Marble machines

"Why is Marble Machines tinkering?" from The Tinkering Studio on Vimeo.

It's only because everyone throws these things out that they grow so valuable for the lucky few whose parents don't spend their retirements getting rid of all the stuff they spent their working lives accumulating.

"The Lost Continent" (Bill Bryson) 

I don't love Vecchio bridge anymore, despite the Süskind's Perfume. I do like trains and randomness. But the goal is flawed. You need tickets, and I don't run to catch trains. I wait hours, quietly, for them.

I don't know what white water rafting is.

Experiences over needless gadget upgrades.

Just planning addictions do not make them worthy goals.

But what book? Why?

Memorabilia is useless.

too late

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“I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating.”

Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton) 

Teoria de ginásio

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(X)

01:19:55 He does no work.
01:19:58 All he does is scribble incomprehensible phrases.
01:20:03 Then he bellows this stupid, childish tune at the top of his lungs....
01:20:15 He says this is the motif of a grand symphony.
01:20:20 l think it's ridiculous. 

Immortal Beloved

Or, heck, I don't need this room at all. I'm going to convert it into a helipad. Yeah!

Rachael Herron's "Now What?" pep talk, talking about revising writing and revisiting the inner world of stories 

... for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her - though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character, and truly loved her society - I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude; or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own.

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen 

Dimensão é a forma geográfica de uma variável

O Pula-Pula rodou um pouco o guiador. - Aí está! Uma Quarta Dimensão!
O Circulista riu-se. - Não seja parvo! O que fez foi movê-la no espaço tridimensional.
- Sim, mas ela mudou de forma.
- Ridículo!
- Não, mudou mesmo - disse Vikki. - Se a forma ainda fosse a mesma, teria resultado de um deslocamento de corpo rígido. Ora esta parte com chifres moveu-se, mas o resto não. Não foi um deslocamento de corpo rígido!
- Ah bem, visto dessa forma, acredito que sim. Mas se houve movimento numa nova Dimensão, onde é que ela está?
- Estende-se na direcção virar-o-guiador - disse o Pula-Pula. - Que é diferente da direcção virar-o-círculo-da-frente, que é diferente da direcção virar-o-círculo-de-trás, que é diferente da direcção dar-aos-pedais. Aí tem quatro novas dimensões, a juntar às três que tinha inicialmente. A sua Bicirculeta tem sete dimensões.

"Flatterland", de Ian Stewart 

Cultura-bússola

As pessoas cultas sabem - e, sobretudo para seu infortúnio, as pessoas incultas desconhecem-no - que a cultura é antes de mais uma questão de orientação. Ser culto não é ter lido este ou aquele livro, é saber orientar-se na totalidade dos livros, logo, saber que os mesmos formam um conjunto, e ter a capacidade para situar cada elemento relativamente aos outros. Aqui, o interior importa menos do que o exterior ou, se quisermos, o interior de um livro é o seu exterior, sendo que o que conta em cada livro são os que estão ao seu lado. 

"Como falar dos livros que não lemos" (Pierre Bayard) 

Simulação mental

My method is different.  I do not rush into actual work.  When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination.  I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind.  It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop.  I even note if it is out of balance.  There is no difference whatever, the results are the same.  In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything.  When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain.  Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it.  In twenty years there has not been a single exception.  Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results.  There is scarcely a subject that cannot be mathematically treated and the effects calculated or the results determined beforehand from the available theoretical and practical data.  The carrying out into practise of a crude idea as is being generally done is, I hold, nothing but a waste of energy, money and time. 

"My Inventions", a autobiografia de Nikola Tesla