jagannath rao adukuri's Bookmarks

“We all failed to understand how much [the financial system] had changed in
the past 15 years or so, and how fragile it might be because of increased
leverage, decreased transparency and decreased liquidity: three of the
crucial things in the world of financial markets,” he said.

“We all failed to understand how that fragility could evidence itself in a
frozen short-term credit system, something that hadn’t really happened since
1907. We also probably overestimated the ability of the political process to
deal with the realities of what could happen if real trouble developed.

So when you are in the situation when you do not have adequate lighting you can always edit your digital photograph to make it lighter and warmer which will have the main subject more defined. Because I have reduced the blue and increase the magenta the crab on the right is clearer. You get a better image of him and he’s now the main subject, where as before you looked at both of them and weren’t sure which one was the main subject.

Next time, John can hold a lamp light onto the crabs to give a warmer light- not to close, perhaps a meter or so away, depending on how strong the light is. You don’t need strong light on the crabs to shoot them well, you just need a soft light coming from the front because they are small and you are photographing a small area. If you do this, you’ll see a dramatic difference.

deas, in this view, are simply mental constructs that humans forge in order to cope with the world. Ideas do not exist in some ideal realm waiting to be discovered, any more than did the telegraph or the cotton gin. They are brought into existence to deal with the environment, and when the environment changes, ideas change as well.

According to Menand, the two greatest influences on pragmatism were the Civil War and Darwin's "Origin of Species."

The Civil War, erupting out of a long and bitter national debate over slavery and resulting in staggering losses of life and property, convinced many of the younger generation to reject any and all absolutes.

"The Civil War discredited the assumptions of the generation before it. The postwar reaction was against certitude and philosophical infallibility. There was a sense that the country had been too sure of itself."

For as long as anybody can remember, the newspaper has been the primary info-hub through which people interacted. Oh, people might have talked to the shoe-shine man or their broker about what they heard on the radio or saw on television, but nothing could beat the newspaper as a source for socially lubricating conversation. How many times have you heard a conversation start, "Didja see that article ..."?

By sniffing the bits of social currency an acquaintance had withdrawn from the pages of his daily and was trying to cash—say, a quip about that picture of an egg frying on a city street the paper published; or a comment about a movie review or comic strip; or an opinion about local government based on a piece by a political columnist—the sniffer could learn reams about his social contact.