Dr. Nanochick on the Geek Test: I feel truly geeky because I can think of something that should have gotten me geek points that wasn't on the list -- owning the "Real Genius" DVD and reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
Jello: I own the Real Genius DVD. I love it. I just bought Godel, Escher, Bach and... I can't fucking understand it and I feel stupid. It's not that it's totally above me and I could never approach it. It's just that ... for the same reason I've never finished Gravity's Rainbow: it's full time work understanding it.
Martin Schwartz: Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it.
Nassim Taleb on Umberto Eco's library: Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.
John Lanchester: A common criticism of video games made by non-gamers is that they are pointless and escapist, but a more valid observation might be that the bulk of games are nowhere near escapist enough. If I had to name one high-cultural notion that had died in my adult lifetime, it would be the idea that difficulty is artistically desirable.
Roger Ebert: I did not much connect with the film [Antonioni's "L'Avventura"] when I saw it first -- how could I, at 18? These people were bored by a lifestyle beyond my wildest dreams. When I taught the film in a class 15 years later, it seemed affected and contrived, a feature-length idea but not a movie. Only recently, seeing it again, did I realize how much clarity and passion Antonioni brought to the film's silent cry of despair.
Milton Glaser: If you have a choice never have a job.
Michael Lewis: Just as all humans are not ordinary, all human waste isn't ordinary, and the waste of Russians is no exception.
Peter Trachtenberg: Everybody suffers, but Americans have the peculiar delusion that they're exempt from suffering.
Ira Glass: If you're not failing all the time, you're not creating a situation where you can get super-lucky.
Sterling Hayden: To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
Jello: I honestly believe that for my startup(s), the personal edge I gain from swimming or surfing in the ocean every day in a small town in Florida is larger than any advantage I got by living in Atlanta.
Decius: I don't know about Munich, but Atlanta has certainly been hit hard. The job losses here meet or exceed that of much larger cities.
Undertaking a Brutal Mental Space Odyssey | 
