In a frosty mailbox

… and on the wings of song this Sol's day . . .

The last retrograde of the year continues to Jan. 1, 2024. To help with some of the shifting going on under the Mercurial umbrella:

Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you. – Kahlil Gibran

Today is Pope Francis' 87th birthday. And, Beethoven was born on or about this date in 1770 Bonn, Germany.

Fixating on the flotsam and jetsam is rarely a productive way to navigate The Way. The solid sovereign boxes of the past no longer serve today's demands ... The challenge in our time is not just forging a deterrent equilibrium among contentious states and their spheres of influence, but managing the interdependence of plural civilizational identities. – Nathan Gardels, “Kissenger's Wake,” Noēma Magazine, The Berggruen Institute, 12/16/23/

The European Union has issued landmark rules to limit the use of artificial intelligence.

The removal of the dams on the Klamath River between Oregon and California is continuing at an increased pace.

And, today in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright Brothers took off on the world's first airplane flight.

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps

Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;

And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ...

I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be

As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—

I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

– James Whitcomb Riley, When the Frost is on the Punkin is in public domain.

Footnotes with Champagne

It's the Satyr's day . . .and the last Mercury retrograde of the year continues to Jan. 1, 2024.

To help with some of the shifting going on under the Mercurial umbrella: A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. – Charles Dickens

The only novelist published before Charles Dickens whose books still sell thousands of copies every year – Jane Austen – was born on this date in 1775 Steventon, Hampshire, England.

The playwriter Sir Noël Coward was born on this date in 1899 Teddington, England.

Today is also the birthdate of science fiction/fantasy authors Philip K. Dick, and Arthur C. Clarke

~ Noel Coward ~

"Consider the public. Never fear it nor despise it. Coax it, charm it, interest it, stimulate it, shock it now and then if you must, make it laugh, make it cry, but above all never, never, never bore the living hell out of it."

"Familiarity breeds contempt, but without a little familiarity it's impossible to breed anything."

"I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise."

"Having to read footnotes resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love."

"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun; The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to; Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one, But Englishmen detest a siesta."

"Why do I drink Champagne for breakfast? Doesn't everyone?"

"My importance to the world is relatively small. On the other hand, my importance to myself is tremendous. I am all I have to work with, to play with, to suffer and to enjoy. It is not the eyes of others that I am wary of, but of my own. I do not intend to let myself down more than I can possibly help, and I find that the fewer illusions I have about myself or the world around me, the better company I am for myself."

Quantumly entangled in the Mercurial holidays . . .

It's Freya's day . . . and Loki has unloaded a back of tricks into the mailbox . . .

Two birthdays emerged from the entanglements of today's date:

It's the birth date of Roman Emperor Nero. The stepson and heir of the emperor Claudius, was born on this day in 37 CE, Antium, Latium

And, the theoritical physicist/mathematician Freeman Dyson was born today in 1923, Crowthorne, Berkshire, England

That said . . .

We are amid the last Mercury retrograde of the year which began two days ago and will span to Jan. 1, 2024 … just in time for the holidays.

To help with some of the shiftings going on under Mercury's unbrella, consider:

We don’t learn much when things go right. It’s when things go wrong that we learn the most. – Simon Sinek

And . . . Humans are slow, sloppy, and brilliant thinkers; the machine is fast, accurate, and stupid. – jab

When to stop AI: Drawing redlines where the ‘capability ladder’ of intelligent machines can’t be allowed to go further. – Nathan Gardels, Noema Editor-in-Chief

Quantum Experience.

The theory of quantum mechanics forces us to question our intuition about the physical world. Matter seems solid. Light seems ephemeral. But really, both are both ... What really distinguishes these cases is not the thing we're looking at, but us who is doing the looking .... There's a lot that we cannot hear or see in the world at a given moment. Quantum mechanics asks us to question the definiteness of the reality of all that we have not seen or heard.

Try this: look at an object nearby – pen, coffee cup, doesn't matter – now, close your eyes for a few seconds – five will do – and then open them. Yes, the objects are still there, but were they when your eyes were closed? Could a cat have walked out of your coffee cup, picked up the pen, wrote a novel, put the pen back and disappeared back into the coffe cup? No way to know.

When we look, we see what we call the “real” world. When we don't look, there is no objective-definite reality There are only possibilities. We are the center of that subjective reality. What we can see or hear we call “particles” everything else is imagined as “waves” on the ocean, undulating and changing form. This is called wave-particle duality. It's a fundamental part of every interpretation of the theory. – adapted from “Reality of the Observer” by Sky Nelson-Isaacs posted online 12.13.23

From the Zen perspective, that “no objective-definite reality” is nonetheless real and influencing the totality of existence. Each of us is a metaphor, a drop of water, in a wave, on an ocean, changing form in each and every moment by moment instant, inclusive of our cells and thoughts and interconnected with every grain of sand and the quanta of stars.

Level the playing field: take your knife to the woods when hunting wolves.