Glenn Reynolds
Anything free is worth less than you paid for it.
Anything free is worth less than you paid for it.
…when software becomes part of society, all of society’s problems get expressed in software. We connected everyone, so we connected the bad people, and more important, we connected all of our own worst instincts.
It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow, I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me.
Always leave shit where you find it.
Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
In the world of relentless attack, there are no turns. There is no respect for the other. The other is branded unworthy, a demon. The only answer is to destroy, even if the destruction of one means the destruction of many and the obliteration of sanity and hope.
Ideas will become idols in the blink of an eye. I have to pick up my cross and start walking.
It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools.
Genius may not be the spouse of neuroticism, but they certainly seem to go on a lot of dates together.
…conservatism is inherently skeptical of new ideas, not because it is opposed to new ideas, but because as a simple matter of math, most new ideas are bad ideas. Every child is a new idea-spewing machine, and most of those ideas are going to be garbage. As a small child, I thought I could take a piece of heating coal I found on the street, put it on the stove, and then press down really hard on it with a fork to turn it into a diamond. That would’ve been a great idea if it worked. But most new ideas don’t work, so they aren’t great, as the man who thought he could win the Iditarod with a team of cats and basset hounds quickly learned.
“Measure twice, cut once” is the boring, grown-up way to do carpentry. The exciting way to do carpentry is to get drunk on peach schnapps and high on airplane glue, cover yourself in baby oil—especially your hands so they’re super slippery—and then let the chainsaw guide you.
…maybe the 25th Amendment figuratively kicked in, informally, almost spontaneously, quietly. I am guessing a network of souls are quietly doing their jobs, establishing protocols of safety, wordlessly nodding as they keep their hand on the tiller. They’ve taken the keys from the drunk, so quietly he doesn’t even know. I’m imagining a mix of people—deputy secretaries and assistants to assistants and generals and some elected officials….This week the Supreme Court blandly refused to fast-track his latest election appeal. They did it quietly, without comment.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
Laughter is the only thing that’ll cut trouble down to a size where you can talk to it.