“When such an explosion occurs in the reaction chamber of an internal combustion engine, the piston is driven forward with a violent, rather than a gentle, stroke. Such premature explosions cause the phenomenon known as knocking. The tendency of a fuel to knock depends markedly on the nature of the hydrocarbons used. In general, branching of an alkane chain tends to inhibit knocking. The knocking characteristic of a fuel is expressed quantitatively by an “octane number.” On this arbitrary scale, n-heptane is given a value of 0 and 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (“iso-octane”) is assigned the value of 100. An octane number of 90, typical of a medium grade “standard” or “regular” gasoline has a knocking characteristic that is equivalent to that of a mixture of 90% 2,2,4-trimethylpentane and 10% n-heptane. The octane rating may be upgraded by the addition of small amounts of tetraethyllead (C2H5)4Pb, which is called an “antiknock” agent. Its function is to control the concentration of free radicals and prevent the premature explosions which are characteristic of knocking.”
Things that once seemed mundane on a day-to-day basis often become much more profound when examined in a different time and a different (head) space. For example, when I was a child, I naturally thought like a child, behaved like a child, and only had the ability to grasp life, work, play, emotions, success and failure, with the hands of a child… .
Writing can be used to right
the wrong or wrong the right,
to fight
the might,
and light
minds bright.
These things that, by his science and technology, man has brought about on this earth, on which he first appeared as a feeble animal organism and on which each individual of his species must once more make its entry (‘oh inch of nature!’) as a helpless suckling—these things do not only sound like a fairy tale, they are an actual fulfillment of every—or of almost every—fairy-tale wish. All these assets he may lay claim to as his cultural acquisition. Long ago he formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. To these gods he attributed everything that seemed unattainable to his wishes, or that was forbidden to him. One may say, therefore, that these gods were cultural ideals. To-day he has come very close to the attainment of this ideal, he has almost become a god himself. Only, it is true, in the fashion in which ideals are usually attained according to the general judgment of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only half way. Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times. Nevertheless, he is entitled to console himself with the thought that this development will not come to an end precisely with the year 1930 A.D. Future ages will bring with them new and probably unimaginably great advances in this field of civilization and will increase man’s likeness to God still more.
— Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud.
No matter what I’m doing, I can’t help wondering if there is a better way. For example, I noticed yesterday in Las Vegas that many of the casinos have ATMs amongst thousands of slot machines. The casinos hopes you will take your money out of one machine, carry it several feet, and put it in another. There’s something about the change of ownership in your money that is considered entertainment. And judging from the crowds, people can’t get enough of it.
“Leisure has been gained by a vast number of people who until recently had been merely beasts of burden with as much chance to read a book or listen to a symphony as a mule in the army or a pony in the mine. When leisure shall at last have been provided for all of us, it will no longer be necessary to fill the few spare hours of these tired toilers with those depressing forms of entertainment like the radio or the movies, that have no other purpose than to make people forget the unbearable dullness of their own drab existence” — Hendrick Van Loon
