benefit inclusive of his Delayed Retirement Credits. As it happens, this may be even more than the check he was receiving each month. Why? Because his monthly Medicare Part B premium may have been withheld from his monthly Social Security check and of course those premiums no longer need to be paid.
”
”
Laurence J. Kotlikoff (Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security (The Get What's Yours Series))
“
Of course, the first words that I ever speak to Max McLellan can’t be Hi or how’s it going? Nope, it has to be a word used for excrement. Nice.
”
”
R.B. Hilliard (His End Game (MMG, #1))
“
So what precisely is it that we don’t understand about consciousness? Few have thought harder about this question than David Chalmers, a famous Australian philosopher rarely seen without a playful smile and a black leather jacket—which my wife liked so much that she gave me a similar one for Christmas. He followed his heart into philosophy despite making the finals at the International Mathematics Olympiad—and despite the fact that his only B grade in college, shattering his otherwise straight As, was for an introductory philosophy course. Indeed, he seems utterly undeterred by put-downs or controversy, and I’ve been astonished by his ability to politely listen to uninformed and misguided criticism of his own work without even feeling the need to respond.
”
”
Max Tegmark (Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence)
“
Naval Warfare: For surface vessels and even submarines there was much continuity between the First and Second World Wars. The battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines of the 1939-45 period were generally bigger, faster, and better armed than their 1914-18 predecessors but not fundamentally different. Indeed, they had not changed much since the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Yet naval warfare was nevertheless transformed by the introduction of aviation. Fleets that were once built around battleships came to be built around aircraft carriers instead.
Aircraft proved superior not just to conventional surface ships but also, in the Battle of the Atlantic, to submarines as well. German U-boats preying on Allied shipping were foiled through a variety of means including convoying of merchants ships and the use of radar and sonar. But the weapon that proved most effective was an aircraft dropping depth charges. The dispatch of long-range B-24s equipped with the latest radar to patrol the North Atlantic in 1943 helped to turn the tide against the U-boats. The proliferation of small escort carriers also allowed air cover for convoys even in the middle of the ocean. Submarines proved more effective in teh Pacific, where the vast distances precluded effective patrolling by aircraft and where the Japanese did not devleop the types of advanced antisubmarine techniques employed by the Allies in the Atlantic. U.S. submarines took a heavy toll on Japanese merchantmen and warships alike once they managed to fix the problems that bedeviled their Mark 14 torpedo early in the war. "A force comprising less than 2 percent of U.S. Navy personnel," naval historian Ronald Spector would write of U.S. submariners, "had accounted for 55 percent of Japan's losses at sea." The torpedo, whether launched by submarines, surface ships, or airplanes, proved the biggest ship-killer of the war.
”
”
Max Boot (War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today)
“
That's definitely big enough a bang that I feel we can call it Big with a capital B
”
”
Max Tegmark (Vart matematiska universum : mitt sökande efter den yttersta verkligheten)
“
Which super power from the following attracts you the most? A Flying 20 B Reading minds 30 C Physical strength 10 D Healing wounds 50 E Invisibility 40
”
”
Marie Max House (What is Your Rank in a Wolf Pack ?: Let's find are you the Alpha, Omega or some other member of the Pack (Quiz Yourself Book 3))
“
for the rest of the night. Other than to refuel with holiday leftovers. “Would you still love me if I told you I didn’t know what tasted better, Christmas leftovers or you?” Jana cocked her eyebrow with a sexy smile on her face. Damn, she was beautiful. “No but I will be mad unless you do some very thorough research and come up with a satisfying answer…” I grinned. This Christmas was unlike any of the others Jana and I had spent together. This time we had two little boys, a bigger family and we’d faced our biggest threat yet and come out on top. “If it’s for the sake of research, consider me in babe.” And I spent the rest of the night doing science. Between the gorgeous legs of my beautiful wife. I was pretty sure in that moment, life for the Reckless Bastard’s couldn’t get any better. Merry friggin’ Christmas to us! * * * * If you think the Reckless Bastards are spicy bad boys, they’re nothing compared to the steam in my next series Reckless MC Opey, TX Chapter where Gunnar and Maisie move to Texas! There’s also a sneak peek on the next page. Don’t wait — grab your copy today! Copyright © 2019 KB Winters and BookBoyfriends Publishing Inc Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing Inc Chapter One Gunnar “We’re gonna be cowboys!” Maisie had been singing that song since we got on the interstate and left Nevada and the only family we’d had in the world behind. For good. Cross was my oldest friend, and I’d miss him the most, even though I knew we’d never lose touch. I’d miss Jag too, even Golden Boy and Max. The prospects were cool, but I had no attachment to them. Though I gave him a lot of shit, I knew I’d even miss Stitch. A little. It didn’t matter that the last year had been filled with more shit than gold, or that I was leaving Vegas in the dust, we were all closer for the hell we’d been through. But still, I was leaving. Maisie and I’d been on the road for a couple of days. Traveling with a small child took a long damn time. Between bathroom breaks and snack times we’d be lucky to make it to Opey by the end of the month. Lucky for me, Maisie had her mind set on us becoming cowboys, complete with ten gallon hats, spurs and chaps, so she hadn’t shed one tear, yet. It wasn’t something I’d been hoping for but I was waiting patiently for reality to sink in and the uncontrollable sobs that had a way of breaking a grown man’s heart. “You’re not a boy,” I told her and smiled through the rear view mirror. “Hard to be a cowboy if you’re not even a boy.” Maisie grinned, a full row of bright white baby teeth shining back at me right along with sapphire blue eyes and hair so black it looked to be painted on with ink. “I’m gonna be a cowgirl then! A cowgirl!” She went on and on for what felt like forever, in only the way that a four year old could, about all the cool cowgirl stuff she’d have. “Boots and a pony too!” “A pony? You can’t even tie your shoes or clean up your toys and you want a pony?” She nodded in that exaggerated way little kids did. “I’ll learn,” she said with the certainty of a know it all teenager, a thought that terrified the hell out of me. “You’ll help me, Gunny!” Her words brought a smile to my face even though I hated that fucking nickname she’d picked up from a woman I refused to think about ever again. I’d help Maisie because that’s what family did. Hell, she was the reason I’d uprooted my entire fucking life and headed to the great unknown wilds of Texas. To give Maisie a normal life or as close to normal as I was capable of giving her. “I’ll always help you, Squirt.” “I know. Love you Gunny!” “Love you too, Cowgirl.” I winked in the mirror and her face lit up with happiness. It was the pure joy on her face, putting a bloom in her cheeks that convinced me this was the right thing to do. I didn’t want to move to Texas, and I didn’t want to live on a goddamn ranch, but that was my future. The property was already bought and paid for with my name
”
”
K.B. Winters (Mayhem Madness (Reckless Bastards MC #1-7))
“
Max Levchin’s Plan A was not to be. Demand for security on handheld devices never materialized. He remained a vagabond. But he was cooking another idea. Max pursued a Plan B that centered on cryptography software. “It’s really cool, it’s mathematically complex, it’s very secure,” said Levchin.7 But once again, no one really needed it. Plans C, D, and E didn’t work out any better. Levchin’s Plan F, still based on his cryptography expertise, was a system for securely transferring cash from one PalmPilot to another. As part of that effort, Levchin’s team built a Web-based demo version that did everything on a Web site that the PalmPilot version could do. By early 2000, people were using the Web version for actual transactions, and the growth of the Web demo was more impressive than for the handheld version. “Inexplicable,” recalled Levchin. “The handheld one was cool and the Web site was … unsexy … a demo. Then all these people from a site called eBay were contacting us and saying, ‘can I put your logo in my auction?’ We told them ‘No. Don’t do it.’ Eventually, we realized that these guys were begging to be our users. We had the moment of epiphany. For the next twelve months, we just iterated like crazy on the Web site version.”8 Levchin finally had a tool that filled a void, allowing ravenous eBay traders to safely transfer cash from buyer to seller. Plan G—a little outfit called PayPal—was born. And did it strike gold. PayPal is the now dominant system of paying securely for online purchases. Eventually, eBay, whose internally run payment system was floundering, bought PayPal for $1.5 billion.
”
”
John W. Mullins (Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model)
“
Push press. The push press is identical to the press but includes a leg drive. The lift initiates from the legs and is completed through the arm and hand. This allows more diversified conditioning in addition to significantly increasing the ability to work at higher volume and intensity. Once you find the max load you can use in the press, the use of your legs will allow you to do more than you can in a strict press. The use of the legs also allows greater endurance because you are distributing effort over more of your body. To perform this exercise, clean the kettlebell to your chest (see figure 7.20a). Load the stance by sinking your knees downward as you compress your rib cage (see figure 7.20b). Immediately follow the slight downward knee bend with fast and explosive lifting, pressing your feet vigorously into the ground (see figure 7.20c). From the extension of the legs, the kettlebell will already be more than halfway to the top. Complete the lift by pressing through the triceps into the overhead lockout position, identical to the top position of the press (see figure 7.20d). To drop the kettlebell back to your chest, rise up slightly on your toes as you move your body back in order to allow the kettlebell to fall straight down the chimney (see figure 7.20e). Your feet are planted again as the kettlebell reaches your chest and your elbow slides on top of your hip (see figure 7.20f). When performing this exercise, use anatomical breathing with four breathing cycles. Starting from the rack position, inhale deeply before the initial compression, and then exhale as you drop into a half squat. Inhale as you extend the legs and bump with the rib cage, and exhale as you lock out. Take one full breath cycle while in lockout and add more recovery breaths if needed. Inhale as you deflect the trunk backward to drop the kettlebell, and exhale as the kettlebell lands back in the rack position.
”
”
Steve Cotter (Kettlebell Training)
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The following rules are the fundamental differentiators to keep in mind throughout this book. 1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance. Retirement planning is like life insurance. It should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario: in this case, becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive. Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons: a. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice. b. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs-for-dinner standard of living. Even one million is chump change in a world where traditional retirement could span 30 years and inflation lowers your purchasing power 2–4% per year. The math doesn’t work.3 The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending. c. If the math does work, it means that you are one ambitious, hardworking machine. If that’s the case, guess what? One week into retirement, you’ll be so damn bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes. You’ll probably opt to look for a new job or start another company. Kinda defeats the purpose of waiting, doesn’t it? I’m not saying don’t plan for the worst case—I have maxed out 401(k)s and IRAs I use primarily for tax purposes—but don’t mistake retirement for the goal.
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Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek)
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In the words of their best-known commander, the B-29 “had as many bugs543 as the entomological department of the Smithsonian.
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Max Hastings (Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45)
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Traditional 401(K) or 403(B) Account Typically offered by your employer, a 401(k) account allows you to invest a percentage of your wages for retirement. A 403(b) is the public sector’s equivalent to a 401(k). Investing through a 401(k) or 403(b) is one of the most advantageous ways to invest, since the government is giving you tax breaks. Your employer will sometimes match what you contribute, up to a certain percent. (FreE mONaY!) Remember from our Financial Game Plan that this is the trump card: if you have an employer match, take advantage of it. Maximum yearly contribution: $20,500, which means you can contribute any amount up to that limit. This does not include any employer match, so go crazy. (This and all other retirement account maximums are current for the 2022 tax year.) Individual Retirement Account (IRA) This is an individual retirement account, meaning it’s not tied to your employer. You have to open it up on your own, and it’s yours forever. Good news: you can have both a 401(k) and an IRA! Maximum yearly contribution: $6,000. You technically have fifteen and a half months to contribute that $6,000. The government lets you put money in your IRA during the twelve months of that year, plus the first months of the following year leading up to the tax filing deadline. A little confusing, but stay with me: if you want to contribute to your IRA in 2023, you will have from January to December 2023, plus January to April 15, 2024, to hit that $6,000 max. So, let’s say that you’re rounding out the year of contributions at $4,500. That means you have another three-ish months to get the full $6,000! More time, yay! If we’re already in the new year, and you want the money to specifically go to the previous year’s IRA, you simply need to specify that when you contribute. It’s usually as easy as checking a “previous year” box. Let’s talk about the most common retirement accounts. In addition to the differences above, 401(k) and IRA accounts come in two flavors: traditional and Roth. The main difference between these accounts is in how they’re taxed. In traditional accounts, you won’t pay any taxes on this money until you withdraw it at retirement. You get the tax benefits now. Roth accounts require tax payments now, so you don’t have to pay them later. You get the tax benefits later. In some cases, you can make both traditional and Roth contributions into the same account.
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Tori Dunlap (Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love)
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[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent the agent or agents see it as subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of a priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.
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Max Weber
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[Sociology is] ...the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent the agent or agents see it as subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of a priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.
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Max Weber
Marie Max House (What animal are you most like ?: Quiz Yourself and Discover Your Inner Self)
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B. How is Jesus able to understand our weaknesses? C. How is our great high priest different from us? 2. Read 1 John 4:9–11. A. How did God show his love for us? What was the purpose of this action (v. 9)? B. Why did Jesus come into this world, according to verse 10? C. What conclusion does John reach, based on what he has said in verses 9–10? 3. Read Hebrews 2:11–18. A. According to verse 11, what does Jesus call those he saves? Why does he call them this? B. What was the purpose for Jesus becoming human, according to verses 14–15? C. Why can Jesus fully understand any problem or challenge you face, according to verses 17–18? How does this make him the perfect helper for you? Battle Lines Spend some time thanking God for claiming you, saving you, and using you. Ask him to use you to bring others to him, and then look for ways to bless others as God has blessed you. Review the five stones with which you’ve been equipped to face your giants.
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Max Lucado (Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible)
Max Reid (Gehazi and the Big Lie: One Man's Lesson in Coveting the Things of Others (The Max Reid Bible Adventures Collection Book 4))
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We professors are often forced to hand out grades, and if I were teaching Risk Management 101 and had to give us humans a midterm grade based on our existential risk management so far, you could argue that I should give a B-on the grounds that we're muddling by and still haven't dropped the course. From my cosmological perspective, however, I find our performance pathetic, and can't give more than a D: the long-term potential for life is literally astronomical, yet we humans have no convincing plans for dealing with even the most-urgent existential risks, and we devote a minuscule fraction of our attention and resources to developing such plans. Compared with the roughly twenty million U.S. dollars spent last year on the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the largest organizations focused on at least some existential risks, the United States alone spent about five hundred times more on cosmetic surgery, about a thousand times more on air-conditioning for troops, about five thousand times more on cigarettes, and about thirty-five thousand times more on its military, not counting military health care, military retirement costs or interest on military debt.
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Max Tegmark (Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality)
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Beware of false positives: Personalities can affect the signals exhibited by liars. Consider
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Max B. Powell (How to Lie and How to Detect Lies)
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Certainly, what Kant calls the transcendental reference, experience and object of experience are in a sense present in both opposed views of the nature of the subjective *a-priori*. In both cases the object must 'order itself' according to the rules of the knowing mind or its functions, irrespective of whether the specific function of cognition is based on a systematic construction, synthetization, formation of the object from 'given' sensational material or on a methodical selection-process (suppression, abstraction, disregard) imposed on a self-constituting object. For if the order of selection in which the fulness of the world, as it is in ipseity, reaches man (or a particular kind of man, e.g., a type of racial or cultural unity) is so governed that an object of essence *B* is only given when an object of essence *A* has already been given (if, that is to say, *A* has datum-priority over *B* in order of time―not necessarily in direct succession), then if an object *X* is simultaneously of essence *A* and *B*, everything which is true of *A* must necessarily be true of *X*―not vice versa. For example, if spatiality and extensity have strict perceptual priority over all essential properties of matter and corporeality, geometry must be strictly valid for all possible bodies. But the same principle, the applicability of geometry to all bodies without exception, would still hold good if Kant's doctrine were true―though it denies the very reality of extension and space, and explains the spatial form as merely a subjective aspect of the datum. Thus in both cases the transcendental validity of the so-called *a-priori*, even for the objects of experience, would persist, so that in itself it offers us *no* criterion of choice between one or other *hypothesis*―that which supposes a synthetic addition of the form on the part of the spontaneous mind, or the other, which postulates an ordered selection in conformity with foreknown essences."
―from_On the Eternal in Man_. The Nature of Philosophy, with a new introduction by Graham McAleer
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Max Scheler
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But, as the conflict-studies scholar Jayne Docherty argues, the F.B.I.’s approach was doomed from the outset. In “Learning Lessons from Waco”—one of the very best of the Mount Carmel retrospectives—Docherty points out that the techniques that work on bank robbers don’t work on committed believers. There was no pragmatism hidden below a layer of posturing, lies, and grandiosity. Docherty uses Max Weber’s typology to describe the Davidians. They were “value-rational”—that is to say, their rationality was organized around values, not goals. A value-rational person would accept his fourteen-year-old daughter’s polygamous marriage, if he was convinced that it was in fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Because the F.B.I. could not take the faith of the Branch Davidians seriously, it had no meaningful way to communicate with them:
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Anonymous
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Several major and significant discoveries in science occurred in the 19th and 20th century through the works of scientists who believed in God. Even in just the last 500 years of modern scientific enterprise, a great many scientists were religious including names like Isaac Newton, Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, William Thomson Kelvin, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Louis Pasteur and Nobel Laureate scientists like:
1.Max Planck
2.Guglielmo Marconi
3.Robert A. Milikan
4.Erwin Schrodinger
5.Arthur Compton
6.Isidor Isaac Rabi
7.Max Born
8.Dererk Barton
9.Nevill F. Mott
10.Charles H. Townes
11.Christian B. Anfinsen
12.John Eccles
13.Ernst B. Chain
14.Antony Hewish
15.Daniel Nathans
16.Abdus Salam
17.Joseph Murray
18.Joseph H. Taylor
19.William D. Phillips
20.Walter Kohn
21.Ahmed Zewail
22.Aziz Sancar
23.Gerhard Etrl
Thus, it is important for the torchbearers of science to know their scope and highlight what they can offer to society in terms of curing diseases, improving food production and easing transport and communication systems, for instance. To mock faith and faithful, the scientists who do not believe in God do not just hurt the faithful people who are non-scientists, but a great many of their own colleagues who are scientists, but not atheists.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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The great writers—Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Max Weber, Samuel Beckett, George Orwell, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin and others—knew that thought is subversive. They challenged and critiqued the dominant narrative, assumptions and structures that buttress power. They freed us. They did not cater to the latest fashion of the academy or popular culture. They did not seek adulation. They did not build pathetic monuments to themselves. They elucidated difficult and hard truths. They served humanity. They lifted up voices the power elites seek to discredit, marginalize or crush
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Chris Hedges (Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism)
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My hair stained grey. My skin cracked into miniature valleys. I changed so slowly I didn’t even see it happening. Always dying becoming who I needed to be.
The future pushed forward. Max went frail and splintered and perished (he went to sleep and stopped breathing). I took over his shop with his boyfriend, until he went frail and splintered and perished. Then it was me and Eugene, until he went frail and splintered and perished. The polar bears went extinct. East Boston sunk beneath the ocean. The west coast burned to cinder. Thousands died in a tube shot through space, floating frozen and static forever.
I’m still here. Here for some time.
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B.R. Yeager (Negative Space)
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Hunter-gatherers, too, are much more murderous than their urban, industrialized counterparts, despite their communal lives and localized cultures. The yearly rate of homicide in the modern UK is about 1 per 100,000.91 It’s four to five times higher in the US, and about ninety times higher in Honduras, which has the highest rate recorded of any modern nation. But the evidence strongly suggests that human beings have become more peaceful, rather than less so, as time has progressed and societies became larger and more organized. The !Kung bushmen of Africa, romanticized in the 1950s by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas as “the harmless people,”92 had a yearly murder rate of 40 per 100,000, which declined by more than 30% once they became subject to state authority.93 This is a very instructive example of complex social structures serving to reduce, not exacerbate, the violent tendencies of human beings. Yearly rates of 300 per 100,000 have been reported for the Yanomami of Brazil, famed for their aggression—but the stats don’t max out there. The denizens of Papua, New Guinea, kill each other at yearly rates ranging from 140 to 1000 per 100,000.94 However, the record appears to be held by the Kato, an indigenous people of California, 1450 of whom per 100,000 met a violent death circa 1840.
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Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
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Several types of inventory records are maintained in an effort to monitor food cost, determine purchase quantity, and identify inventory levels to maintain. Six of them are outlined in the following subsections: valuing inventory, the “ABC method,” fixed-item inventory, par stock system, “mini-max system,” and economic order quantity.
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Ruby Parker Puckett (Foodservice Manual for Health Care Institutions (J-B AHA Press Book 150))
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The Importance of Israel's Past (1–8) I Will Teach You (1–3) Truths in parables (1–2a) Things hidden from old (2–3) You Will Teach Others (4–8) The wonders of God (4) The word of God (5–8) The Insurrection of Israel's Past (9–16) They Rebelled Against God (9–11) They forsook his word (9) They forgot his works (10–11) God Rescued Them (12–16) God did wonderful things (12) God divided the sea (13) God directed them through the sea (14) God divided the rock (15–16) The Ingratitude of Israel's Past(17–31) They Defied God (17–19) They sinned against him (17) They tested him (18) They spoke against him (19) God Delivered Them (20a) He struck the rock (20a) He served them water (20b) They Disbelieved God (20b) They doubted he would give them bread (20b) They doubted he would give them meat (20b) God Disciplined Them (21) He was wrathful toward them (21a) He was angry with them (21b) They Denied God (22) They did not believe him (22a) They did not trust him (22b) God Delighted Them (23–31) God commanded the clouds (23) God rained down manna (24) God fed them abundantly (25–29) God disciplined them (30–31) The Insincerity of Israel's Past (32–39) They Rejected God (32–37) They sinned against God (32–33) They sought God (34) They remembered God (35) They lied to God (36) They left God (37) God Remained Faithful (38–39) He forgave them (38) He remembered them (39) The Insubordination of Israel's Past (40–55) They Rebelled Against God (40–42) They turned from God (40) They tempted God (41) They forgot God (42) God Rescued Them (43–55) He performed signs (43) He sent plagues (44–51) He led them (52–53) He directed them into the land (54) He drove out the nations (55a) He divided up the land (55b) The Idolatry of Israel's Past (56–72) They Rebelled Against God (56–58) They tested him (56) They turned back from him (57) They provoked him (58) God Disciplined Them (59–61) He abhorred them (59) He abandoned them (60–64) God Favored Them (65–72) He fought for them (65–66) He chose Judah (67–68) He constructed the temple (69) He chose David (70–72)
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Max E. Anders (Holman Old Testament Commentary - Psalms 76-150)
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The very first hit factory was T.B. Harms, a Tin Pan Alley publishing company overseen by Max Dreyfus. With staff writers like Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, T.B. Harms was the dominant publisher of popular music in the early twentieth century. Dreyfus called his writers “the boys” and installed pianos for them to compose on around the office on West Twenty-Eighth, the street that gave Tin Pan Alley its name, allegedly for the tinny-sounding pianos passersby heard from the upper-story windows of the row houses. The sheet-music sellers also employed piano players in their street-level stores, who would perform the Top 40 of the 1920s for browsing customers.
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John Seabrook (The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory)
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Comforting lies get far too easy with practice.
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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If there’s one thing I’m the world’s greatest expert on, it’s how it feels to be me. And
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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Teaser Stand By You, vol. 1
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty! Time to wake up!”
Max’s voice wakes me up and I can feel the mattress sink down next to me.
“Aloys, don’t make me kiss you to wake you up,” she says, “even though you wouldn’t really have to force me to do that.”
Her laughter penetrates and I can feel my lips start to smile.
“I’m awake, I don’t need a kiss.”
“That’s too bad,” Max sighs.
I sit up and glance in her direction. She’s wearing a black Stetson, smiling and greets me taking off her Stetson.
“Howdy cowboy!”
“Um, howdy cowgirl!
“See that, I’m blending in with the locals!”
“I did, and you’re doing a good job of it.”
“I know,” she says, “I’m a hottie and just look at this pair of boots!”
I raise my head to look at her feet, and she is wearing a nice pair of boots, her feet look tiny in them.
“Sweet, you look like a real cowgirl now.”
I sit straight up and watch her smiling when she looks at her boots.
“Now I can walk in a huge cow pie!
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Flo T.B (Stand By You ( Stand By #1))
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I can’t promise you this new Max is here to stay, but I can tell you it’s real . . . for however long it lasts . . . right now . . . it’s real.
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B.N. Toler (To Have It All)
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Max Power Libido
Max Power Libido Male Enhancement
away with hard earned cash. Even despite the fact that they do not admit it, it's far the gentlemen on hand who are maximum affected when they accept as true with they lack in sexual stamina. Guy's pride has been and is taken into consideration his b
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Max Power Libido
“
Nothing like rejection to make what is wholly yours seem sweet and right.
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B. Delores Max (Dumped)
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The reason that we feel jealous is that we feel abandoned. This is absurd, because I am a grown-up person capable of looking after myself. I cannot, literally, be abandoned.
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B. Delores Max (Dumped)
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The unhappiest moment I could never tell you. All our fights blend into each other and are in fact re-enactments of the same fight, in which we punish each other – I with words, Hugh with silence – for being each other.
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B. Delores Max (Dumped)
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There were moments bristling with deadness, when she looked out at her life and went ‘what?’ Or worse, feeling interrupted and tires, ‘wha-?’ It had taken on the shape of a terrible mistake. She hadn’t been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it.
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B. Delores Max (Dumped)
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She would try then not to think too strenuously about her whole life. She would try to live one day at a time, like an alcoholic – drink, don’t drink, drink. Perhaps she should take drugs.
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B. Delores Max (Dumped)
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However, there have been close calls where we were extremely lucky that there was a human in the loop. On October 27, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, eleven U.S. Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph had cornered the Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba, in international waters outside the U.S. “quarantine” area. What they didn’t know was that the temperature onboard had risen past 45°C (113°F) because the submarine’s batteries were running out and the air-conditioning had stopped. On the verge of carbon dioxide poisoning, many crew members had fainted. The crew had had no contact with Moscow for days and didn’t know whether World War III had already begun. Then the Americans started dropping small depth charges, which they had, unbeknownst to the crew, told Moscow were merely meant to force the sub to surface and leave. “We thought—that’s it—the end,” crew member V. P. Orlov recalled. “It felt like you were sitting in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer.” What the Americans also didn’t know was that the B-59 crew had a nuclear torpedo that they were authorized to launch without clearing it with Moscow. Indeed, Captain Savitski decided to launch the nuclear torpedo. Valentin Grigorievich, the torpedo officer, exclaimed: “We will die, but we will sink them all—we will not disgrace our navy!” Fortunately, the decision to launch had to be authorized by three officers on board, and one of them, Vasili Arkhipov, said no. It’s sobering that very few have heard of Arkhipov, although his decision may have averted World War III and been the single most valuable contribution to humanity in modern history.38 It’s also sobering to contemplate what might have happened had B-59 been an autonomous AI-controlled submarine with no humans in the loop.
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Max Tegmark (Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence)
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The Revolutionary Action Movement advanced a pivotal idea that would become central to the politics of the Black Panther Party. Drawing on a line of thought reaching back at least to the mid-1940s and the black anticolonialism of W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Alpheaus Hunton, RAM argued that Black America was essentially a colony and framed the struggle against racism by blacks in the United States as part of the global anti-imperialist struggle against colonialism.47 Max Stanford defined the politics of revolutionary black nationalism this way in 1965: “We are revolutionary black nationalist, not based on ideas of national superiority, but striving for justice and liberation of all the oppressed peoples of the world. . . . There can be no liberty as long as black people are oppressed and the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America are oppressed by Yankee imperialism and neo-colonialism. After four hundred years of oppression, we realize that slavery, racism and imperialism are all interrelated and that liberty and justice for all cannot exist peacefully with imperialism.
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Joshua Bloom (Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (The George Gund Foundation Imprint in African American Studies))
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And yet, that didn’t mean it had lied, necessarily. Why bother, if the truth would do the job? And it all made so much sense. Not a sin, but a malfunction. A thermostat, set askew through no fault of his own. All life was machinery, mechanical contraptions built of proteins and nucleic acids and electricity; what machine ever got creative control over its own specs? It was a liberating epiphany, there at the dawn of the sovereign Quebec: Not Guilty, by reason of faulty wiring. Odd, though. You’d have expected it to bring the self-loathing down a notch or two in the years that followed.
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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doesn’t have much of what you’d call a conscience, and if that’s your definition of a psycho then I guess he is one. But he didn’t choose it.” “What difference does it make?” Alyx demands. “It’s not like he went out shopping for an evil makeover.” “So what? When did any psycho ever get to choose his own brain chemistry?” It’s a pretty good point,
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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But that’s not all of it. That’s just the rationale that floats on the surface, obvious and visible and self-serving. There’s another reason, deeper and more ominous:
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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Thank you, South Fucking Africa. What was it with those people? They’d been a typical Third World country in so many ways, enslaved and oppressed and brutalized like all the others. Why couldn’t they have just thrown off their shackles in the usual way, embraced violent rebellion with a side order of blood-soaked retribution? What kind of crazy-ass people, after feeling the boot on their necks for generations, struck back at their oppressors with—wait for it—reconciliation panels? It made no sense. Except, of course, for the fact that it worked. Ever since Saint Nelson the S’Africans had become masters at the sidestep, accommodating force rather than meeting it head-on, turning enemy momentum to their own advantage. Black belts in sociological judo. For half a century they’d been sneaking under the world’s guard, and hardly anyone had noticed.
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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So many changes, he reflected. So many fold catastrophes in pursuit of new equilibria.
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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The world is not dying, it is being killed. And those that are killing it have names and addresses. —Utah Phillips
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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Overhead, the skin of the ocean writhes like dim mercury. It tilts and dips and scrolls past in an endless succession of crests and troughs, twisting a cool orb glowing on the other side, tying it into playful dancing knots. A few moments later they break through the surface and look onto a world of sea and moonlit sky.
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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He’s a sociopath. He wasn’t born to it. There are ways of telling: a tendency to self-contradiction and malapropism, short attention span. Gratuitous use of hand gestures during speech.
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Peter Watts (Behemoth: B-Max: Rifters Trilogy, Book 3 Part I)
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Please,” says Max, desperate. “Tell me what is happening here.” But I don’t have any answers, only a million questions. They all jam up in my throat.
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Lisa Unger (The New Couple in 5B)