The T-Test's Origin, Writing Tips from Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, etc.
In which it just needs to exist.
🎾 There are seldom tidy endings in sports. Nadal has lost his (likely) last French Open match. But that doesn’t take away from his sheer dominance in Roland Garros. “Nadal had won 112 of 115 matches at the clay-court major. It is not just one of the great feats in tennis, but one of the most consistent performances in any competitive human endeavor. Being that good at something must make it incredibly difficult to stop, as Nadal's almost-38-year-old body was perhaps telling him to do.”
🤐 ICQ is shutting down, and this is happening right now, not 22 years ago.
🧪 The T-Test, the most statistical method of in science, was invented at the Guinness Brewery.
🤔 My friend posted about his son learning physics via a “baby book,” and it reminded me of Paul Thomas Anderson saying that he learned of the oil process via a kids book for There Will Be Blood and that you should just always learn “from the kids book.” Now I am wondering what I want to learn next.
💉 In a groundbreaking medical trial, thousands of NHS patients in England will receive personalized cancer vaccines designed to prevent tumors from returning post-surgery.
🎹 Making music with Tom Waits. “Thwacking the driveway with busted-up two-by-fours. Vodka-drunk William S. Burroughs. Percussion hardware that evoked the late John Holmes: Tom Waits’ ’80s and ’90s collaborators remember the brilliant madness that went into the maestro’s Island Records catalog.”
🎞️ The “most beautiful shots in cinema history,” two video montages of over 100 films. Not picking nits here, these videos just make me wanna watch (and make) movies.
🎥 Love this analysis of a “perfect” scene from the third season finale of Mad Men. An absolute clinic.
✍️ Tips from Hemingway on writing fiction. “Don’t describe an emotion–make it.”
📝 It doesn’t have to be good now, it just needs to exist. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something — anything — down on paper.”
🙏 Dostoyevsky, just after his death sentence was repealed, on the Meaning of Life. “When I look back at the past and think how much time was spent in vain, how much of it was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in the inability to live; how I failed to value it, how many times I sinned against my heart and spirit — then my heart contracts in pain. Life is a gift, life is happiness, each moment could have been an eternity of happiness. Si jeunesse savait!”
✌️ And what does “Si jeunesse savait” mean? If youth only knew!
Indeed.
Remember to keep the Hoping Machine running, everybody.
Love,
Luke
