The idea of reputation, influence, and influencers in the offline world is as old as the hills. It's not new on the web either, but semantic search is creating a portable sense of identity, reputation, and influence that in the days before it simply ...
You're mad, you missionaries,' ejaculated Tai Haruru angrily. 'What good do you think you do, crawling out to the extremities of all the different world's ends and dying there like lizards spiked on sticks?' Brother Balaam jabbed his thumb over his s...
And then there's the truth beyond that, sitting like an old rock under green creek water: none of these things matter. Right now, in this moment, we have love. We have it in the sound of my daughter's laugher, in Mom's and Georgia's locked fingers, i...
If you are trying to bring about a better future, you must eery day go someplace you have not been before, to the point of no return. What happens every time you go to the point of no return? You push past your limits and open up new terrains of poss...
When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through crac...
The Arabs understandably did everything they could to protect their monopoly. Coffee beans were treated before being shipped to ensure they were sterile and could not be used to seed new coffee plants; foreigners were excluded from coffee-producing a...
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in or or At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. ...
You have not been given the task of creating something brand new from the vast world around you. All you are called to do is discover what is inside of you right now, the life you have been given. Once you find that, you can begin creating something ...
New Orleans, the storm, Perry, the river: they all reminded me not to take anything for granted. It all washes away, and we are all washed away with it. So when then ground is steady and the sky is clear, we should breathe deep until our lungs inflat...
Give two cooks the same ingredients and the same recipe; it is fascinating to observe how, like handwriting, their results differ. After you cook a dish repeatedly, you begin to understand it. Then you can reinvent it a bit and make it yours. A writt...
Each journey is unique, and each seeker charts a new path. But it is infinitely easier to do so having at least some knowledge about the experiences of those who have gone before. When we learn about the many different heroic paths available to us, w...
You don't want to return to the life you had before Stanford, and you don’t know if you can remain in this life any longer, but fear should never be the reason why you change. If you're only here because you're afraid of the old way of life, you'll...
we wish you everything you wish yourself' Jurgen said. 'What do you wish yourself?' Birgit asked. I felt silly 'I don't really have any specific wishes' 'a new old man perhaps?' Juliet said playfully 'but please, not just any old man!' I said. 'of co...
When I had to work Shea Stadium for a Mets-Braves game – Atlanta pitcher John Rocker had recently given an interview in which he denounced New Yorkers of all Colors and preferences – I was assigned to a parking lot, where numerous drivers asked m...
Kadyn groaned. “I cannot believe this. I’m on lockdown over here, Patrick. I can’t leave.” “I know,” Patrick responded. “I’ve seen the news.” Patrick lowered his voice to a whisper. “You don’t think there’s a connection, do yo...
I am often slow in catching up to the times, but even so, I still cannot even grip this idea: With nothing more than pitocin in your IV drip, you can sooner control the date and time of the birth of a human being-- the gushing entry into the great bl...
Well, hell yeah! I’m gonna kick your ass, too!” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Not this time you’re not. I have a new superpower.” He laughed. “And what’s that? Harsh language?” I leaned over to kiss his neck once, and then ran my tongue...
I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath. I lay in that tub on the seventeenth floor of this hotel for-women-only, high up over the jazz and push of New York, for near onto an hour, and I felt myself growing pure again. I don't believe i...
I slashed a wide arc with Riptide and vaporized the entire front row of monsters. Back off!” I yelled at the rest, trying to sound fierce. Behind them stood their instructor—a six-foot-tall telekhine with Doberman fangs snarling at me. I did my b...
Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly. They do not simply advertise for a share of a market that already exists: Their advertisements create new markets. It is a boom indu...
The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A century ago, Nora slammed the door of the doll's house; a generation ago, women turned their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multiapplianced home; bu...
