This is the story of an ordinary seaside town and the global powers that tried to hide it from the world.

In 1983 a little-known filmmaker made a television documentary about an obscure working-class town in the English county of Essex. That filmmaker’s name was Adam Curtis.

A Thanksgiving story to warm your pluralistic hearts:

It was the early 1990s, the days before Washington DC had meters in taxis. A famine was raging in Somalia. And I was working in my first job out of college: a brief stint working for an organization that focused on the Middle East peace process.

I was heading to my parents’ house. I was standing in front of a mailbox near my office. I was holding a stack of papers with Hebrew writing on them. I hailed a cab.

I was aware that on the mailbox behind me was a large sign from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals with an image of a turkey and the words: “Thanksgiving is Murder on Turkeys.”

It was the period right around Thanksgiving.

A cab pulled up, and I got in the front seat—because in the days before metered cabs in DC, drivers were allowed to pick up more than one fare, and someone else was already occupying the back seat.

1/ The “I Have a Dream" speech is one of the most extraordinary speeches in American history. You should read it again. First, a few thoughts about the common American heritage Dr. King relied upon in calling Americans to rededicate themselves to the unfinished work of freedom.

2/ Dr. King delivered his speech in what he called the “hallowed spot” of the Lincoln memorial. More than a picturesque backdrop, King relied on America’s reverence for Lincoln and the common celebration of Lincoln’s words and acts, especially the Emancipation Proclamation.

3/ “Five score years ago…” King echoes the words of the Gettysburg Address. Like Lincoln, King invokes the Declaration of Independence and the fundamental principles of American freedom, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Every person in that crowd knew these words.

4/ The Declaration, Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation declared and established the fundamental American principles of freedom that all Americans knew and believed in. But these principles and promises remained unfulfilled for black Americans.

5/ Lincoln’s audience knew the history of slavery and many had suffered personal loss in the ongoing war. Dr. King’s audience knew the history of violent racism, segregation, and unequal economic opportunity. The Proclamation freed the slaves, “but the Negro still is not free.”

In this thread, I will argue that the conventional wisdom that Shannon's information theory is all about syntax and not about semantics stems from superficial reading. On the contrary, even his 1948 BSTJ paper is already concerned with syntax, semantics, *and* pragmatics. 1/14

Of course, it does not help matters that Shannon himself states that "semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem" of communication on the first page of his paper. But you have to read the entire paper, not just the first page. 2/14

Let's first pin down the notions of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in the sense of Charles Morris: syntax is about relation of symbols to other symbols, semantics is about their relation to objects, and pragmatics is about their relation to subjects. 3/14

Let's start with pragmatics. The full formulation of Shannon's theory is concerned with the problem of reliable communication of some state of the world over a noisy medium, subject to a fidelity criterion. This is an operationalist, pragmatist concern. 4/14

We may envision the problem where we take an action U contingent on the state of the world X and incur the cost c(X,U). We cannot access the state of the world directly, but must mediate the act of selecting the action through transmission of symbols over a noisy channel. 5/14

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is a powerful tool for prioritizing your time and unlocking growth in your career, startup, business, relationships, or life.

A thread on how it works and how it can change your life...

Dwight D. Eisenhower was an American military officer and politician.

He was a five-star general in the United States Army and the first Supreme Commander of NATO.

After his military career, he was elected as the 34th President of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961.

In both his military and civilian careers, Eisenhower stood out for his prolific productivity.

His secret?

Eisenhower observed that people often confuse the urgent with the important. He did not.

"What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important."

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is a visualization tool that forces you to differentiate between the urgent and the important.

It allows you to prioritize your time accordingly and unlock new productivity and growth.

Let's cover the basics of how it works...

First, we have to define "urgent" and "important."

An "urgent" task is one that requires immediate, focused attention.

An "important" task is one that promotes or furthers your long-term values, goals, or principles.

Remember: Tasks can be both urgent and important.