Best of the non-work stuff in brief

Confession time -- some of this stuff comes from months ago!

I am, at long last, trying to clear out my "starred" items and find that a number of them are things that I want to share rather than just look at in more depth for myself.

"Never make promises that you can't keep -- or even think that there's a chance you may not be able to keep." My mother was fond of chastising me with that saying when, as a small child, I would say "But Mum, I promise ...". She was right -- as mothers tend to be so I'll simply promise that I will try to bring you a selection of "the non-work stuff that I've enjoyed this week" every week.

Some of you will. of course, be aware that I've cheated from time to time and simply clicked the "share" button rather than putting the link into a "proper" post. No more laziness -- shared items will, from now on, be for those work-related things that require no comment from me. OK?

To start as I mean to go some posts from Arts and Letters Daily

Jorge Luis Borges knew the risks of perfect memory. He wrote of a man paralyzed by it. Google's memory is perfect... more

The brain is the final pathway of all action. You can’t do much without a brain, which is why decapitation tends to lower IQ... [Well, it would, wouldn't it?] more

Mesopotamian scribes began 5,000 years ago to catalogue their clay tablets with a reference system. So Google gets this idea... more

With utter lack of self-awareness, but also great clarity, V.S. Naipaul shows us a world with its prejudices... more

Cissy Pascal was sexy, witty, and confident: all the young Raymond Chandler could want in an older woman... more To argue against rock 'n' roll is now as quaint as arguing for the divine right of kings. But 20 years ago, when Allan Bloom first railed against it... more