Misc Quotations

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©2008-2012 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products

There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.
~ Edward Albee (born: 1928-03-12 age: 83) WNBC TV interview, 1966-01-09

He listens well who takes notes.
~ Dante Alighieri (born: 1265 died: 1321-09-14 at age: 56)

One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
~ Woody Allen (born: 1935-12-01 age: 76)

If I have said anything untrue, it was because I was mistaken, not because I tried to mislead you.
~ Anonymous

Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.
~ Guillaume Apollinaire (born: 1880-08-26 died: 1918-11-09 at age: 38)

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
~ Marcus Aurelius (born: 121-04-26 AD died: 180-03-17 AD at age: 58)

Bring me a bowl of coffee before I turn into a goat.
~ Johann Sebastian Bach (born: 1685-03-31 died: 1750-07-28 at age: 65)

French toys: one could not find a better illustration of the fact that the adult Frenchman sees the child as another self. All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of the adult world; they are all reduced copies of human objects, as if in the eyes of the public the child was, all told, nothing but a smaller man, a homunculus to whom must be supplied objects of his own size.
~ Roland Barthes (born: 1915-11-12 died: 1980-03-25 at age: 64) Mythologies

Somebody was saying to Picasso that he ought to make pictures of things the way they are — objective pictures. He mumbled he wasn’t quite sure what that would be. The person who was bullying him produced a photograph of his wife from his wallet and said, “There, you see, that is a picture of how she really is.” Picasso looked at it and said, “She is rather small, isn”t she? And flat?
~ Gregory Bateson (born: 1904-05-09 died: 1980-07-04 at age: 76)

It’s not what you don’t know that will bite you; it’s what you don’t know that you don’t know.
~ William Brody (born: 1944-01-04 age: 68)

If people become accustomed to lying, they will unconsciously commit every possible wrong deed. Before they can act wickedly, they must lie, and once they begin to lie they will act wickedly without concern.
~ Gautama Buddha (born: 563 BC died: 483 BC at age: 80)

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
~ Thomas Carruthers

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
~ Arthur C. Clarke (born: 1917-12-16 died: 2008-03-19 at age: 90)

You are not responsible for what your friends do, but you will be judged by the company you keep.
~ Leonard Cole (born: 1920 age: 91)

You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
~ Joseph Conrad (born: 1857-12-03 died: 1924-08-03 at age: 66)

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common that unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
~ Calvin Coolidge (born: 1872-07-04 died: 1933-01-05 at age: 60)

It might be possible to detect atmospheric chemistry by looking at the starlight through the gasses. However, it has been said that finding a planet around another star is like detecting a moth around a searchlight from 100 km away. Detecting atmospheric chemistry would then be like trying to detect the size of the moth’s wings.
~ Lawrence B. Crowell

We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish.
~ John Culkin (born: 1928 died: 1993-07-23 at age: 65)

A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
~ Charles Darwin (born: 1809-02-12 died: 1882-04-19 at age: 73)

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher

I have 600 channels in my house and 400 of them are selling Bow Flex. The other 200 are mostly selling Jesus. What happened to diversity?
~ Phil Donahue (born: 1935-12-21 age: 76)

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)

Force always attracts men of low morality.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)

It’s never too late to be who you might have been.
~ George Eliot (born: 1819-11-22 died: 1880-12-22 at age: 61) (Mary Ann Evans)

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.
~ George Eliot (born: 1819-11-22 died: 1880-12-22 at age: 61) (Mary Ann Evans)

We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.
~ George Eliot (born: 1819-11-22 died: 1880-12-22 at age: 61) (Mary Ann Evans)

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~ Thomas Stearns Eliot (born: 1888-09-26 died: 1965-01-04 at age: 76) Four Quartets

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)

Always do what you are afraid to do.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (born: 1803-05-25 died: 1882-04-27 at age: 78)

Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.
~ Michael Faraday (born: 1791-09-22 died: 1867-08-25 at age: 75)

Yep, somebody sure cut through that fence, all right.
~ Stan Freberg (born: 1926-07-07 age: 85)

Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.
~ Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller (born: 1895-07-12 died: 1983-07-01 at age: 87)

Revenge is a poor remedy for loss.
~ Tim Galsworthy played by Tom Beard in Midsomer Murders, Days of Misrule

I call architecture frozen music.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born: 1749-08-28 died: 1832-03-22 at age: 82)

Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born: 1749-08-28 died: 1832-03-22 at age: 82)

Don’t worry about where you are. Watch the first derivative.
translation:
Don’t worry about how things are. Watch where they are headed.
~ Fred Green (born: 1913-07-12 died: 1992-04-10 at age: 78) (my Dad, an electrical engineer)

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
~ J.B.S. Haldane (born: 1892-11-05 died: 1964-12-01 at age: 72)

Neurons that fire together wire together.
~ Donald Hebb (born: 1904-07-22 died: 1985-08-20 at age: 81) (on the biology behind Pavlovian conditioning)

How well do you know Canada?

Statistics about Canada
%	statistic	%	statistic
0	percent improvement in child poverty since 1989.	56	percent drop in foreign aid since 1975.
0	percent increase in middle class income, inflation-adjusted income since 1980.	76	percentage of print and TV media in Vancouver BC owned by one company.
0.75	percent of Canadians who donated to any political party in 2006.	80	percent of Canadians who have never belonged to any political party.
2.4	percent of direct foreign investment that created new jobs, 97.6% was for takeover of existing companies which diverted the profits to offshore tax havens.	100	percent increase in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) since 1989.
21	percent of jobs that are paid too low to provide food, shelter and heat. 8-12% is typical in Europe.	400	percent increase in share of the economic pie by taken by investors at the expense of workers since 1992.
55	percent foreign takeovers financed by Canadian banks.

~ Mel Hurtig (born: 1932-06-24 age: 79), stats from The Truth About Canada: Some Important, Some Astonishing, and Some Truly Appalling Things All Canadians Should Know About Our Country

How well do you know Canada? You might imagine it is an overtaxed, innovative, prosperous, generous, socialised, well-educated country. Here is how it rates relative to other countries.

Canada’s International Ranking
rank	criterion	rank	criterion
17	foreign aid as a percentage of GNP (Gross National Product). Half of what it was in 1980.	27	corporate taxes.
20	per capita investment in new equipment.	30	patents.
21	per capita taxation.	40	income equality.
22	elimination of poverty.	54	U.N. peacekeeping.
22	per capita financial aid to the unemployed.	54	doctors per capita.
25	per capita social services spending.	57	per capita spending on education.
25	research and development investment.

~ Mel Hurtig (born: 1932-06-24 age: 79), stats from The Truth About Canada: Some Important, Some Astonishing, and Some Truly Appalling Things All Canadians Should Know About Our Country

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69) Proper Studies 1927

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69)

Customers don’t want a choice; they just want exactly what they want.
~ B. Joseph Pine II

Heisenberg might have slept here.
~ sign on a Bavarian inn

It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region through which they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.
~ William James (born: 1842-01-11 died: 1910-08-26 at age: 68), Varieties of Religious Experience

I find it easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
~ Clay Johnson fictitious father of the fictitious Brenda Leigh Johnson in The Closer

If you could not keep this secret yourself, how did you expect me to keep it for you?
~ Robert Allan Jones (born: 1947 age: 64)

The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer.
~ Okakura Kakuzo (born: 1862-02-14 died: 1913-09-02 at age: 51), The Book of Tea

Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus.
~ Okakura Kakuzo (born: 1862-02-14 died: 1913-09-02 at age: 51), The Book of Tea

The difference between common sense and paranoia is that common sense is thinking everyone is out to get you. That’ normal — they are. Paranoia is thinking that they’re conspiring.
~ J. Kegler

A thing hasn’t been said until its been said a thousand times.
~ Ring Lardner (born: 1885-03-06 died: 1933-09-25 at age: 48)

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.
~ David Herbert Lawrence (born: 1885-09-11 died: 1930-03-02 at age: 44)

In the province of the mind what one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experimentally and experientially. When so found these limits turn out to be further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind there are no limits.
~ Dr. John Cunningham Lilly (born: 1915-01-06 died: 2001-09-30 at age: 86)

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
~ John Locke (born: 1632-08-29 died: 1704-10-28 at age: 72) 1795-04-20

To prejudge other men’s notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eye.
~ John Locke (born: 1632-08-29 died: 1704-10-28 at age: 72) 1795-04-20

We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
~ John Locke (born: 1632-08-29 died: 1704-10-28 at age: 72) 1795-04-20

The fluttering of a butterfly’s wing in Rio de Janeiro, amplified by atmospheric currents, could cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later.
~ Edward Lorenz (born: 1917-05-23 died: 2008-04-16 at age: 90)

A man sufficiently gifted with humor is in small danger of succumbing to flattering delusions about himself, because he cannot help perceiving what a pompous ass he would become if he did.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)

The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)

We do not take humor seriously enough.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)

To say that a necessary condition for the writing of these words is the willing of the author to write them, and to say that a necessary condition for the writing of them is a certain state and configuration of the material of his brain, these two statements are probably merely two ways of saying the same thing.
~ Alfred James Lotka (born: 1880-03-02 died: 1949-12-05 at age: 69) Elements of Physical Biology 1925, page 403

There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
~ Nelson Mandela (born: 1918-07-18 age: 93)

Pick your battles.
~ Dr. Phil McGraw (born: 1950-09-01 age: 61)

A cat can climb down from a tree without the assistance of the fire department or any other emergency service. The proof is that no one has ever seen a cat skeleton up a tree.
~ Stuart McLean (born: 1948-04-19 age: 63)

The violinist must possess the poet’s gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists, stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within.
~ Yehudi Menuhin (born: 1916-11-22 died: 1999-03-12 at age: 82)

The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.
~ Arthur Miller (born: 1915-10-17 died: 2005-02-10 at age: 89)

What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That’s what their substance is.
~ Jonathan Miller (born: 1934-07-21 age: 77)

Whenever a new discovery is reported to the world, they say first, “It is probably not true,” Then after, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, “Yes, it may be true, but it is not important.” Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, “Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new.”
~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (born: 1533 died: 1592 at age: 59)

We like people for their qualities, but we love them for their flaws.
~ John Myers played by Rupert Evans in Hellboy.

When you encounter obstacles, you know what you are doing is important.
~ Gottfried Johannes Müller (born: 1914-04-10 died: 2009-09-26 at age: 95)

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
~ Sir Isaac Newton (born: 1643-01-04 died: 1727-03-31 at age: 84)

I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
~ Sir Isaac Newton (born: 1643-01-04 died: 1727-03-31 at age: 84)

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
~ C. Northcote Parkinson (born: 1909-07-30 died: 1993-03-09 at age: 83)

Do not then train boys to learning by force and harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds.
~ Plato (born: 428 BC died: 348 BC at age: 80)

Never discourage anyone… who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
~ Plato (born: 428 BC died: 348 BC at age: 80)

There is no end to what can be accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit.
~ Art Rennison

0 to 20 takes an eternity of subjective time. 40 to 60 takes only a couple of years.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Adults are so angry about drugs not because they are Puritanical but because they have seen, over time, how drugs create untold misery for both the drug takers and those around them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

After authors are dead, people rarely read their books. Exposure is limited to quotations. So an author seeking an audience in posterity might save time by writing just quotations.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

After you are dead, it depends completely on what others think of you how much of your life work is preserved.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

All but the youngest children know that a joke is funny only the first time you hear it. Why then why do Hollywood script writers think somebody getting kicked in the balls or farting is a guaranteed laugh no matter how many times they repeat it?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Almost nobody reads books written by dead people. The exposure to their work is limited to quotations. So, if you want to have legacy influence, you need to express your ideas in concise, self-contained, quotable paragraphs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Americans compete in almost every world sport except cricket and soccer. To the rest of the world this looks like cowardice and an admission of incompetence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Any influence you have on the universe in your life you must somehow effect by wiggling parts of your body, particularly your tongue to talk, your face to express, your hands to write, type and build, and your genitals and anus to pleasure others. Everybody starts out with roughly equally-capable equipment.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Anyone whose life becomes unmanageable because of drugs does not have enough to do that he considers important. If he did, he would rarely be able to schedule the time for drugs. When parents teach their kids that nothing is important, that anything the kids do is futile, that you can’t fight city hall…, they are training their children for drug addiction.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Are beautiful humans ever aware how soon the gift will evaporate in a mist, like Cinderella’s pumpkin.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

As you get older, mostly what you remember of your life are the times you did not do the right thing. Doing the right thing every time is the treasure you really want to accumulate.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

As you get older, you become surer of what is right and what is nonsense. This gives you the confidence to speak out. It also means it easier to be dismissed as a crank.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

At some point you have to stop and ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish with my life?” There is a good chance is not something you want, but that your parents wanted. You have my permission to change it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird is probably the most admirable character in movies, yet oddly nobody names their son Atticus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Because we evolved in conditional of near constant food shortage, we learned that whenever food is available, you should eat as much as you can. This strategy does not work in the modern world where food is continuously available. You have to recreate the original conditions by removing food from your environment, or by going hungry all the time with an act of will.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Children learn fastest in the earliest years of their lives. Part of this is because adults have not yet tired of endlessly repeating simple messages like “1-2-3-Go!” We pretend that adults should be capable of absorbing anything on one hearing. The best teachers are usually those who most recently learned the material themselves. They have patience and sympathy for, and insight into a student’s misunderstanding because they remember their own recent confusion. For those that mastered the material long ago, it becomes so trivial, it hardly requires any explanation, much less a slow, simplified, repetitive one.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Complementary medicine is something you do in addition to the usual scientific medicine to make people feel better, e.g. home-made chicken soup. Alternative medicine is something you do in place of scientific medicine, e.g. homeopathy — something not yet shown to work. As soon as it is shown to work, it becomes scientific medicine. This suggests that any alternative therapy that has been around for decades and still has not been shown to work, almost certainly doesn’t.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Computers have trouble understanding speech because the literal meaning is swamped by the emotional content. We receive no formal training on recognising the emotional content of speech. On the contrary, we are trained to ignore it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Consider how many crucial life skills are not taught in high school:

• How to compute income tax.
• How to register to vote.
• How to get a passport.
• How to recognise a con.
• How mortgages work.
• How to deal with car dealers and car repairmen.
• How to buy insurance.
• All the ways to avoid catching HIV (Human Imumuno-deficiency Virus).
• How to handle being dumped.
• Marriage and divorce.
• How to detect the catches in an advertisement.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Coors Light beer features mountains on the can that change from white to blue when the beer cools to 4°C (39°F). If someone is so out of it they need help telling them if their beer is as cold as they like it, they probably should not be drinking more beer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Did you ever notice that in the movies:

• Cameras make a whooshing noise when they take a picture.
• Binoculars have a restricted field of view, like a Mastercard two-circle logo.
• Power outages cause fireworks to shoot from devices as they shut down one by one.
• Everybody’s phone number starts with 555, which is invalid.
• Every time a sleuth goes to visit someone, there is a murder.
• Any time a female is alone in a house at night guarantees she will be attacked.
• Any time a person changes a baby’s diaper, guarantees the baby will pee on them.
• It never drizzles or rains. There is always a drenching downpour.
• Any reference to a religious superstition, secular superstition or curse will come true later in spades.

These conventions are so common they don’t strike you as weird.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Dreaming is like being in a flight simulator. Because your actions are disengaged from reality, none of your mistakes are fatal.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Each day I can only accomplish about 1/1000 of what I want to get done. I find it astounding that anyone would schedule playing video games into their day, an activity that accomplishes absolutely nothing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

English seems to be evolving so that pronunciation and spelling diverge. Further there are ever more variant pronunciations of each word. English is becoming a much harder language to learn.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Even being in the top 1% of intelligence is frustrating. Others simply can’t understand what is blindingly obvious to you. They persist in doing stupid things for the most idiotic of reasons. Imagine if you were 100 or 1000 times more intelligent than normal. Life would be unbearably lonely. Interacting with normal humans would like having only an anthill as your social outlet. Spoken language would be so unbearably clumsy and slow to communicate the torrent of ideas.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Even when I excoriate mercilessly, what I am trying to do is reduce global suffering.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Everyone can find some excuse why their life is hopeless: sexual or physical child abuse, genetic propensity for obesity, low IQ, not conventionally handsome appearance, their soul mate abandoned them, poor health… Remind yourself that plenty of people with this handicap have created enjoyable lives. Get on with it!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Everyone is so impressed that Khufu ordered a giant pyramid built that covers the equivalent of seven city blocks. I am unimpressed. It seems an enormous effort to create an unimaginative giant pile of stone blocks. Perhaps he ordered when he was three years old.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Gambling is so universal, I think it must serve some useful purpose — namely wealth sharing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Given that the outcomes of college and professional sports redirect millions of dollars, it is naîve to trust the games are not fixed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Given the absolute inevitability of a murder being committed if Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher… comes to visit, you would think friends and relatives would bar the door and flee at their approach and the authorities would keep a close eye on them as potential serial killers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Handicap! What strange word! It can mean someone is either far more or far less skilled than usual.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

HDTV (High Definition Television) ’s greatest gift will be making it easier to see through the deception of infomercials.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Hockey is the most depressing game. Fans of every team in the league but one go into suicidal depression. It is as though the slim chance of the pleasure of squashing others and watching their misery makes it all worthwhile.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

How come some people have unruly hair, but no one has ruly hair? If they did, what are the rules?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) (after the manner of Don Ferguson’s confused philosopher character the Royal Canadian Air Farce)

How to Make Jello

1. Empty an 85 grams (3 oz) packet (cheaper brands work just as well) into a bowl in the sink.
2. Add 500 mls (1.06 US pints) boiling water.
3. Whip until foamy with Braun Multi-Mix.
4. Chill.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I am haunted by the image of the river of humanity. Individual lives are like drops of water flowing from birth to death, all in a matter of days. The bloom of youth lasts but an afternoon. A career is over in a day. From a distance, the stream of frantic activity appears continuous and eternal.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I am so out of sync with my generation, I think my best chance of having some influence is after I am dead. Nobody reads the works of dead people, just a few quotations. I figured I would be efficient, and cut out the middle man, by writing nothing but quotations. Technically they are not quotations until somebody quotes them, but they have the form.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I attempt to encapsulate any obvious idea in a sound bite so posterity will have a dead guy to quote to support it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I chronicle the obvious, especially the unacknowledged.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I enjoy pop music from the 1890s through the 1970s. Unfortunately, there seems to be a taboo against composing any new music in any of those genres. Ditto the baroque period.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I find it hard to take anyone seriously who hides their face behind layers of paint and powder.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I find the music of Beethoven and friends overblown, but then it was designed for the concert hall, not to accompany peeling potatoes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I had a dream that I was a young black man. I suspected my older lover was a serial killer, but I had no proof. I debated whether to go to the authorities. I seemed damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. I solved the problem in the usual dream fashion by waking up. Wouldn’t it be neat if there were an analogous escape hatch from waking reality when matters became untenable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I have a todo list long enough for several lifetimes. Where on earth do people find the time to play video and board games?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I have a very hard time understanding the appeal of games. My in-box is full of thousands of real-world problems to solve. Why would I waste time solving puzzles and games where the solution does not matter?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I have never had any trouble going to sleep. The trick is to distract myself from thinking about all the things I have to do tomorrow. I can do that with a book, TV or radio. But most often I just start paying attention to the visual thoughts going on in my head. If I listened to the nagging voice in my head, I would never sleep. Another way of looking at it, I just jump-start a dream.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I have never understood the appeal of Las Vegas. It is like spending your vacations spiritually dumpster diving or visiting some future-hell theme park. I have never seen more depressed and bored people in my life.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I have never understood why directors include sporting events in fictional films. They have as much appeal as watching a rigged game or a rerun. The appeal of spectator sports relies on not knowing the outcome.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I have watched in horror at the triumph of the valley girl accent — inflecting every statement as if were a question. Now young males use it. I have even heard female university professors use it. Does this mean in a century, everyone, even cowboys will affect it?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I notice that in TV and the movies, if someone smokes, it is a signal they are a criminal or will soon be murdered. I think the idea it helps make the audience less sympathetic to them. Nobody likes a smoker pays no attention to how the smoke affects others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I see my role as stating the obvious, particularly things so obvious that nobody else sees it necessary to enunciate them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I see my role as stating the obvious, particularly obvious things others are afraid to say aloud.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I wonder if people would continue to use Febreze if they understood it works by covering your sofa in cyclodextrin, tiny molecular tubes that encircle the odiferous molecules of wet dog preventing them from wafting into the air. It is like cleaning your house my putting the dirt in tiny plastic bags and leaving it to accumulate in place.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I would never dare experiment with cocaine or heroin. My will surrenders when tempted by even a piece of cheddar cheese or a chocolate-covered cookie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I would think the key to a weight loss program would be knowing exactly how hungry you have to be before you start eating and knowing exactly how full you can be before you stop eating. The plan would include learning how to determine those two points, and learning how to monitor when you cross them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If an alien species wanted to distract humans from attending to their survival, all they needed to do was introduce the video game.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If golfing were somehow necessary to tend the lawn, then you would immediately see the invention of all manner of labour-saving machines to reduce the time you had to spend doing it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If I had a four year old child, and she asked “What holds the moon up?” I would burst with pride she had noticed this important question. How to answer it? There would be little hope of explaining the calculus behind Newton’s answer. Perhaps a ball on a string swung around my head. What stops it from flying away? What stops it from falling in?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If people did a quick calculation of how much they would spend in a lifetime on cigarettes, would anyone be so stupid as to take that first puff?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If people with the alcoholic gene did a quick calculation of how much they would spend in a lifetime on booze, would anyone be so stupid as to take that first sip?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If reckless driving is driving dangerously, is reckless driving, driving without having an accident?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If something goes wrong, it does not really matter who is to blame. You are the only agent that you have direct control over capable of changing the universe. The question to ask, is “What can I do to fix this problem?”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If the obesity epidemic were caused by a parasite, there would be a panic war on obesity. But because we know it could be rectified with a better diet and more exercise, we let it creep up to the point it is killing people off younger and younger.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If you are a writer, and want to use the language of science, even for fantasy, check with an expert to make sure you are using it plausibly. Otherwise your work becomes unbearably ludicrous to one who does understand the language.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If you are entering the job market, you will fail if you speak like a valley girl, especially if you are male. Get rid of that nasal whine. Chop those elongated two-note vowels. Drop that bored accent. Learn to pronounce like the most respected announcers on radio and TV. You sound like a slob if you drop your gs or say ta instead of to. People somewhat older than you will be evaluating you. Your sloppy speech habits irritate them even if your peers see no problem. You may complain this is unfair, but if you ignore my advice you will have a much harder time getting a job. In a tight job market, you need every edge you can get.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If you are in your teens or twenties, you are at your peek of sexual attractiveness. Your body will never again function as well or be as indestructible. Now is the time for adventure. You will ever after far more regret the things you did not do than the things you did. Don’t let anything put you on hold — a jilted lover, parental disapproval, religion or even garden variety proscrastination. Whatever it is you dream of doing, starting a social movement, traveling Tibet, having sex in every form known to man, hiking across German, living among the orangutans… Do it now!. I know, it does not feel like it, but your time is almost up.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If you are trying to sell an idea, it works better if you can find a dead person who thought of it first.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If you find you are not getting much accomplished in a day, there is not much point in berating yourself. You need to give up some low priority activity, like watching TV just because it is on, or driving.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If you teach your children to be considerate of others, you automatically teach them the keys to survival. They will take care to preserve other species. They won’t go mindlessly to war. They won’t persecute others just because they have different beliefs. They will make the sacrifices necessary to deal with the end of oil and global warming because they are concerned for their children and grandchildren. They won’t conspicuously consume. They will have happy relationships.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

If you want to serve your species, you must be willing to fail. People who want personal glory pursue safe mainstream success. But the most valuable discoveries are off the beaten track, and most of that prospecting will not pan out. There is no glory for all by a handful of those who devote themselves to this most valuable exploration.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

In 1985, I went for soul food at Powell’s restaurant in San Francisco. When I tasted the smothered chicken — a chicken in peppery gravy, I thought to myself “So this is what I have been hungry for all my life.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

In a satisfying life you should have some regrets both for things you did and didn’t do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

In ancient China, fathers gave their sons opium to make them sober, tend the family business and avoid chasing women. This suggests our current societal problems with opiates stem from how we treat them, not something inherently destructive. I suspect Christian Puritanical beliefs cloud our thinking about the best way to handle them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

In terms of subjective time, your life as about half over at 17.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It becomes increasingly difficult to watch movies prior to the 1970s, because of the routine tobacco ingestion. It distracts the plot as much as if the actors blandly shot up heroin in the middle of their dialogs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It is a good sign when a hospital patient complains about the food. Those about to die know they won’t be eating any more of it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It is a well established scientific principle that a large amount of a substance has a bigger effect than a small amount. Why then do doctors focus all their attention on tiny pills and ignore the much larger amounts of food and drink their patients ingest?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It is almost impossible to win a global competition of any kind without cheating. This becomes the justification for cheating. Hence Walmart, Nestlé, Altria-Kraft, Exxon, Halliburton.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It is odd how much effort we put into never being cornered into admitting we are wrong, when that is the one thing others seem to want most of us.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It is quite a bit easier to quote myself than to find some famous person who has already said what I want to say.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It is too obvious to mention, but… If there are several different ways of doing something, one of them is probably noticeably better. If you do something more than once a day, it is probably worth a little experiment and a few moments contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of doing it each way. Then you can put your choice on automatic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It would be so cool if someone could show me a totally new colour, one no one has ever seen before, not just a new shade, a new colour, and different from any you have ever seen as green is from red, even if through direct brain stimulation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

It’s ironic that even the most powerful politician, law enforcement officer or prosecutor cannot bring down a major drug dealer or gangster, yet these criminals are completely defenseless against an anonymous nobody.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Just thinking about global problems such as global warming, nuclear war, overpopulation, environmental collapse, mass extinctions, biological weapons etc. can be pretty depressing. No wonder so many people flatly refuse to think about them at all. Instead of beating on people with information about how extremely serious these issues are, perhaps we need to lighten up, so that people can think about these problems without overwhelm.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Laws of the TV Universe

• Clients defended by a lawyer in a repeating series are always innocent no matter how much evidence there is against them.
• If somebody is murdered, at least two other people will have attacked them within hours of the murder.
• If there is reference made to a superstition or mythical monster, it will manifest later in the show.
• If there is a noise in the night, its cause is homicidal.
• If A says something insulting about B, then B will be standing behind them.
• If on first meeting, a heterosexual pair fight, especially if the woman trashes the man to a friend, they will be married off in the last minutes of the show.
• If there are more than 10 minutes left in the show, the protagonist will face another major setback.
• If a recurring character becomes romantically involved, the relationship must break up by the end of the show, often involving the death of the partner.
• If a character says “I swear” in a loud voice, he is telling the truth.
• If recurring character comes across a windfall, they will always lose it or it will be proven illegitimate.
• Busy expensive lawyers never turn down a pro-bono case.
• If a character points out there is less that a 1% chance of something happening, guaranteed it will happen.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Love seems complicated and ineffable, but that is because it is a blanket term for many component factors that appear blended in various combinations. For example love includes factors like:

• lust
• infatuation
• admiration
• need
• jealousy
• companionship
• pride: partner as trophy
• nostalgia

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Many movies teach anti-social, anti-environment or racist values. If an actor participates in such a movie, they are no longer admirable people in my book.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Maturity is primarily a matter of broadening loyalty. It starts with self absorption, then loyalty to the family, then loyalty to the neighbourhood, then the state, then to the human species, then to all life on earth, then to the cosmos.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Modern Canadians speak more like Shakespear did, than modern Londeners.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Most of what I have said in my life soap box can be summed up in a few sentences:

• Play fair, especially with those weaker than you.
• Whomever makes a mess should be obligated to clean it up.
• We should not tolerate lying, because, as Gautama Buddha said, “If people become accustomed to lying, they will unconsciously commit every possible wrong deed. Before they can act wickedly, they must lie, and once they begin to lie they will act wickedly without concern.”
• Echoing Gandhi: “An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.”
• Again echoing Gandhi: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Most people live such self-centred and trivial lives that, outside of immediate family, they would never be missed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Much of the appeal of music is its repetition and predictability. People come to appreciate a piece the more they hear it. The repetition fosters the illusion that the universe is a safe, predictable place.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

My dad was head of production at BC Hydro, the BC electric power utility. One of his least favourite jobs was allocating office space because of all the resentments it created with petty jealousies. His strategy was to present an atrocious office layout that offended absolutely everyone. He would then announce he would consider an alternate layout if the employees affected wanted to propose one. They would fight it out and present their plan. My dad would accept it, and all would be happy at the terrible fate they had so narrowly escaped.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

My mom had five kids. This is odd considering she repeatedly told us she did not like children. We would go out driving packed in her ’57 baby blue Cadillac convertible with giant fins. If we were too noisy, she would pick a random child, kick them out of the car and drive off. The remaining children would be terrified and silent. She eventually would relent and pick up the abandoned child. Even I, the eldest, believed she was completely serious about permanently abandoning the child to fend for himself. I have noticed that my siblings and I, as adults, all have abandonment issues. Please parents, don’t use threats of abandonment to control your children. You may do far more permanent damage than you could imagine.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

My parents warned me this would happen, but it still caught me off guard. I was discounted for my youth, then one day I woke up and suddenly I was discounted for my decrepitude.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Nearly everyone fritters their life away on things that don’t matter. By the time they discover how short life truly is, it is too late.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Nothing can prepare you for the shock of waking up one day, and seeing an old person staring back at you in the mirror.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

One of the least appealing features of Americans besides their jingoism is their humour, which is based on insult and cruelty.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

One of the main themes in television is that hunches, superstition and religion are more reliable than logic, sponsored by corporations who would have you believe that buying a different brand of dusting cloth will bring fresh love into your life.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

One of the most amazing creations of humanity are a set of aerobic exercises devised by the Inuit that can be performed in a space the size of a bathtub.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

One of the odd things about growing old is my past actions seem much more embarrassing than they did at the time and my past angsts seem much ado about nothing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

One the nice things about getting old is everyone you deal with was either little kid in the lower grades, or not even born when you were a kid. There is no need to take them all that seriously. The adults have mostly died off. We can make up new rules.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

One the pleasant things about growing older is your clothes last much longer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Over the years, as tobacco smoking in Canada became less and less common, I found my tolerance drastically dropped. I contemplate murder when someone smokes a cigar stinking up a block of the outdoors. I feel nauseous at clouds of smoke in old black and white movies. I wonder how long till there will be warnings on movies about tobacco and alcohol use.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Parents harangue their kids not to hit or hurt each other, then they pack them off to junior hockey.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

People like to ridicule, condemn and threaten me. It is not so much that I am out of step with popular opinions; it is just that I am a few decades ahead of most people. For example:

• In 1960 I started debunking Christianity.
• In 1965 I protested nuclear testing in Amchitka.
• In 1968, before Greenpeace was officially founded, I sent them $100.00 CAD (2.5 months room and board at the time). They told me it was the biggest donation they had ever received.
• In 1969 I was preaching strict gay equality when even gays were still opposed to it.
• In 1975 I gave away my 3 year old car and thereafter walked, used a bicycle or public transportation.
• In 1976 my Christmas tree was lit with LEDs.
• In 1977 my house was controlled by a thermostat that automatically turned down the heat when people went out or went to sleep saving me 50% on my gas bill.
• In 1986-10 I published an article in Byte magazine about why computer languages should have what today we call large standard class libraries, to handle problems such as sorting, dealing with the calendar and international zip codes.
• In 2000 I opposed the Bush presidency.
• On 2001-09-11 I expressed doubts about Bush’s story of what happened on 9-11.
• In 2000 I protested the Makah Whale hunt.
• In 2001 I opposed the Afghan war.
• In 2002 I opposed the Iraq war, before it even started.
• In 2003 I started harassing politicians to get on with solving homelessness.

It seems it is only a matter of time until most people come around to my point of view.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

People often fail to realise that owning is just a social convention, like a rule in a board game. It coordinates use of objects. It is not real in the same sense gravity is.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

People who commit suicide are typically extolled as unusually virtuous. This may be more than mere politeness. People who commit suicide are prone to manic-depressive disorder. The manic phase makes them fun. The depressive phase makes them considerate, empathetic, compassionate and good listeners.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Perfect your craft; recognition comes later. Perfect your craft; that is your job; recognition is other people’s. Many people receive no recognition until they die; many people receive no recognition ever. People who receive recognition before perfecting their craft mostly receive contempt.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Perhaps my main peeve in the movies is the way half a dozen guys, and a few housewives, will hover about to watch a bomb disposal expert defuse a bomb. I can’t see anyone being that stupid.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Perry Mason was a whodunnit popular in the 1950s. If it is ever revived we will need a writers guide to make sure the new episodes conform to the stock formula:

• Any person behaving rudely or smugly in the first 10 minutes of the episode will be murdered.
• Anyone Perry represents is innocent.
• Lt. Tragg and Hamilton Burger must treat Perry as a likely criminal, even though they have known him for years.
• Young good-looking couples in love are never guilty.
• Anyone who says “I swear I didn’t do it” in a loud voice is always innocent.
• Any guilty party will instantly confess as soon as Perry conjectures how they committed the crime (not necessarily a murder), even if Perry has similarly falsely accused half a dozen people prior.
• At the end of each episode, Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake must be alive, single and unencumbered with a partner.
• Every show must end with a lame joke and group laughter.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Pop psychologists ask “Is the glass half full or half empty?” Don’t they realise it depends if you are pouring water into it, or drinking it?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Quaker advertises its chocolate bars have half the sugar of the competition. How do they do it? Their bars are half the size!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Scientists have found that monkeys with access to all the food they want become obese; the same with humans. We have not evolved to cope with continuous abundance.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Smokers know that every cigarette shortens life. They dismiss the loss by saying, “who wants extra years as a senile nonagenarian anyway?” But the years are stolen from your teens, twenties and thirties.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Some people can remember their childhoods, even prior to the time they could talk. They understand why children seem so dense, asking the same questions over and over. It is more like asking to hear a favourite bedtime story yet again. The child simply cannot not think of a new question to keep the conversation going with a beloved adult.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Sometimes when I wake up feeling nauseous and achy, I expect to see the creature from the black lagoon staring back at me from the bathroom mirror. Instead, I see a well-rested, relatively youthful face staring back. How awful people must feel inside when they really do look like the creature from the black lagoon.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Television is an anaesthetic. If you doubt me, try going cold turkey.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The apostrophe was invented late in the evolution of English. It is used for contractions and possessives, often correctly. Perhaps it is time to drop it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The English language is fracturing. Words that used to be pronounced as they are spelt, now have eccentric pronunciations. Advertisers hasten this process by featuring any new fad pronunciation to sound hip. This is a shame. The language is getting harder and harder to learn and understand with so many exceptions and variants.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The first time I heard a fart or saw someone kicked in the testicles, I could have found it amusing. What baffles me is there are people who find these amusing, even when repeated dozens of times in the same film.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The Grinches have grossly exaggerated the danger of fire from real Christmas trees. Modern LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lights use very low voltages, currents and temperatures and thus pose almost no risk at all. It is time to ban the true culprits from apartment buildings — incandescent lights, not the fir trees that exude the evergreen fragrance of Christmas.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The ideal gift for someone with a terminal disease is not flowers, but something durable designed to last a century or two.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The main difference between a drug addict and a genius is persistence. A drug addict insists on instant payoff. A genius is willing to work for years before seeing a payoff. When I teach, at first, I arrange that kids get a big bang reward for very little work. I gradually reduce the reward and extend the time. Eventually kids work indefinitely for subtle rewards — honing skill and precise control.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The main difference between sleeping dreams and the waking dreams we call ordinary consciousness is waking dreams accept more inputs from the outside world to influence the course of the dream.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

I elaborate on this theme in my essay Reality is a Hallucination

The more channels of TV there are, the worse your odds are of finding something interesting to watch. This is because the fixed advertising-funded programming budget pie is spread thinner over more channels. To improve program content, we need funding to come from the viewers based on what they actually watch, possibly delivered a program at a time through the Internet.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The more fashionable a colour, the sooner it will look dated. That’s why the paint companies try to persuade you to overuse “this year’s colours“. The goal of marketing is to get people to buy new product even when the previous product is still working fine by persuading them it is obsolete.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The most frustrating thing about being human is that you have to watch your fellows treating each other in the most unimaginably cruel ways, and destroying the planet that sustains us while knowing that whatever you do to counter will be insignificant because you are only one in 7 billion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The most frustrating thing about getting old is your to-do list grows at least a 100 times longer than your done-list.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The octopus has 8 arms, 3 hearts, no skeleton and no hands. Its skin can flash messages or be used for near perfect camouflage in both colour and texture. The whale has no arms. It can see with sound like a bat. Why should intelligent creatures from off planet be more like man than even other intelligent terrestrial creatures?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The prime directive of weight control is avoid attending feasts. You do more damage in one feast than in months of ordinary overindulgence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The problem with good weather is it brings out mosquitos, leaf blowers and road pavers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The smoking scenes in old movies don’t play well today. I suspect scenes of pigging out, particularly on junk food won’t play well either by the 2030s.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The three funniest lines in movies are:

• “Nobody’s perfect in Some Like It Hot.”
• “I’ll have what she’s having” in Harry Met Sally.
• “It’s true” in Blazing Saddles

It all depends on context.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

The toothpaste, mouthwash and whitening strip companies are selling you watered down hydrogen peroxide at stupendous markup. You can buy generic full strength hydrogen peroxide to whiten your teeth rapidly at any drug store for peanuts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

There are four degrees of liar:

1. Liars who repeat things that are not true without ever bothering to check if they are indeed true.
2. Liars who knowingly say things that are not true.
3. Liars who make it obvious they know they are saying things that are not true.
4. Liars who keep repeating the same old lies, no matter how many times their lies are debunked.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

There was a time when young Einstein did not yet know how to add 2 + 2. What if someone had belittled him for not already knowing, and put him off math?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

They are some people who are getting up in years whom I will sorely miss when they die. I include Betty White, Leonard Cohen, Noam Chomsky, Richard Dawkins, Woody Allen, Stephen Lewis, David Suzuki, Nelson Mandela… I don’t include Gore Vidal because he has said he is quite uncomfortable in his old age, and is ready to go. On the other hand I would love to pound some nails into the coffins of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Fred Phelps, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich, John Yoo, John Roberts, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Mitch McConnell, Lowell Green, David Petraeus, Rick Santorum…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

To make a new idea sound respectable, you need to find a dead guy who espoused it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

To people of the coming generations, viewing movies of our time will be disturbing because of all the people grossly deformed by excess adipose tissue. To them, it will be like trying to ignore enormous goiters on half the cast.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

To show respect for your audience, write concisely.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Tobacco, inactivity, poor diet, alcohol, car crashes and gun incidents are far more likely to kill you than plane crashes, sharks, terrorists and earthquakes. It seems almost the more likely something is to kill you, the more familiar it becomes, and hence the less scary.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Travel when you are young, ideally in the year after high school before you go to university. Why?

• There is nothing better to show you on a deep level there is more than one way to do something.
• It is cheaper to travel when you are young.
• You will have more adventure traveling while you are young.
• Later in life, your finances, health or energy may restrict you.
• It will be much harder to get away later with ties of family, job, home, pets and community.
• Life is over so fast, if you don’t do it now, you may never find time.
• Many of the most interesting places on earth are being McDonaldised. This is your last chance to see.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Two of the most enduring TV shows of the past, Perry Mason and Matlock, are each composed on a rigid framework for each episode. Within that, there is considerable invention. The appeal might be similar to that of a sonata, where the composer is constrained by the rules of sonata composition, but within them he is free to improvise freely.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Usually humour is based on an unexpected twist. But in America, it is created by staging one of a number of traditional gags, for example:

• A small person or animal hits an adult male in the testicles.
• Someone farts, burps or belches.
• Someone falls down or gets hit in the head.
• Someone belittles someone else with a cruel, original, colourful insult.
• A low status male makes a pass at a high status female with a crude double entendre.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Wade Davis said that everyone who takes a certain South American psychedelic plant has similar visions, among them viewing the activities of “rock people”. I can think of three explanations for that:

1. People who take the hallucinogen first study up on its effects. Suggestibility takes it from there.
2. These visions are archetypes built into all human brains.
3. Analogously to infrared goggles, the psychedelic allows a different view of reality that emphasises things not normally visible.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

We die of accumulated embarrassments.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

What causes humans to lose interest in their own survival, to withdraw from all human contact, to stop sleeping, to avoid sunlight? Answer: The video game!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

What possesses people to gamble at casinos? They always lose over the long run. If they are not careful, they are also sucked into financial ruin. It would make much more sense to gamble with their friends with 50:50 odds of winning.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

What the heck is that blue liquid that exudes from women in sanitary napkin commercials? Similarly what is that orange slime that keeps spilling on the counters of people who use Bounty paper towels?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

What would you expect to find in TV dramas? Things people like to do, but don’t often get to do. What do you most often find? Murder, framing someone for murder, rape, extreme rudeness, seeing people covered in noxious muds, shooting, torture, reckless driving, vehicle crashes, attacks by monsters, being trapped…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Whatever you do, you will have to live with its consequences for the rest of your life. Be kind to your future self. You won’t be able to undo anything.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

What’s the big fuss about UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) s? Surely nobody believes that all flying objects have been identified, so they necessarily believe in UFO s, right?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

What’s the difference between television and radio? In radio there are fewer screams, fights and stabbings. People being interviewed on radio do not talk over the interviewer and other guests.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When a rat philosopher heads down a tunnel and finds no cheese, he does not say to himself “Rats! I failed”. He says, “I have learned something. I now know one more place where the cheese isn”t.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When I was diagnosed with HIV, and told I would die in one to three years, I asked myself “What can I get accomplished in my remaining time?” Other people ask themselves pointless questions such as “Why me?” or “What sort of deal can I con god into, to let me live?”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When I was eight, I went away for ten days to Camp Howdy, a YMCA (Young Men’ Christian Association) summer camp. I still cherish so many happy memories of that time. I wish every kid could have at least one experience in a lifetime like that.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When I was three, I remember my mother was nursing my younger sister. I asked if I could nurse too. I expected her to say yes, but instead she chastised me, pointing out I was much too old a boy for that now. In recalling this event, I feel disgust and horror at the thought of nursing, that I certainly did not feel at the time. Somewhere between then and now, I must have changed drastically in my attitudes toward lactation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When I was younger, my heart would melt any time I heard someone cry when they told me about their life predicaments. Now, I am more inclined to think to myself, “For pity sake. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. Rather, let’s think about what practical we could do to ameliorate your situation.”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When my dad laying dying of brain cancer, he said that he wished he had made more of a contribution. He contributed far more than average, but still this haunted him. I have HIV , and I have no idea just how much longer I will last. Sometime it feels like 24 hours. Because the HIV is so well controlled, the doctor says I could live to normal life expectancy. However, I too find my Dad’s obsession haunting me. So I pass this on to encourage you:

• Don’t waste your university education. It is not just a matter of passing exams or getting a diploma. You want to learn as much as possible and expose yourself to as much divergent opinion as you can. You will never get another chance like this to just pig out on learning.
• Don’t pine. If your lover left, they were clearly not a suitable lifetime partner. Even if you could persuade them to return, it would take too much energy to placate them. You would be walking on eggs. Be glad you found out as quickly as you did.
• Don’t be afraid to explore corners of the planet and the mindsphere that others avoid. If you expect to find something novel you will have to look where others have not.
• While you are still young, travel to the places most different from home. Try to get in touch with ordinary people, not just tourist industry people. Foreign travel is like breaking into an alternate universe.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When Shakespear referred to life as a “brief candle”, he meant it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When Showcase TV says “The following program contains mature subject matter; viewer discretion is advised.”, they nearly almost always mean “The following program contains immature behaviour.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When someone says, “To be honest with you…” does not that imply nearly everything they say to me is dishonest?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When you are a child, the world was populated by large, somewhat cranky people overly concerned with your health and safety. When you grow up, the world is run by the bullies and dumb kids several grades behind you. These corrupt idiots have no common sense. They are as bent now on destroying the planet as they were then on destroying others’ fun and tormenting cats.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When you are old, it feels as if you should be able to do all the things you did at 30, if only you can get it together.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When you are six, a month takes an eternity of subjective time. When you are sixty, a year whips by like a chase in a Mack Sennett silent film.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

When you get old, there is little chance you will say to yourself, “I wish I had spent my life doing something less important”. So why not start doing at least a little potentially significant stuff right now?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Why are please and ”thank-you” the cornerstones of politeness? Please is a marker word that warns the listener to pay attention because the message contains a request. Failure to respond will have consequences. When the task is completed, the requester says “thank you” to signal they consider the request fulfilled to their satisfaction. The listener can now safely put the matter out of mind. Without please the listener might miss the request, and then the requester could feel hurt that the request was deliberately ignored.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Why are you here? for your personal pleasure or for the general benefit? If comfort is not your goal, there is no need to fret or panic when life becomes uncomfortable. You are free to procrastinate personal pleasure.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Why do directors put 10-minute gunfights in their movies? Nothing is more boring or clichéd.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Why would anyone want to eat genetically-modified, deformed, cage-tortured, spongy-boned chicken, soaked in grease and packed in flour when they could have free-range herb-roasted chicken for less money? KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) spends a bundle trying to convince people to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

With the Java glossary, I aim to give you an overview of a technology so that you can quickly tell if it would be useful to you. To do that I must do three things:

1. Explain in simple terms what it is for and how it works.
2. Explain the advantages over competing technologies.
3. Explain the disadvantages compared with competing technologies.

This last work makes me unpopular. It makes me look like a grumpy old man, but it is my most valuable service. The vendors will go to great lengths to hide those disadvantages from you. Otherwise, the disadvantages may not become obvious until you have committed yourself to that technology, and it is too late to back out. I am not commanding you “Don’t use this”. Only you know which advantages and disadvantage are important to you.

~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

You have been told this a thousand times, that life is short. Why do you think that is? It is the piece of knowledge that most people think is the most important to pass on to the younger generation. It is much truer than you would ever imagine. So what? Don’t spin your wheels. Get on with whatever it is you want to accomplish. If your life keeps going off the rails or stalling, find out why and fix it now!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

You know you are old when you look up some old buzzard pontificating on TV, and discover in Wikipedia he is ten years younger than you are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

You make losing weight unnecessarily difficult if you focus on all the delicious foods you are depriving yourself of. There is no need to deny yourself anything, just procrastinate so you eat it less often.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

You might think that the worst music comes from garage bands, but the bouncy background music from commercials is even more idiotically mindless.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Your greatest freedom is your ability to choose what to pay attention to. Your choices determine the much larger body of things you necessarily ignore. Don’t waste this freedom.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Your kid will only be eight for a year. If there is any activity you want to share with your kid while they are eight, you had better get on with it during that year.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Your odds of being murdered are only 1 in 18000. So the odds of somebody going to murder you, and finding you already murdered, are quite remote, perhaps something like 1 in 7 trillion. Oddly, this happens in almost every murder mystery.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

You’d think modern technology would make it impossible for a pot to boil over, burn the food or catch fire. You’d think akettle could be invented that did not scald you in normal use.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

You” think on encountering Perry Mason, people would flee in terror. They have a 25% chance of being murdered and a 40% chance of being framed for a murder. Ditto, Miss Marple should find her prospective hosts have fled for Patagonia when she inquired about coming to visit.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

“Going forward” is the new um.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
~ Theodore Roosevelt (born: 1858-10-27 died: 1919-01-06 at age: 60)

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
~ Theodore Roosevelt (born: 1858-10-27 died: 1919-01-06 at age: 60)

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-07 at age: 97) The History of Western Philosophy

It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-07 at age: 97)

Russell is not counseling apathy, just not getting your tail in a knot while you take rational action to oppose life’s idiots.

Mothers are all slightly insane.
~ J. D. Salinger (born: 1919-01-01 died: 2010-01-27 at age: 91) The Catcher In The Rye

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer (born: 1788-02-22 died: 1860-09-21 at age: 72)

Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.
~ Pete Seeger (born: 1919-05-03 age: 92)

Tragedy, for me, is not a conflict between right and wrong, but between two different kinds of right.
~ Peter Shaffer (born: 1926-05-15 age: 85)

Be great in act, as you have been in thought. ~ William Shakespear (born: 1564-04-23 died: 1616-04-23 at age: 52) King John V scene i by the Bastard.

The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.
~ William Shakespear (born: 1564-04-23 died: 1616-04-23 at age: 52) Julius Caesar Act II scene ii

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children!
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
~ Upton Sinclair (born: 1878-09-20 died: 1968-11-25 at age: 90)

A coincidence is a trend we’ve decided not to take seriously.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 84)

Every invention creates new needs, but the biggest needs are not for new and more advanced versions of the last invention but for solutions to the social problems the last invention created.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 84)

Many people would object that most women don’t want careers. I suspect that women themselves would agree, but I also wonder if deep inside they don’t feel the kind of puzzled uneasiness that we always experience when obliged to accept a formulation that makes us lose either way…. When we say career it connotes a demanding, rigorous, preordained life pattern, to whose goals everything else is ruthlessly subordinated — everything pleasurable, human, emotional, bodily, frivolous… Thus when a man asks a woman if she wants a career, it is intimidating. He is saying, are you willing to suppress half of your being as I am, neglect your family as I do, exploit personal relationships as I do, renounce all personal spontaneity as I do? Naturally, she shudders a bit and shuffles back to the broom closet. She even feels a little sorry for him, and bewails the unkind fate that has forced him against his will to become such a despicable person…

A more effective (revolutionary, confronting) response would be to admit that a career, thus defined, is indeed undesirable — that (now that you mention it) it seems like a pernicious activity for any human being to engage in, and should be eschewed by both men and women.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 84)

Motors make noise, and that tells you about the feelings and attitudes that went into it. Something was more important than sensory pleasure — nobody would invent a chair or dish that smelled bad or that made horrible noises — why were motors invented noisy? How could they possibly be considered complete or successful inventions with this glaring defect? Unless, of course, the aggressive, hostile, assaultive sound actually served to express some impulse of the owner.
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 84),The Wayward Gate: Science and the Supernatural

The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honour you can bestow on him. It means that you recognise his superiority to yourself.
~ Joseph Sobran (born: 1946-02-23 age: 65)

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
~ Socrates (born: 469 BC died: 399 BC at age: 70)

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
~ Socrates (born: 469 BC died: 399 BC at age: 70)

The pail by the wall
Would be half full of water and stars.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson (born: 1850-11-13 died: 1894-12-03 at age: 44) Escape at Bedtime

I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
~ Tom Stoppard (born: 1937-07-03 age: 74)

The deeper the sorrow the less tongue it hath.
~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (born: 56 AD died: 117 AD at age: 61)

Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
~ Dylan Thomas (born: 1914-10-27 died: 1953-11-09 at age: 39) Fern Hill

The desire for gold is the desire to make others do what they do not want to do.
~ Emile de Tocqueville

When someone reaches middle age, people he knows begin to get put in charge of things, and knowing what he knows about the people who are being put in charge of things scares the hell out of him.
~ Calvin Trillin (born: 1935-12-05 age: 76)

Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
~ Ivan Turgenev (born: 1818-11-09 died: 1883-09-03 at age: 64)

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

Consider well the proportion of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)

The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.
~ Thorstein Veblen (born: 1857-07-30 died: 1929-08-03 at age: 72)

A good deed never goes unpunished.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86)

If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives would be not only meager but in a youth-worshiping country like America, painfully brief.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86)

Art is never finished, only abandoned.
~ Leonardo da Vinci (born: 1452-04-15 died: 1519-05-02 at age: 67)

There was a bonobo at a zoo in England who found a little bird, a starling, that had hit the window of the bonobo’s enclosure. The starling was stunned, and she picked it up. She took it in her hand, and she climbed to the highest point of her enclosure, the highest tree. She wrapped her feet across the tree so that she had her hands free, and she unfolded the bird like a little toy airplane, and she sent it out. Frans de Waal (born: 1948-10-29 age: 63) source

Stephen Harper is 300 pounds of condemned beef.
~ Mary Walsh (born: 1952-05-15 age: 59)

Knowledge keeps no better than fish.
~ Alfred North Whitehead (born: 1861-02-15 died: 1947-12-30 at age: 86)

The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
~ Alfred North Whitehead (born: 1861-02-15 died: 1947-12-30 at age: 86)

All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
~ Walt Whitman (born: 1819-05-31 died: 1892-03-26 at age: 72)

Imagine this butterfly, exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (born: 1889-04-26 died: 1951-04-29 at age: 62)

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
~ Virginia Woolf (born: 1882-01-25 died: 1941-03-28 at age: 59)

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
~ Frank Zappa (born: 1940-12-21 died: 1993-12-04 at age: 52)

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