Mark Twain:

In my early manhood and in middle-life, I used to vex myself with reforms, every now and then. And I never had occasion to regret these divergencies, for whether the resulting deprivations were long or short, the rewarding pleasures which I got out of the vice when I returned to it, always paid me for all that it cost.

Benjamin Franklin:

It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.

Decius:

Is our curse the endless pursuit of a happiness which can never be attained?

Cormac McCarthy:

Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

Jonah Lehrer:

We've come to realize that we're not nearly as rational as we like to believe.

Paul Buchheit:

I try to avoid having plans for my life, but I have many ideas. Which ones actually happen will be a surprise to me. It's more fun that way.

Lauren Clark:

It's good to have a plan, but if something extraordinary comes your way, you should go for it.

Louis Kahn:

A good idea that doesn't happen is no idea at all.

Decius:

I said I'd do something about this, and I am.

Ed Tom Bell:

You can say it's my job to fight it but I don't know what it is anymore.

More than that, I don't want to know. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He would have to say, okay, I'll be part of this world.

An exchange:

Ernie: Is there anything fluffier than a cloud?

Big Tom: If there is, I don't want to know about it.

Edward Brown:

As it is on the high seas, perched on a tower crane, wind is a constant. The entire crane actually sways to and fro. Winter or summer, the air is always chilled. Replacing the scent of salted sea air is the smell of the industrial lubricants used to maintain the crane's slewing unit.

At night, the crow's-nest view from the operator's cab is a treasure trove of glinting city lights. The daytime view is concrete, glass, sunlight, and blue horizons as far as the eye can see.

Considering the heights, the sky pirate carries as little as possible. Two cameras (one digital, the other a 35mm), a change of lens, a tripod, and not much else. Spending a maximum of thirty minutes atop a crane, he will periodically bring along a safety harness.

Decius:

I wish they had higher res versions.

LMGTFY :) The photographer is HI-LITE. You'll find additional photos by HI-LITE here. For example, this photo appeared here approximately a month ago, a few days after it appeared in the Flickr stream of Squirrel Brand, as part of the Cranes set. All of these are available in high resolution -- many of them at 15MP.

See also, from Annalee Newitz:

This video contains no special effects, and no fancy stunts. But it will scare the crap out of you. That's because you're watching from a head-mounted camera as an engineer scales an antenna tower over 1,700 feet high.

Created for The Online Engineer site, what this video captures isn't just a thrill ride -- though frankly it is that -- you also get to see the different parts of the giant antenna. And learn a little bit about OSHA rules, which apparently say that it's OK for people to free climb a tiny pole hundreds of feet in the air with a thunderstorm brewing in the distance. Seriously, when I realized the guy wasn't attached to this pole with anything other than his hands and feet, I almost had a heart attack.

According to OSHA:

Fall protection equipment is not required to be used by a qualified employee climbing or changing location on poles, towers, or similar structures, unless conditions, such as, but not limited to, ice, high winds, the design of the structure (for example, no provision for holding on with hands), or the presence of contaminants on the structure, could cause the employee to lose his or her grip or footing.

View From The Crow's Nest

Ian Morris:

Humans may all be much the same, wherever we find them, but the places we find them in are not. Geography is unfair and can make all the difference in the world.

Michael Greenberg:

Tom's apartment building had been completed just before the global bust but still seemed unfinished, with thick cables dangling from the hallway ceilings. At the building's entrance was a minuscule glass room, like a military checkpoint, every inch of which was taken up by a bare mattress and a TV. A man lay on the mattress, apparently drunk. "Security," explained Tom.

As we drove to the airport, I thought of Italo Calvino's line about how a traveler arriving in a new city finds a part of himself that he did not know he had. "The foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places."

Julian Assange:

When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book, the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more stressful than you would like.

Trevor Butterworth:

The statement that "a good watch is a watch that tells the time well" only has meaning in a society where timing is everything, where we have ritualized and sanctified time keeping.

George Russell:

We have made our tools, and in turn our tools have made us. The world seems ready made for us as we move from one size box to another, and graduate from gadget to gadget. The great majority of us are no longer thinkers, but choosers. Novelty scarcely seems to stand a chance. Yet once and a while, we get a hint that the world is out there, waiting for us.

When no artificial light is present humans experience what is called "divided sleep", which is a period of intense sleep followed by a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night during which you would be awake and active. This is then followed by a "second sleep" which is a lighter, dream filled state which lasts until morning. People on long hiking trips can begin to experience this after a week of being in the wilderness. Artificial light has changed the most basic way that we live.

Stephen Budiansky:

The real energy hog, it turns out, is not industrial agriculture at all, but you and me.

Marc Gunther:

We need food and oxygen. We don't need The Food Network and Oxygen.

Leeane Jensen, fitness manager at Bakar Fitness, on patrons' reaction to a cable TV outage:

It was an uproar. People said: 'That's what we're paying for.'

Jerry Weinberger:

Ignorant people don't think of the evils they endure, while the Americans dream constantly of the goods they do not have.

Ray Ozzie:

Those who can envision a plausible future that's brighter than today will earn the opportunity to lead.

Steve Jobs:

I just couldn't help dropping by.

Ozzie:

In our industry, if you can imagine something, you can build it. Certain of our competitors' products and their rapid advancement & refinement of new usage scenarios have been quite noteworthy.

Our early and clear vision notwithstanding, their execution has surpassed our own in mobile experiences, in the seamless fusion of hardware & software & services, and in social networking & myriad new forms of internet-centric social interaction.

Eric Schmidt:

You get a billion people doing something, there's lots of ways to make money. Absolutely, trust me. We'll get lots of money for it.

Michael Osinski:

When you're close to the money, you get the first cut. Oyster farmers eat lots of oysters, don't they?

Jobs:

We don't aspire to be like them. They're good at being like them. We want to be like us.

I don't see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future.

Jeff Bezos's grandfather:

One day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever.

Steve Jobs:

You're looking at it wrong.

An exchange:

Interviewee: We had a master sergeant that could stop the heart of a goat.

Jon Ronson: What? Just by looking at it?

Interviewee: Just by wantin' the goat's heart to stop.

Glen Owen and Rhodri Phillips:

Sony has sparked a major row over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by using a freshly slaughtered goat to promote a violent video game.

Thakis:

I expected Google Chrome to teleport maybe three, maximum five goats!

What happens instead? About 3*10^6 goats get teleported!

I won't be able to pay for teleportation of such a huge amount of goats!

Josh Harris:

Everything is free, except the video that we capture of you. That we own.

Decius:

Money for me, databases for you.

Martin Marks:

I am busy now;
The Internet has stolen
So much precious time.

Whit Diffie:

The problem with the Internet is that it is meant for communications among non-friends.

Jeffrey Carr:

I don't like hype, but hype sells.

Eric Butler:

Double-click on someone, and you're instantly logged in as them.

Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, a vice chairman of the Republican Congressional committee:

It's a battle to the end.

Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

We're duking it out everywhere.

Adam Brandon:

It's like the tea party movement's been hacked.

Peter Baker:

The first refuge of any politician in trouble is that it's a communication problem, not a policy problem. If only I explained what I was doing better, the people would be more supportive. Which roughly translates to If only you people paid attention, you wouldn't be kicking me upside the head.

Dick Durbin:

The American people have a limited attention span. Once you convince them there's a problem, they want a solution.

Adam Levine:

Modern war is about metrics (and Powerpoint).

Donald Rumsfeld:

Simply because a problem is shown to exist doesn't necessarily follow that there is a solution.

Mark Foulon:

It has become clear that Internet access in itself is a vulnerability that we cannot mitigate. We have tried incremental steps and they have proven insufficient.

Peter Baker:

It is possible to win the inside game and lose the outside game. In their darkest moments, White House aides wonder aloud whether it is even possible for a modern president to succeed, no matter how many bills he signs. It may be that every modern president is going to be, at best, average.

Stringer Bell:

There are games beyond the game.

Rahm Emanuel:

We have to play the game.

John Carney:

Get ready to hear the phrase "pig through the python" a lot.

Jonathan Blaustein:

Is this food? Just because we can put something in our mouths, does that make it food? At what point do we decide that something isn't food?

Ben McGrath:

The first time Sheila McClear had lunch with Nick Denton, she returned to the office afterward and threw up. She attributed this to food poisoning, but it happened again the second time they had lunch.

Barbara Boxer (and everyone else):

It's just a thing -- I worked so hard ...

Seth Godin:

A lot of entrepreneurs get an MBA because they are afraid to go out into world without one.

Lara Stone:

I kept saying 'Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,' because I had to get to the catwalk, but she just kept posing. So I pushed her. It was only a few stairs.

Tim Henderson:

After watching their parents -- typically both of them -- work ever longer hours in an increasingly around-the-clock and competitive world, 20-somethings wonder whether their 20s will be the best time of their lives or will be spent doggedly climbing the career ladder.

Jerry Weinberger:

Our pursuit of happiness first makes us unhappy, and then makes us poor because it makes us corrupt, which then makes us even more unhappy.

For a smart and lucky person in civilized society, the wise thing to do is to work hard and then retire as early as possible.

Decius:

Life is too short to spend 2300 hours a year working on someone else's idea of what the right problems are.

Margaret Talbot:

The unobserved life is so totally worth living.

William Gibson:

Google is not ours. Which feels confusing, because ... Google is made of us ...

danah boyd:

Big Data is made of people.

Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President of Engineering & Research at Google:

We are mortified by what happened.

G.W. Schulz:

The Department of Homeland Security, with its multitude of databases, even came up with a mascot to teach bureaucrats the need for responsibly handling personal information, known as "Privacy Man." He dons a superhero mask and costume.

Kenneth R. Harney:

Don't feel guilty about it. Don't think you're doing something morally wrong.

Martin Marks:

For those of you who continue to insist on sending e-mails longer than three (3) sentences, here is a Wikipedia entry on haiku. Reformat your e-mails accordingly, as in this example:

I am busy now;
The Internet has stolen
So much precious time.

Barack Obama:

In a big, messy democracy like this, everything takes time. And we're not a culture that's built on patience.

Penelope Trunk:

Stop talking about time like you need to save it. You just need to use it better.

G.W. Schulz:

Government employees nevertheless have more opportunities today than ever before to dig deep into the lives of everyone else. And they do.

Joe Reiss, VP of marketing at AS&E:

We do what our customers need.

Christopher Caldwell:

The line between Google and government is destined to blur.

Eric Schmidt:

You get a billion people doing something, there's lots of ways to make money. Absolutely, trust me. We'll get lots of money for it.

Conrad Quilty-Harper:

Tesco can predict when people will shop, how they'll pay for their items and even how many calories they will consume.

Cristopher Drew:

As economic crimes become easier to commit -- in some cases as simple as downloading data and pressing "Send" -- security analysts say some American companies must share the blame for thefts because they do not adequately monitor employees.

Ben McGrath:

The problem with publishing some stories that are two thousand times as important as others is that it no longer makes sense to display them in reverse chronological order.

Stephen Colbert:

I doubt that many people in American politics are acting on the facts. Everybody on both sides is acting on the things that move them emotionally the most.

Alex Clark:

If you stop believing in the stories you're telling, an injection of childlike innocence might be exactly what you need.

Daniel Gilbert:

Antibiotics are a godsend, but just how many pills should God be sending?

Jerry Weinberger:

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.