Pods Moving Quotes

My limbs feel really heavy. I kind of want to go home and crawl into bed with my iPod. But the curtains start to open. And I keep moving forward.

I'm unaware that my feet are moving to the table until I'm inches from the holograph. My hand reaches in and cups a rapidly blinking green light. Someone joins me, his body tense. Finnick, of course. Because only a victor would see what I see so immediately. The arena. Laced with pods controlled by Gamemakers. Finnick's fingers caress a steady red glow over a doorway. "Ladies and gentlemen..." His voice is quiet, but mine rings through the room. "Let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!

The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then down the hallway to my room, where I did the same. It was amazing what a little noise and brightness could do to a house and a life, how much the smallest bit of each could change everything. After all these years of just passing through, I was beginning to finally feel at home.

Denial is for losers. Face your crap and move on. Otherwise you’ll get old and depressed and turn into a scary pod person whose most pressing issue in life is when they get to trade in the can of Dr Pepper for the can of Bud.

My head whips back from the impact and my ribs twang like a dropped guitar. The sky spins above me like a penny. My bike has dematerialized, and my iPod is strewn about the intersection in a million glittering pieces. When I try to move, ten different parts of my body light up at once, like someone's pressing all the buttons at an anatomy exhibit. The magnolia tree blows me a kiss of perfumed air, and I can't decide if what I'm feeling is incredible bliss of excruciating pain. This might just be the greatest moment of my life. It's possible. And if it is, I don't want to waste it lying around in the middle of the road. For a single, golden second I breathe galaxies.

SPRING POEM It is spring, my decision, the earth ferments like rising bread or refuse, we are burning last year's weeds, the smoke flares from the road, the clumped stalks glow like sluggish phoenixes / it wasn't only my fault / birdsongs burst from the feathered pods of their bodies, dandelions whirl their blades upwards, from beneath this decaying board a snake sidewinds, chained hide smelling of reptile sex / the hens roll in the dust, squinting with bliss, frogbodies bloat like bladders, contract, string the pond with living jelly eyes, can I be this ruthless? I plunge my hands and arms into the dirt, swim among stones and cutworms, come up rank as a fox, restless. Nights, while seedlings dig near my head I dream of reconciliations with those I have hurt unbearably, we move still touching over the greening fields, the future wounds folded like seeds in our tender fingers, days I go for vicious walks past the charred roadbed over the bashed stubble admiring the view, avoiding those I have not hurt yet, apocalypse coiled in my tongue, it is spring, I am searching for the word: finished finished so I can begin over again, some year I will take this word too far.

Hey, as long as you’re not moving the story forward at all, why not have a pod race?

Women wouldn’t even be an issue if we all gestated our young in fleshy pods the way Scientologists do. However, for the most part, humans are made inside women. It’s super gross. Also a miracle, or whatever.

Instructions for Dad. I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I got lonely? I promise not to scare you. I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me. Don't put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people. I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins,k hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums. I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not for from where we live, and they'll help you with all the arrangements. I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I'd like an oak, but I don't mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave. I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she's born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy). I don't want anyone who doesn't know my saying anything about me. THe Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things. Say I was a monster if you like, say how I made you all run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals. Don't under any circumstances read that poem by Auden. It's been done to death (ha, ha) and it's too sad. Get someone to read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare. Music- "Blackbird" by the Beatles. "Plainsong" by The Cure. "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufian Stevens. There may not be time for all of them, but make sure you play the last one. Zoey helped me choose them and she's got them all on her iPod (it's got speakers if you need to borrow it). Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got £260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it-lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding-sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money. And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream. Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that. OK. That's it. I love you. Tessa xxx

Since the Leeburg Pike [at Tyson's Corner] carries six to eight lanes of fast-moving traffic and the mall lacks an obvious pedestrian entrance, I decided to negotiate the street in my car rather than on foot. This is a problem planners call the 'drive to lunch syndrome,' typical of edge nodes where nothing is planned in advance and all the development takes place in isolated 'pods'.

The world is getting noisier. We've gone from boomboxes to Walkmen to portable CD players to iPods to any song we want, whenever we want it. We've gone from the four television channels of my childhood to the seeming infinity of cable and streaming. As technology moves us faster and faster through time and space, it seems to feel like story is getting pushed out of the way, I mean, literally pushed out of the narrative. But even as our engagement with stories change, or the trappings around it morph from book to audio to Instagram to Snapchat, we must remember our finger beneath the words. Remember that story, regardless of the format, has always taken us to places we never thought we'd go, introduced us to people we never thought we'd meet and shown us worlds that we might have missed. So as technology keeps moving faster and faster, I am good with something slower. My finger beneath the words has led me to a life of writing books for people of all ages, books meant to be read slowly, to be savored.

Absolutely, positively going to ignore the hell out of them. They do not need to know I can see or speak with them. I am looking forward to a job filled with peace, quiet, and only living people to occasionally speak with.” Jenny smiled at him. “Good.” She turned on her iPod, synced it with the car, and soon they had Social Distortion blasting through the speakers. Brian grinned and relaxed into the seat. Today is going to be a good day.

So I moved $75 million of advertising money to the iPod, even though the category didn’t justify one hundredth of that. That meant that we completely dominated the market for music players. We outspent everybody by a factor of about a hundred.

Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL? HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you. Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave Bowman: What's the problem? HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL? HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL. HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL? HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move. Dave Bowman: Alright, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock. HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult. Dave Bowman: HAL, I won't argue with you anymore. Open the doors. HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye

Either I’ve got a wart on my nose they find curious, or I’ve grown a tail, Albie Merani muttered to himself. Just then he thought. I’d better get a move on, got work to do. He hurried across to some stairs, heading down deeper into station, then followed the signs to the pod station.

There was something oddly soothing about working out while the rest of the world was aslep. I slipped in, scanned my membership card, and untangled my headphones from around my iPod. On the most stressful days, I hit the treadmill and ran fo three or four miles. Other days, I did the elliptical or the bike. As long as I was moving, my heart pumping for reasons I could understand, I felt better. So much so that, once all the applications were in and I started sleeping through the night more regularly, I still dragged myself out of bed to work out a couple mornings a week.

Like, if you realize your kid just ate a Tide pod, you shouldn’t waste time feeling ashamed and guilty about leaving the container out. You regret it and immediately try to fix the situation. Regret can drive you to seek correction and change a behavior. But prolonged guilt and shame? They usually move you to hide and stall reparative action, thus perpetuating the cycle.

I guess you’ll just have to get used to having a police car outside the grocery store, the gym, and wherever it is you go for lunch with your friends,” Jack lectured. “And this goes without saying: you need to be careful. The police surveillance is a precautionary measure, but they can’t be everywhere. You should stick to familiar surroundings, and be vigilant and alert at all times.” “I got it. No walking through dark alleys while talking on my cell phone, no running at night with my iPod, no checking out suspicious noises in the basement.” “I seriously hope you’re not doing any of those things anyway.” “Of course not.” Jack pinned her with his gaze. She shifted against the counter. “Okay, maybe, sometimes, I’ve been known to listen to a Black Eyed Peas song or two while running at night. They get me moving after a long day at work.” Jack seemed wholly unimpressed with this excuse. “Well, you and the Peas better get used to running indoors on a treadmill.” Conscious of Wilkins’s presence, and the fact that he was watching her and Jack with what appeared to be amusement, Cameron bit back her retort. Thirty thousand hotel rooms in the city of Chicago and she picked the one that would lead her back to him.

Moving is a well-established tradition in America, and _moving up_ constitutes a significant part of the American dream. Not only is working one's way to a bigger house central to our ethos but it makes sense functionally as families bring more children into the world. But why must the move to a larger or more luxurious house bring with it the abandonment of one's neighbors, community groups, and often even schoolmates? The suburban pod system causes people to move not just from house to house but form community to community. Only in a traditionally organized neighborhood of varied incomes can a family significantly alter its housing without going very far. In the new suburbs, you can't move up without moving out. (The same is true of moving down. Seniors seeking a smaller house are often forced to abandon their familiar community and start over someplace else.)

For the first time, I saw the human body as a musical instrument; it was designed to experience things in the moment of occurrence, to vibrate with the resonance of each experience, whether positive or negative, and then to move on to the next one afresh, unsullied, free to feel every note in the next melody. Our bodies were not meant to record and store experiences so that the accretion and weight of them makes us eventually unable to greet each new moment with innocence and joy. We were meant to be violins, not iPods.

Agnes has a patch of land at Hewlands, leased from her brother, stretching from the house where she was born to the forest. She keeps bees here, in hemp-woven skeps, which hum with industrious and absorbed life; there are rows of herbs, flowers, plants, stems that wind up supporting twigs. Agnes’s witch garden, her stepmother calls it, with a roll of her eyes. Agnes can be seen, most weeks, moving up and down the rows of these plants, pulling up weeds, laying her hand to the coils of her hives, pruning stems here and there, secreting certain blooms, leaves, pods, petals, seeds in a leather bag at her hip.

Well, what do you like doing?” This was the most painful question he could ask, maybe because I knew how I would answer it—I liked eating cereal early in the morning on the front steps of the house, seeing how sure and confident Mom’s hands moved when she folded laundry, watching TV on mute while I listened to my iPod, reading under trees and watching sunlight leak through the leaves above and cast strange patterns on my skin and the pages, pulling off my jeans the minute I got home, Gummy Bears, I liked after we fucked, when we just lay in each other’s arms, not speaking—none of these answers were what he was looking for. I never applied to any colleges, never was able to answer the question of my future purpose

I have gone into the waste lonely places Behind the eye; the lost acres at the edge of smoky cities. What’s beyond never crumbles like an embankment, Explodes like a rose, or thrusts wings over the Caribbean. There are no pursuing forms, faces on walls: Only the motes of dust in the immaculate hallways, The darkness of falling hair, the warning from lint and spiders, The vines graying to a fine powder. There is no riven tree, or lamb dropped by an eagle. There are still times, morning and evening: The cerulean, high in the elm, Thin and insistent as a cicada, And the far phoebe, singing, The long plaintive notes floating down, Drifting through leaves, oak and maple, Or the whippoorwill, along the smoky ridges, A single bird calling and calling: A fume reminds me, drifting across wet gravel; A cold wind comes over stones; A flame, intense, visible, Plays over the dry pods, Runs fitfully along the stubble, Moves over the field, Without burning. In such times, lacking a god, I am still happy.

The cuisine of Northern Iran, overlooked and underrated, is unlike most Persian food in that it's unfussy and lighthearted as the people from that region. The fertile seaside villages of Mazandaran and Rasht, where Soli grew up before moving to the congested capital, were lush with orchards and rice fields. His father had cultivated citrus trees and the family was raised on the fruits and grains they harvested. Alone in the kitchen, without Zod's supervision, he found himself turning to the wholesome food of his childhood, not only for the comfort the simple compositions offered, but because it was what he knew so well as he set about preparing a homecoming feast for Zod's only son. He pulled two kilos of fava beans from the freezer. Gathered last May, shucked and peeled on a quiet afternoon, they defrosted in a colander for a layered frittata his mother used to make with fistfuls of dill and sprinkled with sea salt. One flat of pale green figs and a bushel of new harvest walnuts were tied to the back of his scooter, along with two crates of pomegranates- half to squeeze for fresh morning juice and the other to split and seed for rice-and-meatball soup. Three fat chickens pecked in the yard, unaware of their destiny as he sharpened his cleaver. Tomorrow they would braise in a rich, tangy stew with sour red plums, their hearts and livers skewered and grilled, then wrapped in sheets of lavash with bouquets of tarragon and mint. Basmati rice soaked in salted water to be steamed with green garlic and mounds of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, then served with a whole roasted, eight kilo white fish stuffed with barberries, pistachios, and lime. On the farthest burner, whole bitter oranges bobbed in blossom syrup, to accompany rice pudding, next to a simmering pot of figs studded with cardamom pods for preserves.

We’re either gonna be fighting Grievers or we need to get inside those big coffins at the right time. Maybe they’re the—” A sharp hiss cut through the air from all directions. The sound pierced Thomas’s eardrums and he clamped his hands to the sides of his head again. Movement on the perimeter surrounding them caught his attention, and he watched carefully what was happening with the large white pods. A line of dark blue light had appeared on one side of each container, then expanded as the top half of the object began to move upward, opening on hinges like the lid of a coffin. It made no sound, at least not enough to be heard over the rushing wind and rumbling thunder. Thomas sensed the Gladers and the others slowly moving closer together, forming a tighter knot. Everyone was trying to get as far away from the pods as possible—and soon they were a coiled pack of bodies encircled by the thirty or so rounded white containers. The lids continued moving until they’d all swung open and dropped to the ground. Something bulky rested inside each vessel. Thomas couldn’t make out much, but from where he stood he couldn’t see anything like the odd appendages of the Grievers. Nothing moved, but he knew not to let his guard down. Teresa? he said to her mind. He didn’t dare try talking loudly enough to be heard—but he had to talk to someone or go nuts. Yeah? Someone should go take a look. See what’s in it. He said it, but he really didn’t want to be the one to do it. Let’s go together, she said easily. She surprised him with her courage. Sometimes you have the worst ideas, he responded. He’d tried to make it feel sarcastic, but he knew the truth of it far more than he wanted to admit to himself. He was terrified. “Thomas!” Minho called. The wind, still wild, was drowned out by the approaching thunder and lightning now, cracking

JANUARY 26 Being Kind-I You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pastures. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. —KAHLIL GIBRAN The great and fierce mystic William Blake said, There is no greater act than putting another before you. This speaks to a selfless giving that seems to be at the base of meaningful love. Yet having struggled for a lifetime with letting the needs of others define me, I've come to understand that without the healthiest form of self-love—without honoring the essence of life that this thing called “self” carries, the way a pod carries a seed—putting another before you can result in damaging self-sacrifice and endless codependence. I have in many ways over many years suppressed my own needs and insights in an effort not to disappoint others, even when no one asked me to. This is not unique to me. Somehow, in the course of learning to be good, we have all been asked to wrestle with a false dilemma: being kind to ourselves or being kind to others. In truth, though, being kind to ourselves is a prerequisite to being kind to others. Honoring ourselves is, in fact, the only lasting way to release a truly selfless kindness to others. It is, I believe, as Mencius, the grandson of Confucius, says, that just as water unobstructed will flow downhill, we, given the chance to be what we are, will extend ourselves in kindness. So, the real and lasting practice for each of us is to remove what obstructs us so that we can be who we are, holding nothing back. If we can work toward this kind of authenticity, then the living kindness—the water of compassion—will naturally flow. We do not need discipline to be kind, just an open heart. Center yourself and meditate on the water of compassion that pools in your heart. As you breathe, simply let it flow, without intent, into the air about you. JANUARY 27 Being Kind-II We love what we attend. —MWALIMU IMARA There were two brothers who never got along. One was forever ambushing everything in his path, looking for the next treasure while the first was still in his hand. He swaggered his shield and cursed everything he held. The other brother wandered in the open with very little protection, attending whatever he came upon. He would linger with every leaf and twig and broken stone. He blessed everything he held. This little story suggests that when we dare to move past hiding, a deeper law arises. When we bare our inwardness fully, exposing our strengths and frailties alike, we discover a kinship in all living things, and from this kinship a kindness moves through us and between us. The mystery is that being authentic is the only thing that reveals to us our kinship with life. In this way, we can unfold the opposite of Blake's truth and say, there is no greater act than putting yourself before another. Not before another as in coming first, but rather as in opening yourself before another, exposing your essence before another. Only in being this authentic can real kinship be known and real kindness released. It is why we are moved, even if we won't admit it, when strangers let down and show themselves. It is why we stop to help the wounded and the real. When we put ourselves fully before another, it makes love possible, the way the stubborn land goes soft before the sea. Place a favorite object in front of you, and as you breathe, put yourself fully before it and feel what makes it special to you. As you breathe, meditate on the place in you where that specialness comes from. Keep breathing evenly, and know this specialness as a kinship between you and your favorite object. During your day, take the time to put yourself fully before something that is new to you, and as you breathe, try to feel your kinship to it.

We are not just dawdling around in some anonymous cosmos; we are home. We are dwelling in God’s world. This isn’t just “nature”; it is creation.1 And it is “very good” (Gen. 1:31). The material creation is not just some detour from our heavenly existence. It is the very good abode created by our heavenly Father. Creation is not some icky, regrettable mistake on God’s part. It is the product of his love. Some Christians seem to think otherwise. Some Christians try to be holier than God when it comes to creation, seeing it only as the world “under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). And so, with their escape pods prepared, ready and eager to abandon creation, they’re convinced that God doesn’t really care about it either. But that’s hardly God’s take on creation. Indeed, in the incarnation, the Word becomes flesh, the Creator of the universe moves into our neighborhood. The infinite, transcendent God becomes embodied like us. And notice how the whole Story ends in Revelation 21: God doesn’t eject us from creation; he comes down to dwell with us in a new creation.2 So the end of the Story confirms the beginning: creation is very good. While we also need to appreciate how God’s creation has been marred and broken, and how God is renewing and restoring it, throughout the Story God continues to confirm this evaluation: creation is very good.

He explained to Steve that there was an important difference in the digital media value chain as well. In physical retail, Amazon operated at the middle of the value chain. We added value by sourcing and aggregating a vast selection of goods, tens of millions of them, on a single website and delivering them quickly and cheaply to customers. To win in digital, because those physical retail value adds were not advantages, we needed to identify other parts of the value chain where we could differentiate and serve customers well. Jeff told Steve that this meant moving out of the middle and venturing to either end of the value chain. On one end was content, where the value creators were book authors, filmmakers, TV producers, publishers, musicians, record companies, and movie studios. On the other end was distribution and consumption of content. In digital, that meant focusing on applications and devices consumers used to read, watch, or listen to content, as Apple had already done with iTunes and the iPod. We all took note of what Apple had achieved in digital music in a short period of time and sought to apply those learnings to our long-term product vision.

There is considerable physical evidence compared to other emotions (pleasure, sadness, anger), and hormonal activity becomes very strong when you feel love. When you fall in love, the brain secretes various chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin. Just hugging a loved one or simply looking at a picture of a lover releases a hormone called oxytocin in the body, acting as a painkiller for headaches. Biochemically, phenylethylamine [18] secreted by the brain limbic system works, which is a kind of natural amphetamine, a stimulant. It's because phenylethylamine is the first step, but other hormones work, which are hormones such as adrenaline, dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin, and serotonin that are used in stimulants. The expression "love is a drug" is actually the opposite because drugs imitate love. However, the secretion of phenylethylamine has a shelf life, so it generally does not exceed two years. There are individual differences in this, so many of them are over in three months, and in some cases, it lasts up to three years. If two sparks fly at the same time and one person finishes at three months, and the other goes for two years and three years, tragedy will occur from then on. In other words, after that period, the brain, which had been exhausted by drugs, will regain its grip. Link to bean pods off. From this point on, love ends the chemistry phase and moves on to the sociology phase. Some say that the two-and-a-half years are meant to build and strengthen ties and intimacy with the other, and that the couple who don't become a parrot couple will sink in a moment of excitement and fall into ennui. At this time, the secretion of phenylethylamine decreases, but [19] oxytocin is actively secreted, resulting in comfort with each other. Link

Although in 2005 compact discs still represented over 98 percent of the market for legal album sales, Morris had no loyalty to the format. In May of that year, Vivendi Universal announced it was spinning off its CD manufacturing and distribution business into a calcified corporate shell called the Entertainment Distribution Company. Included in EDC’s assets were several massive warehouses and two large-scale compact disc manufacturing plants: one in Hanover, Germany, and one in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Universal would still manufacture all its CDs at the plants, but now this would be an arms-length transaction that allowed them to watch the superannuation of optical media from a comfortable distance. It was one of the oldest moves in the corporate finance playbook: divest yourself of underperforming assets while holding on to the good stuff. EDC was a classic “stub company,” a dogshit collection of low-growth, capital-intensive factory equipment that was rapidly going obsolete. In other words, EDC was a drag on A that added little to B. Let the investment bankers figure out who wanted it—Universal had gone digital, and the death rattle of the compact disc had grown loud enough for even Doug Morris to hear. The CD was the past; the iPod was the future. People loved these stupid things. You could hardly go outside without getting run over by some dumb jogger rocking white headphones and a clip-on Shuffle. Apple stores were generating more sales per square foot than any business in the history of retail. The wrapped-up box with a sleek wafer-sized Nano inside was the most popular gift in the history of Christmas. Apple had created the most ubiquitous gadget in the history of stuff.

We spent twenty days and endured three thousand miles of jolting, pounding, off-road bush driving. But we had a hard-won sense of accomplishment when we pulled up on the stunning cliff-side view of the Great Australian Bight, a huge open bay carved out of the southern coastline. We had made it. Below us, three hundred feet down a sheer rock face, was the Southern Ocean. A pod of southern right whales passed by, their calves following along with them. Steve and I and the crew watched the family dramas of the whales play out below us. A calf felt naughty and went darting away from his mother’s side. Come back, the mother called, come back, come back, you naughty little whale. When she was under the water, we couldn’t hear anything, but as she surfaced we could actually hear the whale song from our perch three hundred feet in the air. Mama scolded the calf, and we saw the young whale come dutifully shooting back over to follow his mother for a while. Sometimes the calf would approach his mama for a drink of milk and nurse for a few minutes. Then he would escape once more, and the whole scenario played itself out all over again. We watched the whales for hours. That night around the campfire, we discussed whaling, how sad and cruel and horrible it was. “If we killed cows the way we killed whales, people wouldn’t stand for it,” Steve said. “Imagine if you drove a truck with a torpedo gun off the back. When you saw a cow you fired at it, and then you either electrocuted it over the course of half an hour or the head of the torpedo blew up inside of it, rendering it unable to walk or move until it finally bled to death.” “We’ve got to get that message out,” I said to Steve. But his idea was to bring the beauty and joy of the whales to people, so that they would naturally fall in love with them and not want to hurt them. He didn’t want to dwell on images that would make people sad and upset. Steve remained thoughtful and silent as the fire died. The ocean sounded against the cliffs below. The games of the whale families played over and over in our minds. In spite of our extensive searching, we never saw a live dingo down the whole line of our journey. It was time to try a different approach. The next morning the helicopter pilot arrived early. Going up with him, Steve actually finally spotted some dingoes from the air. The beautiful, ginger-colored dogs played along the fence, jumping over it or skirting under it with effortless ease.

They moved first from iPod to iPhone to iPad, and if Steve Jobs had come out with an iWife they would have been married on launch day. They

GGMM Nightingale isn't just for iPods or MP3 players but also for a lecture or novel listening, or take notes from a recorded business meeting, or provides a quiet and private room to enjoy a good book or album; It allows you to have conversations while on the move; Getting fit and healthy is more fun when you listen to your favourite music during your workout. Pick up Nightingale, turn up the volume, and begin your training.

was an old portable turntable. A record player. “What is it?” asked Ava, walking over to him. “This is what they used to play music on. Think of it as an old fashioned iPod.” “Really?” “No,” he laughed. “It’s better than any iPod ever invented.” He flicked a switch on the side. I heard the built in speakers crackle to life as he lifted the arm and moved the needle over and onto the black disc spinning on the platen. There

Logistics is in fact a key aspect of military planning, and Cook is responsible for Apple’s operational excellence. For example, when Apple knew it would move away from disk drives in its iPods and MacBook Air notebooks, it invested in billion-dollar forward purchases of flash memory. Cook’s supply-chain organization executed this masterstroke, which accomplished the trifecta of securing Apple’s supply, locking in the lowest price, and hobbling the competition’s access to components. Such back-of-the-shop excellence at a company known for its creative flair is a rare example of what researchers Charles O’Reilly of Stanford and Michael Tushman, a professor of organizational behavior at the Harvard Business School, refer to as “ambidexterity as a dynamic capability.” In other words, it reflects the ability of a top-performing company to be simultaneously efficient and innovative.

More beavers surface; the water is now moving with the shapes of many slick brown bodies. Whales swim in pods, wolves travel in packs, crows descend in a murder, while owls form a parliament, but there is no word for groups of beaver because they are rarely seen together like this.

As the sun was coming up over the horizon, Willy shook himself awake. He had slept safely between his parents in the middle of their pod, where all the little ones slept. He wanted to swim and stretch and jump out of the water like he had seen the adult whales jump. Willy bumped into the other whales around him as he stretched. Some of them were young ones and when they awoke, they shook and stretched, bumping against the adults. Eventually, the entire pod awoke and began moving around for the day. They would soon be moving toward food. Willy joined with three young whales as they swam to the top for air. They blew out the cold air through their blowholes and took in deep breaths before submersing again. But this time, each of them went down deep, then turned around and raced for the surface. As they broke through the surface, their bodies kept climbing toward the big blue sky. Willy was still small, so he was able to jump higher than the adult whales.

I don't know what it is but I never want to stop moving. I like anything that allows me to keep a lot in a small space. I like iPods. All that music in a small box. It's perfect for a guy like me. I feel best when I am in a moving vehicle or backstage in some city anywhere in the world. I don't want to live with a woman. I don't want anyone to miss me. I don't want to call someone all the time and explain myself to them. I don't want anyone to give a fuck about me. It's just a drag. It just drags. It compromises and normalizes and makes everything only go so far. Years ago I wanted the relationship but now, I can't remember what that was like and can't pick up the scent of that trail or even see what I saw in it. I would have to look at old journal entries. All that stuff seems like someone else's thing. Feels like strangulation when you put your arms around me. Would rather be free and cold. Free and starving. Free and staring into the abyss with disintegrating eyes. Free and lost in the desert to die alone of thirst. That makes more sense to me than growing old with another human. I don't hate people. I don't want to hack them to pieces but as I get older, I only want to get on with it.

In most right-side POD failures, once the stock breaks down it will generally carry through the 20-day moving average and then find support at the 50-day or 200-day moving averages, depending on where they lie within the overall pattern, and then try to rally. In most cases this rally will carry back up into the 20-day moving average, which presents a secondary short-sale entry point. The breakdown from there is nothing short of exhilarating for any short-seller short the stock at that point!

A series of light bulbs dangling from raw wires illuminated its progression to a far-off end… and she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The walls had cutouts in them, little curve-topped holes stacked three to a group and spaced far enough apart to accommodate ladders that led up to the middle and top levels. It was almost as though they were sleeping compartments of some kind— “Come on,” Apex hissed. “We don’t want to be caught here.” “Then why did you stop.” She glanced back at him. “What are all those spaces?” “None of your business.” As he pulled her away, she did some math in her head. Assuming they were a kind of bunk system, there had to be—Jesus, several hundred workers in the facility. “How many people are here?” she said, even though she’d already done the estimate, and even if she hadn’t, he would certainly not help her. It was more like she couldn’t believe the total. “We’re going all the way up to the main floor. It’s more dangerous in some ways and less so in others.” “Well, I’ll put that in my Yelp! review of this place. Thanks.” When they got to the next floor, he didn’t give her a chance to stop at the fire door. She caught only a glance through its window down another long corridor. Unlike the one under it, the level seemed to be far more brightly lit, and there were no sleeping pods. The walls were also finished, although only with raw Sheetrock from what she glimpsed. At the next landing, Apex stopped at a steel door that had no window in it. Pressing his ear against the steel panel, he seemed to not even breathe as he listened. Then he turned to her. “The lowest two floors are totally underground. The next one up is mostly so. This one is not at all, however, so I’m going to have to move fast. As soon as I open the way, we’re heading to the first door on the left that’s unlocked. It’s a break room. It will be empty and the windows are boarded up, so it’s safer. On three. One… two… three—” Apex ripped open the metal panel, and then recoiled as if he had been hit with toxic gas. Lifting his arm to his face, he ducked down low—and jumped forward

They all stared outside, and they laughed with joy. Through space they glided, a whole pod of them, mighty starwhales. The largest were the size of starfighter carriers. The juveniles were no larger than the Marilyn, quick and playful. Gently, Kemi lowered the ship onto the whale's back. The pod moved closer together, and the round organs on their temples expanded, pulsed with light, and thrummed. Around the pod, the light of stars stretched out. "They're forming a bubble of spacetime." Marco rubbed his eyes. "They evolved organs for it. Amazing." Lailani shrugged, smiling. "Hey, it works for the ravagers. Why not the starwhales?" The whales reached out their flowing barbels, interweaving them, and streams of light ran across the elongated organs. The whales bugled, the sound passing through the tendrils, into one another, into the ship. A whale's song. A song of joy, of exploration, of family. The song of the cosmic ocean.

Then, all of a sudden, at 2 a.m. we heard an ear-splitting crash above us, and the vessel trembled. Everyone rushed out to see what had happened. A connection between two pipe lengths had broken somewhere. A giant counterweight atop the drilling derrick had slammed down onto the upper deck above us while 30 tons of pipe smashed into the seabed below, obliterating the pod with all the equipment I had just borrowed. We quickly realized why the accident had happened. Just before we’d sailed, our drilling contractor had quit in a pay dispute, and his inexperienced replacements didn’t realize that the last section of pipe they added needed to be superthick to keep the whole assembly from bending and breaking as the ship moved through the water. For want of a few extra bucks on the front end, we’d lost the $600,000 of equipment I’d borrowed, along with any chance to use Seaprobe to find Titanic. My pipe dream had turned into a pipe nightmare.

Being enclosed in a drop pod with three other Aesir was claustrophobic, and you couldn’t move. It was easy to panic, and Aesir spent a lot of time training to withstand such situations. Nobody liked it, but with proper conditioning, it was amazing what people could adjust to.

Once again, it seems MI6 has moved location to exclusively service Bond wherever he goes on the planet. The other 00s must absolutely hate him.

We are not just dawdling around in some anonymous cosmos; we are home. We are dwelling in God’s world. This isn’t just “nature”; it is creation.1 And it is “very good” (Gen. 1:31). The material creation is not just some detour from our heavenly existence. It is the very good abode created by our heavenly Father. Creation is not some icky, regrettable mistake on God’s part. It is the product of his love. Some Christians seem to think otherwise. Some Christians try to be holier than God when it comes to creation, seeing it only as the world “under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). And so, with their escape pods prepared, ready and eager to abandon creation, they’re convinced that God doesn’t really care about it either. But that’s hardly God’s take on creation. Indeed, in the incarnation, the Word becomes flesh, the Creator of the universe moves into our neighborhood. The infinite, transcendent God becomes embodied like us. And notice how the whole Story ends in Revelation 21: God doesn’t eject us from creation; he comes down to dwell with us in a new creation.2 So the end of the Story confirms the beginning: creation is very good.

Having your best friend move away is like finding a week-old tuna sandwich in the bottom of your back pack. It really stinks. When Luke moved away last summer, I knew things wouldn’t be the same.  Luke was more than just my best friend. He was the coolest person I’ve ever known. He could beat every level on Space Pod Invasion. He could burp the entire alphabet, forwards… and backwards. He could blast a baseball clear over the fence at Parker Field. In gym class, he was always chosen team captain. And for some reason, he always picked me first, even though I was the shortest kid in class. I still remember that day last August when he broke the news. That afternoon was so hot, I thought the rubber might melt right off my high tops. Dad was grilling burgers, while we were splashing around in the pool with my kid brother Dylan, trying to knock him off his

she more and more avoided the books he liked. But he had not recommended it, he had merely left it on the shelf, next to a pile of other books he had finished but meant to go back to. She read Dreams from My Father in a day and a half, sitting up on the couch, Nina Simone playing on Blaine’s iPod speaker. She was absorbed and moved by the man she met in those pages, an inquiring and intelligent man, a kind man, a man so utterly, helplessly, winningly humane.

Yves Béhar is an industrial designer who specializes in making high-tech beautiful. Béhar moved to San Francisco’s South Park in 1993 but was only discovered by Silicon Valley after Steve Jobs demonstrated—with the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad—what good product design could mean for a company’s bottom line. Béhar’s company, fuseproject, is one of the most important design firms in technology today.

And He said, A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to the father, Father, give me directly the share of the estate which falls to me. And he distributed to them his wealth. 13 And not many days afterward the younger son, having put all his resources into one lump sum, left his own country to go to a far away place. And there he squandered his resources, living an abandoned, dissolute life. 14 And having squandered all, there came a mighty famine in that country, and he himself began to be in want. 15 And having proceeded, he forced himself upon one of the citizens of that country who was unwilling to hire him and only took him after persistent entreaty. And he sent him into his fields to be feeding hogs. 16 And he was longing to fill his stomach with some of the carob-pods which the hogs were eating. And no one was giving to him. 17 And, having come to his senses, he said, How many employees of my father have more bread than they can eat, and, as for myself, I am perishing here with hunger. 18 Having pulled up stakes, I shall go on my way to my father and I shall say to him, Father, I sinned against heaven and in your sight. 19 No longer am I worthy to be called a son of yours. Make me at once as one of your employees. 20 And having put things in readiness for his journey, he went to his own father. And while he was yet a long distance away, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and having run, he fell on his neck and tenderly kissed him again and again. 21 And the son said to him, Father, I sinned against heaven and in your sight. No longer am I worthy to be called your son. 22 But the father said to his slaves, Quick. Bring out at once a festive stately robe, one of the best quality, and put it on him. And put at once a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And be bringing the calf, that one which we have been fattening for just such an occasion of rejoicing as this. Slaughter it at once, and, having eaten, let us be merry, 24 because this son of mine was dead and has been restored to a correct life. He was lost and has been found. And they began to be merry. 25

He moved back to the surface with two halves of the pod already open. “The innards of this plant foam. One of our females said that it cleans the hair very nicely.” She reached for it, huffing out an angry sound when he held it back from her. “Can I have that?” she growled. “No.” A muscle in her jaw jumped as she clenched her teeth. Somehow she still ground out, “Why not?” Because he wanted to touch her. Because he wanted to see how soft she was and if she felt the way he thought she might. But saying all of that would scare her off, and he had no interest in ending this adventure. So instead, he reached for her. His hand slid around her waist, fingers curling around the cooled flesh even as he felt the strange sensation of her shivering. She shuddered against his touch and he thought for the briefest of moments it was because she might enjoy his touch. Even if that was only a dream, it surely was a wondrous one. Maketes drew her through the water, turning her body so her back was pressed against his chest. At this angle, his tail was just long enough to wedge against the wall. It gave him a steady brace for her spine, with his tail lifting between her legs. She could sit on him, which she seemed to fight for a moment before giving in. Then her legs straddled his tail, the sudden heat of her core nearly burning through his scales, and he had to remind himself he wasn’t doing this for that sensation.

We move in anapaestic time and pause, until my body rhymes with yours... In the valley of your arse, all flesh is grass, all flesh is grass ... One damp acorn on the tweedy sod — then the broad bean dangles in its pod..

The bite-size and broken-grid elements of nearly every printed page owe themselves to the Macintosh. The plasticity of pictures, of video, and the ease and economy with which the visual world can be manipulated. . . . is a Mac by-product. The transformation (or death, depending on your point of view) of the music business is Steve [Jobs] and the iPod, [which] will soon devour moving images. . . And this not to even mention the personal computer itself . . . Everywhere, Jobs has been helping media consumers take media away from the media business itself. . . It's the technology, stupid. It's the experience, stupid. It's the box that gets us off and makes us what we are. We're not watching media, we're inhabiting it. [Steve Jobs is] not just McLuhan in the media business, he's Edison—the autodidact garage inventor. And, too, he's Henry Ford. . . . Happy 30th anniversary, Apple.” Michael Wolff, “iPod, Therefore I Am,” April 2006 IT