The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.

― Kevin Ashton, Creative People Say No — Thoughts on creativity.

Where principle is involved, be deaf to expediency.

― Richard Armitage on Aljazeera’s Fault Lines. Originally attributed to Matthew Fontaine Maury.

In the end, the strongest man’s word is the law.

― Syria’s rebels: Who will come out on top?, The Economist

They wait and they talk and they remember, until they are escorted back inside, or return of their volition, having forgotten where it is they won’t be going that day.

― Timo Klos’s Bus Stops to Nowhere, The New Yorker

كانت حلقة الأمس من برنامج الشريعة و الحياة، بعنوان “اللغة العربية..و مستقبلها“، على قناة الجزيرة مثيرة للإهتمام. و قد أثار الشيخ يوسف القرضاوي العديد من النقاط المهمة بشأن مكانة اللغة العربية. أجمل ما قاله الشيخ القرضاوي هو أن سبب تراجع مكانة اللغة هو تراجع مكانة أهلها و ليس العكس، أي أن تعقيدات اللغة العربية مقارنة باللغات الأخرى ليست السبب في تراجع أهل هذه اللغة. بالإمكان الرجوع إلى العديد من الأمثلة التاريخية، التي يعرفها أغلبنا، لتعزيز هذا القول لكنني هنا سأتناول مثالا عصريا على صحة مثل هذا القول.

في الصيف الماضي تدربت في إحدى الجامعات الألمانية و قد كانت إحدى زميلاتي طالبة دكتوراه يابانية اسمها تومومي كاواراباياشي. كثيرا ما كنا نتحدث لغاتنا و ما يميزها أو يجعلها غريبة. و قد أذهلني كيف يقوم اليابانيون بالطباعة على الحاسوب، فاليابيانية تحوي أكثر من نظام للكتابة أبرزها “الكانا” و هي نظام صوتي يتكون بدوره من نظامين هما “الكاتاكانا” و “الهيراغانا” . أما النظام الآخر، و يدعى “الكانجي”، فيقوم على الرموز و فيه يعبر كل رمز عن كلمة أو مقطع. يبلغ عدد رموز الكانجي حوالي 50000 رمز، إلا أن عدد المستخدم منها هو 2000 تقريبا، و هو عدد كبير! و تعتبر “الكانجي” هي اللغة الرسمية، فكيف تستعمل لوحة المفاتيح لإدخال 2000 رمز؟

لأن عدد رموز “الكانا” مناسب لوضعها على لوحة المفاتيح العادية، فإن طريقة الطباعة عند اليابانيين تقوم على إدخال الأصوات باستخدام “الكانا” بينما يقوم الحاسوب بملائمة الأصوات الناتجة مع طريقة لفظ رموز “الكانجي” و إظهار الرموز التي يتطابق لفظها مع ما تم إدخاله. و عندما يرى المستخدم رمز “الكانجي” الذي يريده فإنه يختاره من بين الرموز الأخرى و يكرر العملية لإيجاد الرمز الذي يليه. و إذا كان البرنامج الذي يستعمله للطباعة ‘ذكيا’، فإنه يتعلم أي الرموز تستعملها بتكرار أكبر ليظهرها أولا و بالتالي فإن عملية الطباعة تستغرق وقتا أقل كلما زادت الطباعة.

الأمر نفسه يحصل عندما يريد المرء إرسال رسالة قصيرة من جهازه الخلوي. إذ أن المفاتيح تحوي رموز “الكانا”. و شاشة الجهاز تنقسم إلى نصفين، الأول يحوي ما اختاره المستخدم حتى الآن من رموز “الكانجي” و الثاني يظهر رموز “الكانجي” بناء على رموز “الكانا” التي يدخلها المستخدم ليتمكن من اختيار الرمز الذي يريده منها!

مع كل هذا التعقيد في هذا الجانب من اللغة اليابانية، و هنالك جوانب أخرى لا تقل فيها اليابانية تعقيدا أو غرابة، فإن اللغة اليابانية تستعمل في التعليم في كافة المستويات و في كافة العلوم. و بالرغم من أن عدد متكلمي اللغة العربية يفوق بكثير متكلمي اليابانية، إلا أن عدد مقالات ويكيبيديا اليابانية أكثر ب13 مرة من عدد مقالات ويكيبيديا العربية وفقا لإحصائيات أخذت في الأول من شباط لهذا العام. فعلى من يقع اللوم، اللغة أم أهلها؟

Also: http://m-yahya.tumblr.com/ and favorite news quotes.

striving for success is only part of the story, however. Knowing how to succeed, or win, is another part. The knack for winning can be acquired. Coaches teach it. So do major professors. So do leading scientists. Learn from them. Often, instruction is through example.

Being first is important in science.

Choose a problem that is trivial, and the result will be trivial. Choose a problem that is intractable, and the result may be years of frustration and little accomplishment. Choose a problem that everyone is working on, and the result may be no more distinguished than that of an ordinary voice in a community sing. A wise choice of problem is a critical matter in the career of a scientist.

Sophistication pursued for its own sake is a distraction and a waste. Sophistication is appropriate in science as a means to an end but only if the end is to enhance the fundamental knowledge of the science.

— Jack E. Oliver, The Incomplete Guide to the Art of Discovery.

Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.

― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem – On Keeping a Notebook.

Good innovators typically think very big and they think very small. New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look. And they are sometimes found when you are doing your most abstract and philosophical thinking, considering why the world is the way it is and whether there might be an alternative to the dominant paradigm. Rarely can they be found in the temperate latitudes between these two spaces, where we spend 99 percent of our lives. The categorizations and approximations we make in the normal course of our lives are usually good enough to get by, but sometimes we let information that might give us a competitive advantage slip through the cracks.

To articulate what you don’t know is a sign of progress.

― Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise

Bran thought about it. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?”
“That is the only time a man can be brave,” his father told him.

“… a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” Tyrion tapped the leather cover of the book. “That’s why I read so much, Jon Snow.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

…it was another year or two before I discovered that drat and draft were different words. During the same time period I remember believing that details were dentals and that a bitch was an extremely tall woman. A son of a bitch was apt to be a basketball player.

Holy Shit, I’m an alcoholic, I thought, and there was no dissenting opinion from inside my head…

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless, when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic.

- Stephen King, On Wrtiting

As all born teachers, he [Dienekes] was primarily a student.

Yet even this most primal of instincts, self-preservation, even this necessity of the blood shared by all beneath heaven, beasts as well as man, even this may be worn down by fatigue and excess of horror. A form of courage enters the heart which is not courage but despair and not despair but exaltation. On that second day, men passed beyond themselves. Feats of heart-stopping valor fell from the sky like rain, and those who performed them could not even recall, nor state with certainty, that the actors had been themselves.

- Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire

It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before.

- Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

Some men there are whose love only becomes true after long converse, much contemplation, and extended familiarity. Such a one is likely to persist and to be steadfast in his affection, untouched by the passage of time what enters with difficulty goes not out easily.

- Ibn Hazm, The Ring of the Dove

“Did you ever bring Mammy up here?” Laila asked.
“Oh, many times. Before the boys were born. After too. Your mother, she used to be adventurous then, and… so alive. She was just about the liveliest, happiest person I’d ever met.” He smiled at the memory. “She had this laugh. I swear it’s why I married her, Laila, for that laugh. It bulldozed you. You stood no chance against it.”

- Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

The best kind of self-control is to avoid situations that require self-control.

Perfectionism is paralyzing.

Revising while you generate text is like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning: noble idea, wrong time.

Finding time is a destructive way of thinking about writing. Never say this again. Instead of finding time to write, allot time to write.

- Paul J. Silvia, How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

- Psalm 23, King James Bible (Cambridge edition)