Notation Quotes

Poems are rough notations for the music we are.

Notation on Quark Manipulation as Applied to the Time/Space Continuum.

It will take all your heart, it will take all your breath It will be short, it will not be simple

Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.

The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.

the whole purport of literature...is the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.

Because Music is a language that lives in the spiritual realms, we can hear it, we can notate it and create it, but we cannot hold it in our hands

Who would sup with the mighty must climb the path of daggers. -Anonymous notation found inked in the margin of a manuscript history (believed to date to the time of Arthur Hawkwing) of the last days of the Tovan Conclaves

The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation, and it seems most true when it eschews artistic devices of any sort.

I asked him what, if anything, got him down about teaching. He said he didn't think that anything about it got him exactly down, but there was one thing, he thought, that frightened him: reading the pencilled notations in the margins of books in the college library.

FINAL NOTATIONS it will not be simple, it will not be long it will take little time, it will take all your thought it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath it will be short, it will not be simple it will touch you through your ribs, it will take all your heart it will not be long, it will occupy your thought as a city is occupied, as a bed is occupied it will take all your flesh, it will not be simple you are coming into us who cannot withstand you you are coming into us who never wanted to withstand you you are taking parts of us into places never planned you are going far away with pieces of our lives it will be short, it will take all your breath it will not be simple, it will become your will

Trust I seek and I find in you

Codes and patterns are very different from each other,” Langdon said. “And a lot of people confuse the two. In my field, it’s crucial to understand their fundamental difference.” “That being?” Langdon stopped walking and turned to her. “A pattern is any distinctly organized sequence. Patterns occur everywhere in nature—the spiraling seeds of a sunflower, the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb, the circular ripples on a pond when a fish jumps, et cetera.” “Okay. And codes?” “Codes are special,” Langdon said, his tone rising. “Codes, by definition, must carry information. They must do more than simply form a pattern—codes must transmit data and convey meaning. Examples of codes include written language, musical notation, mathematical equations, computer language, and even simple symbols like the crucifix. All of these examples can transmit meaning or information in a way that spiraling sunflowers cannot.

There is no pattern the human mind can devise that does not exist already within the bounds of nature...Everything we do, see, write, notate, all are an echo of the deep seams of the universe. Music is the invisible world made visible through sound.

What was a zero anyway? A zero signified nothing, all it did was tell you nothing about nothing. Still, wasn't zero also something meaningful, a number in and of itself? In jianpu notation, zero indicated a caesura, a pause or rest of indeterminate length. Did time that went uncounted, unrecorded, still qualify as time? If zero was both everything and nothing, did an empty life have exactly the same weight as a full life? Was zero like the desert, both finite and infinite?

Luna luase aspectul unui cap de înger cu aureolă și trup de nori. Treptat, norii s-au îndepărtat, lăsând-o golașă pe cerul albastru. Încet-încet se stingea... Lumina îmi strângea sufletul, mototolindu-l ca pe o hârtie pe care mi-am notat greșit sentimentele, aruncând-o în gunoiul zilei.

My husband is my most ruthless critic... sometimes he will say, 'It's been said better before.' Of course it has. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.

As long as we are engaged in this orgy of unnecessary terminology and notation…

both you and paintings are layered… first, ephemera and notations on the back of the canvas. Labels indicate gallery shows, museum shows, footprints in the snow, so to speak. Then pencil scribbles on the stretcher, usually by the artist, usually a title or date. Next the stretcher itself. Pine or something. Wooden triangles in the corners so the picture can be tapped tighter when the canvas becomes loose. Nails in the wood securing the picture to the stretcher. Next, a canvas: linen, muslin, sometimes a panel; then the gesso - a primary coat, always white. A layer of underpaint, usually a pastel color, then, the miracle, where the secrets are: the paint itself, swished around, roughly, gently, layer on layer, thick or thin, not more than a quarter of an inch ever -- God can happen in that quarter of an inch -- the occasional brush hair left embedded, colors mixed over each other, tones showing through, sometimes the weave of the linen revealing itself. The signature on top of the entire goulash. Then varnish is swabbed over the whole. Finally, the frame, translucent gilt or carved wood. The whole thing is done.

Music expresses feeling, that is to say, gives shape and habitation to feeling, not in space but in time. To the extent that music has a history that is more than a history of its formal evolution, our feelings must have a history too. Perhaps certain qualities of feeling that found expression in music can be recorded by being notated on paper, have become so remote that we can no longer inhabit them as feelings, can get a grasp of them only after long training in the history and philosophy of music, the philosophical history of music, the history of music as a history of the feeling soul.

In the smoky firelight the two old men nodded off like a pair of ancient kings passing the aeons in their tumuli. Made a musical notation of their snores. Elgar is to be played by a bass tuba, Ayrs a bassoon.

Language is music. Written words are musical notation. The music of a piece of fiction establishes the way in which it is to be read, and, in the largest sense, what it means. It is essential to remember that characters have a music as well, a pitch and tempo, just as real people do. To make them believable, you must always be aware of what they would or would not say, where stresses would or would not fall.

Ascend, may you find so resistance Just know that you made such a difference All you leave behind will live to the end The cycle of suffering goes on But memories of you stay strong Some day I too will fly and find you again

We could, of course, use any notation we want; do not laugh at notations; invent them, they are powerful. In fact,mathematics is, to a large extent, invention of better notations.

..by honouring the demands of our bleeding, our blood gives us something in return. The crazed bitch from irritation hell recedes. In her place arises a side of ourselves with whom we may not-at first- be comfortable. She is a vulnerable, highly perceptive genius who can ponder a given issue and take her world by storm. When we're quiet and bleeding, we stumble upon solutions to dilemmas that've been bugging us all month. Inspiration hits and moments of epiphany rumba 'cross de tundra of our senses. In this mode of existence one does not feel antipathy towards a bodily ritual that so profoundly and reinforces our cuntpower.

She was in herself, like a woman near term, and did not think of the man, going on ahead, or the path, climbing upwards towards life. She was in herself. And her being-dead filled her with abundance. As a fruit with sweetness and darkness, so she was full with her vast death.

sightseeing, an activity that delights the truly idle because it seems so much like scholarship, gawping and eavesdropping on antiquity, flattering oneself with the notion that one is discovering the past when really one is inventing it, using a guidebook as a scenario of swift notations.

Obsession is, in any case, the premonition of the existence of an individual language, an irreproducible language through the attentive use of which we will be able to uncover the truth. We must follow this premonition into regions that to others might seem absurd and mad. I don’t know why this language of truth sounds angelic to some, while to others it changes into mathematical signs or notations. But there are also those to whose whim it speaks in a very strange way.

Early, I indentured myself to the five horizontal lines where black notes were written on a sheet of music. It is a place of world of signs and notations that speaks to me with perfect clarity. It is a place of time signatures, fermatas, ledger lines, grace notes, and demisemiquavers that are the common tongue and heritage of musicians all over the world. . . . It is something I cannot imagine being without. For without music, life is a journey through a desert that has not ever heard the rumor of God. In music’s sweet harmony, I had all the proof I needed of a God who held the earth together between the staffs, where the heavens lay. Here, he marked all the lines and spaces with notes so perfect that they praised all of his creation with their beauty.

I needed another basis for musical structure. This I found in sound's duration parameter, sound's only parameter which is present even when no sound is intended.

I'm not givin' in an inch to fear.

From this time on, my life would be written in headlines, but I am not concerned with them. It was the marginal notations of the heart that were most important to the man within.

Literature is the notation of the heart.

So a)To what extent might human relationships be expressed in a mathematical or logical formula? And b) If so, what signs might be placed between the integers? Plus and minus, self- evidently; sometimes multiplication, and yes. division. But these signs are limited. Thus an entirely failed relationship might be expressed in terms of both loss/minus and division/ reduction, showing a total zero; whereas an entirely successful one can be represented by both addition and multiplication. But what of most relationships? Do they not require to be expressed in notations which are logically insoluble?

Freiherr Hugo Reiss made a notation on his pad. Broach subject with SS General Otto Skorzeny, or better yet Otto Ohlendorf at Amt III of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Didn’t Ohlendorf head Einsatzgruppe D?

I know the impossibility of the hickey, whose urge is not ultimately to mark or to be marked, but to possess and be possessed. I cannot render anything precisely in words, as I cannot crush my lover's body inside of mine. All I can do is leave a mark--the notation of my effort, a symbol for the thing. That is the endless pleasure and frustration of the writer and the lover: to reach and reach and never become.

I spent a few more minutes puzzling over the timeline before turning my attention to the notebook’s first page, which contained a pencil drawing of an old-school coin-operated arcade game—one I didn’t recognize. Its control panel featured a single joystick and one unlabeled white button, and its cabinet was entirely black, with no side art or other markings anywhere on it, save for the game’s strange title, which was printed in all capital green letters across its jet black marquee: POLYBIUS. Below his drawing of the game, my father had made the following notations: No copyright or manufacturer info anywhere on game cabinet. Reportedly only seen for 1–2 weeks in July 1981 at MGP. Gameplay was similar to Tempest. Vector graphics. Ten levels? Higher levels caused players to have seizures, hallucinations, and nightmares. In some cases, subject committed murder and/or suicide. “Men in Black” would download scores from the game each night. Possible early military prototype created to train gamers for war? Created by same covert op behind Bradley Trainer?

There is much more to playing the clavier than playing written music. Do you realize with accompanying there is often nothing written out but the bass line--the left hand? There might be a few notations as to a suggested harmony, but it is up to me to fill in the music, at the proper volume, style, and harmony for the soloist--often instantly. I've heard it said that Bach questioned wether the soloist or the accompanist deserves the greatest glory.

We, the garden of technology. We, undecidable.

In any book, it is impossible to avoid some mistakes, some confusion, some incorrectness of language, and some misuse of notation. If you find any such things in the present book, then correct them or improve them for yourself, or write your own book.

the scientific advances made by early Middle Eastern cultures, one of them being our modern numbering system, whose advantages over Roman numerals included ‘positional notation’ and the invention of the number zero. Of course, Langdon always ended this lecture with a reminder that Arab culture had also given mankind the word al-kuhl—the favorite beverage of Harvard freshmen—known as alcohol.

. Maybe postmodern writers like me all have post-atomic poetic feet & that’s what makes them ugly to the pre-atomic eye & difficult to notate. Maybe this is THE ATTACK OF THE MUTANT POST-ATOMIC FEET! Maybe this is why we’re always saying the words: ‘take me to your reader.

To the right collector, the Witchfinder Army’s library would have been worth millions. The right collector would have to have been very rich, and not have minded gravy stains, cigarette burns, marginal notations, or the late Witchfinder Lance Corporal Wotling’s passion for drawing mustaches

All right,” he said. “Since you asked, Webmind is an emergent quantum-computational system based on a stable null-sigma condensate that resists decoherence thanks to constructive feedback loops.” He turned to the blackboard, scooped up a piece of chalk, and began writing rapidly. “See,” he said, “using Dirac notation, if we let Webmind’s default conscious state be represented by a bra of phi and a ket of psi, then this would be the einselected basis.” His chalk flew across the board again. “Now, we can get the vector basis of the total combined Webmind alpha-state consciousness...

Writing is, like gender or dominatricing, a kind of performance. But the craft of writing is primarily an art of making decisions. I often like to terrorize my students by insisting that every single notation—every piece of punctuation, every word, every paragraph break—in a piece of writing is a decision. You know when something is done, I tell them (they always want to know how to know when something is done), when you know the argument for every single choice, when not a single apostrophe has slipped by uninterrogated, when every word has been swapped for its synonym and then recovered. I don’t mean to take the fun out of creation, or even to impose my own laborious process on them, but I actually believe this. Not in the first draft, or even the fifth, but by the end, I want to have stripped as many tics and defaults, as many blind choices as is in my power. I want to be awake to all my choices.

The twinkle that softens the review; the martyr's super-logic and the child's intuition; the fact that a fragment of moss can pull back into the memory a whole forest – these are proofs that there is reality in the imponderable, and not only notation but connotation is a part of the proper study of mankind.

There was yet another disadvantage attaching to the whole of Newton’s physical inquiries, ... the want of an appropriate notation for expressing the conditions of a dynamical problem, and the general principles by which its solution must be obtained. By the labours of LaGrange, the motions of a disturbed planet are reduced with all their complication and variety to a purely mathematical question. It then ceases to be a physical problem; the disturbed and disturbing planet are alike vanished: the ideas of time and force are at an end; the very elements of the orbit have disappeared, or only exist as arbitrary characters in a mathematical formula.

The glorious binary notation, blessed with a universality beyond any other code of record. The absolutely knowable and polarised ideaspace, where a thing is either there or not, either the light of a one, or the darkness of a zero. A divine perfection, the point where the outstretched fingers of human and robot may finally touch.

Roarke made some notations on the fax—a

In his logbook, Kline recorded, in a memorably minimalist notation, “22:30. Talked to SRI Host to Host. CSK.

There was a hiss of white noise before her tech’s radio communication came through. “Copy, unit 17C. An urgent status notation has

I paint to rest from the phenomena of the external world - to pronounce it -- and to make notations of its essences with which to verify the inner eye.

Jewish Law is like musical notation; it gives meaning to the stuff of life by regulating it in time. The Sabbath is its most sacred interval

the code had to be written in a “hexadecimal” notation, in which the numbers 10 through 15 were abbreviated by the letters F, G, J, K, Q,

whole purport of literature, which is the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.

For the biographer, the final clue to character lies in the yet unread - the scribbled note, the diary page, a notation in the margin of a draft - until the day when even the most devoted portraitist of the dead says, "Enough!" Working in the service of the dead, biographers quit their labors only when the sole remaining task is the impossible - resurrection.

Jenny’s admonition had the desired effect. Ned drew a deep breath and thrust his arm gingerly into the bag, his mouth puckered in distaste. The expression on his face flickered from queasy horror to confusion. From there, it flew headlong into outright bafflement. Shaking his head, he pulled his fist from the bag and turned his hand palm up. For a long moment, the two men stared at the offending lump. It was brightly colored. It was round. It was— “An orange?” Lord Blakely rubbed his forehead. “Not quite what I expected.” He scribbled another notation. “We live in enlightened times,” Jenny murmured.

There are more answers to that than you may think,” Chih temporized, because there were, but they could see that there was only one answer that really mattered to tigers. They made the appropriate notations.

Focus: Challenges, the Big 3, Clustering Relationships: Circles, Head-to-Heads, Core Team Energy: Whole-Life Plannin, Pruning Stimuli: Study Plan, Notation, Purposeful Experience Hours: Idea Time, Unnecessary Creating

A second technician gauges Werner’s eye color against a chromatic scale on which sixty or so shades of blue are displayed. Werner’s color is himmelblau, sky blue. To assess his hair color, the man snips a lock of hair from Werner’s head and compares it to thirty or so other locks clipped to a board, arrayed darkest to lightest. “Schnee,” the man mutters, and makes a notation. Snow. Werner’s hair is lighter than the lightest color on the board.

His work was just barely passing by academic standards at this time, but this wasn’t because he wasn’t working or thinking. He was thinking too hard, and the harder you think in this high country of the mind the slower you go. Phaedrus read in a scientific way rather than a literary way, testing each sentence as he went along, noting doubts and questions to be resolved later, and I’m fortunate in having a whole trunkful of volumes of these notations

The Strategic Bombing Survey estimates that “probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any [equivalent period of] time in the history of man.” The fire storm at Dresden may have killed more people but not in so short a space of time. More than 100,000 men, women and children died in Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945; a million were injured, at least 41,000 seriously; a million in all lost their homes. Two thousand tons of incendiaries delivered that punishment—in the modern notation, two kilotons. But the wind, not the weight of bombs alone, created the conflagration, and therefore the efficiency of the slaughter was in some sense still in part an act of God.

Finding patterns and structure in information is how our brains extract meaning from the world, and putting words to music and rhyme are a way of adding extra levels of pattern and structure to language. It’s the reason Homeric bards sang their epic oral poems, the reason that the Torah is marked up with little musical notations, and the reason we teach kids the alphabet in a song and not as twenty-six individual letters. Song is the ultimate structuring device for language.

Unlike musical notation, paint or clay, language is inside every one of us. For free. We are all proficient at it. We already have the palette, the paints and the instruments. We don’t have to go and buy any reserved materials. Poetry is made of the same stuff you are reading now, the same stuff you use to order pizza over the phone, the same stuff you yell at your parents and children, whisper in your lover’s ear and shove into an e-mail, text or birthday card. It is common to us all.

In fact, they didn’t even keep track of birth dates here. Instead, they used a traditional method of counting a person’s age. Newborn babies were “one year old,” and became one year older at the start of the new year. As for the reason it didn’t start at zero... I was briefly afraid I’d discover they didn’t yet have the concepts of zero or place-value notation. In fact, they had both. Newborn babies being “one” was just a holdover from previous times, before the numeral “zero” existed within their culture. Old

Sometimes he wrote equations, or musical notation, sometimes he wrote in Latin; he refused to tell her what it was about. "Nothing," he said. "I have nothing important or original to say, yet I feel compelled to express myself, so I just write it down and let it go.

The difference between the detailed plans he drew up and the house itself when finished, so filled with raked sea light, is the difference between the body and the soul, between musical notation and a song, between the idea for a drawing and the actual drawing itself.

The page on which I wrote is the second page in section 19 of the Doctrine and Covenants, in the old edition of the triple combination. On the bottom of the page, in capital letters, is written the word REPENTANCE. And then an arrow leads to a notation that reads: "Greek word. To have a new mind.

We know that our language is incapable of recalling even the pale reflection of those strange and perished states. The same would be true of this entire journal if it had to be the notation of what I was. I shall therefore make it clear that it is meant to indicate what I am today, as I write it. It is not a quest of time gone by, but a work of art whose pretext−subject is my former life. It will be a present fixed with the help of the past, and not vice versa. Let it be therefore understood that the facts were what I say they were, but the interpretation that I give them is what I am—now.

n tempo sembravano puttane. Adesso somigliavano a studentesse universitarie. Volevano tutte sembrare studentesse. Perché non ci andavano davvero, all’università, allora? Non avrebbero avuto niente di diverso dalle altre. Nessuno le avrebbe mai notate. Cristo, che maniera assurda di stare al mondo.

Un tempo sembravano puttane. Adesso somigliavano a studentesse universitarie. Volevano tutte sembrare studentesse. Perché non ci andavano davvero, all’università, allora? Non avrebbero avuto niente di diverso dalle altre. Nessuno le avrebbe mai notate. Cristo, che maniera assurda di stare al mondo.

Only a simple black pencil will do for making a notation of a benchmark. Ink will run, be dissolved by the tree sap, be washed away by rain, dew, fog, and snow. Nothing as artificial as ink will do for recording eternity and immortality. Graphite is carbon that has been subjected to enormous pressure for millions of years and that might have become coal or diamonds. Instead, however, it has been transformed into something more precious than a diamond; it has become a pencil that can record all that it has seen… A pencil is a greater miracle than a diamond, although the chemical make-up of graphite and diamond is identical.

The Industrial Revolution was based on two grand concepts that were profound in their simplicity. Innovators came up with ways to simplify endeavors by breaking them into easy, small tasks that could be accomplished on assembly lines. Then, beginning in the textile industry, inventors found ways to mechanize steps so that they could be performed by machines, many of them powered by steam engines. Babbage, building on ideas from Pascal and Leibniz, tried to apply these two processes to the production of computations, creating a mechanical precursor to the modern computer. His most significant conceptual leap was that such machines did not have to be set to do only one process, but instead could be programmed and reprogrammed through the use of punch cards. Ada saw the beauty and significance of that enchanting notion, and she also described an even more exciting idea that derived from it: such machines could process not only numbers but anything that could be notated in symbols.

The U.S. Air Force Academy likewise sought racial “diversity” through double standards. A 1982 memorandum on Air Force Academy stationery, with the notation “for your eyes only,” listed different cut-off scores to use when identifying possible candidates for the Academy from different racial ethnic groups. Composite SAT scores as low as 520 were acceptable for blacks, though Hispanics and American Indians had to do somewhat better, and Asian Americans had to meet the general standards. For athletes “lower cut-offs” were permissible.52 Given that composite SAT scores begin at 400 (out of a possible 1600) a requirement of 520 is really a requirement to earn only 120 points out of a possible 1200 points earned.

Technology, for instance, has become a kind of imposter for connection, making us believe we’re connected when we’re really not—at least not in the ways we need to be.

Life is ours, we live it our way.

Ahlakın bahtsızlığı : her şeyi daha iyi bilmesi ve bu yüzden de hiçbir şey öğrenememesi.

Typically, preachers in our work-oriented society teach that God rested to provide humanity with a precedent for rest, an example for our good. Seldom have I heard mention of the other meaning for rest, the one used in musical notation. This meaning refers to cessation rather than recovery from weariness. Our enjoyment of music owes much to these brief pauses.

5.4 The question of accumulation. If life is a wager, what form does it take? At the racetrack, an accumulator is a bet which rolls on profits from the success of one of the horse to engross the stake on the next one. 5.5 So a) To what extent might human relationships be expressed in a mathematical or logical formula? And b) If so, what signs might be placed between the integers?Plus and minus, self-evidently; sometimes multiplication, and yes, division. But these sings are limited. Thus an entirely failed relationship might be expressed in terms of both loss/minus and division/ reduction, showing a total of zero; whereas an entirely successful one can be represented by both addition and multiplication. But what of most relationships? Do they not require to be expressed in notations which are logically improbable and mathematically insoluble? 5.6 Thus how might you express an accumulation containing the integers b, b, a (to the first), a (to the second), s, v? B = s - v (*/+) a (to the first) Or a (to the second) + v + a (to the first) x s = b 5.7 Or is that the wrong way to put the question and express the accumulation? Is the application of logic to the human condition in and of itself self-defeating? What becomes of a chain of argument when the links are made of different metals, each with a separate frangibility? 5.8 Or is "link" a false metaphor? 5.9 But allowing that is not, if a link breaks, wherein lies the responsibility for such breaking? On the links immediately on the other side, or on the whole chain? But what do you mean by "the whole chain"? How far do the limits of responsibility extend? 6.0 Or we might try to draw the responsibility more narrowly and apportion it more exactly. And not use equations and integers but instead express matters in the traditional narrative terminology. So, for instance, if...." - Adrian Finn

When angry at a colleague, Lincoln would fling off what he called a “hot” letter, releasing all his pent wrath. He would then put the letter aside until he cooled down and could attend the matter with a clearer eye. When Lincoln’s papers were opened at the turn of the twentieth century, historians discovered a raft of such letters, with Lincoln’s notation underneath; “never sent and never signed.” Such forbearance set an example for the team. One evening, Lincoln listened as Stanton worked himself into a fury against one of the generals. “I would like to tell him what I think of him,” Stanton stormed. “Why don’t you,” suggested Lincoln. “Write it all down.” When Stanton finished the letter, he returned and read it to the president. “Capital,” Lincoln said. “Now, Stanton, what are you going to do about it?” “Why, send it of course!” “I wouldn’t,” said the president. “Throw it in the waste-paper basket.” “But it took me two days to write.” “Yes, yes and it did you ever so much good. You feel better now. That is all that is necessary. Just throw it in the basket.” And after some additional grumbling, Stanton did just that.

Whatever you want," he said. "Will you please come here now?" I slipped a piece of protective tissue over my drawing and flipped the book closed. A piece of blue scratch paper slid out, the line I'd copied from Edward;s poetry book. "Hey. Translate for me, Monsieur Bainbridge." I set the sketchbook on my stool and joined him on the chaise. He tugged me onto his lap and read over his head. "'Qu'ieu sui avinen, leu lo sai.' 'That I am handsome, I know." "Verry funny." "Very true." He grinned. "The translation. That's what it says. Old-fashionedly." I thought of Edward's notation on the page, the reminder to read the poem to Diana in bed, and rolled my eyes. You're so vain.I bet you think this song is about you..."Boy and their egos." Alex cupped my face in his hands. "Que tu est belle, tu le sais." "Oh,I am not-" "Shh," he shushed me, and leaned in. The first bell came way too soon. I reluctantly loosened my grip on his shirt and ran my hands over my hair. He prompty thrust both hands in and messed it up again. "Stop," I scolded, but without much force. "I have physics," he told me. "We're studying weak interaction." I sandwiched his open hand between mine. "You know absolutely nothing about that." "Don't be so quick to accept the obvious," he mock-scolded me. "Weak interaction can actually change the flavor of quarks." The flavor of quirks, I thought, and vaguely remembered something about being charmed. I'd sat through a term of introductory physics before switching to basic biology. I'd forgotten most of that as soon as I'd been tested on it,too. "I gotta go." Alex pushed me to my feet and followed. "Last person to get to class always gets the first question, and I didn't do the reading." "Go," I told him. "I have history. By definition, we get to history late." "Ha-ha. I'll talk to you later." He kissed me again, then walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.

The number system we use today—the Hindu-Arabic system—was developed in India and seems to have been completed by around 700 CE. Indian mathematicians made advances in what would today be described as arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, much of their work being motivated by an interest in astronomy. The system is based on three key ideas: notations for the numerals, place value, and zero.

It is tempting to look upon England as a sort of musical Australia, an island culture inhabited by, and sustaining, its own insular fauna – musical kangaroos, koalas, and platypuses. That, however, would be very much to exaggerate England's musical isolation or independence. It is also a considerable exaggeration to view the English preference for thirds as something altogether alien or opposed to continental practice, as if only in remote geographical corners (and behind closed doors, among consenting adults) could harmonies unsanctioned by Pythagoras or the Musica enchiriadis be furtively enjoyed.

So we are all reincarnations—though short-lived ones. When we die our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere—as part of a leaf or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms, however, go on practically forever. Nobody actually knows how long an atom can survive, but according to Martin Rees it is probably about 1035 years—a number so big that even I am happy to express it in notation.

Here, then, is the genesis of two of the most important historical premises of Western science. The first is that there is a law of nature, an order of things and events awaiting our discovery, and that this order can be formulated in thought, that is, in words or in some type of notation. The second is that the law of nature is universal, a premise deriving from monotheism, from the idea of one God ruling the whole world.

Dispersal was a conscious strategy of the plunderers. Only by destroying these collections could they build up new ones. Many of these libraries were the results of decades, sometimes centuries, of careful collecting. There had been generations of learned collectors and readers. The books also said something about the people who owned and treasured them: what they read and what they thought and what they dreamed. Sometimes they left traces in the form of underlined passages, notations, notes in the margins, or short comments. The beautiful and personally designed ex librises that many readers had made for their books demonstrate the care and pride they took in their libraries. Each collection in its own right took form in a unique culture, a depiction of its creator's world, which was lost when the library was broken up. The books are fragments of a library, of a world that once existed.

I have been giving the best of my advice to this project since 1975. At first I was extremely hopeful. The original objectives of the language included reliability, readability of programs, formality of language definition, and even simplicity. Gradually these objectives have been sacrificed in favor of power, supposedly achieved by a plethora of features and notational conventions, many of them unnecessary and some of them, like exception handling, even dangerous. ... It is not too late! I believe that by careful pruning of the ADA language, it is still possible to select a very powerful subset that would be reliable and efficient in implementation and safe and economic in use. The sponsors of the language have declared unequivocally, however, that there shall be no subsets. This is the strangest paradox of the whole strange project. If you want a language with no subsets, you must make it small.

Think of mathematical symbols as mere labels without intrinsic meaning. It doesn’t matter whether you write, “Two plus two equals four,” “2 + 2 = 4,” or “Dos más dos es igual a cuatro.” The notation used to denote the entities and the relations is irrelevant; the only properties of integers are those embodied by the relations between them. That is, we don’t invent mathematical structures—we discover them, and invent only the notation for describing them.

It’s all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I’d never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn’t what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.

Upon finding the letter, I had one of those out of body experiences that come only after poring over archival material for nine hours straight, most of it dull as dust, but then something like this appears and you look around at the two or three other glaze-eyed researchers and want to go around the room and give everyone a high-five, but instead you just get up and quietly go to the water fountain, then make a notation for photocopy, and crack the next folder.

There is one note on the page that seems disconnected from everything else. It is a recipe for making blond-brown hair dye: “To make hair tawny, take nuts and boil them in lye and immerse the comb in it, then comb the hair and let it dry in the sun.” This may have been a notation in preparation for a court pageant. But it is more likely, I think, that the recipe is a rare intimate jotting. Leonardo was deep into his thirties by now. Perhaps he was resisting going gray.

Wine appreciation is not a simple sum of its parts any more than poetry appreciation is an arithmetic notation of its similes, alliterations, or rhythmic style. Most complex flavor perceptions are cerebral creations. They start from the detection of separate sensations, but it is their combined interactions that generate odor memories. Only the unique combinations of multiple sensations generate the typical fragrance of an object, be it wine, coffee, lilacs, or fried bacon.

It is safe to say that the message spoke of a common shape to all the processes of the world, and insisted there was a unity to all explanations. It confirmed that all phenomena are expressions of a single phenomenon, and while all droplets consider themselves independent, they are nonetheless still ocean through and through. In that message the great suspicions were vindicated and the old cliches were jettisoned. The hymn of the world was notated and an invitation to join the choir extended. The shape of Being was outlined in all its myriad forms and the whole was expressed in the part. With the right ears even a lesser creature can hear the song. It is sung constantly, from the heart of each atom and star. The galaxies hum of shape and form in their essence. That is their secret. The particles whisper of the nature of proper interactions. That is their game. And during a storm, in the forest, on the right night, it is no secret that the leaves all sing of God.

People should not make a virtue out of their sensitivity. They may experience it and preserve it as it was experienced. But they should not adorn themselves with it. Sensitivity will make an addict out of anyone who displays its medals on his chest. He will require more and more objects to enable him to demonstrate his sensitivity, and if he runs out of them, he will simply make things up - and his sensitivity will then reveal itself for what it is: precious, brittle, and rotted through and through.

As a young man, Bill Clinton began a collection of note cards upon which he would write names and phone numbers of friends and acquaintances who might be of service when he eventually entered politics. Each night, before he ever had a reason to, he would flip through the box, make phone calls, write letters, or add notations about their interactions. Over the years, this collection grew—to ten thousand cards (before it was eventually digitized). It’s what put him in the Oval Office and continues to return dividends.

But the figures,” he said, tapping the writing board. “You said they were erratic, and they still are.” “Yes,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the flamespren. “But I can predict when they will be erratic and when they won’t be.” He looked at her, frowning. “The spren change when I measure them, Ashir,” she said. “Before I measure, they dance and vary in size, luminosity, and shape. But when I make a notation, they immediately freeze in their current state. Then they remain that way permanently, so far as I can tell.

Notice that if , then and , whereas if , then and . (a) If is absolutely convergent, show that both of the series and are convergent. (b) If is conditionally convergent, show that both of the series and are divergent. 44. Prove that if is a conditionally convergent series and is any real number, then there is a rearrangement of whose sum is . [Hints: Use the notation of Exercise 43. an an 0 a n an 0 an an 0 an 0 an an an a n an an a n an r an r Take just enough positive terms so that their sum is greater than . Then add just enough negative terms so that the cumulative sum is less than . Continue in this manner and use Theorem 11.2.6.] 45. Suppose the series is conditionally convergent. (a) Prove that the series is divergent. (b) Conditional convergence of is not enough to determine whether is convergent. Show this by giving an example of a conditionally convergent series such that converges and an example where diverges. r an r an n 2 an an nan nan nan an We now have several ways of testing a series for convergence

Again as during fetal development, synapses that underlie cognitive and other abilities stick around if they’re used but wither if they’re not. The systematic elimination of unused synapses, and thus unused circuits, presumably results in greater efficiency for the neural networks that are stimulated—the networks that support, in other words, behaviors in which the adolescent is actively engaged. Just as early childhood seems to be a time of exquisite sensitivity to the environment (remember the babies who dedicate auditory circuits only to the sounds of their native language, eliminating those for phonemes that they do not hear), so may adolescence. The teen years are, then, a second chance to consolidate circuits that are used and prune back those that are not—to hard-wire an ability to hit a curve ball, juggle numbers mentally, or turn musical notation into finger movements almost unconsciously. Says Giedd, “Teens have the power to determine their own brain development, to determine which connections survive and which don’t, [by] whether they do art, or music, or sports, or videogames.

I spoke off the record to a database consultant who was working with a company in Italy. They had a lot of clients, and their database would generate a client ID for each one by using something like the current year, the first letter of the client company name and then an index number to make sure each ID was unique. For some reason their database was losing companies whose names started with the letter E. It was because they were using Excel and it was converting those client IDs to be a scientific notation number, which was no longer recognized as an ID.

There is no "religious language" or "scientific language". There is rather the international notation of mathematics and logic; and English, French, Spanish and the like. In short, "religious discourse" and "scientific discourse" are part of the same overall conceptual structure. Moreover, in that conceptual structure there is a large amount of discourse, which is neither religious nor scientific, that is constantly being utilized by both the religious man and the scientist when they make religious and scientific claims. In short, they share a number of key categories.

That takes such active, intelligent creativity, analyzing the emotions a composer intends in those scratchy notes on a page, learning and perfecting the technique that gives you the skill to bring those skeletal notations to full-fleshed life in your performance. As far as I am concerned, Eliza, that is the greatest act of intelligence a human being is capable of. Music is air made rapturous, achieving the sublime, catching the harmony of the spheres for a fleeting moment so we can hear it. It is the closest we get to God. So, therefore, it is pure brilliance of the soul.

What governs what we choose to notice? The first (which we shall have to qualify later) is whatever seems advantageous or disadvantageous for our survival, our social status, and the security of our egos. The second, again working simultaneously with the first, is the pattern and the logic of all the notation symbols which we have learned from others, from our society and our culture. It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us (whether verbal, mathematical, or musical) have no description. This is why we borrow words from foreign languages.

At the beginning of a story, I am likely to have one or more images in my mind, some clearer than others (like the strip of light up Janice’s arm), which, when I examine them, suggest relations to one another. Using the story process—envisioning and notating, envisioning and notating—I try to move from one of these images to the next, lighting and focusing, step by step, on the dark areas between. As I move along, other areas well ahead in the tale will suddenly come vaguely into light. When I actually reach the writing of them, I use the story process to bring them into sharper focus still.

From the point of view of information there is surely no difficulty in discussing portrayal. To say of a drawing that it is a correct view of Tivoli does not mean, of course, that Tivoli is bounded by wiry lines. It means that those who understand the notation will derive no false information from the drawing-whether it gives the contour in a few lines or picks out "every blade of grass" as Richter's friends wanted to do. The complete portrayal might be the one which gives as much correct information about the spot as we would obtain if we looked at it from the very spot where the artist stood.

prior probability that the sun will rise, since it’s prior to seeing any evidence. It’s not based on counting the number of times the sun has risen on this planet in the past, because you weren’t there to see it; rather, it reflects your a priori beliefs about what will happen, based on your general knowledge of the universe. But now the stars start to fade, so your confidence that the sun does rise on this planet goes up, based on your experience on Earth. Your confidence is now a posterior probability, since it’s after seeing some evidence. The sky begins to lighten, and the posterior probability takes another leap. Finally, a sliver of the sun’s bright disk appears above the horizon and perhaps catches “the Sultan’s turret in a noose of light,” as in the opening verse of the Rubaiyat. Unless you’re hallucinating, it is now certain that the sun will rise. The crucial question is exactly how the posterior probability should evolve as you see more evidence. The answer is Bayes’ theorem. We can think of it in terms of cause and effect. Sunrise causes the stars to fade and the sky to lighten, but the latter is stronger evidence of daybreak, since the stars could fade in the middle of the night due to, say, fog rolling in. So the probability of sunrise should increase more after seeing the sky lighten than after seeing the stars fade. In mathematical notation, we say that P(sunrise | lightening-sky), the conditional probability of sunrise given that the sky is lightening, is greater than P(sunrise | fading-stars), its conditional probability given that the stars are fading. According to Bayes’ theorem, the more likely the effect is given the cause, the more likely the cause is given the effect: if P(lightening-sky | sunrise) is higher than P(fading-stars | sunrise), perhaps because some planets are far enough from their sun that the stars still shine after sunrise, then P(sunrise | lightening sky) is also higher than P(sunrise | fading-stars).

The isomorphism of the two systems is the more remarkable because there is nothing in Joyce's letters to indicate that he ever read, or even heard of, the I Ching; but this only repeats the isomorphism, or synchronicity, in which Leibniz also recreated I Ching in the form of his binary notation. As is well known to mathematicians, Leibniz lived long enough to see the first European translation of I Ching and to note the "coincidence" and be astounded by it. It was this isomorphism, in fact, which led Leibniz to postulate a kind of universal logical language below all forms of consciousness, a concept like and yet unlike Jung's "collective unconscious.

Before leaving the earth altogether, let us as: How does Music stand with respect to its instruments, their pitches, the scales, modes and rows, repeating themselves from octave to octave, the chords, harmonies, and tonalities, the beats, meters, and rhythms, the degrees of amplitude (pianissimo, piano, mezzo-piano, mezzo-forte, forte, fortissimo)? Though the majority go each day to the schools where these matters are taught, they read when time permits of Cape Canaveral, Ghana, and Seoul. And they’ve heard tell of the music synthesizer, magnetic tape. They take for granted the dials on radios and television sets. A tardy art, the art of Music. And why so slow? Is it because, once having learned a notation of pitches and durations, musicians will not give up their Greek? Children have been modern artists for years now. What is it about Music that sends not only the young but adults too as far into the past as they can conveniently go? The module? But our choices never reached around the globe, and in our laziness, when we changed over to the twelve-tone system, we just took the pitches of the previous music as though we were moving into a furnished apartment and had no time to even take the pictures off the walls. What excuse? That nowadays things are happening so quickly that we become thoughtless? Or were we clairvoyant and knew ahead of time that the need for furniture of any kind would disappear? (Whatever you place there in front of you sits established in the air.) The thing that was irrelevant to the structures we formerly made, and this was what kept us breathing, was what took place within them. Their emptiness we took for what it was – a place where anything could happen. That was one of the reasons we were able when circumstances became inviting (chances in consciousness, etc.) to go outside, where breathing is child’s play: no walls, not even the glass ones which, though we could see through them, killed the birds while they were flying.

Mathematicians initially overcame the problem of denoting empty spaces in decimal place-value notation by drawing a space-holder dot where there was a missing entry. This was probably first tried out around 3000 bce in the temples of Sumer, not far from what would become Baghdad. The innovation was passed on to both the Babylonians and the Persians, but it was in India that the use of a circle gave rise to the present-day symbol 0 for zero. It was also the Indians who named that symbol sunya, meaning emptiness or the void, linking it to a fundamental concept in Indian Buddhist philosophy.29 From this word came the Arabic zifr and hence the English ‘cipher’.30

Entering the office, Evie found Sebastian and Cam on opposite sides of the desk. They both mulled over account ledgers, scratching out some entries with freshly inked pens, and making notations beside the long columns. Both men looked up as she crossed the threshold. Evie met Sebastian’s gaze only briefly; she found it hard to maintain her composure around him after the intimacy of the previous night. He paused in mid-sentence as he stared at her, seeming to forget what he had been saying to Cam. It seemed that neither of them was yet comfortable with feelings that were still too new and powerful. Murmuring good morning to them both, she bid them to remain seated, and she went to stand beside Sebastian’s chair. “Have you breakfasted yet, my lord?” she asked. Sebastian shook his head, a smile glinting in his eyes. “Not yet.” “I’ll go to the kitchen and see what is to be had.” “Stay a moment,” he urged. “We’re almost finished.” As the two men discussed a few last points of business, which pertained to a potential investment in a proposed shopping bazaar to be constructed on St. James Street, Sebastian picked up Evie’s hand, which was resting on the desk. Absently he drew the backs of her fingers against the edge of his jaw and his ear while contemplating the written proposal on the desk before him. Although Sebastian was not aware of what the casual familiarity of the gesture revealed, Evie felt her color rise as she met Cam’s gaze over her husband’s downbent head. The boy sent her a glance of mock reproof, like that of a nursemaid who had caught two children playing a kissing game, and he grinned as her blush heightened further. Oblivious to the byplay, Sebastian handed the proposal to Cam, who sobered instantly. “I don’t like the looks of this,” Sebastian commented. “It’s doubtful there will be enough business in the area to sustain an entire bazaar, especially at those rents. I suspect within a year it will turn into a white elephant.” “White elephant?” Evie asked. A new voice came from the doorway, belonging to Lord Westcliff. “A white elephant is a rare animal,” the earl replied, smiling, “that is not only expensive but difficult to maintain. Historically, when an ancient king wished to ruin someone he would gift him with a white elephant.” Stepping into the office, Westcliff bowed over Evie’s hand and spoke to Sebastian. “Your assessment of the proposed bazaar is correct, in my opinion. I was approached with the same investment opportunity not long ago, and I rejected it on the same grounds.” “No doubt we’ll both be proven wrong,” Sebastian said wryly. “One should never try to predict anything regarding women and their shopping.

A la fi li he preguntat si sabia alguna cosa de la Creu del Sud. Li he assenyalat aquella constel·lació d'estrelles relluents. I tant, ha dit. S'ha posat a riure. Li he explicat que ella i les dones, per orientar-se, podien fer servir la Creu del Sud, anomenada també Crux Australis. Si clous el puny dret així, li he dit. Li he agafat la mà i l'hi he tancat. L'he alçat cap a les estrelles. Tenia el braç estirat, el puny clos, com una lluitadora per la llibertat. Ara has d'alinear el primer artell amb l'eix de la Creu, he continuat. Li he aguantat la mà, el canell. He notat la majestat divina, una gratitud acaparadora. L'estómac se m'havia capgirat. Havien atès la meva súplica.

You have asked too many questions. If you want more, you will have to win them.” He showed no sign of distraction now. As they played, he ignored her attempts to provoke him or make him laugh. “I’ve seen your tricks on others,” he said. “They won’t work with me.” He won. Kestrel waited, nervous, and wondered if the way she felt was how he felt when he lost. His voice came haltingly. “Will you play for me?” “Play for you?” Arin winced. In a more determined tone, he said, “Yes. Something I choose.” “I don’t mind. It’s only…people rarely ask.” He stood from the table, searched the shelves along the wall, and returned with a sheaf of sheet music. She took it. “It’s for the flute,” he said. “It will probably take you time to transpose it for the piano. I can wait. Maybe after our next game--” She fanned the paper impatiently to silence him. “It’s not that hard.” He nodded, then sat in the chair farthest away from the piano, by the glass garden doors. Kestrel was glad for his distance. She settled on the piano’s bench, flipping through the sheet music. The title and notations were in Herrani, the page yellow with age. She propped the paper on the piano’s rack, taking more time than necessary to neaten the sheets. Excitement coursed through her fingers as if she had already plunged her hands into the music, but that feeling was edged with a metallic lace of fear.

A photograph does not present us with ‘likenesses’ of things; it presents us, we want to say, with the things themselves. But wanting to say that may well make us ontologically restless. ‘Photographs present us with things themselves’ sounds, and ought to sound, paradoxical … It is no less paradoxical or false to hold up a photograph of Garbo and say, ‘That is not Garbo,’ if all you mean is that the object you are holding up is not a human creature. Such troubles in notating so obvious a fact suggest that we do not know what a photograph is; we do not know how to place it ontologically. We might say that we don’t know how to think of the connection between a photograph and what it is a photograph of.

It takes a lot of time, focus and energy to realize the enormity of being the ocean with your very own tide every month. However, by honoring the demands of bleeding, our blood gives something in return. The crazed bitch from irritation hell recedes. In her place arises a side of ourselves with whom we may not—at first—be comfortable. She is a vulnerable, highly perceptive genius who can ponder a given issue and take her world by storm. When we’re quiet and bleeding, we stumble upon the solutions to dilemmas that’ve been bugging us all month. Inspiration hits and moments of epiphany rumba ‘across de tundra of our senses. In this mode of existence one does not feel antipathy towards a bodily ritual so profoundly and routinely reinforces our cuntpower.

They had a nice,if not private, reunion before Rupert joined them. He didn't exactly ruin it, but if he insisted on enacting their pretense tonight, even for her mother,it surely would. Unfortunately, he entered the room wearing a horribly bright lime-green dinner jacket that had his mother immediately scowling at him. So even after that kiss upstairs, he'd decided on an evening of humorously baiting his mother again. Bad timing, with her own mother there, or maybe not.At least it kept Rebecca's own mood light for the moment, since she knew why he did it. Nor did Julie hold her tongue, remarking in disgust, "I see your taste is still beyond flamboyant. You're a bloody peacock, Rue." He actually looked behind him as he replied, "I thought I had my feathers tucked away nicely.

Butterhorn?” Ben asked, holding out a bag full of pastries. “Well, you did condemn yourself to bad luck just to get them for me,” I said, “So absolutely!” “Yeah,” Ben agreed, “they’d better be worth it.” “Mmmm, completely worth it,” I said with my mouth full. “The rest of you have to have some of these.” “Hmmm,” Sage mused, examining his, “no garlic. I’m not entirely sure my taste buds will know how to handle this.” “Um, you guys,” Rayna asked, “where am I driving?” “Excellent question-let’s find out!” I pulled the cribbage board out of duffel bag and handed it to Sage, pointing out the longitude and latitude notations on the back. “Where is that?” Sage took out his phone, then entered the coordinates. “Interesting.” “What?” I asked. “It’s not Antarctica, is it? I didn’t pack a parka.

In a 16 June 1919 telegram to Lenin from the Petrograd front, he wrote with slightly comical bravado and arrogance: “Naval experts assert that the capture of Krasnaya Gorka [a Petrograd fort] from the sea runs counter to naval science. I can only deplore such so-called science. The swift capture of Gorka was due to the grossest interference in the operations by me and civilians generally, even to the point of countermanding orders on land and sea and imposing our own. I consider it my duty to declare that I shall continue to act in this way in future, despite all my reverence for science.”30 Lenin, who knew that the fort had not, despite Stalin’s claim, fallen from a naval attack, seems to have been amused by Stalin’s swagger. He left a notation on the telegram: “??? Krasnaya Gorka was taken by land.”31

A critical step was made sometime before the ninth century AD, when a new partial script was invented, one that could store and process mathematical data with unprecedented efficiency. This partial script was composed of ten signs, representing the numbers from 0 to 9. Confusingly, these signs are known as Arabic numerals even though they were first invented by the Hindus (even more confusingly, modern Arabs use a set of digits that look quite different from Western ones). But the Arabs get the credit because when they invaded India they encountered the system, understood its usefulness, refined it, and spread it through the Middle East and then to Europe. When several other signs were later added to the Arab numerals (such as the signs for addition, subtraction and multiplication), the basis of modern mathematical notation came into being.

Instead it was an undergraduate named Charley Kline, under the eye of Crocker and Cerf, who put on a telephone headset to coordinate with a researcher at SRI while typing in a login sequence that he hoped would allow his terminal at UCLA to connect through the network to the computer 354 miles away in Palo Alto. He typed in “L.” The guy at SRI told him that it had been received. Then he typed in “O.” That, too, was confirmed. When he typed in “G,” the system hit a memory snag because of an auto-complete feature and crashed. Nevertheless, the first message had been sent across the ARPANET, and if it wasn’t as eloquent as “The Eagle has landed” or “What has God wrought,” it was suitable in its understated way: “Lo.” As in “Lo and behold.” In his logbook, Kline recorded, in a memorably minimalist notation, “22:30. Talked to SRI Host to Host. CSK.”101

In 1604, at the height of his scientific career, Galileo argued that for a rectilinear motion in which speed increases proportionally to distance covered, the law of motion should be just that (x = ct^2) which he had discovered in the investigation of falling bodies. Between 1695 and 1700 not a single one of the monthly issues of Leipzig’s Acta Eruditorum was published without articles of Leibniz, the Bernoulli brothers or the Marquis de l'Hôpital treating, with notation only slightly different from that which we use today, the most varied problems of differential calculus, integral calculus and the calculus of variations. Thus in the space of almost precisely one century infinitesimal calculus or, as we now call it in English, The Calculus, the calculating tool par excellence, had been forged; and nearly three centuries of constant use have not completely dulled this incomparable instrument.

When writers get (from readers or from themselves) criticism in the form “The story would be more believable if such and such happened” or “The story would be more interesting if such and such …” and they agree to make use of the criticism, they must translate it: “Is there any point in the story process I can go back to, and, by examining my visualization more closely, catch something I missed before, which, when I notate it, will move the visualization/notation process forward again in this new way?” In other words, can the writers convince themselves that on some ideal level the story actually did happen (as opposed to “should have happened”) in the new way, and that it was their inaccuracy as a story-process practitioner that got it going on the wrong track at some given point? If you don’t do this, the corrections are going to clunk a bit and leave a patch-as-patch-can feel with the reader.

The general point: the story process keeps the vision clear and the action moving. But if we do not notate the vision accurately, if we accept some phrase we should have discarded, if we allow to stand some sentence that is not as sharp as we can make it, then the vision is not changed in the same way it would have been otherwise: the new sections of the vision will not light up quite so clearly, perhaps not at all. As well, the movement of the vision—its action—will not develop in the same way if we put down a different phrase. And though the inaccurate employment of the story process may still get you to the end of the tale, the progress of the story process, which eventually registers in the reader’s mind as “the plot,” is going to be off: an inaccuracy in either of the two story process elements, the envisioning or the notation, automatically detracts from the other. When they go off enough, the progress of the story process will appear unclear, or clumsy, or just illogical.

The three main mediaeval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism. Realism, as the word is used in connection with the mediaeval controversy over universals, is the Platonic doctrine that universals or abstract entities have being independently of the mind; the mind may discover them but cannot create them. Logicism, represented by Frege, Russell, Whitehead, Church, and Carnap, condones the use of bound variables to refer to abstract entities known and unknown, specifiable and unspecifiable, indiscriminately. Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made. Intuitionism, espoused in modern times in one form or another by Poincaré, Brouwer, Weyl, and others, countenances the use of bound variables to refer to abstract entities only when those entities are capable of being cooked up individually from ingredients specified in advance. As Fraenkel has put it, logicism holds that classes are discovered while intuitionism holds that they are invented—a fair statement indeed of the old opposition between realism and conceptualism. This opposition is no mere quibble; it makes an essential difference in the amount of classical mathematics to which one is willing to subscribe. Logicists, or realists, are able on their assumptions to get Cantor’s ascending orders of infinity; intuitionists are compelled to stop with the lowest order of infinity, and, as an indirect consequence, to abandon even some of the classical laws of real numbers. The modern controversy between logicism and intuitionism arose, in fact, from disagreements over infinity. Formalism, associated with the name of Hilbert, echoes intuitionism in deploring the logicist’s unbridled recourse to universals. But formalism also finds intuitionism unsatisfactory. This could happen for either of two opposite reasons. The formalist might, like the logicist, object to the crippling of classical mathematics; or he might, like the nominalists of old, object to admitting abstract entities at all, even in the restrained sense of mind-made entities. The upshot is the same: the formalist keeps classical mathematics as a play of insignificant notations. This play of notations can still be of utility—whatever utility it has already shown itself to have as a crutch for physicists and technologists. But utility need not imply significance, in any literal linguistic sense. Nor need the marked success of mathematicians in spinning out theorems, and in finding objective bases for agreement with one another’s results, imply significance. For an adequate basis for agreement among mathematicians can be found simply in the rules which govern the manipulation of the notations—these syntactical rules being, unlike the notations themselves, quite significant and intelligible.

Maybe it was because of his ignorance of music that he had been capable of receiving so confused an impression, the kind of impression that is, however, perhaps the only one which is purely musical, immaterial, entirely original, irreducible to any other order of impression. An impression of this kind is, for an instant, so to speak, sine materia. No doubt the notes we hear then tend already, depending on their loudness and their quantity, to spread out before our eyes over surfaces of varying dimensions, to trace arabesques, to give us sensations of breadth, tenuousness, stability, whimsy. But the notes vanish before these sensations are sufficiently formed in us not to be submerged by those already excited by the succeeding or even simultaneous notes. And this impression would continue to envelop with its liquidity and its “mellowness” the motifs that at times emerge from it, barely discernible, immediately to dive under and disappear, known only by the particular pleasure they give, impossible to describe, to recall, to name, ineffable—if memory, like a laborer working to put down lasting foundations in the midst of the waves, by fabricating for us facsimiles of these fleeting phrases, did not allow us to compare them to those that follow them and to differentiate them. And so, scarcely had the delicious sensation which Swann had felt died away than his memory at once furnished him with a transcription that was summary and temporary but at which he could glance while the piece continued, so that already, when the same impression suddenly returned, it was no longer impossible to grasp. He could picture to himself its extent, its symmetrical groupings, its notation, its expressive value; he had before him this thing which is no longer pure music, which is drawing, architecture, thought, and which allows us to recall the music. This time he had clearly distinguished one phrase rising for a few moments above the waves of sound. It had immediately proposed to him particular sensual pleasures which he had never imagined before hearing it, which he felt could be introduced to him by nothing else, and he had experienced for it something like an unfamiliar love.

Lovelace defined as an ‘operation’ the control of material and symbolic entities beyond the second-order language of mathematics (like the idea, discussed in chapter 1, of an algorithmic thinking beyond the boundary of computer science). In a visionary way, Lovelace seemed to suggest that mathematics is not the universal theory par excellence but a particular case of the science of operations. Following this insight, she envisioned the capacity of numerical computers qua universal machines to represent and manipulate numerical relations in the most diverse disciplines and generate, among other things, complex musical artefacts: [The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine … Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.

All texts are, always, to various degrees, contradictory, multifarious, polysemic. This is not license for epistemological anarchy, according to which anything, any reading, always goes. But it is to acknowledge that no next, whatever its author's (or reader's) intent, can have a simple, singular meaning. Every text will generate something like a tangle of meanings and connotations, more or less concentrated around a core, more or less protean or stable, according to political, social and linguistic context. As one playful formulation has it, rather than being straightforwardly 'about' something in particular, every text is inevitably surrounded by a 'vibrating aboutness cluster'. The context, content and range of that cluster must be accounted for as part of an analysis. Some writers in some situations may strain against rhetorical shenanigans, for example striving for the specificity of logical notation: the cluster of reasonable meanings of such texts may well thus be less diffuse than for those which, say, revel in pun and performance. But a text with one 'true' meaning is a chimera. Analysis is not closure, but an attempt to discern reasonable meaning(s) close to the core of that cluster, and to contest those that range too far from it.

The chemists who uphold dualism are far from being agreed among themselves; nevertheless, all of them in maintaining their opinion, rely upon the phenomena of chemical reactions. For a long time the uncertainty of this method has been pointed out: it has been shown repeatedly, that the atoms put into movement during a reaction take at that time a new arrangement, and that it is impossible to deduce the old arrangement from the new one. It is as if, in the middle of a game of chess, after the disarrangement of all the pieces, one of the players should wish, from the inspection of the new place occupied by each piece, to determine that which it originally occupied.

I keep notations, like my mother. She had notebook after notebook of trials and errors, all written in her perfect penmanship on quad-ruled pages, a square for each letter to nest in. My journal is a thick black hardcover with unlined pages. Like her, I'm a technician, a statistician, copiously documenting slight variations in texture, color, taste. I'm a chemist. A quarter cup of rye flour added to the white wheat gives a sweeter flavor. A half teaspoon more salt and 78 percent hydration of the dough result in those coveted large, irregular rooms in the crumb. Mastering formulas, not recipes, in the quest for the perfect loaf. Xavier tells me not to bother. He doesn't believe in perfection. "Forget the ingredients. Forget the environment. 'You' are different each day. You can't replicate yourself. Your hands are stronger, or weaker. Your mind thinks different thoughts while kneading. Life is all over you, changing you. All that goes into the making comes out in the bread. It won't be the same from one batch to the next. Not ever." "It'll be close, though." "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." He's the artist. He makes me brave enough to try. With his encouragement, I've focused on the creativity of bread, writing my own recipes, exploring nontraditional flavors and shapes. Not all of them turn out well, but he tastes my failures with me, with layers of warm butter.

You Play the Game How You Act How You Think How You Brand & Market Yourself How You Sound How You Look How You Respond   1.   2.   3.   4.   5.   6.   7.   8.   9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Overall Total INTERPRETATION OF YOUR SCORES Overall Score of 159–196 or A Category Score of 22–28 You go, girl! Your score indicates you must already have the corner office or are well on your way to getting it. To stay on track, focus on those questions where you rated yourself “1” or “2.” Also, remember to pay it forward by mentoring other women. Overall Score of 110–158 or A Category Score of 14–21 Fine-tuning is the name of your game! Although you often engage in behaviors worthy of a winning woman, there are times when you don’t get your due because you get caught up in nice girl syndrome. First read the chapters that correspond with your lowest category scores, then go back and read the rest as a refresher course. Overall Score of 49–109 or A Category Score of 7–13 Danger! You are falling into the trap of acting like the nice little girl you were taught to be in childhood. You frequently wonder why you’re not achieving the success you’ve worked so hard for. This book was written for you, so take out your pen and start making notations for what you commit to doing differently.

The result was not nearly as vivid to the layman as, say, E=mc2. Yet using the condensed notations of tensors, in which sprawling complexities can be compressed into little subscripts, the crux of the final Einstein field equations is compact enough to be emblazoned, as it indeed often has been, on T-shirts designed for proud physics students. In one of its many variations,82 it can be written as: Rμv– 1/2 gμv R = 8πTμv The left side of the equation starts with the term Rμv, which is the Ricci tensor he had embraced earlier. The term gμv is the all-important metric tensor, and the term R is the trace of the Ricci tensor called the Ricci scalar. Together, this left side of the equation—which is now known as the Einstein tensor and can be written simply as Gμv—compresses together all of the information about how the geometry of spacetime is warped and curved by objects. The right side describes the movement of matter in the gravitational field. The interplay between the two sides shows how objects curve spacetime and how, in turn, this curvature affects the motion of objects. As the physicist John Wheeler has put it, “Matter tells spacetime how to curve, and curved space tells matter how to move.”83 Thus is staged a cosmic tango, as captured by another physicist, Brian Greene: Space and time become players in the evolving cosmos. They come alive. Matter here causes space to warp there, which causes matter over here to move, which causes space way over there to warp even more, and so on. General relativity provides the choreography for an entwined cosmic dance of space, time, matter, and energy.

My sister and I grew older. My mother educated us herself, always reminding us that though the Daglan had been vanquished, evil lived on. Evil lurked beneath our very feet, always waiting to devour us. I believe she told us this in order to keep us honest and true, certainly more than she had ever been. Yet as we aged and grew into our power, it became clear that only one throne could be inherited. I loved Helena more than anything. Should she have wanted the throne, it was hers. But she had as little interest in it as I did. It was not enough for my mother. Possessing all she had ever wanted was not enough. “Classic stage mom,” Bryce muttered. My mother remembered the talk of the Daglan—their mention of other worlds. Places they had conquered. And with two daughters and one throne … only entire worlds would do for us. For her legacy. Bryce shook her head again. She knew where this was going. Remembering the teachings of her former mistress, my mother knew she might wield the Horn and Harp to open a door. To bring the Fae to new heights, new wealth and prestige. Bryce rolled her eyes. Same corrupt, delusional Fae rulers, different millennium. Yet when she announced her vision to her court, many of them refused. They had just overthrown their conquerors—now they would turn conqueror, too? They demanded that she shut the door and leave this madness behind her. But she would not be deterred. There were enough Fae throughout her lands, along with some of the fire-wielders from the south, who supported the idea, merchants who salivated at the thought of untapped riches in other worlds. And so she gathered a force. It was Pelias who told her where to cast her intention. Using old, notated star maps from their former masters, he’d selected a world for them.

Such was the ugly face of the Middle Ages. It is not surprising that mathematics made little progress; toward the Renaissance, European mathematics reached a level that, roughly, the Babylonians had attained some 2,000 years earlier and much of the progress made was due to the knowledge that filtered in from the Arabs, the Moors and other Muslim peoples, who themselves were in contact with the Hindus, and they, in turn, with the Far East. The history of Pi in the Middle Ages bears this out. No significant progress in the method of determining Pi was made until Viete discovered an infinite product of square roots in 1593, and what little progress there was in the calculation of its numerical value, by various modifications of the Archimedean method, was due to the decimal notation which began to infiltrate from the East through the Muslims in the 12th century. Arab mathematicians came to Europe through the trade in the Mediterranean, mainly via Italy; ironically, the other stream of mathematics was the Church itself. Not only because the mediaeval priests had a near monopoly of learning, but also because they needed mathematics and astronomy as custodians of the calendar. Like the Soviet High Priests who publish Pravda for other but read summaries of the New York Times themselves, sot he mediaeval Church condemned mathematics as devilish for others, but dabbled quite a lot in it itself. Gerbert d'Aurillac, who ruled as Pope Sylvester II from 999 to 1003, was quite a mathematician; so was Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464); and much of the work done on Pi was done behind thick cloister walls. And just like the Soviets did not hesitate to spy on the atomic secrets of bourgeois pseudo-science, so the mediaeval Church did not hesitate to spy on the mathematics of the Muslim infidels.

You didn’t tell me you were a horse whisperer.” “I’m not—at least I don’t think I am.” “Well, you nearly gave me a heart attack. If you were one of my men, I’d fire you on the spot for being reckless.” “I’m not one of your men.” “Thank God for that.” Still, he needed to make his point. “You could have been killed. I’ve seen stallions go crazy and injure experienced horsemen, men who raised them. You took a real chance stepping in here.” “I’m sorry I frightened you. I saw how afraid Chinook was, and I just had to do something.” He handed her the curry comb. “Most people who saw a stallion in that state would see only aggression and feel afraid. But you saw that the stallion was afraid, and so you had no fear. You amaze me.” She looked up at him and smiled. “That goes both ways.” He was glad to hear that. In the course of the evening, he’d come to realize that he loved her. For the second time in his life, he’d fallen head over heels in love with a woman.

The opponent seemed to shift slightly in the seat. His index finger tapped a card, just a couple strokes. There it was the card that ruined his hand. Her hazel eyes release the player across from her to steal a glance registering the emotion of observers around the table then to her best friend. Sophie looks like a Nervous Nelly-she, always worries. She knows the girl will put too much emphasis on a lost hand. The striking man with his lusty brown eyes tries to draw Sophie closer. Now that he has folded and left the game, he is unnecessary, and the seasoned flirt easily escapes his reach. He leaves with a scowl; Sophie turns and issues knowing wink. Ell’s focus is now unfettered, freeing her again to bring down the last player. When she wins this hand, she will smile sweetly, thank the boys for their indulgence, and walk away $700 ahead. The men never suspected her; she’s no high roller. She realizes she and Sophie will have to stay just a bit. Mill around and pay homage to the boy’s egos. The real trick will be leaving this joint alone without one of them trying to tag along. Her opponent is taking his time; he is still undecided as to what card to keep—tap, tap. He may not know, but she has an idea which one he will choose. He attempts to appear nonchalant, but she knows she has him cornered. She makes a quick glance for Mr. Lusty Brown-eyes; he has found a new dame who is much more receptive than Sophie had been. Good, that small problem resolved itself for them. She returns her focuses on the cards once more and notes, her opponent’s eyes have dilated a bit. She has him, but she cannot let the gathering of onlookers know. She wants them to believe this was just a lucky night for a pretty girl. Her mirth finds her eyes as she accepts his bid. From a back table, there is a ruckus indicating the crowd’s appreciation of a well-played game as it ends. Reggie knew a table was freeing up, and just in time, he did not want to waste this evening on the painted and perfumed blonde dish vying for his attention. He glances the way of the table that slowly broke up. He recognizes most of the players and searches out the winner amongst them. He likes to take on the victor, and through the crowd, he catches a glimpse of his goal, surprised that he had not noticed her before. The women who frequent the back poker rooms in speakeasies all dress to compete – loud colors, low bodices, jewelry which flashes in the low light. This dame faded into the backdrop nicely, wearing a deep gray understated yet flirty gown. The minx deliberately blended into the room filled with dark men’s suits. He chuckles, thinking she is just as unassuming as can be playing the room as she just played those patsies at the table. He bet she had sat down all wide-eyed with some story about how she always wanted to play cards. He imagined she offered up a stake that wouldn’t be large but at the same time, substantial enough. Gauging her demeanor, she would have been bold enough to have the money tucked in her bodice. Those boys would be eager after she teased them by retrieving her stake. He smiled a slow smile; he would not mind watching that himself. He knew gamblers; this one was careful not to call in the hard players, just a couple of marks, which would keep the pit bosses off her. He wants to play her; however, before he can reach his goal, the skirt slips away again, using her gray camouflage to aid her. Hell, it is just as well, Reggie considered she would only serve as a distraction and what he really needs is the mental challenge of the game not the hot release of some dame–good or not. Off in a corner, the pit boss takes out a worn notepad, his meaty hands deftly use a stub of a pencil to enter the notation. The date and short description of the two broads quickly jotted down for his boss Mr. Deluca. He has seen the pair before, and they are winning too often for it to be accidental or to be healthy.

On the other hand, it's really hard to make a language that's great at everything, in part just because there are only so many concise notations to go around. There's this Huffman encoding problem. If you make something concise, something is going to have to be more verbose as a consequence. So in designing a language, one of the things you think about is, “What are the things I want to make very easy to say and very easy to get right?” But with the understanding that, having used up characters or symbols for that purpose, you're going to have made something else a little bit harder to say.

As a result I early asked the question, "Why should I do all the analysis in terms of Fourier integrals? Why are they the natural tools for the problem?" I soon found out, as many of you already know, that the eigenfunctions of translation are the complex exponentials. If you want time invariance, and certainly physicists and engineers do (so that an experiment done today or tomorrow will give the same results), then you are led to these functions. Similarly, if you believe in linearity then they are again the eigenfunctions. In quantum mechanics the quantum states are absolutely additive; they are not just a convenient linear approximation. Thus the trigonometric functions are the eigenfunctions one needs in both digital filter theory and quantum mechanics, to name but two places. Now when you use these eigenfunctions you are naturally led to representing various functions, first as a countable number and then as a non-countable number of them-namely, the Fourier series and the Fourier integral. Well, it is a theorem in the theory of Fourier integrals that the variability of the function multiplied by the variability of its transform exceeds a fixed constant, in one notation l/2pi. This says to me that in any linear, time invariant system you must find an uncertainty principle.

Partial solution: structured writing (aka Information Mapping®) Structured writing is an integrated synthesis of tools and techniques for the analysis of complex subject matters (primarily explanation and reporting) and a group of standards and techniques for the management of large amounts of rapidly changing information. It includes procedures for planning organizing sequencing and presenting communications. For stable subject matters, you can divide all the relevant sentences into 40 categories. Examples are: Analogy, Definition, Description, Diagram, Example, Non-example, Fact, Comment, Notation, Objectives, Principle, Purpose, Rule, etc. Some of the sentences stand by themselves in these categories (e.g. Definitions, Examples). Others make sense as part of larger structures (e.g. Parts-Function Table).

But let’s be clear: the madness of everyday life was its own issue. It didn’t have any relationship to whether or not Christianity was bullshit. Obviously, Christianity was total bullshit. It was the most insane bullshit! But it was impossible to make an argument against superstition and magical nonsense, and have it stick, when that argument was delivered from a society where every citizen was a magician. And yes, reader, that includes you. You too are a magician. Your life is dominated by one of the oldest and most perverse forms of magic, one with less interior cohesion than the Christian faith, and you invest its empty symbolism with a level of belief that far outpaces that of any Christian. Here are some strips of paper and bits of metal! Watch as I transform these strips of paper and bits of metal into: (a) sex (b) food (c) clothing (d) shelter (e) transportation that allows me to acquire strips of paper and bits of money (f) intoxicants that distract me from my endless pursuit of strips of paper and bits of metal (g) leisure items that distract me from my endless pursuit of strips of paper and bits of metal (h) pointless vacations to exotic locales where I will replicate the brutish behavior that I display in my point of origin as a brief respite from my endless pursuit of strips of paper and bits of metal (i) unfair social advantages that allow my rotten children to undertake their own moronic pursuits of strips of paper and bits of metal. Humiliate yourself for strips of paper. Murder for the strips of paper. Humiliate others for the strips of paper. Worship the people who’ve accumulated such vast quantities of strips of paper that their strips of paper no longer have any physical existence and are now represented by binary notation. Treat the vast accumulators like gods. Free blowies for the moldering corpse of Steve Jobs! Fawning profile pieces for Jay-Z! The Presidency for billionaire socialite and real-estate developer Donald J. Trump! Kill! Kill! Kill! Work! Work! Work! Die! Die! Die! Go on. Pretend this is not the most magical thing that has ever happened. Historical arguments against Christianity tended to be delivered in tones of pearl-clutching horror, usually by subpar British intellectuals pimping their accent in America, a country where sounding like an Oxbridge twat conferred an unearned credibility. Yes, the Crusades were horrible. Yes, the Inquisition was awful. Yes, they shouldn’t have burned witches in Salem. Yes, there is an unfathomable amount of sexually abused walking wounded. Yes, every Christian country has oriented itself around the rich and done nothing but abuse the fuck out of its poor. But it’s not like the secular conversion of the industrialized world has alleviated any of the horror. Read the news. Murder, rape, murder, rape, murder, rape, murder, rape, murder, rape, murder, rape...Despair. All secularism has done, really, is remove a yoke from the rich. They’d always been horrible, but at least when they still paid lip service to Christian virtues, they could be shamed into philanthropy. Now they use market forces to slide the whole thing into feudalism. New York University built a campus [in Abu Dhabi] with slave labor! In the Twenty-First Century AD! And has suffered no rebuke! Applications are at an all-time high! The historical arguments against Christianity are as facile as reviews on Goodreads.com, and come down to this: Why do you organize around bad people who tell you that a Skyman wants you to be good? To which the rejoinder is: yes, the clergy sucks, but who cares how normal people are delivered into goodness?

Both mathematical notation and musical notation point to universes quite different from the one in which ordinary language functions so well. But, in each too, there is genius in the very notation that has developed for giving representation to ideas that seem to lie beyond ordinary language. There are times in mathematics when the similarities in notation is the first clue to a deeper relationship. Similarly musical notation not only created a structure within which Western music could develop but also shows something other than just the sounds being made. It indicates how the various elements stand in relation to one another, how sound creates a space, it shows how different musical voices move against and through each other.

You can use a similar three-dot notation to call a function with an array of arguments. let numbers = [5, 1, 7]; console.log( max(... numbers)); // → 7 This “spreads” out the array into the function call, passing its elements as separate arguments. It is possible to include an array like that along with other arguments, as in max( 9, ... numbers, 2).

Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.

I'll be successful, maybe not immediately but Absolutely and Definitely...

Think of the job as the overall object or aim and needs as the success criteria along the way. As with job statements, formulating a need statement in a standard way is critical. Lance Bettencourt and Anthony Ulwick have developed a consistent way to notate needs in what they call desired outcome statements. There are four elements: Direction of change + unit of measure + object + clarifier •

Where do you think the notes were before Chopin wrote his nocturnes?” With a nod of confusion I asked, “Where?” She leaned back, exhaling a stream of smoke, as if unraveling a hidden truth. “I believe those notes were always present, suspended in the air, waiting for an artist's embrace. It's as if there's an intangible essence, an elusive sense, that artists possess. They have the ability to pluck those ethereal notes from the unseen and mold them into tangible forms, giving voice to our deepest emotions and translating them into melodies that resonate within us.

RAPID LOGGING Using short-form notation paired with symbols to quickly capture, categorize, and prioritize your thoughts into Notes, Events, and Tasks. Note Event Task Task Complete Task Migrated Task Scheduled Task Irrelevant

A good notation should be unambiguous, pregnant, easy to remember.

be moving usefully in some direction. With lateral thinking one may play around without any purpose or direction. One may play around with experiments, with models, with notation, with ideas. The movement and change of lateral thinking is not an end in itself but a way of bringing about repatterning. Once there is movement and change then the maximizing properties of the mind will see to it that something useful happens. The vertical thinker says: ‘I know what I am looking for.’ The lateral thinker says: ‘I am looking but I won’t know what I am looking for until I have found it.’ Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative.

Is it the Infinite that tempts us, or the Imp? Or is it merely our Vocational Habit, ancient as Kabbala, of seeking God there, among the Notation of these resonating Chains....

They think they are talking about negation, ‘~’, ‘not’; but surely the notation ceased to be recognizable as negation when they took to regarding some conjunctions of the form ‘p & ~p’ as true, and stopped regarding such sentences as implying all others. Here, evidently, is the deviant logician’s predicament: when he tries to deny the doctrine he only changes the subject.

Significantly, rhythm and texture are the two most difficult aspects of music to express in conventional Western musical notation. These qualities, some of the most resonant and important in contemporary popular music, and in some ways the most “African,” were excluded from, or maybe simply outside of, the system by which music was traditionally taught, passed on, notated, discussed, criticized, and—very important—copyrighted.

Nowhere were these values as severely codified as in France, and there Bourbaki succeeded as its founders could not have imagined. Its precepts, style, and notation became mandatory. It achieved the unassailable Tightness that comes from controlling all the best students and producing a steady flow of successful mathematics. Its dominance over École Normale was total and, to Mandelbrot, unbearable. He fled Normale because of Bourbaki, and a decade later he fled France for the same reason, taking up residence in the United States. Within a few decades, the relentless abstraction of Bourbaki would begin to die of a shock brought on by the computer, with its power to feed a new mathematics of the eye.

Somewhere along the line this notation system was mistranslated in the popular press, leaving the impression that our ancient ancestors rarely made it past thirty-five. Big mistake. A wide range of data sources (including, even, the Old Testament) point to a typical human life span of anywhere from seventy (“three score and ten”) to over ninety years.

As the willow studied the Count, he noted that the arches over her eyebrows were very much like the marcato notation in music—that accent which instructs one to play a phrase a little more loudly.

The basic principle of Western staff notation is that passing time is represented through a series of marks arranged from left to right on the page. Within the five lines of the staff (or stave), notes are arrayed from high to low. So a score is a kind of two-dimensional plot in which the horizontal axis is time and vertical one is pitch;

Of the components of IQ tests, Ashkenazim do well on verbal and mathematical questions but score lower than average on visuospatial questions. In most people, these two kinds of ability are highly correlated. This suggests that some specific force has been at work in shaping the nature of Ashkenazi intelligence, as if the population were being adapted not to hunting, which requires excellent visuospatial skills, but to more urban occupations served by the ability to manipulate words and numerals. So it’s striking to find that Ashkenazim, almost from the moment their appearance in Europe was first recorded, around 900 AD, were heavily engaged in moneylending. This was the principal occupation of Jews in England, France and Germany. The trade required a variety of high level skills, including the ability to read and write contracts and to do arithmetic. Literacy was a rare ability in medieval Europe. As late as 1500, only 10% of the population of most European countries was literate, whereas almost all Jews were.7 As for arithmetic, it may be simple enough with the Arabic numerals in use today. But Arabic numerals did not become widespread in Europe until the mid-16th century. Before that, people used Roman numerals, a notation system that has no zero. Calculating interest rates and currency swaps without the use of zero is not a straightforward computation.

FOUR-STEP METHOD NOTATIONS FOR REAL-WORLD SITUATIONS L = Listening MV = Micro Validation V = Validation AP = Asking Permission to Give Feedback GF = Giving Feedback VA = Validating Again VV = Validating Vulnerability

but the script he saw written all about him, on the signposts and facades of Alexandria, was musical, all right. It ran complicated scales on the optic nerve. Everywhere, the Arabic alphabet wiggled and popped, enlivening crumbling architecture with outbursts of linguistic jazz, notations from the DNA songbook, energetic markings as primal as grunts and as modern as the abstract electricity of synthesizer feedback.

They told us not to drink the water from one of our neighborhood wells. The reason was that the wall surrounding the well had some kind of strange notation written on it in white chalk. This was supposedly a Korean code indication that the well water had been poisoned. I was flabbergasted. The truth was that the strange notation was a scribble I myself had written. Seeing adults behaving like this, I couldn’t help shaking my head and wondering what human beings are all about.

omnipresent, neither of which God desired for me to be. As I read the Gospels, it became clearer and clearer to me that Jesus himself was not selfless. Jesus went into the mountains and prayed to the point that even his disciples could not find him. Jesus ate. Jesus drank. Jesus slept. He took care of himself. And never once was Jesus hurried from place to place, controlled by a busy schedule. Jesus lived a rhythm completely different from anyone around him. The rhythm of his life was, in itself, a prophetic act against the rhythms of the world. Sabbath rhythms are not meant for paper; they are meant to be practiced. “Holy days, rituals, liturgies—all are like musical notations which, in themselves,” one Jewish scholar writes, “cannot convey the nuances and textures of live performance.

Je sens que le récit m'entraîne et impose, à mon insu, un sens, celui du malheur en marche inéluctablement. Je m'oblige à résister au désir de dévaler les jours et les semaines, tâchant de conserver par tous les moyens - la recherche et la notation de détails, l'emploi de l'imparfait, l'analyse des faits - l'interminable lenteur d'un temps qui s'épaississait sans avancer, comme celui des rêves.

Subsection A. Two male partners and one female partner.” “Pass,” Nagrad called. There were deep bags under his eyes. “Let it be known that Lord Nagrad abandons all claim to the act described in entry number three hundred and twelve, subsection A and all the subsequent positions described or listed under subsection A.” “So noted,” the witnesses intoned. Everyone made the appropriate notations in their copy of the list.

Is it enough to live in a universe whose laws spontaneously create life? Or do you prefer ... God?” She paused, looking embarrassed. “Sorry, after all we’ve been through tonight, I know that’s a strange question.” “Well,” Langdon said with a laugh, “I think my answer would benefit from a decent night’s sleep. But no, it’s not strange. People ask me all the time if I believe in God.” “And how do you reply?” “I reply with the truth,” he said. “I tell them that, for me, the question of God lies in understanding the difference between codes and patterns.” Ambra glanced over. “I’m not sure I follow you.” “Codes and patterns are very different from each other,” Langdon said. “And a lot of people confuse the two. In my field, it’s crucial to understand their fundamental difference.” “That being?” Langdon stopped walking and turned to her. “A pattern is any distinctly organized sequence. Patterns occur everywhere in nature—the spiraling seeds of a sunflower, the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb, the circular ripples on a pond when a fish jumps, et cetera.” “Okay. And codes?” “Codes are special,” Langdon said, his tone rising. “Codes, by definition, must carry information. They must do more than simply form a pattern—codes must transmit data and convey meaning. Examples of codes include written language, musical notation, mathematical equations, computer language, and even simple symbols like the crucifix. All of these examples can transmit meaning or information in a way that spiraling sunflowers cannot.” Ambra grasped the concept, but not how it related to God. “The other difference between codes and patterns,” Langdon continued, “is that codes do not occur naturally in the world. Musical notation does not sprout from trees, and symbols do not draw themselves in the sand. Codes are the deliberate inventions of intelligent consciousnesses.” Ambra nodded. “So codes always have an intention or awareness behind them.” “Exactly. Codes don’t appear organically; they must be created.” Ambra studied him a long moment. “What about DNA?” A professorial smile appeared on Langdon’s lips. “Bingo,” he said. “The genetic code. That’s the paradox.” Ambra felt a rush of excitement. The genetic code obviously carried data — specific instructions on how to build organisms. By Langdon’s logic, that could mean only one thing. “You think DNA was created by an intelligence!” Langdon held up a hand in mock self-defense. “Easy, tiger!” he said, laughing. “You’re treading on dangerous ground. Let me just say this. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had the gut sense that there’s a consciousness behind the universe. When I witness the precision of mathematics, the reliability of physics, and the symmetries of the cosmos, I don’t feel like I’m observing cold science; I feel as if I’m seeing a living footprint ... the shadow of some greater force that is just beyond our grasp.

Laughing with blood relatives amidst memorable melodies in the background, styrofoam plate in hand, topped with foods that restaurants can’t duplicate, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Staring at an unbelievable sunrise from a balcony villa in Tanzania, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Recognized and awarded for notable news journalism, a few semesters away from achieving a prestigious degree decorated with promised opportunities, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Hoping quietly for the best, to “win my husband over” with traditional submission, more frequent sex, and minimized speech, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Walking down a dusty Egyptian street filled with the welcoming laughter of carefree children, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Sitting in a church pew notating another good message, clapping to some of my favorite songs, and then exiting to talk with familiar faces, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Communing with those who know who the “real chosen” are, beholding their unknown names unmasked, and secret knowledges revealed to ponder incessantly, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Placed underneath the wanting body of a rare man who showed me unprecedented love, it hit me: I don’t belong here. My soul. My mind. My body. Each malnourished. My community. My life purpose. Both misplaced. All starving for home. So, I moved. Not to what looks and feels good for them, but to what

Laughing with blood relatives amidst memorable melodies in the background, styrofoam plate in hand, topped with foods that restaurants can’t duplicate, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Staring at an unbelievable sunrise from a balcony villa in Tanzania, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Recognized and awarded for notable news journalism, a few semesters away from achieving a prestigious degree decorated with promised opportunities, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Hoping quietly for the best, to “win my husband over” with traditional submission, more frequent sex, and minimized speech, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Walking down a dusty Egyptian street filled with the welcoming laughter of carefree children, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Sitting in a church pew notating another good message, clapping to some of my favorite songs, and then exiting to talk with familiar faces, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Communing with those who know who the “real chosen” are, beholding their unknown names unmasked, and secret knowledges revealed to ponder incessantly, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Placed underneath the wanting body of a rare man who showed me unprecedented love, it hit me: I don’t belong here. My soul. My mind. My body. Each malnourished. My community. My life purpose. Both misplaced. All starving for home. So, I moved. Not to what looks and feels good for them, but to what

Laughing with blood relatives amidst memorable melodies in the background, styrofoam plate in hand, topped with foods that restaurants can’t duplicate, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Staring at an unbelievable sunrise from a balcony villa in Tanzania, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Hoping quietly for the best, to “win my husband over” with traditional submission, more frequent sex, and minimized speech, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Walking down a dusty Egyptian street filled with the welcoming laughter of carefree children, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Sitting in a church pew notating another good message, clapping to some of my favorite songs, and then exiting to talk with familiar faces, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Communing with those who know who the “real chosen” are, beholding their unknown names unmasked, and secret knowledges revealed to ponder incessantly, it hit me: I don’t belong here. Placed underneath the wanting body of a rare man who showed me unprecedented love, it hit me: I don’t belong here. My soul. My mind. My body. Each malnourished. My community. My life purpose. Both misplaced. All starving for home. So, I moved. Not to what looks and feels good for them, but to what

Sometimes mathematical notation helps us to understand magnitudes. We will write it this way: With a variation of only 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of the aforementioned relations, life would not exist. Again and again we see that the values of the constants and their relation that would permit an anthropic universe are very limited, and the possible values of these constants or these relations that would prevent life in the universe have an extremely wide range.

I have found the words masculine and feminine indispensable for my notations of appearance and behavior, but I apply them freely to both sexes, according to mood and situation. Here are my conclusions, after a lifetime of observation and reflection. Maleness at its hormonal extreme is an angry, ruthless density of self, motivated by a principle of ‘attack.’ Femaleness at its hormonal extreme is first an acute sensitivity of response, literally thin-skinned (a hormonal effect in women), and secondly a stability, composure, and self-containment, a slowness approaching the sultry. Biologically, the male is impelled toward restless movement; his moral danger is brutishness. Biologically, the female is impelled toward waiting, expectancy; her moral danger is stasis. Androgen agitates; estrogen tranquilizes—hence the drowsiness and ‘glow’ of pregnancy. Most of us inhabit not polar extremes but a constantly shifting great middle. However, a preponderance of gray does not disprove the existence of black and white. Sexual geography, our body image, alters our perception of the world. Man is contoured for invasion, while woman remains the hidden, a cave of archaic darkness. No legislation or grievance committee can change these eternal facts.

The great breakthrough that permitted man to count far beyond 10 with just ten different symbols was the invention of this turning point—a concept that mathematicians call positional notation. Positional notation means that each digit in a number has a particular value based on its position. In a decimal number, the first (farthest right) digit represents 1’s, the next digit 10’s, the next 100’s, and so on. The number 206 stands for six 1’s, no 10’s, and two 100’s: Add it all up: and you get 206. This number, incidentally, demonstrates why mathematicians consider the invention of a symbol that represents nothing (i.e., the number 0) to have been a revolutionary event in man’s intellectual history. Without zero, there would be no positional notation, because there would be no difference between 26 and 206 and 2,000,006. The Romans, for all their other achievements, never hit on the idea of zero and thus were stuck with a cumbersome system of M’s, C’s, X’s, and I’s which made higher math just about impossible. With

But because we need to quantify exactly how confused we are, and at what moment that confusion sets in, we call this the Planck Time,XIII and it encompasses the time from zero to about 10-43 seconds. If you’re not familiar with the notation, 10-43 seconds is equal to one second divided by 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (that’s 1 followed by 43 zeros). Suffice it to say, this is an unimaginably small amount of time. And, to be clear, it’s not that we necessarily can explain everything from the Planck Time on, but that we currently definitely cannot explain anything before it.

For example, they contained the ornamental trout lake, one hundred and fifty yards long and, because of one of those trifling errors of notation that were such a distinctive feature of Bloody Stupid’s designs, one inch wide. It was the home of one trout, which was quite comfortable provided it didn’t try to turn around, and had once featured an ornate fountain which, when first switched on, did nothing but groan ominously for five minutes and then fire a small stone cherub a thousand feet into the air.

is safe to say that the message spoke of a common shape to all the processes of the world, and insisted there was a unity to all explanations. It confirmed that all phenomena are expressions of a single phenomenon, and while all droplets consider themselves independent, they are nonetheless still ocean through and through. In that message the great suspicions were vindicated and the old cliches were jettisoned. The hymn of the world was notated and an invitation to join the choir extended. The shape of Being was outlined in all its myriad forms and the whole was expressed in the part. With the right ears even a lesser creature can hear the song. It is sung constantly, from the heart of each atom and star. The galaxies hum of shape and form in their essence. That is their secret. The particles whisper of the nature of proper interactions. That is their game. And during a storm, in the forest, on the right night, it is no secret that the leaves all sing of God.

Classical number is a thought-process dealing not with spatial relations but with visibly limitable and tangible units, and it follows naturally and necessarily that the Classical knows only the "natural" (positive and whole) numbers, which on the contrary olay in our Western mathematics a quite undistinguished part in the midst of complex, hypercomplex, non-Archimedean and other number-systems. On this account, the idea of irrational numbers the unending decimal fractions of our notation was unrealizable within the Greek spirit. Euclid says and he ought to have been better understood that incommensurable lines are "not related to one another like numbers." In fact, it is the idea of irrational number that, once achieved, separates the notion of number from that of magnitude, for the magnitude of such a number (π, for example) can never be defined or exactly represented by any straight line. Moreover, it follows from this that in considering the relation, say, between diagonal and side in a square the Greek would be brought up suddenly against a quite other sort of number, which was fundamentally alien to the Classical soul, and was consequently feared as a secret of its proper existence too dangerous to be unveiled. There is a singular and significant late-Greek legend, according to which the man who first published the hidden mystery of the irrational perished by shipwreck, "for the unspeakable and the formless must be left hidden for ever".

Let nations grow smaller and smaller and people fewer and fewer. Let weapons become rare and superfluous. Let people feel death's gravity again and never wander far from home. Then boat and carriage will sit unused and shield and sword lie unnoticed. Let people knot ropes for notation again and never need anything more. Let them find pleasure in their food and beauty in their clothes, peace in their homes and joy in their ancestral ways. Then people in neighboring nations will look across to each other, their chickens and dogs calling back and forth, and yet they'll grow old and die without bothering to exchange visits.

I’m not sure what right and wrong mean when it comes to us, but I know what it means for music. Someone can play a piece with perfect timing and notation. They can hit every single note, but it still won’t have passion. That part comes from inside.

A small shake of his head. “It’s not right.” I’m not sure what right and wrong mean when it comes to us, but I know what it means for music. Someone can play a piece with perfect timing and notation. They can hit every single note, but it still won’t have passion. That part comes from inside. “Then be wrong with me. Don’t make me do it alone.

Jamie: I’m just beginning to learn UML notation. So the home security function is represented by the big box with the ovals inside it? And the ovals represent use cases that we’ve written in text? Facilitator: Yep. And the stick figures represent actors—the people or things that interact with the system as described by the use case . . . oh, I use the labeled square to represent an actor that’s not a person . . . in this case, sensors. Doug: Is that legal in UML? Facilitator: Legality isn’t the issue. The point is to communicate information. I view the use of a humanlike stick figure for representing a device to be misleading. So I’ve adapted things a bit. I don’t think it creates a problem.

argued that cultural changes mean that we should stop taking musical notation seriously, that political activism is the highest form of education,

Sabbath rhythms are not meant for paper; they are meant to be practiced. “Holy days, rituals, liturgies—all are like musical notations which, in themselves,” one Jewish scholar writes, “cannot convey the nuances and textures of live performance.

For the one-hundred-and-eleventh day, I arrived at the office at eight a.m., sat down at my desk, flipped open a notepad, and neatly wrote Elliot Levy’s schedule in black ink. And at the bottom, following the notation for his last meeting of the day, I included a postscript—which I’d been doing for a hundred and one days. Yesterday’s had been: P.S. Are you even human? The day before: P.S. You remind me of porridge. Today’s: P.S. You’re intolerable. Then, like I always did, I precisely sliced that strip off the bottom, slid it inside an envelope with all one hundred and one of the others, and returned it to its place at the back of my desk drawer beneath my box of tampons. In my current condition, I absolutely did not need them, but I’d found tampons were the best deterrent for most men. Though I regularly questioned if Elliot was a cyborg, I couldn’t picture him willingly touching feminine hygiene products either. This was my only form of rebellion. Those postscripts allowed me to release a tiny drip of the anger I swallowed down on a daily basis. When Elliot’s demands became unbearable, I took out my envelope, ran my fingers over the one-inch strips of “fuck you very much,” and immediately calmed. The therapist I’d been forced to see when I was a teen would have been proud…ish.

In it, Brahmagupta speculated at length, and for the first time, about the qualities of the number zero. Brahmagupta’s work also contained within it other crucial Indian mathematical ideas developed by earlier generations of Brahmin scholars, such as the concept of positional notation, the idea of writing numbers with just ten digits,

But the Oriental musician has a rough notation which he uses only as a reminder of a melody. He learns music, not by reading notes, but by listening to the performance of a teacher, getting the “feel” of it, and copying him, and this enables him to acquire rhythmic and tonal sophistications matched only by those Western jazz artists who use the same approach.

N-a trecut prea mult timp de cand m-am dus la mormantul tatei, asta o stiu, si mi-am notat data decesului, doar a decesului, caci cea a nasterii-mi era indiferenta, in ziua aceea.

Highlighted near the bottom of the demographics hierarchy was the traditional family with the comment, "no discretionary income" as a notation. That didn't mean that the traditional family went unnoticed, however. Henry showed how families without discretionary income were granted credit to consume beyond their needs. He noted that indebted families had a higher rate of divorce, which contributed to other needs and thus influenced other market opportunities.

South Carolina’s fourth-grade music exam, administered via computer, asks: “When singing a melody together with a friend, what dynamic level should you sing? A) Louder than your friend B) Not too loud and not too soft C) Softer than your friend or D) the same as your friend.” (The correct answer is D.) Students are then shown a measure of sheet music and asked to identify which of four electronic recordings matches the notation.

We are all an instrument with a special notation to our individual identity. When you incorporate many beautiful notes together, you envelop a harmonious orchestra.

Într-o încăpere am găsit o mulțime de bordeouri pe care au fost notate cu grijă orele exacte, până la secundă, de plecare și de venire a trenurilor. Lipsesc însă numele localităților de unde veneau aceste trenuri, și cele de destinație. Ca și cum n-avea importanță nici de unde veneau, nici încotro se îndreptau. Totul era să treacă la ora exactă, să nu întârzie nicio secundă în acel drum al lor de nicăieri spre nicăieri.

I knew, thanks to the notations on the map page, that one side of the triangle—Zzyzx to the airport in Vegas—was 92 miles. That left 236 miles for the remaining two sides. That number could be divided in a variety of ways, putting the missing point of the triangle in a myriad of possible positions on the map. What

La première de toutes les difficultés auxquelles il donne lieu à cet égard, c’est précisément la conception des quantités négatives comme « moindres que zéro », que Leibnitz rangeait parmi les affirmations qui ne sont que « toleranter verae », mais qui, en réalité, est, comme nous le disions tout à l’heure, entièrement dépourvue de toute signification. « Avancer qu’une quantité négative isolée est moindre que zéro, a dit Carnot, c’est couvrir la science des mathématiques, qui doit être celle de l’évidence, d’un nuage impénétrable, et s’engager dans un labyrinthe de paradoxes tous plus bizarres les uns que les autres ». Sur ce point, nous pouvons nous en tenir à ce jugement, qui n’est pas suspect et n’a certainement rien d’exagéré ; on ne devrait d’ailleurs jamais oublier, dans l’usage qu’on fait de cette notation des nombres négatifs, qu’il ne s’agit là de rien de plus que d’une simple convention.

Technology, for instance, has become a kind of imposter for connection, making us believe we’re connected when we’re really not—at least not in the ways we need to be. In our technology-crazed world, we’ve confused being communicative with feeling connected. Just because we’re plugged in, doesn’t mean we feel seen and heard. In fact, hyper-communication can mean we spend more time on Facebook than we do face-to-face with the people we care about. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a restaurant and seen two parents on their cell phones while their kids are busy texting or playing video games. What’s the point of even sitting together? As

He didn’t know what to do with his hands as he looked down at the sleeping general. Arin thrust them into his pockets before they went for the throat. He reminded himself why he had come. He ripped open the man’s jacket. Arin reached for the inside breast pocket, located exactly where the man had tried to touch his chest as he had lain bleeding on the road. Arin’s fingers met paper. He pulled it out, its texture suede-soft from having been handled so much. It had been unfolded and folded many times. It was sheet music. At first, Arin didn’t understand what he looked at. Kestrel’s handwriting. Herrani script. Musical notation in crisp black. His own name leaped off the page. Dear Arin. Then he recognized the music as the sonata Kestrel had been studying when he’d entered her music room at the imperial palace in late spring. It had been the last time he’d seen her before the tundra. He had thought it would be the last time he would ever see her. Arin hastened from the tent. He couldn’t read the letter here. But he didn’t know if he could read it anywhere, if any place would be private enough, because being alone meant he’d still be with himself, and he hated to remember how he’d left Kestrel that day, and what had befallen her after. He was desperate to read it. He couldn’t bear to read it. He resented that her father had kept it. He wondered what it meant that her father had kept it. Arin was only vaguely aware of having stumbled through the noisy camp and into the woods. The thought of reading the letter felt like a violation, like he’d be reading a letter meant for someone else. Yet it had been addressed to him. Dear Arin. Arin read.

growing up so poor that for a time his family lived in their Volkswagen van on a relative’s lawn, Jim Carrey believed in his future. Every night in the late 1980’s, Carrey would drive atop a large hill that looked down over Los Angeles and visualize directors valuing his work. At the time, he was a broke and struggling young comic. One night in 1990, while looking down on Los Angeles and dreaming of his future, Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million and put in the notation line “for acting services rendered.” He dated the check for Thanksgiving 1995 and stuck it in his wallet. He gave himself five years. And just before Thanksgiving of 1995, he got paid $10 million for Dumb and Dumber.

Come, my dear. This has been far too much excitement for me this morning. Feel an irresistible urge to stare at some roses and make notations.

Such then is the nature of quasispecies : the density of the sequence cloud at any point in sequence space is determined by the relative fitness of the sequence; regions of the cloud representing sequences of lesser fitness will be less densely populated and those with higher fitness, most populated. Here lies the most powerful quality of viral quasispecies: the density distribution of fitness variants dictates that sequences are represented at frequencies in relation to their relative fitness. Genomes with lower fitness will replicate poorly, or not at all, and the fittest genomes will replicate most efficiently. It therefore follows that there is a large bias toward the production of well-adapted genotypes: there are more of them, and they undergo most replicative cycles. This can permit viruses to experience evolutionary adaptation at rates that are orders of magnitude higher than those that could be achieved by truly random unbiased mutation. Sequences rapidly condense around the fittest area of the sequence space. Should the environment change, and, therefore, selective pressures change, a quasispecies can opportunistically exploits its inherent adaptive potential. Genotypes rapidly and ever-faster gravitate toward the cloud's new notational center of gravity. Changes in the fitness landscape of the sequence space that is occupied by a quasispecies are the natural consequence of altered selective pressures operating on the virus population. Such alterations may be the consequence of changed immunologic pressures exerted by the host, the application of antiviral drug therapy, or even cross-species transmission requiring the virus to adapt to a new host. Genotypes that once occupied the 'central' space, reserved for the fittest genotypes, are reduced in frequency and now occupy the more sparsely populated fringes of the fitness landscape; the very edge of the sequence cloud if you will. Here too lies an advantage for a quasispecies: it has a memory. The once best-adapted genotypes, now at a fitness disadvantage, can persist in the quasispecies as minor sequence variants. Under circumstances of fluctuating selective pressures, the ability of the population to recall an 'old' genome variant is a great asset. The quasispecies can rapidly respond and adapt by plucking out a preexisting variant and quickly coalescing around it to recreate an optimal fitness landscape.

The bitcoin transaction script language, called Script, is a Forth-like reverse-polish notation stack-based execution language. If that sounds like gibberish, you probably haven’t studied 1960s programming languages, but that’s ok —

So strange to me as a new nurse, these now come easily. TLHC is a triple lumen Hickman catheter, a permanent IV line that protrudes from the upper chest. A PICC—peripherally inserted central catheter—is a different type of permanent IV line that gets inserted in the patient’s upper arm. Temporary IVs I notate as “per,” because they go into a peripheral vein: the kind you can see when you look at your own arm or hand.

calculator (with reverse Polish notation),

If these are ‘talents’ – the ability to sing, or to quickly comprehend and reproduce musical notation – what kind of a thing is ‘talent’? A commodity? A gift? A prize? A reward? For what?

In the Old Testament, we read a lot about the staffs people carried around with them. They weren’t just walking sticks, or something to keep wild animals away. They were more significant than that. Back in those days, people were nomadic. They were always on the move. They didn’t keep records with papers and computer files like we have today. Instead, they etched records of important events and dates on their walking staffs. That was their way of keeping personal records. They’d etch notations such as, “On this date we defeated the Amalekites. On this date my son was born. On this date God brought us out of slavery. On this date God gave us water out of the rock.” Their walking staffs provided a record of their history with God. When Moses parted the Red Sea, what did he do? He held up his staff. He was saying, “God, we thank You for all You’ve done in the past. We remember that You’ve delivered us time and time again.” Moses was remembering the great things God had done. When David went out to face Goliath, he didn’t just take his slingshot. The scripture says he took his staff. On that staff, no doubt, he had etched, “On this date I killed a lion with my bare hands. On this date I killed a bear. On this date Samuel anointed me as king.” David took his staff to remind him that God had helped him in the past. I can imagine just before he went out to fight, he ran over and read it one more time. That gave him the final boost. His attitude was, “God, You did it for me back then, so I know You can do it for me now.

The utility of a language as a tool of thought increases with the range of topics it can treat, but decreases with the amount of vocabulary and the complexity of grammatical rules which the user must keep in mind. Economy of notation is therefore important.

In object literal notation, an object is described as a set of comma-separated name/value pairs enclosed in curly braces ({}).

This partial script was composed of ten signs, representing the numbers from 0 to 9. Confusingly, these signs are known as Arabic numerals even though they were first invented by the Hindus (even more confusingly, modern Arabs use a set of digits that look quite different from Western ones). But the Arabs get the credit because when they invaded India they encountered the system, understood its usefulness, refined it, and spread it through the Middle East and then to Europe. When several other signs were later added to the Arab numerals (such as the signs for addition, subtraction and multiplication), the basis of modern mathematical notation came into being.