A pie thread. Send the children out of the room.

Know how you're eating something so good that you hunch over it, damn the utensils, go full Altered States proto-human, baring your teeth and flailing at anybody who gets too close?

A children's book written in 1954 inspired by Wiener's Cybernetics that explains some common day analog systems:

Analog computation originally meant the construction of a simulation of another system by means of a mechanical or electrical system that represented the same dynamics as the physical system. That is an analog of what's being simulated.

Nobert Wiener generalized this idea in Cybernetics to describe control systems that through negative feedback promoted stability.

W.Ross Ashby argued that negative feedback was insufficient for maintaining the stability (homeostasis) of complex system. Ashby proposed the Law of Requisite Variety.

These machines that 'seem to think' are examples of what was known as analog computation. Cybernetics, control theory, biology are examples of analog computation. But what does this mean other than being the opposite of discrete/digital computation?

My daughter has just finished reading 'Atomic Habits' and I have started to observe a few changes in her behavior, most notably, she is now better prepared for Sat 7AM swim session. Her swim bag and costume are right by her bedside the night before. I was impressed by this tiny

change so asked her to summarise the book for me. I found it very impactful for behavior change and building new habits so sharing here
@dmuthuk @unseenvalue @nishkumar1977 @connectgurmeet @ishmohit1 if you find it useful, kindly like or RT so that it reaches the wider audience.

1. A large portion of our daily actions are influenced by our automatic habits, habits that have been formed through repetition over the course of our entire life. There are healthy and productive habits that serve us and negative ones that work against us.

2. We are what we repeatedly do and the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits.


Lesson 1: Tiny changes lead to big improvements


“Atomic habits” is all about showing how small and seemingly unimportant changes and adjustments can lead to a massive

3. transformation. If you make a tiny 1% improvement to something on a daily basis in the course of just one year, you end up being 37 times better...37 times better health, 37 times better finances or relationships, even a fraction of that will significantly transform your life

1. Yes, @FareedZakaria's new book, Ten lessons From a Post-Pandemic World argues we don't need a big or small gov- we need a GOOD one.

We don't have that now & that is bc for decades now, the GOP has intentionally hallowed it out. Stripping it of funding under the auspice that

2. the only goal should be small. And as it turns out- that was stupid. And now we have a dysfunctional, as @maddow says, "big, bad" gov. Something that has been "wasted, and rotted and ruined." And its been intentional. Its been murdered, with no thought for how people would

3. suffer for it. COVID just put that suffering in a streamlined spotlight. But as @FareedZakaria points out- its the cherry on top of a 40 year plan that Bannon termed the final "deconstruction of the administrative state." As with the decimation of the economic tools that had

4. allowed the world's 1st middle class to emerge & flourish before The Great Lie ushered in the greatest wealth transfer in history. Not only were Americans bamboozled into voting away their wage increases, their pensions, & their health care (at least till 2010)- they were also

5. tricked into pissing away their country's superiority- its claim to fame, its ability to puff its chest out & say "look over here, we have the best _____. " I had no idea when I was a kid that we were not, in fact, the greatest country on Earth- at least not if you care about

As 2020 is coming to an end, you can either read a dozen Quilette articles or letters in The Times - or even throw in a PragerU video for good measure - insisting the British Empire was 'Overwhelmingly a force for good' and that 'wokery' is erasing history...

Or you can avail yourself of the critical and deeply researched work of actual scholars. Here are my recommendations for Christmas gifts this year - for anyone seriously interested in the history of the British Empire and its legacies:

@PriyaSatia 'Time's Monster'

-@profdanhicks 'The Brutish Museum'

-@PriyamvadaGopal 'Insurgent Empire'

-@DalrympleWill 'The Anarchy'

I am reading seed catalogs in the morning sun. A thread. 🌻🥦🌽🍅🍆🥔🥒

Seed catalogs are good reading my friends. The best ones are little glimpse into possibilities emerging. Of course there's the possibility of your amazing next season garden. But also the possibility of change in the world.

Especially this is true for the companies with social missions, like worker-owned Johnny's or FEDCO. Both are more than 40 years old, part of the organic movement, the local food movement, and trusted providers of good seed and good advice in the northeast US.

Seed catalogs can be a connection to the past and to the future, especially the ones, like my favorites, that also encourage seed saving by offering open pollinated varieties, and tell the stories of some seeds origins.

They also reflect what's changing in the society. And there's a lot that is inspiring in my morning reading even before you get to the luscious tomatoes or the bright green peas and all the promises of the next growing season.