Carl sagan’s thought about books:
“When our genes could not store all the information necessary for survival, we slowly invented them. But then the time came, perhaps ten thousand years ago, when we needed to know more than could conveniently be contained in brains. So we learned to
stockpile enormous quantities of information outside our bodies. We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have
invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of that memory is called the library. A book is made from a tree. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.”
-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

#sagan #carlsagan

Really sad to learn of the passing of Alastair Brotchie, whose stimulating and vital work with Atlas Press transformed the sphere of my reading in my late teens and—as a result—my outlook on the written word forever.

Alfred Jarry, ‘pataphysics, the OuLiPo, situationism: I’m not sure I’d really have encountered any of this without him. What a staggering and dogged contribution to the world of avant garde arts and letters he made. Go well into éthernité!

#AlastairBrotchie #AtlasPress

"Cistercian Numbers" are incredibly cool

It's a rare numeric system designed by 13th century monks

Each number is a based on a single vertical stick, with patterns you draw in all four quadrants off it -- top right, top left, bottom right, bottom left

A single glyph can represent a number from 1 to 9,999

It's in my recent weekly "Linkfest" newsletter, here: https://buttondown.email/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-3-cisterian-numbers-robots-that-hug-and/

Want to subscribe? Pay-what-you-want here: https://buttondown.email/clivethompson

I call it "The opposite of doomscrolling"

Regretfully, the petition to remove #LGBT content from the #UK curriculum has 197,100 signatures.

The counter petition asking for that content to remain, is rapidly gaining ground. It now has 78,919 signatures!

Pls sign the counter petition if able. British citizens & UK residents have the right to sign. Pls boost otherwise!

Link to official petition to UK Gov & Parliament: Do not remove LGBT content from the Relationships Education curriculum

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/631529

#LGBTQ #TransRights