The eternal questions

For the philosophically minded we have the following from Terry.

Pragmatic Chaos

Hi. I'm Diogenes. I will be the psuedonym for all of the people who don't want to put up things on their own but, instead, send things to Wayne that he thinks that you might like.

Try this

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html

Truman and the bomb

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From the movie "Truman" (1995) (TV)
Harry S. Truman: If I don't drop the bomb, so many more of our young men will die in the invasion of Japan. Their men, too, and women and children. How can I face the people when it's finally over, and say that I had the power to possibly end the war, long ago, spare the lives of their loved ones, and I chose not to use it?
[pause]
Harry S. Truman: How could I look them in the face and tell them that?

Charlie Ross: Harry, you didn't come to me for common sense, you came to me for forgiveness. Do what you have to do. I'll still be your friend. But this is changing the course of history. You clinch the victory in the Pacific, but you sow the whirlwind.
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Russell on thought

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Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Bertrand Russell
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Russell on race

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Bertrand Russell told a story in one of his books about a man, who, when he saw a Jew engaging in a bit of sharp business practice would say, “How like a Jew.” On the other hand when he saw a gentile engaging in a bit of sharp business practice he would say, “The funny thing is that he is not a Jew.” Russell observed that this was not a good way to obtain statistical averages.

B Russell 1872-1970

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Bertrand Russell was born this day in 1872.

At one point he was so despondent that he considered suicide. He spared himself in order to study mathematics.

During WWI Dr. Russell was an antiwar activist. For this he was sent to jail.
As he was being processed into the facility, one of the questions the lady asked him was: religion?
He replied: Agnostic.
The lady then said, "Oh, there are so many new religions these days, but I suppose they all worship the same God."

Russell said that that encounter kept him amused during his confinement.

Russell's Parodox is one of those exquisitely delightful moments in mathematics.

The barber's paradox is a layman's variation and the simplest version I've ever seen is Tom's handicapped parking paradox.
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Bertrand Russell, Philosopher

The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography
What I Have Lived For
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

failure

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In mathematical research even a failed attempt at solving a problem may increase your understanding. A better understanding of something that doesn't work may lead to something that will.

There are many other places where this "rule" applies.

Two of the best known promoters of this idea were
Thomas Edison: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
and
Henry Ford: Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.

Oh yes, the YA chess coach says:
To improve your game, play stronger players and study your losses.
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Serenity

"Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity."
- Lao-tzu

an alternative view

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center." — Kurt Vonnegut