Two Useful Things, and It’s Sunday!

It is the Lord’s Day, and that is cause for rejoicing and contemplation.  

1.  Sic Transit Gloria

"Trooping through the streets of ancient Rome, conquering legions
under the standard of the eagle wheeled carts piled high with the
booty of war. Plundered were the treasuries of the vanquished. Gold,
silver, jewels, livestock and grain overflowed. Captured enemy
soldiers, their faces lowered in defeat and humiliation, were forced
at spear point to march past the cheering crowds of patriotic
patricians.

At the rear of the procession rolled Caesar?s chariot, equipped with
an unusual, human safety device. To prevent pride from consuming him,
the man of the hour had positioned a lowly servant at his side. His
sole responsibility was to temper the boundless enthusiasm expressed
by Caesar?s adoring fans with the three word warning, 'Sic Transit
Gloria.'

A literal Latin rendering of the phrase is translated 'Thus passes
glory.' A more fluent English version might be, 'All fame is
fleeting."

 

Now, seriously: Say “Sic transit gloria” out loud a few times.  To prevent you from feeling alone, I will say it, out loud, on my bed where I’m typing this:

“Sic Transit Gloria.”

“Sic Transit Gloria.”

“Sic Transit Gloria.”

(Yes, I did say it out loud.  Did you?)

The additive part:  

“Sic” means “Thus,” as in “Sic Semper Tyrannis” (“Thus always, to tyrants”)

“Transit” means “passes” as in, well, transit.  

“Gloria,” means glory, or fame.

(On this Sunday, if you are overflowing with joy, be perhaps a bit more contemplative, because it will pass; if you are laid down in despair, take hope, because this too shall pass).

Now say it again, and think yourself kind of cool for knowing a (very) little bit of Latin: Sic Transit Gloria

 

2.  One hotkey

I will win no prizes for changing your world today.  But maybe a tiny, small change.

If you’re on a Mac: Cmd + Shift + f will move the cursor to the address bar and start a search.  

On Windows, Ctrl + K will do the same.*

 

That’s it.  It’s Sunday!

 

*Note that I don’t know if these work for Internet Explorer.  If you are using Internet Explorer, the nicest thing I can do for you is to say: do what it takes to get rid of internet explorer.  Email me if you need help.  There are others like you, and they’re alright now.  Everything’s going to be OK.

Done

This place attracts nerds.  You probably are one.  The main failing of nerds, to echo the linked post, is failure to provide value in the here and now.  

Nerds are good.  I am one.  They often focus on multipliers, and multipliers scale.  But there has to be something to multiply.

Neoreaction attracts nerds, and the whole movement/ideology/field of study is, I think, a giant multiplier.  So I think it has a great future.

It has a pretty crappy present though.

So!  As a nerd among nerds, a lover of multipliers among lovers of multipliers, I’m crossing the chasm.  Expect to see less theory here, and more mundane stuff.  How to change your oil.  Mnemonic tricks.  I’m aiming for stuff that will a)be useful to everybody b)will be easy to remember (expect a lot of mnemonics and movie references), and most of all, sparse.  I’ll be posting less, and posting better.

Have a good Thursday night.