“The power output of a supernova is ‘bounded’, but I wouldn’t advise trying to shield yourself from one with a flame-retardant Nomex jumpsuit. Don’t make the leap from “This is ‘bounded’” to “The bound must be a reasonable-looking quantity on the scale I’m used to.”

“The importance of always identifying the source lies not only in common justice, but in truth to life. Whether we like it or not, individuality is the product of our collective existence.

In the matter of style, freedom lies in all the ways we have been a prisoner of someone else’s example.

“To a mathematician all structures are static. In the hands of a mathematician, the Peano axioms create the integers without reference to time, but if a computer scientist uses them to implement integer addition, he finds they describe a very slow process.

“Excellence comes from lots of ordinary habits — selecting them, accreting them over time, and developing them with discipline.

Different levels of achievement reflect vastly different habits, values, and goals.

The notion of talent is useless and tends to mystify excellence.

“The price of total personalization is total transparency.

“Obama’s campaign has been in the doldrums for the past few months. He’s never come up with an explanation about how he would actually transform politics, and his conventional substance is beginning to overshadow his unconventional style. But Obama still seems like a human being. He still seems to return each night to some zone of normalcy where personal reflection lives. He wasn’t fully candid when answering questions about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but there are some inner guardrails that prevent the spin from drifting too far from the truth. Thoughtful and conversational, he doesn’t seem to possess the trait that Clinton has: automatically assuming that critics are always wrong.

Obama still possesses his talent for homeostasis. His astounding composure has come across as weakness in the midst of combat with Clinton, but it’s also at the core of his promise to change politics. He vows to calm hatred and heal division.

“I budget about $1,000 a month when I’m traveling in Southeast Asia, Central America, Africa or the Middle East. I seldom go through that much if I’m sticking to ground transport, but over the course of a year if you consider flights into the calculations, $1,000 a month is about right. Stay away from the developed world at all costs though, or you’ll quickly triple that figure!

“People buy stuff all the time — America’s economy is built on that. So what does it say about software entrepreneurs if we can’t make something that consumers will pay for?

“A local variable in a rails view is a smell.

“~1/3 of people use git in collaboration with 0 or 1 person.