Transitions For Introducing Quotes

As for us,Etienne was right.Our schools are only a twenty-minute transit ride away.He'll stay with me on the weekends, and we'll visit each other as often as possible during the week. We'll be together.We both got our Point Zero wishes-each other.He said he wished for me every time.He was wishing for me when I entered the tower. "Mmm," I say.He's kissing my neck. "That's it," Rashmi says. "I'm outta here.Enjoy your hormones." Josh and Mer follow her exit,and we're alone.Just the way I like it. "Ha!" Ettiene says. "Just the way I like it." He pulls me onto his lap,and I wrap my legs around his waist.His lips are velvet soft,and we kiss until the streetlamps flicker on outside. Until the opera singer begins her evening routine. "I'm going to miss her," I say. "I'll sing to you." He tucks my stripe behind my ear. "Or I'll take you to the opera.Or I'll fly you back here to visit. Whatever you want.Anything you want." I lace my fingers through his. "I want to stay right here,in this moment." "Isn't that the name of the latest James Ashley bestseller? In This Moment?" "Careful.Someday you'll meet him, and he won't be nearly as amusing in person." Etienne grins. "Oh,so he'll only be mildly amusing? I suppose I can handle mildly amusing." "I'm serious! You have to promise me right now,this instant,that you won't leave me once you meet him.Most people would run." "I'm not most people." I smile. "I know.But you still have to promise." His eyes lock on mine. "Anna,I promise that I will never leave you." My heart pounds in response.And Etienne knows it,because he takes my hand and holds it against his chest,to show me how hard his heart is pounding, too. "And now for yours," he says. I'm still dazed. "My what?" He laughs. "Promise you won't flee once I introduce you to my father.Or, worse, leave me for him." I pause. "Do you think he'll object to me?" "Oh,I'm sure he will." Okay.Not the answer I was looking for. Etienne sees my alarm. "Anna.You know my father dislikes anything that makes me happy.And you make me happier than anyone ever has." He smiles. "Oh,yes. He'll hate you." "So....that's a good thing?" "I don't care what he thinks.Only what you think." He holds me tighter. "Like if you think I need to stop biting my nails." "You've worn your pinkies to nubs," I say cheerfully. "Or if I need to start ironing my bedspread." "I DO NOT IRON MY BEDSPREAD." "You do.And I love it." I blush,and Etienne kisses my warm cheeks. "You know,my mum loves you." "She goes?" "You're the only thing I've talked about all year.She's ecstatic we're together." I'm smiling inside and out. "I can't wait to meet her.

I don't know what happens, what line gets crossed that transitions a girl from seeing her dad as the entirety of her world to viewing him as an embarrassment. For years, we were best friends. Fishing, the movies he slept through, cooking on the grill outside when he was home in the summers. I was his little girl, and he was everything. And then, he wasn't. I woke one day to realize that to be liked, I had to give up the one person who loved me. That's a pretty shitty way to introduce a girl to growing up.

as efficient as communications’ mechanisms become, they are still, as they have always been, subject to the overwhelming tendency for entropy to increase, for information to leak in transit, unless certain external agents are introduced to control it. I have already referred to an interesting view of language made by a cybernetically-minded philologist—that speech is a joint game by the talker and the listener against the forces of confusion.

-the bank recently introduced a new system that automated many tasks in my role as a risk analyst and therefore my position has been eliminated; I’m an exemplary employee and this is in no way a reflection of my performance; the company will provide me with ample support during the “transition.” I might be the only person in the history of mankind to eat an entire banana while losing her job. The “transition” would begin immediately. As in, I wasn’t allowed to go back to my desk, to collect my things, or to say goodbye to my coworkers. I was to be walked down to the security desk like a criminal and handed my belongings in a box, then shown the curb.

Mason bleakly exhales. “No Hell, then?” “Not inside the Earth, anyway.” “Nor any . . . Single Administrator of Evil.” “They did introduce me to some Functionary,— no telling,— We chatted, others came in. They ask’d if I’d take off as much of my Clothing as I’d feel comfortable with,— I stepp’d out of my Shoes, left my Hat on . . . ? They walk’d ’round me in Circles, now and then poking at me . . . ? Nothing too intrusive.” “Nothing you remember, anyway,” Mason can’t help putting in. “They peer’d into my Eyes and Ears, they look’d in my Mouth, they put me upon a Balance and weigh’d me. They conferr’d. ‘Are you quite sure, now,’ the Personage ask’d me at last, ‘that you wish to bet ev’ry-thing upon the Body?— this Body?— moreover, to rely helplessly upon the Daily Harvest your Sensorium brings in,— keeping in mind that both will decline, the one in Health as the other in Variety, growing less and less trustworthy till at last they are no more?’ Eeh. Well, what would thoo’ve said?” “So, did you— ” “We left it in abeyance. Arriv’d back at the Observatory, it seem’d but minutes, this time, in Transit, I sought my Bible, which I let fall open, and read, in Job, 26:5 through 7, ‘Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof. “ ‘Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. “ ‘He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

Five hundred generations ago, the first phase change in the organization of human society began.1 Our ancestors in several regions reluctantly picked up crude implements, sharpened stakes and makeshift hoes, and went to work. As they sowed the first crops, they also laid a new foundation for power in the world. The Agricultural Revolution was the first great economic and social revolution. It started with the expulsion from Eden and moved so slowly that farming had not completely displaced hunting and gathering in all suitable areas of the globe when the twentieth century opened. Experts believe that even in the Near East, where farming first emerged, it was introduced in “a long incremental process” that “may have taken five thousand years or more.

The same thing, notes Brynjolfsson, happened 120 years ago, in the Second Industrial Revolution, when electrification—the supernova of its day—was introduced. Old factories did not just have to be electrified to achieve the productivity boosts; they had to be redesigned, along with all business processes. It took thirty years for one generation of managers and workers to retire and for a new generation to emerge to get the full productivity benefits of that new power source. A December 2015 study by the McKinsey Global Institute on American industry found a “considerable gap between the most digitized sectors and the rest of the economy over time and [found] that despite a massive rush of adoption, most sectors have barely closed that gap over the past decade … Because the less digitized sectors are some of the largest in terms of GDP contribution and employment, we [found] that the US economy as a whole is only reaching 18 percent of its digital potential … The United States will need to adapt its institutions and training pathways to help workers acquire relevant skills and navigate this period of transition and churn.” The supernova is a new power source, and it will take some time for society to reconfigure itself to absorb its full potential. As that happens, I believe that Brynjolfsson will be proved right and we will start to see the benefits—a broad range of new discoveries around health, learning, urban planning, transportation, innovation, and commerce—that will drive growth. That debate is for economists, though, and beyond the scope of this book, but I will be eager to see how it plays out. What is absolutely clear right now is that while the supernova may not have made our economies measurably more productive yet, it is clearly making all forms of technology, and therefore individuals, companies, ideas, machines, and groups, more powerful—more able to shape the world around them in unprecedented ways with less effort than ever before. If you want to be a maker, a starter-upper, an inventor, or an innovator, this is your time. By leveraging the supernova you can do so much more now with so little. As Tom Goodwin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at Havas Media, observed in a March 3, 2015, essay on TechCrunch.com: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.

One notion is that perhaps the singularity was the relic of an earlier, collapsed universe—that ours is just one of an eternal cycle of expanding and collapsing universes, like the bladder on an oxygen machine. Others attribute the Big Bang to what they call “a false vacuum” or “a scalar field” or “vacuum energy”—some quality or thing, at any rate, that introduced a measure of instability into the nothingness that was. It seems impossible that you could get something from nothing, but the fact that once there was nothing and now there is a universe is evident proof that you can. It may be that our universe is merely part of many larger universes, some in different dimensions, and that Big Bangs are going on all the time all over the place. Or it may be that space and time had some other forms altogether before the Big Bang—forms too alien for us to imagine—and that the Big Bang represents some sort of transition phase, where the universe went from a form we can’t understand to one we almost can. “These are very

Where is your wife Sarah? It could be inferred from the angel’s question that it was unusual for Sarah not to be there—either in a serving capacity or joining them in the meal (there is no evidence of women eating separately in the ancient world). It could also be inferred from Abraham’s curt response (“there, in the tent”) that this was not just the circumstance of the moment and that she could be sent for. These are not necessary inferences, but there is a possibility that something is indicated here that was transparent to the Israelite reader, yet elusive to us. That is, it is possible that Sarah has had to retreat to the tent and is now confined there—that she has suddenly, much to her shock and consternation, become “indisposed.” Menstruation rendered a woman unclean in the ancient world and would have prohibited her from social contact and from food preparation and serving. The text specifically indicates that she had already gone through menopause (v. 11), but if she were to bear a child, her period would need to restart. The timing would have to be precise here. In v. 6 Abraham asked Sarah to bake some bread, an activity often forbidden to menstruating women in Abraham’s time, so at that point her period had not begun. Yet she would not be confined to her tent unless she actually had her period. If this is the issue, she experienced the onset of her period as dinner is being served. We know even from the Biblical narratives that menstruating women were at times confined to their tents (cf. 31:34–35). This view is also attested in the ancient Near East. Though somewhat speculative, this line of thinking would explain why the announcement that Sarah would bear a child is introduced by a question concerning Sarah’s whereabouts, leading the somewhat embarrassed Abraham to offer the euphemistic explanation that she is “in the tent” as a way of explaining that she is indisposed (note our modern euphemism, “it’s that time of the month”). One could almost imagine a transitional, “Indeed, and that is just the beginning . . .” It would have constituted a remarkable sign of the resumption of her fertility.

There used to be a time when neighbors took care of one another, he remembered. [Put “he remembered”first to establish reflective tone.] It no longer seemed to happen that way, however. [The contrast supplied by “however”must come first. Start with “But.”Also establish America locale.] He wondered if it was because everyone in the modern world was so busy. [All these sentences are the same length and have the same soporific rhythm; turn this one into a question?] It occurred to him that people today have so many things to do that they don’t have time for old-fashioned friendship. [Sentence essentially repeats previous sentence; kill it or warm it up with specific detail.] Things didn’t work that way in America in previous eras. [Reader is still in the present; reverse the sentence to tell him he’s now in the past. “America”no longer needed if inserted earlier.] And he knew that the situation was very different in other countries, as he recalled from the years when he lived in villages in Spain and Italy. [Reader is still in America. Use a negative transition word to get him to Europe. Sentence is also too flabby. Break it into two sentences?] It almost seemed to him that as people got richer and built their houses farther apart they isolated themselves from the essentials of life. [Irony deferred too long. Plant irony early. Sharpen the paradox about richness.] And there was another thought that troubled him. [This is the real point of the paragraph; signal the reader that it’s important. Avoid weak “there was”construction.] His friends had deserted him when he needed them most during his recent illness. [Reshape to end with “most”; the last word is the one that stays in the reader’s ear and gives the sentence its punch. Hold sickness for next sentence; it’s a separate thought.] It was almost as if they found him guilty of doing something shameful. [Introduce sickness here as the reason for the shame. Omit “guilty”; it’s implicit.] He recalled reading somewhere about societies in primitive parts of the world in which sick people were shunned, though he had never heard of any such ritual in America. [Sentence starts slowly and stays sluggish and dull. Break it into shorter units. Snap off the ironic point.]

When he arrived at the flat, he found Keston sitting in his leather armchair wearing a quilted maroon smoking jacket. He was drinking a Bloody Mary and looked like he was about to introduce Masterpiece Theatre or a tale of the unexpected.

Different objects present themselves to consciousness as constituents of different spheres of reality. I recognize the fellowmen I must deal with in the course of everyday life as pertaining to a reality quite different from the disembodied figures that appear in my dreams. The two sets of objects introduce quite different tensions into my consciousness and I am attentive to them in quite different ways. My consciousness, then, is capable of moving through different spheres of reality. Put differently, I am conscious of the world as consisting of multiple realities. As I move from one reality to another, I experience the transition as a kind of shock. This shock is to be understood as caused by the shift in attentiveness that the transition entails. Waking up from a dream illustrates this shift most simply. Among the multiple realities there is one that presents itself as the reality par excellence. This is the reality of everyday life. Its privileged position entitles it to the designation of paramount reality. The tension of consciousness is highest in everyday life, that is, the latter imposes itself upon consciousness in the most massive, urgent and intense manner. It is impossible to ignore, difficult even to weaken in its imperative presence. Consequently, it forces me to be attentive to it in the fullest way. I experience everyday life in the state of being wide-awake. This wide-awake state of existing in and apprehending the reality of everyday life is taken by me to be normal and self-evident, that is, it constitutes my natural attitude. I

Language was critically important to the religious transition. The rise of Islam meant not just the eclipse of Christianity but the near annihilation of what had hitherto been the commonly spoken vernaculars of the Middle East and the Mediterranean world: of Syriac, Coptic, Greek, and Berber. Already in the eighth century, Arabic was the language of politics and administration from Spain into central Asia, although Persian and Turkish would both become critical vehicles for Islamic thought and culture. From the earliest years of the Muslim era, the Arabic language and its attendant culture exercised a magnetic pull for non-Muslims, even for church leaders. As early as 800, Christians like Theodore Abu Qurrah, a Melkite bishop born in Edessa, were publishing their treatises in Arabic. The greatest Eastern Christian philosopher of the tenth century, Yahya ibn 'Adi, wrote in Arabic and lived in a thoroughly Arabized intellectual world. Even in the self-confident world of Syriac literature, ninth-century hymn writers began introducing the Arabic poetic device of rhyme.14

It’s trickier to transition current employees from a free agency mind-set to tours of duty. Introducing a new and different approach will require multiple conversations and a steady consistency.

One of the most expensive projects underwritten in the era was a computing system known as SAGE, which stood for Semi-Autonomous Ground Environment. Once a radar station picked up an enemy aircraft entering American airspace, SAGE would calculate the incoming flight path based on speed, altitude, and direction and determine which fighter jets should be dispatched to intercept the threat. Other times SAGE might advise that a surface-to-air missile be fired instead. The computers, which were the size of buildings, needed to make recommendations that generals would follow. SAGE went beyond harnessing computing power; it also introduced networking. Through telephone connections, SAGE divided the country into geographic sectors, with a facility in each sector pulling in information from ground radar, naval vessels, and surveillance aircraft. Each facility’s computer was networked with the other facilities’ computers to transmit and receive data as to which combat facilities should be deployed in the event of an attack. Getting the contract to build computing centers for SAGE accounted for fully half of IBM’s computing revenues until the late fifties, subsidizing the transition from the days of punch cards to the new era of computing.

The concept of internalization helps us understand what kids need to separate successfully; kids literally have to “take in” something from a parent so they can hold on to the good feelings of the relationship even when a parent says goodbye. English pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott introduced the idea that children create a mental representation of the parent-child relationship so that they can access the feelings of the relationship even when a parent is absent. Transitional objects help children with this process; a blanket or stuffed animal or object from home becomes a physical representation of the parent-child bond, reminding a child that parents still exist and are “there” for you even when they are not right in front of you. I always recommend transitional objects to parents whose kids struggle with separation anxiety—they are a way to help make tricky transitions feel more manageable. After all, to ease separation anxiety, we have to help kids “hold on to us” in our absence.

Might you introduce me to these two lovely ladies?” I smirk. The guy just called me a lady. I guess he was giving me the benefit of the doubt. “Certainly. Might I introduce you to Lady Everson and Miss Rebecca Vaughn.” It’s hard not to scowl at his continued snub. “So lovely to meet you, Lady Everson, Miss Vaughn. Do you suppose you might like to dance?” When I come up from my curtsy, I realize he’s looking at me. I think I stop breathing for a second, because every muscle in my body freezes. I don’t even blink. This guy wants to dance with me instead of this “lady.” It’s exactly what I wanted, and yet I’m paralyzed with terror. I don’t know how. I’ve never even been asked to dance. Ever. Equal parts of anxiety and elation race through me. “Wouldn’t you prefer to dance with Lady Everson?” Alex says. And then before I know what he’s doing, he’s gently pushing Lady Everson forward and stepping in front of me, blocking my view of Brimmon. “She is a peer, after all.” I’m so stunned; the two disappear before I can even more. When Alex turns to me, I come unleashed. “You are the rudest, most ridiculously arrogant person I have ever met in my life!” I say, and then spin on my heel and stomp away. I’ve gone less than two yards before he stops me, a hand on my shoulder. “Miss Vaughn. As you are my guest, it is expected that the two of us shall dance.” I snort. “Oh, no, that’s not necessary. I won’t be your charity case. Wouldn’t you rather--“ But he grabs my hand, places it on his elbow, and starts pulling me toward the floor just as the music transitions. Half the guests are looking at us. I can hardly rip my arm away and stomp on his foot without looking like a total freak. Not if I want a nice guy to ask me to dance later. Besides, if Emily’s right, I can’t decline the first guy to ask me, or it will signal that I don’t want to dance all night. I hadn’t imagined the first guy would be Alex. Argh. We take our places in the middle of the line up. He bows, and so I curtsy, and then follow his lead as we walk forward and back a few times, standing on our toes when we’re close, and bowing down a bit as we step away. Everything I do is a half step behind him, but we’re managing. My anger still simmers below the surface. This is preposterous. He’ll dance with me because he has to, but he thinks I’m not actually good enough for him--or for anyone with a title. I knew my first impression of him would prove correct. I knew he wasn’t worth the ground I spit on! Talk about insulting! He holds his hand up, palms facing me, so I push my hand against his and we sort of walk in a circle, our gloved hands palm to palm. Thank God we’re wearing gloves; I don’t want to touch this jerk.

Guidelines for ROE 1. When on post, mobile, or foot patrol, keep loaded magazine in weapon, bolt closed, weapon on safe, no round in the chamber. 2. Do not chamber a round unless told to do so by a commissioned officer unless you must act in immediate self-defense where deadly force is authorized. 3. Keep ammo for crew-served weapons readily available but not loaded. Weapon is on safe. 4. Call local forces to assist in self-defense effort. Notify headquarters. 5. Use only minimum degree of force to accomplish any mission. 6. Stop the use of force when it is no longer needed to accomplish the mission. 7. If you receive effective hostile fire, direct your fire at the source. If possible, use friendly snipers. 8. Respect civilian property; do not attack it unless absolutely necessary to protect friendly forces. 9. Protect innocent civilians from harm. 10. Respect and protect recognized medical agencies such as Red Cross, Red Crescent, etc. Col. Jim Mead’s 32nd MAU was relieved by Col. Tom Stokes’s 24th MAU on October 30, 1982. The transition was seamless, morale was high, and all hands assumed their responsibilities enthusiastically. Colonel Stokes also honored the Ministry of Defense’s request to help train the LAF. The government of Lebanon (GOL) introduced conscription, and young men from all over Lebanon answered the call to colors. The various religious groups—the Christians, Druze, Sunnis, and Shiites—were being trained and integrated into the Lebanese Army. Although the U.S. Army already had an ongoing training mission in effect, it was viewed that the Marines’ additional training would quickly improve the LAF’s combat capabilities. The results of the training courses led to their expansion, particularly among the noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The religious integration of the LAF was a major goal of its commander, Gen. Ibrahim Tannous, who wanted to produce a true national army. The Marine training was contributing to that end.

More Phase Transitions This principle applies just as much to the spread of infectious diseases or magnetic polarity as to forest fires. It is essentially the same process unfolding.

THE CHASM – THE DIFFUSION MODEL WHY EVERYBODY HAS AN IPOD Why is it that some ideas – including stupid ones – take hold and become trends, while others bloom briefly before withering and disappearing from the public eye? Sociologists describe the way in which a catchy idea or product becomes popular as ‘diffusion’. One of the most famous diffusion studies is an analysis by Bruce Ryan and Neal Gross of the diffusion of hybrid corn in the 1930s in Greene County, Iowa. The new type of corn was better than the old sort in every way, yet it took twenty-two years for it to become widely accepted. The diffusion researchers called the farmers who switched to the new corn as early as 1928 ‘innovators’, and the somewhat bigger group that was infected by them ‘early adaptors’. They were the opinion leaders in the communities, respected people who observed the experiments of the innovators and then joined them. They were followed at the end of the 1930s by the ‘sceptical masses’, those who would never change anything before it had been tried out by the successful farmers. But at some point even they were infected by the ‘hybrid corn virus’, and eventually transmitted it to the die-hard conservatives, the ‘stragglers’. Translated into a graph, this development takes the form of a curve typical of the progress of an epidemic. It rises, gradually at first, then reaches the critical point of any newly launched product, when many products fail. The critical point for any innovation is the transition from the early adaptors to the sceptics, for at this point there is a ‘chasm’. According to the US sociologist Morton Grodzins, if the early adaptors succeed in getting the innovation across the chasm to the sceptical masses, the epidemic cycle reaches the tipping point. From there, the curve rises sharply when the masses accept the product, and sinks again when only the stragglers remain. With technological innovations like the iPod or the iPhone, the cycle described above is very short. Interestingly, the early adaptors turn away from the product as soon as the critical masses have accepted it, in search of the next new thing. The chasm model was introduced by the American consultant and author Geoffrey Moore. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Mahatma Gandhi

Earth is currently transitioning into the Fourth Dimension. The climax of the upcoming Ascension will be felt towards the end of 2012 as the Year of the Dragon spreads its wings, all the way for the next seven years until 2019. Although the Third Dimension is focused upon the physical world, the Fourth Dimension has a primary focus on the spiritual world. In order to accept this new state of existence, profound elements of the Fourth Dimension were introduced into our Third Dimensional society to lessen the sudden impact of Ascension. Profound spiritual concepts such as Enlightenment and aspects of Unconditional Love must be understood as the next steps to progress from the Third Dimension. These seeds were planted and allowed to grow in individuals who have accepted that it is time to open the doors to the spiritual world. As human beings are the most complex forms of embodied consciousness on the planet, we will still retain our current shape and forms. What will change is the importance we place on achieving such profound spiritual objectives. The 2012-2019 Ascension will mark a turning point leading to spirituality playing a much more dominant role in society with less fixation on a solely material world. The Fourth Dimension follows the Third Dimension in its way of life; the difference is what is placed upon the core belief structures of those living within it.

Dear Rebecca— You may have picked up on my growing disappointment with you this afternoon as our first meeting progressed. I have to say that though you seem quite personable in your electronic communications, in person your behavior is a little lacking in some of the traits that would let you get from a first to a second date with regularity. If Lovability had a rating system, I would award you 2.5 out of 5 stars; however, if it used a scale that only allowed for integral values, I would unfortunately be forced to round down to two. Here are some suggestions for what you could do to improve the initial impression you make. I am speaking here as a veteran of the online dating scene in LA, which is MUCH more intense than New Jersey’s—there, you are competing with aspiring actors and actresses, and a professionally produced headshot and a warm demeanor are the bare minimum necessary to get in the game. By the end of my first year in LA my askback rate (the rate at which my first dates with women led to second dates) was a remarkable 68%. So I know what I’m talking about. I hope you take this constructive criticism in the manner in which it is intended. 1. Vary your responses to inquiries. When our conversation began, you seemed quite cheerful and animated, but as it progressed you became much less so. I asked you a series of questions that were intended to give you opportunities to reveal more about yourself, but you offered only binary answers, and then, troublingly, no answers at all. If you want your date to go well, you need to display more interest. 2. Direct the flow of conversation. Dialogue is collaborative! One consequence of your reticence was that I was forced to propose all of the topics of discussion, both before and after the transition to more personal subjects. If you contribute topics of your own then it will make you appear more engaged: you should aim to bring up one new subject for every one introduced by your date. 3. Take control of the path of the date. If you want the initial meeting to extend beyond the planned drinks, there are many ways you can go about doing this. You can directly say, for instance, “So I wasn’t thinking about this when you showed up, but…do you have any plans for dinner? I’m starving, and I could really go for some pad thai.” Or you can make a vaguer, more general statement such as “After this, I’m up for whatever,” or “Hey, I don’t really want to go home yet, Bradley: I’m having a lot of fun.” Again, this comes down to a general lack of engagement on your part. Without your feedback I was left to offer a game of Scrabble, which was not the best way to end the meeting. 4. Don’t lie about your ability in Scrabble. I won’t go into an analysis of your strategic and tactical errors here, in the interest of brevity, but your amateurish playing style was quite evident. Now, despite my reservations as expressed above, I really do feel that we had some chemistry. So I would like to give things another chance. Would you respond to this message within the next three days, with a suggestion of a place you’d like us to visit together, or an activity that you believe we would both enjoy? I would be forced to construe a delay of more than three days as an unfortunate sign of indifference. I hope to hear from you soon. Best, Bradley

Bachofen, furthermore, is perfectly right in contending that the transition from what he calls "hetaerism" or "incestuous generation" to monogamy was brought about mainly by women. The more in the course of economic development, undermining the old communism and increasing the density of population, the traditional sexual relations lost their innocent character suited to the primitive forest, the more debasing and oppressive they naturally appeared to women; and the more they consequently longed for relief by the right of chastity, of temporary or permanent marriage with one man. This progress could not be due to men for the simple reason that they never, even to this day, had the least intention of renouncing the pleasures of actual group marriage. Not until the women had accomplished the transition to the pairing family could the men introduce strict monogamy—true, only for women. The

What we find is highly sensitive dependence to initial conditions, producing phase transitions. Once a critical threshold is passed, the fire spreads outwards, the disease becomes an epidemic, the material magnetic.

Whenever liquid water makes the transition to ice, energy is given off to the surroundings. In the process, the water itself assumes a state that is both more ordered and lower in energy. It is a general rule that any system that can give off heat and thereby assume a state of lower energy will do so. For the purpose of illustration, let's assume that the energy set free by the freezing of water is extremely high-so high that it surpasses the energy that is by virtue of Albert Einstein's E = mc^2 connected with the very existence of the water molecules. What would happen? In this fictitious case, it would pay energetically if water in the form of ice were spontaneously created from a space that beforehand contained no water at all. Thus there would be a certain probability for this to occur-never mind that anti-ice would have to be produced too. Let's imagine that it occurs: a crystal of ice is created spontaneously out of the void. Like every crystal, it would have some preferred direction in space and a certain location. Consequently, the perfect symmetry of space would be broken. These imagined circumstances do not exist in reality as far as ice is concerned, but they apply roughly for one of the most imaginative constructs of physics-the so-called Higgs field. This field appears spontaneously in a void as its walls are cooled down-starting from the absurdly high temperature of 10^15 degrees. The field will appear in an ordered state; for a poetic simile, think of ice flowers growing on a window. The energy needed for its existence is smaller than the energy liberated by its falling into that ordered pattern. This pattern is not to be understood in terms of spatial geometry; rather, it refers to the abstract space made up of the properties of elementary particles. In geometrical space, it is merely a field resembling a particularly simple distribution; to every point in space, we assign one and the same complex number. This implies that the Higgs field does not break geometrical symmetry-it breaks an abstract symmetry of elementary particles. In fact, it was introduced into modern theoretical physics by the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs for that very reason-to break an abstract symmetry that would not permit elementary particles to have masses.

Cash transfer schemes that at present are overwhelmingly targeted at ‘the poor’ have the potential to prepare the way for basic income.2 But four factors have so far impeded the transition – a belief in ‘targeting’ (only the poor should receive the cash), ‘selectivity’ (some groups should have priority), ‘conditionality’ (recipients should be required to undertake certain actions or behave in certain ways), and ‘randomization’ (policy should only be introduced when it has been tested, or evaluated, by randomized control trials, and thus be ‘evidence-based’).

The infamous Fray Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, who had sniveled around the Royal Court wanting to become a favorite of the pious Queen Isabella, was appointed Governor of the Indies, replacing Francisco de Bobadilla, the man who had been responsible for sending Columbus from Hispaniola, back to Spain in irons. Prior to his appointment Fray Nicolás de Ovando had been a Spanish soldier, coming from a noble family, and was a Knight of the Order of Alcántara. On February 13, 1502, Fray Nicolás sailed from Spain with a record breaking fleet of thirty ships. Since Columbus’ discovery of the islands in the Caribbean, the number of Spanish ships that ventured west across the Atlantic had consistently increased. For reasons of safety in numbers, the ships usually made the transit in convoys, carrying nobility, public servants and conquistadors on the larger galleons that had a crew of 180 to 200. On these ships a total of 40 to 50 passengers had their own cabins midship. These ships carried paintings, finished furniture, fabric and, of course, gold on the return trip. The smaller vessels including the popular caravels had a crew of only 30, but carried as many people as they could fit in the cargo holds. Normally they would carry about 100 lesser public servants, soldiers, and settlers, along with farm animals and equipment, seeds, plant cuttings and diverse manufactured goods. For those that went before, European goods reminded them of home and were in great demand. Normally the ships would sail south along the sandy coast of the Sahara until they reached the Canary Islands, where they would stop for potable water and provisions before heading west with the trade winds. Even on a good voyage, they could count on burying a third of these adventurous at sea. Life was harsh and six to eight weeks out of sight of land, always took its toll! In all it is estimated that 30,500 colonists made that treacherous voyage over time. Most of them had been intentionally selected to promote Spanish interests and culture in the New World. Queen Isabella wanted to introduce Christianity into the West Indies, improve the islands economically and proliferate the Spanish and Christian influences in the region.

It has introduced me to the role of ritual in mourning—the ceremonies that allow us to shoulder complicated feelings and confront loss; that make room for the seemingly paradoxical act of acknowledging the past as a path toward the future. It gets me thinking about the other ways we mark the crossing of thresholds: birthdays and weddings and baby showers, baptisms and bar mitzvahs and quinceañeras. These rites of passage allow us to migrate from one phase of our lives to another; they keep us from getting lost in transit. They show us a way to honor the space between no longer and not yet. But I have no predetermined rituals. They are mine to create. From a distance of several

when new technology for cardiac surgery was introduced, those medical teams with leaders who minimized concern for status differences—in other words, were willing implicitly to admit they didn’t have all the answers and take advice from underlings—had the most effective communication, learned the most, and found the transition the easiest.

He said that it was strange it had taken us so long to meet: in fact it was almost exactly a year to the day day since we had been – albeit briefly – introduced by a mutual friend. Since then, he had asked the mutual friend several times for my number; he had attended parties and dinners where he had been told I would be present, only to find that I wasn’t there. He didn’t know why the mutual friend resisted putting him directly in touch with me, if it was anything so deliberate as resistance. But one way or another, he had been obstructed; until – again without knowing why – be had recently asked the mutual friend once more for my number and promptly been given it. I said that my current feelings of powerlessness had changed the way I looked at what happens and why, to the extent that I was beginning to see what other people called fate in the unfolding of events, as though living were merely an act of reading to find out what happens next. That idea – of one’s own life as something that had already been dictated – was strangely seductive, until you realised that it reduced other people to the moral status of characters and camouflaged their capacity to destroy. Yet the illusion of meaning recurred, much as you tried to resist it: like childhood, I said, which we treat as an explanatory text rather than merely as a formative experience of powerless. For a long time, I said, I believed that it was only though absolute passivity that you could learn to see what was really there. But my decision to create a disturbance by renovating my house had awoken a different reality, as though I had disturbed a beast sleeping in its lair. I had started to become, in effect, angry. I had started to desire power, because what I now realised was that other people had had it all along, that what I called fate was merely the reverberation of their will, a tale scripted not by some universal storyteller but by people who would elude justice for as long as their actions were met with resignation rather than outrage.

A good transitional call to action can do three powerful things for your brand: 1.​Stake a claim to your territory. If you want to be known as the leader in a certain territory, stake a claim to that territory before the competition beats you to it. Creating a PDF, a video series, or anything else that positions you as the expert is a great way to establish authority. 2.​Create reciprocity. I’ve never worried about giving away too much free information. In fact, the more generous a brand is, the more reciprocity they create. All relationships are give-and-take, and the more you give to your customers, the more likely they will be to give something back in the future. Give freely. 3.​Position yourself as the guide. When you help your customers solve a problem, even for free, you position yourself as the guide. The next time they encounter a problem in that area of their lives, they will look to you for help. Transitional calls to action come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few ideas to create transitional calls to action of your own: •​Free information: Create a white paper or free PDF educating customers about your field of expertise. This will position you as a guide in your customer’s story and create reciprocity. Educational videos, podcasts, webinars, and even live events are great transitional calls to action that on-ramp customers toward a purchase. •​Testimonials: Creating a video or PDF including testimonials from happy clients creates a story map in the minds of potential customers. When they see others experience a successful ending to their story, they will want that same ending for themselves. •​Samples: If you can give away free samples of your product, do it. Offering a customer the ability to test-drive a car, taste your seasoning, sample your music, or read a few pages of your book are great ways to introduce potential customers to your products. •​Free trial: Offering a limited-time free trial works as a risk-removal policy that helps to on-ramp your customers. Once they try your product, they may not be able to live without it.

He mentioned five elements that really set the deck apart from the rest. Here’s what you need, according to Andy: Name a big, relevant change in the world. This should be an “indisputable truth.” “E-commerce will accelerate post-COVID19-pandemic” is a good example. Show there will be winners and losers. The point here is to give anxiety to the customers that may fall on the losing side. At Videoplaza, we cited the transition from analog to digital in video streaming and monetization with Netflix and Amazon as the winners thus far. Tease the promised land. Instead of introducing your product immediately, talk instead about the future state, about your founding insights to give the prospect a glimpse into the future. Introduce features as magic gifts for overcoming obstacles to the promised land. This is where your product comes in with its ability to get the customer to the other side. Present evidence that you can make the story come true. Case studies, customer testimonials, analyst quotes, product demos—all of these are appropriate in telling this part of the narrative.

Most of us live without awareness of the natural course of our lives. We were all born but don’t remember the pain or shock of the transition from being safe and enclosed to the shock of being pushed out into a new element. We treat illness with resentment as though it is a total betrayal, and our bodies become an enemy. Old age is seen as something that happens to other people, and death is treated like rumour that may or may not be true.

For Winnicott, the “transitional space” between the internal world and “reality” becomes a space for creative play and imagination

As disciplinary norms lost their effectiveness, television was crafted into a machinery of regulation, introducing previously unknown effects of subjection and supervision. This is why television is a crucial and adaptable part of a relatively long transition (or changing of the guard) lasting several decades, between a world of older disciplinary institutions and one of 24.7 control.

All forms of complex causation, and especially nonlinear transformations, admittedly stack the deck against prediction. Linear describes an outcome produced by one or more variables where the effect is additive. Any other interaction is nonlinear. This would include outcomes that involve step functions or phase transitions. The hard sciences routinely describe nonlinear phenomena. Making predictions about them becomes increasingly problematic when multiple variables are involved that have complex interactions. Some simple nonlinear systems can quickly become unpredictable when small variations in their inputs are introduced.23 As so much of the social world is nonlinear, fifty plus years of behavioral research and theory building have not led to any noticeable improvement in our ability to predict events. This is most evident in the case of transformative events like the social-political revolution of the 1960s, the end of the Cold War, and the rise and growing political influence of fundamentalist religious groups. Radical skepticism about prediction of any but the most short-term outcomes is fully warranted. This does not mean that we can throw our hands up in the face of uncertainty, contingency, and unpredictability. In a complex society, individuals, organizations, and states require a high degree of confidence—even if it is misplaced—in the short-term future and a reasonable degree of confidence about the longer term. In its absence they could not commit themselves to decisions, investments, and policies. Like nudging the frame of a pinball machine to influence the path of the ball, we cope with the dilemma of uncertainty by doing what we can to make our expectations of the future self-fulfilling. We seek to control the social and physical worlds not only to make them more predictable but to reduce the likelihood of disruptive and damaging shocks (e.g., floods, epidemics, stock market crashes, foreign attacks). Our fallback strategy is denial.

Leroy introduced an effect she called attention residue. In the introduction to this paper, she noted that other researchers have studied the effect of multitasking—trying to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously—on performance, but that in the modern knowledge work office, once you got to a high enough level, it was more common to find people working on multiple projects sequentially: “Going from one meeting to the next, starting to work on one project and soon after having to transition to another is just part of life in organizations,” Leroy explains. The problem this research identifies with this work strategy is that when you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn’t immediately follow—a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task. This residue gets especially thick if your work on Task A was unbounded and of low intensity before you switched, but even if you finish Task A before moving on, your attention remains divided for a while.

This chart shows how much various energy sources grew over the course of 60 years, starting from the time they were introduced. Between 1840 and 1900, coal went from 5 percent of the world’s energy supply to nearly 50 percent. But in the 60 years from 1930 to 1990, natural gas reached just 20 percent. In short, energy transitions take a long time.

In two years of research the best example of self-disruption I can find is Netflix. Netflix’s transition to streaming from DVD rental by mail was not nearly as smooth as many would like to remember it, but in hindsight it appears genius. Netflix was founded in 1997 as a DVD mail service and pretty rapidly rose to take huge market share from local video stores who could not compete with its vast range of titles. People soon appreciated the appeal of no late fees, the ability to have several movies out at the same time, as well as its unlimited consumption tariff. Always keen to keep abreast of the latest technology, in 2007 Netflix spent about $40 million to build data centres and to cover the cost of licensing for the initial streaming titles (Rodriguez, 2017). When internet speeds allowed, it introduced streaming as an additional service for its existing subscribers. Monthly fees remained the same, but those with more expensive tariffs were given access to more hours of streamed content. While it added something for free, it also helped give people a reason to upgrade to more expensive plans. Growth was impressive, the video libraries of streamed content rose, the share price rose impressively from $3 in 2007 to over $42 in 2011, and life was good. In September 2011 Netflix made a very bold move. It created two tariffs, and moved all its US subscribers onto two separate plans: the original DVD-by-mail service was to be called Qwikster; the other was a streaming service for a lower monthly fee. The market was shocked, and by December the stock price was below $10 and the company was in pieces. The company rapidly lost higher revenue DVD subscribers and within nine months profits were down by 50 per cent (Steel, 2015). And yet slowly things changed. First, the lower prices suddenly appealed to a much wider market, bringing in far more paying customers, allowing Netflix to buy more content and to slowly raise prices. Then Netflix started making its own original content, clearing out global streaming rights, and then at a flick of a switch it was able to expand globally. If Netflix had not disrupted itself it would be a very different company. It would rely on a massive physical distortion system, with very high costs. It would probably have lost out massively to YouTube and would have withered away as a mail-order DVD supplier. Instead, Netflix’s share price is now nearly $200, five times more than it was when it bravely self-disrupted, it operates in 190 countries, makes nearly $9 billion in revenue from over 110 million customers (Feldman, 2017). Today DVDs represent only 4 per cent of Netflix’s users. It seems that in 2011, when Wall Street was demanding the resignation of Reed Hastings for reinventing the business, they were wrong. From this you can see the pressure this approach places on leaderships, the confidence you need to have, the degree to which this antagonizes the market and everyone around you. This move takes balls. The confidence, conviction, and aggression, to change before you have to create your own future, is remarkable.