Category: Books by Quote

Dear Trudy. My baby doesn't even notice my Post-Its.™

My baby doesn’t even notice my Post-Its. How can I make clear it has to stop crying?

November 18, 2016 by Trudy
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Dear Trudy,

My four months old cries day and night. I’ve put up Post-Its in its crib with a kind request it stops that. But now I begin to realise it doesn’t even notice them. How to make clear that I am not positively inclined to let this disregard pass just like that?
Regards,
At Wits’ End

Dear Wits’ End,

Probably your baby does not want to be micromanaged by Post-It. A lot of people take that badly. It isn’t your cleaning maid for one thing! So please try to take a more gentle approach. E.g., next time don’t write “Please don’t cry” but rather “How can we manage to agree to not cry after 2AM ;)”

[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

Plusquote, nevertheless good to have been ousted

Of course referring to the little guy’s family name. Here, because of his sound advice on how strategic planning should be done:

You engage, and then you wait and see.

First off of(f) course, he wasn’t particularly little it was just that his generals next to him, were long.
Second, he’s right, about the above approach. Reminder: Some later giant took the above and expanded, explained, it more in the style of his countrymen’s need for rambling-on notation. And quoting some latter-day possibly (!) overrated general, “Plans are nothing, planning is everything.” which again is the same thing. In the core, right. Also for business today; how could anyone pretend to be able to predict even the nearest of future better than such an eminent strategist ..? If, then despicable.

Third, did anyone mention that the abovementioned frog, and all others involved except some who couldn’t handle the truth (sic), found William II superior to some other, now much revered, general (Et moi je vous dis que Wellington est un mauvais général, que les Anglais sont de mauvaises troupes et que ce sera l’affaire d’un déjeuner) that just sat there and was almost annihilated by the French if it hadn’t been for the protraction and depletion at Quatre Bras and other places (Hougoumont, much?), by others mainly, so Blücher could arrive in time.

Enough for now, with:
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[Myopia, caused; Amsterdam]

For members, useful insights

I’d suggest making this available widely; beyond membership only. Because it ties in so well with, e.g., this and many other issues at this.

Yes, I may be biased; just like everyone if only for having been member of this. Which (subject) plays a much more prominent role in your lives than you think, certainly in the nearest of futures. Beware.

And be aware of:
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[Your ethics reasoning: All corners, leading nowhere, abandoned; Fabrique Utrecht]

My daughter in law can't even develop a coherent model that unifies all fundamental theories

Trudy Helps

November 2, 2016 by Trudy

Dear Trudy,
My daughter in law is a lovely girl, but she can’t manage to develop a coherent, exact model that unifies the theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics. This bothers me enormously, e.g. at birthday parties with the family. How can I make clear that I would love to see het own string theory without hurting her feelings ..?

You b…, what are you doing? It will definitely destroy your relation with your daughter in law if you try to meddle with the way she likes to integrate scientific phenomena. If you want to have a shot at ever seeing that unification theory during childhood, you better distance yourself a little from her efforts.
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[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

Hurt Spree at American University: 17 Millennials Insulted

Tragedy causes discussions about freedom to carry opinion

October 18, 2016 by Hank Grohl
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During a hurt at a university in Nebraska, 17 students have been insulted. The victims are all millennials that were attending a class on civil rights movements.

The hurter was a white, privileged man who worked as tenured professor of social history at the university. He is said to have just walked into a classroom where he started to fire off historical facts at students. Panic broke out immediately, but thirty students managed to flee the classroom. Even before the hurter could be arrested, he hurt himself.

This is not the first time that America wakes up to a hurting incident with insulting outcome. Even last month, in Colorado fifteen students were seriously hurt by a remark about gluten.

The Nebraska incident has yet again raised questions about the right to have an opinion. More and more Americans are are calling for limits to carry opinions.

[If you took the previous as a ridicule of gun violence atrocities: It is not. Maybe on the contrary, ridiculing whining over if-possible-less-than first world problems. Geddit now?]

[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

Really Bad Life

The recent spat on (team, in particular) sports not being the character building they’re supposed to be, has a pendant in other realms of game as well. The former, here; the latter, here.

Where, similar to other areas of enticement (link and other posts on this blog), the idea of a level paying field not through the starting positions but through procedural justice, seems to want to jump over the weaving errors of our societies being the unevenness and inequality of the starting positions. Also eloquently explained (with a moral take-home) here. Typical in the RBC article above-linked, in the base (sic) of the great game of golf with its handicap system. But still; this doesn’t diminish the feelings of inequity, either on the non-compensated-for-bad-luck-starting-points side, or on the feeling-bad-for-having-lost-the-advantages-of-an-advantaged-starting-point side.

Wouldn’t wars be over and world peace break out when the problem that eluded some of the most eminent (economics- and others) thinkers, as here and certainly here and here, be solved ..? What transformation away from a bad one, would that require of the world society ..?

I’m seriously interested to hear any pointers and partial work already …

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[On the edges of Nature and Appolonian order…, and perfection (in horizon balance) is boring; Ancy-le-Franc]

Wells Fargo very happy with all well-wishes

Customers send flowers and baskets to sick bank
October 14, 2016 by George Greenspan

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Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan feels support from all the heartwarming cards, fruit baskets, teddy-bears and drawings he has received.

“Thank you so much, dear ‘people’,” he lets us know with a large Minions balloon in hand.

Wells Fargo had not been feeling well for a long time already. “We still sometimes feel an ache from all the junk mortgages we doled out, and the billion-dollar fines didn’t help much, either,” says Sloan while showing a huge card on which a taxpayer wrote “Get Wells Soon” in giant letters. “But hopefully, we’ll soon have recovered soon enough to fetch me some ridiculous bonuses again.”

Many of the 8 million private customers have sent fruit baskets to their bank. Among them, Hank Dinger from Farmburg. He lost his job in the previous economic crisis and only now, years later, gets sporadic invitations for job interviews again. “But do take care of yourselves, will you?”, the sender card says, on which a pencil drawn tangerine gives a thumbs-up.

Biting an apple, CEO Sloan recognises that Wells Fargo had not been feeling too well already for a longer time in its capital position. “Due to the stock market slump we were more prone to be infected by sick speculators and hedge funds and all sorts of other external factors but us,” he explains. “From now on, we’ll pursue a more healthy strategy; promise!”

According to financial doctors, the bank is in worse health than Sloan would want to admit: “Chances are that Well Fargo will not have much time and the problems may spread to the North-Western economy. The only true remedy at this stage, is a double dose of lay-offs, and a financial injection by the government.”

FED Chair Janet Yellen does not want to give that injection just yet. She has scolded management because it had neglected its health, but also showed tender concern and care by providing a pan of home-made chicken soup. She gave Timothy a kiss on the forehead. “Better!”

[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

Help determine this rock

I have an inkling of what this piece of art means, but would there be anyone out there that, under strict confidentiality of course, could provide a full explanation ..?
In particular — but including full context — what the link is between a book, possibly obscure but a tip as pleasurable read and this in Joinville:
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It’s just all too odd to not have a connection … Including this, perhaps ..?

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord