Berelain seemed to sense his thoughts. “When you go to buy a sack of flour,” she said, “wear plain wool so the seller thinks you can’t afford to pay any more than you must. When you’re after flour by the wagonload, wear jewels so she thinks you can afford to come back for all she can lay hands on.”
Crossroads of Twilight
Musings
Siuan said as many Amyrlins had failed by believing the Sitters were fully her equals as by believing the difference was wider than really existed. It was like running along the top of a narrow wall with fierce mastiffs on either side. You maintained a careful balance and tried to watch your feet more than the dogs. But you were always aware of the dogs.
Crossroads of Twilight
In a moment he would send for Moiraine to Heal his wounds. In a moment he would speak to the Aiel outside, and become the Dragon Reborn again. But for now, he only wanted to sit, and remember a shepherd named Rand.
The Shadow Rising
We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.
Lord of Chaos
She could still hear Siuan going on about what she called the Law of Unintended Consequences, stronger than any written law. Whether or not what you do has the effect you want, it will have three at least you never expected, and one of those usually unpleasant.
The Path of Daggers
The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage…their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope, that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end… they ran out of time.
Londo Mollari
Auto-sorting priority tables based on a separate table of dropdowns in Google Sheets
Huge disclaimer: I’m no Excel/Sheets master so there is probably a much better and more efficient way of doing things but this is just an extremely hacky thing I threw together one afternoon. So if … Full post »
Jedi Fallen Order
It’s been a while since I’ve been blown away by a game’s visuals but this one is a real joy to just sit back and take in everything.
In an infinity of worlds, anything is not only possible, it’s mandatory.
InterWorld
27th
The oddest birthday celebration I’ve ever had. Sitting in an underground cement bar with a Queen electronic jukebox, drinking Japanese beer, and eating a surprise orange cake with a matchstick for a candle. Very awesome.
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
The Bell Jar
It was the rhythm of human enterprise to invent and worship some new approach, to fully reject it a generation later, to realize the need for it again a generation or two after that and then hastily reinvent it as new, usually without its original elegance.
My Name is Memory
There is a saying: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.
Kung Fu Panda
Coding Sprints
Despite not having a career involving web development*, I still find myself doing the occasional online project. An interesting realization is that I tend to do them in sprints with large breaks in between (which sometimes end in abandoning the project) but when these sprints start, man, do they start. In the past three days I have learned more about Digital Ocean, Linux, Ubuntu, NGINX, Apache, PuTTY and SSL than ever before. Definitely a great learning experience but the timing probably could have been better.
* Many of my early years in web design did involve doing some front-end coding as part of the freelancing though.
Entry Zero
Everyone associates the coming of a new year as a potential turning point, whether for their personal or professional lives, but I have to admit there’s something special about this year’s celebration and that’s because … Full post »