"The true con artist doesn't force us to do anything: he makes us complicit in our own undoing... we believe because we want to." The Confidence Game, Maria Konnikova
Author of Enshittification is fond of observing: you won't be replaced because an AI can do your job, you'll be replaced because an AI salesman convinces your boss that it can.
There's a tale about the French poet Jacques Prévert seeing a fellow begging for change on the streets of Venice with a sign that read "Blind man without a pension". Prévert stopped to chat to him; not many people were moved to contribute, and Prévert offered to write a new sign. The next day, he returned to find the man overjoyed. "It's incredible; I've never received so much money in my life." Prévert had written: "Spring is coming, but I won't see it." The new sign contained no news - in fact, it was less informative than the old. But it told a story.
One message found by an American collector with a tally of 150 message in bottles in 20 years, was written on Princess Cruises notepaper: "It's been interesting, it's the end of a 8 year relationship. We are both putting messages in a bottle... Brenda, hope you find what you are looking for. Love, Frank."
It is in darkness that we can see furthest. The darker the night, the brighter and more numerous the lights in the sky. Billions of them. Satellites, planets, stars and galaxies. These are distances so vast that by the time much of that celestial light hits our retinas, what we're seeing may no longer exist.
For much of his life he celebrated his birthday on the wrong day. O'Hara was born into an emotionally complicated household in Massachusetts, to parents who were overwhelmed by Catholic guilt about sex before marriage and decided that a later date, June 27, would be for the best.
