More specifically concerning: rules
Citation (49)
18 March 2013, around 5.52.
melodramatic laocoon attitudes…
Montaigne 1.13
10 April 2015, around 17.05.
An engraving by Matthäus Merian the Elder (1710) For my part, I often neglect both of these empty formalities, since I curtail all ceremony in my own house. If any take offence, what shall I do? Better to offend him once than myself every day; that would be a perpetual slavery. […] Not only every […]
Adversaria (7)
31 October 2023, around 4.31.
‘…we must fall back upon the wholesome truth that we cannot delegate our intellectual functions, and say to a machine, to a formula, to a rule, or to a dogma, I am too lazy to think, do please think for me.’ —Edward Sang (‘On Mechanical Aids to Calculation. A Lecture to the Actuarial Society of […]
canonical
1 November 2023, around 4.25.
Ms. Ludwig XV 7 (83.MR.177), fol. 124v, ca. 1405. 1 In a sterling example of the law of unintended consequences, the more officials attempted to limit discretion by heaping up specific details, the more they inadvertently encouraged innovation and interpretation. —Lorraine Daston (Rules, p. 164, on sixteenth century sumptuary laws).This image appeared in Lorraine Daston’s […]
in brief
28 June 2025, around 17.14.
The thing with setting a goal – say, of posting every day when one has gotten out of the habit – is that the structure takes on a life of its own. It makes demands. It imposes itself. Sometimes it becomes an imposition, and one can only stand so many pairs of photographs and quotations in […]
book-life
2 September 2025, around 4.43.
It is comforting to think that there can be a simple guide for how to read a book (i.e., the ‘X-ray method’). Obviously, the essay mentioned in the previous sentence is not about how to read all books, because one reads books for different purposes, but it is a fairly personable account of how to […]