Author Archive: Paul Epps
Overheard
Monkeys on Typewriters
If one puts an infinite number of monkeys in front of (strongly built) typewriters, and lets them clap away, there is a certainty that one of them would come out with an exact version of the Iliad. Upon examination, this may be less interesting a concept than it appears at first: Such probability is ridiculously low. But let us carry the reasoning one step beyond. Now that we have found that hero among monkeys, would any reader invest his life’s savings on a bet that the monkey would write the Odyssey next? — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness Read more →
Donald Bren Can Kiss My Ass
Look at this picture. Donald Bren is almost 80 and yet his face looks like a snare drum with eyes. Forbes has an interview with Bren — the billionaire chairman of the Irvine Company — on how to fix up K-12 education: When state funding for Irvine public schools began to diminish some time ago, my Irvine Company colleagues helped me to provide private funding support . . . Additionally, we have developed annual teacher recognition and reward programs that provide financial awards for teachers who demonstrate outstanding results in educating our students. By making capital available for unfunded programs and providing a balanced curriculum and financial incentives to teachers based on results, Irvine Unified School District continues to rank among the finest educational systems in the nation . . . The interview goes on in this vein: I, I, I. Me, me, me. Donald Bren is kidding himself, along with… Read more →
Aside
Craig Jones: Simplicity Appreciation 101
You Don’t Know Me
Stand
The Effect of Your Practices
And you, credulous men, show me the effect of your practices! In so many centuries, during which you have been following or altering them, what changes have your prescriptions wrought in the laws of nature? Is the sun brighter? Is the course of the seasons varied? Is the earth more fruitful, or its inhabitants more happy? If God be good, can your penances please him? If infinite, can your homage add to his glory? If his decrees have been formed on foresight of every circumstance, can your prayers change them? Answer, O inconsistent mortals! — C.F. Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature Read more →
Aside
Tiny Buddha: 5 Reasons It’s OK to Not Know What the Future Holds
Better Than Everybody Else
If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. — William Zinsser, On Writing Well Replace “write” with whatever it is you want to do better than everybody else. Read more →
A Dream that No One Has
From today’s Cal vs. Presbyterian preview in The Daily Californian: CeeJay Harris is one of three Californians on the Presbyterian roster. He didn’t dream of playing football as a Blue Hose because that’s not a dream that anyone has . . . Read more →
Running of the Pugs
Diagnosis Please
What disease is indicated when a fecal sample smells of menthol? I’m asking for whoever used the men’s room before me this morning . . . Read more →
The Thousand-Mile Road
Step by step walk the thousand-mile road. Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men. — Miyamoto Musashi, The Book Of Five Rings Read more →
An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit. — Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
Aside
He in his madness prays for storms
And dreams that storms will bring him peace.
Look Out for the Blue Hose
My boy texted me this afternoon that one of the starting cornerbacks for the Cal Golden Bears is in a class with him. In a masterpiece of scheduling, the Cal football team plays the Presbyterian Blue Hose this coming Saturday because apparently Bryn Mawr was unavailable. (Presbyterian College is a church-affiliated college of 1,200 students located in Clinton, S.C.) I texted back, “Tell him to look out b/c Presby is coming off a big win vs North Greenville. NORTH GREENVILLE!” Read more →
Aside
What is most easily put into words is not necessarily what is most important.
The Ruins
And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton! What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts; flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of men–thus vanish empires and nations? — C.F. Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature Read more →
What Would People Say?
‘Spartacus’ star Andy Whitfield dies of lymphoma at 39 Whitfield’s wife, Vashti, in a statement called her husband a “beautiful young warrior” who died on a “sunny Sydney morning” in the “arms of his loving wife.” — msn.com Never heard of him. Also, his wife’s remarks are a tad self-serving, but they did get me to thinking what people would say in the event of my own untimely demise. Best case: “He was a pain in the ass but at least he was interesting.” More likely: “He was a pain in the ass. Once in a great while, he said something interesting. You had to wait for it.” Read more →