Berkeley, UNIX, and LSD
There are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don’t believe this to be a coincidence.
— Jeremy S. Anderson
Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
— Tom Stoppard
I have always loved to collect intangible things. One of my favorites collections consists of opening lines of great novels. Who can forget “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . ” Other greats include “Who is John Galt?” Or “Howard Rork laughed.” My all-time favorite opening line comes from Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides: “My wound is geography.”
But lo, I digress. By far my largest stash of immaterial things are the countless quotes, words of wisdom, poems, and pithy sayings I have collected over the years. I have a library card catalog filled with hand written 3×5 cards with quotes accumulated from the days before computers had entered my life. In the intervening years I have made several vain attempts to catalog my precious to no avail. The first installment came and went in a HyperCard stack that is long gone. A Microsoft Access database of pearls of wisdom sits unused on an old Windows machine somewhere in the house. …
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
— Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)
Years ago I struggled deeply with the Problem of Evil, i.e. the reconciliation of the existence of evil and suffering with the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent God. At the time, I found Dostoyevski’s novel The Brother’s Karamozov to be a great comfort and insight on the dilemma. I wish I had found Epicurus’ quote earlier in my life. The logic is compelling and impeccable.
In a recent episode of The Talk Show, John Gruber opens with his brilliant observations on the true secrets of internet success. John says that the secret to fame and fortunate on the internet does not relate to what computer you have or what language you code in. Instead, there are three elements that are common to all successful people on the internet:
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This is funny, but not true.
LSD was first synthesized by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann. Leary was just the first one to abuse it 🙂
You’re correct about Albert Hofmann to be the first to synth LSD, but 1. Leary WASN’T the first to ‘abuse’ it (Hofmann was…Bike day), 2. Post-bike-day, tons of psychiatrists and other people consumed acid prior to Leary.
Lastly, it is well known that presently there is a lab somewhere in Berkeley as a majority of VERY good acid blotters and crystal pours out of there and has been for a while. Derp.
“There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don’t believe this to be a coincidence.” – Jeremy S. Anderson
Jay
It took me a while, but I just realized that your comment was to inform me of the author of the quote. I apologize for taking so long to realize this. I have updated the post to show Jeremy Anderson as the quote’s author.