[Ken Burns talks about why he loves conflict, villans and complications](http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/05/ken-burns-on-story/257165/). A few choice quotes: > My interest is always in complicating things. > All story is manipulation. > The kind of narrative I subscribe [to] trusts in the possibility that people could change. > We do coalesce around stories that seem transcendent.
[](http://www.yehudamoon.com/index.php?date=2012-05-14)
> We shall not cease from exploration > And the end of all our exploring > Will be to arrive where we started > And know the place for the first time. – [T.S. Eliot](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot)
[Watching the Giro prologue live](http://sports-livez.com/channel/ch-6.php) and remembering [my own visit to the final Giro TT last year](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=4412).
> But six [human skills] will survive, say Messrs Brynjolfsson and McAfee, no matter how fast and smart computers become. Those skills are: statistical insight; managing group dynamics; good writing; framing and solving open-ended problems; persuasion; and human nurturing. [Sounds like a challenge](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2c70abc-8d4a-11e1-9798-00144feab49a.html#axzz1tuW6HMJB).
> Is it possible that, we human beings–who are soft-wired for empathic distress–is it possible we could actually extend our empathy to the entire human race as an extended family, and to our fellow creatures as part of our evolutionary family, and to the biosphere as our common community? > If it’s possible to imagine…more
> We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom. – [Michel de Montaigne](http://quotevadis.com/post/20780660637/michel-de-montaigne-we-cannot-be-wise)