This weekend I’ve been stuck trying to come up with a Treehydra analysis similar to outparams.js that will root out those functions which always return zero (the ’syntactic’ Dehydra analyis I posted previously was a bit naive). Trying to get this done for my 0.2 though was a grave mistake. It’s somewhat frustrating because I know this script already does what I want, namely it will ensure that an ‘out parameter’ is written upon a zero return. However, my aim is slightly different in that I don’t care about any other properties of the state when I’m in a state that contains a zero return; I just care that every state with a return is a zero-return state.

There’s another file that’s used by outparams.js called mayreturn.js that “determines the set of variables that may transitively reach the return statement” (eg w = x; x = y; y = z; return z;). It works by checking for either a RETURN_EXPR or a GIMPLE_MODIFY_STMT, in an instruction under consideration. If a RETURN_EXPR is found, the variable being returned is added to the current state. If a GIMPLE_MODIFY_STMT is found (ie an assignment) and the lhs is already in the state then the rhs is added to the state. Because this is implemented in the flow function, a change in the state will initiate another iteration through all the blocks of the function with the flow function called on each instruction. Or rather I suppose the iteration is done over only the predecessor blocks (given that mayreturn implements a ‘backward analysis’).

The main thing I’m confused about is that mayreturn.js seems to identify only a single variable as the ultimate return variable. This is even though a BackwardAnalysis (which mayreturn implements) iterates over every block (at least initially). As to its use in outparams.js, the mayreturn analysis is applied here, in process_tree which I’m certain is only invoked once.
So how are multiple returns handled?

This mozilla wiki page on abstract interpretation has been incredibly helpful in getting an idea of how all this stuff works. Going off it, here would be my idea for an always zero return checker:

I think the abstract values are already defined for me ie Zero_NonZero.Lattice.ZERO and Zero_NonZero.Lattice.NONZERO. Maybe I’m confused here and I actually need a new state ie RETURNS_ZERO and RETURNS_NON_ZERO.

The flow function should be something like ‘If stmt is an assignment by the zero constant, and if the lhs of the assignment is in the transitive return variable set identified by mayreturn.js, then set the state to ZERO (or RETURNS_ZERO).

Because I’m still unclear how multiple returns are handled though, I’m not really sure how to get started. There is a place in outparams.js where a given substate is checked for whether it returns zero (and if it does and an outparam is not written to, a warning is issued). Likewise, there is also a check for whether an outparam is written to upon returning a failure code. Unfortunately, the notion of ’substate’ is at the heart of ESP analysis which is not explained in that Mozilla wiki page I posted above… although there’s an ESP heading with no body . My vague understanding is that now you’re dealing with sets of states. My only recourse in getting more info is this paper where ESP (Error Detection via Scalable Program Analysis) is introduced. (Naturally it’s 100% crazy stuff).

Edit: hmm… just as I wrote that last paragraph something dawned on me. I think everything I just wrote is nonsense or at least irrelevant (I’ll leave it though because I have to get my blogging up).

Anyway, consider the checkSubstate function in outparams.js. I tried modifying it as well as the post analysis error checker where it’s called:

diff -r 41c1b69b3ed3 xpcom/analysis/outparams.js
--- a/xpcom/analysis/outparams.js	Mon Nov 23 22:17:06 2009 -0500
+++ b/xpcom/analysis/outparams.js	Tue Nov 24 00:20:11 2009 -0500
@@ -522,38 +522,48 @@ function unwrap_outparam(arg, state) {
   }
   if (outparam) return outparam;
   return arg;
 }

 // Check for errors. Must .run() analysis before calling this.
 OutparamCheck.prototype.check = function(isvoid, fndecl) {
   let state = this.cfg.x_exit_block_ptr.stateOut;
+  var alwayszero = true;
   for (let substate in state.substates.getValues()) {
-    this.checkSubstate(isvoid, fndecl, substate);
+    if(!this.checkSubstate(isvoid, fndecl, substate)) {
+      alwayszero = false;
+      break;
+    }
+  }
+  if (alwayszero) {
+    print("alwayszero function found! location: " + location_of(this.fndecl) + " name: " +  function_decl_name(this.fndecl));
+  }
 }

 OutparamCheck.prototype.checkSubstate = function(isvoid, fndecl, ss) {
   if (isvoid) {
+    return false;
     this.checkSubstateSuccess(ss);
   } else {
     let [succ, fail] = ret_coding(fndecl);
     let rv = ss.get(this.retvar);
     // We want to check if the abstract value of the rv is entirely
     // contained in the success or failure condition.
     if (av.meet(rv, succ) == rv) {
+      return true;
       this.checkSubstateSuccess(ss);
     } else if (av.meet(rv, fail) == rv) {
+      return false;
       this.checkSubstateFailure(ss);
     } else {
       // This condition indicates a bug in outparams.js. We'll just
       // warn so we don't break static analysis builds.
       warning("Outparams checker cannot determine rv success/failure",
               location_of(fndecl));
+      return false;
       this.checkSubstateSuccess(ss);
       this.checkSubstateFailure(ss);
     }
   }
 }

 /* @return     The return statement in the function
  *             that writes the return value in the given substate.

This is ugly hackery by it seems to do the trick.

Anyway, click here to see all the 3074 functions found. Checking for duplicates ie cat outparam-like-analysis.txt | sort | uniq | wc -l, I get 2874 which would seem to be accurate given that I’m dealing with absolute filename paths (ie the many instances when an alwayszero function is present in a header file should be taken care of). Interestingly this is way more than the the 396 functions found by another (unposted) analysis that I previously tried which checked for alwayszero methods (either virtual or non-virtual). See this post for a similar analysis.

There may be a few false positives too, but hopefully not a great many (I haven’t thoroughly checked the results so they could be totally wrong). At this point I’m not too concerned about interpreting the data because there are lots of non-virtuals in the mix. I think this can be changed with a function similar to is_constructor, though. I will have to strip out all of the non-relevant code which is not completely trivial, but it shouldn’t be too hard. I suppose I don’t really need to do this until the final version, which should be a safety checker for my plugin ie if a function has the alwayszero attribute then it must always return zero. I’ll have to solve my plugin/build issues first, though.

I’ve hit a large snag with my project. Unfortunately, getting a plugin to work with the backported gcc 4.3.4 is not as straightforward as I had assumed. I badly misread the ifdefs in dehydra_plugin.c here, thinking I’d be able to define my own pass struct and hook it in like with 4.5. Oops.

As far as I can tell If I want to run my optimization with the patched 4.3 I’ll have to add my gimple manipulations to one of the callbacks used by Treehyhdra. This might be doable but I haven’t tried it. The alternative is to create another patch against 4.3.4, either adding a new pass, as with the plugin, or by trying a bit of conditional constant propagation hackery as with my 0.1. The solution may not be ideal in either case.

As an attempt to sidestep the issue, I’ve been attempting to get Firefox to compile with 4.5. I was a bit confused until asking on #gcc about what’s needed in the bug report. Namely whether I need to include only the preprocessed .ii version of the ‘problem file’ or whether I need preprocessed versions of every file in the directory, as I had seen with another report (especially since I can’t get the .ii file to compile independently). Someone informed me that the one .ii is enough and so here’s the new bug. So far no one’s bit yet so I think I’ll have to reproduce the problem with the irrelevant functions from jsxml.cpp taken out.

Anyway, this bug can be sidestepped by turning down -O3 to -O0, but I’ve hit another issue during the linking of another file. Here’s the output. I’ve reproduced the issue with a development version of binutils as well but I’m thinking this is actually a Mozilla bug. I’ll have to consult with someone who would know.

On the analysis front, I’ve got something in the works about my recent travails with Treehydra but now that I’ve started to write it I think it needs it’s own post.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

Retell: On the way to a pow-wow Old Bear teaches his nephew Little Turtle about the legends connected to the sacred places of other Native American tribes.

Topics: legends, Native Americans, sacred places, Wampanoag, Seneca, Niagara Falls, Navajo, Cherokee, Papago, Hopewell, Cheyenne, Hopi, Abenaki, Walapai, Grand Canyon

Units of Study: Content-Area, Nonfiction, Talking and Writing About Texts

Tribes: mutual respect

Reading Skills: envisionment, interpretation

My Thoughts: This is a great read aloud for integrating map skills.  Using the clues in each legend, students could try and figure out which place is being described.  A copy of the map in the back of the book could be distributed to students during the read aloud and partners could work together to locate each sacred place on the map.

“Azért esztelen dolog a haláltól félni, mivel a biztosan bekövetkező dolgokat várni kell, csak a kétes dolgoktól szoktak félni.”

Seneca

Jamás se descubriría nada si nos considerasemos satisfechos con las cosas descubiertas.

Lucio Anneo Séneca

I’ve created a simple Dehydra script to check for alwayszero functions. There are some issues however. Here’s the script:

function process_function(f, body)
{
  if (f.type.type.name == 'void' || !f.isVirtual) {
    return;
  }

  var alwayszero = true;

  function processStatements(stmts) {
    for(var j = 0; j < stmts.statements.length; j++) {
      var s = stmts.statements[j];
      if (s.isReturn && s.value != 0) {
        alwayszero = false;
      }
    }
  }

  for (var i = 0; i < body.length; i++) {
    processStatements(body[i]);
  }

  if (alwayszero) {
    print("alwayszero function: " + f.loc.file + " on line " + f.loc.line +
          ", column " + f.loc.column + " : " + f.type.type.name + " " + f.name);
  }
}

I actually have a more elegant version using a for in loop and iterate_vars but after watching that Douglas Crockford lecture I’m a bit paranoid about such things (both report the same results though).

After doing a bit of post-processing on the output I can report the following:

Functions meeting the above criteria are encountered 5920 times during compilation but most of these are duplicates since there are quite a few method definitions within include files.

Removing all of the duplicates reduces the number to 243 instances encountered (shouldn’t be too difficult to patch manually or with some shell script hackery).

A link to the list of 243 unique instances is here. The full output list can be obtained here (warning: big file).

Unfortunately I have encountered at least one false positive with this script:

gfxFont.cpp on line 960, column 35 : gfxFont::RunMetrics gfxFont::Measure(gfxTextRun*, PRUint32, PRUint32, gfxFont::BoundingBoxType, gfxContext*, gfxFont::Spacing*)

Viewing the definition here, I’m not sure why this function was captured by my analysis but I’ll have to investigate. Ultimately, I think doing this with a Treehydra script might make more sense. There’s already an existing script that does all the heavy lifting, but I haven’t been able to link this into an independent analysis pass on mozilla-central (yet).

Edit: Argh… found another false positive here:
nsSVGContainerFrame.cpp on line 264, column 82 : gfxRect nsSVGDisplayContainerFrame::GetBBoxContribution(const gfxMatrix&)

More Issues:

When I get the plugin ready to go with mozilla, I’ll add a script to xpcom/analysis to ensure that every function which has the user(("alwayszero")) attribute meets the above criteria.

As to excluding non-virtual member functions from the analysis, as far as I can tell GCC should already be able to optimize these away. Perhaps there’s a corner case I haven’t considered though.

Another issue I thought of today is that this script can potentially flag floating point functions as alwayszero which will result in bad things happening if I apply my plugin as originally written to them.

Luckily a fix to the plugin was not that difficult:

static bool
sane_tree_type (tree t)
{
  enum tree_code code = TREE_CODE (TREE_TYPE (t));
  return code == INTEGER_TYPE || code == BOOLEAN_TYPE;
}

 /* other stuff --- see previous posts for context */

static unsigned int
execute_alwayszero_opt (void)
{
  gimple_stmt_iterator gsi;
  basic_block bb;

  FOR_EACH_BB (bb)
    {
      for (gsi = gsi_start_bb (bb); !gsi_end_p (gsi); gsi_next (&gsi))
        {
          gimple stmt = gsi_stmt (gsi);

          tree lhs = gimple_get_lhs (stmt);

          if (is_gimple_call (stmt) && lhs != NULL_TREE &&
              is_alwayszero_function (stmt) && sane_tree_type (lhs))
            {
              tree zero = build_int_cst (TREE_TYPE (lhs), 0);
              gimple assign = gimple_build_assign_stat (lhs, zero);
              tree var = create_tmp_var (TREE_TYPE (lhs), "dummy_var");
              add_referenced_var (var);
              mark_sym_for_renaming (var);
              gimple_call_set_lhs (stmt, var);
              gsi_insert_after (&gsi, assign, GSI_CONTINUE_LINKING);
            }
        }
    }

  return 0;
}

This will exclude pointer types as well which is probably a good thing. If it’s really necessary to optimize away alwayszero REAL_TYPE functions this could be done as well, but they will have to be handled separately. Actually this should be pretty easy but it’s not really a priority at the moment. It probably makes more sense to check the type of the function rather than that of the lhs, but consider the above a proof of concept.

The next step is getting my plugin to work with the GCC 4.3.4 with backported plugin support used to build Dehydra which I now know will not be too difficult. The main issue is that the gimple_stmt_iterator is nowhere to be seen (even though it shows up in the Changelog … wtf) so I’ll have to use the block_stmt_iterator instead which will require a slight bit more ugliness.

The main problem though is getting a plugin to build under the GCC 4.3.4 with backported plugin support used to build Dehydra. 4.5 includes a separate plugin include directory and an easy to use -print-file-name=plugin flag to get at the directory. I’ve tried hacking a build rule into the existing configure script in Dehydra but I’m a complete noob with make and configure stuff so I haven’t had any success yet. Hopefully I can rectify this shortly.

Also, I’ve been attempting to get FF built with 4.5 but have encountered some issues. Once I get a nice sequence of steps that follows the instructions on this page I’ll bring this to the attention of the GCC people.

Falling behind with my blog is not a good thing because I have a lot to report. Some/most of it is old news by now but I need to get it up here. Incidentally I’ve completed a rudimentary Dehydra analysis on the mozilla-central repository so that my plugin can eventually be applied, however I will present the results in my next post (here’s the post, btw).

Anyway, last week, upon embarking on the static analysis component of this project, I ran into trouble using my GCC plugin on two of the CDOT’s x86_64 Fedora boxes. The plugin compiled, but using it on any test code invoked an internal compiler error (a segmentation fault). This was quite troubling since the plugin worked fine when compiled for i386 (tested with my personal Debian machine and another Fedora i686 system at Seneca).

Ultimately I solved the problem by finding a slightly different way of coding the optimization, but I’ll document a few of the steps I’ve attempted.

Although I have now updated it with the fix, the plugin code of my previous post contained the following (see that post for the context):

  tree lhs = gimple_get_lhs (stmt);
  tree zero = build_int_cst (TREE_TYPE (lhs), 0);
  gimple assign = gimple_build_assign_stat (lhs, zero);
  tree var = make_rename_temp (TREE_TYPE (lhs), "dummy_var");
  gimple_call_set_lhs (stmt, var);
  gsi_insert_after (&gsi, assign, GSI_CONTINUE_LINKING);

One clue about the issue is that the call on line 4 to make_rename_temp warns “initialization makes pointer from integer without a cast”. At the time my thoughts on the issue were “who cares, it works”. Even getting the ICE (which complained about the call to make_rename_temp), I figured that changing the code wasn’t the thing to do. Instead a convoluted journey of debugging the plugin with gdb, examining the registers, etc, etc, was what I had in mind. Conclusion: the call to make_rename_temp results in a crash.

In any event, I found a solution although it’s been long enough that I can’t quite remember how I arrived at it:

  tree lhs = gimple_get_lhs (stmt);
  tree zero = build_int_cst (TREE_TYPE (lhs), 0);
  gimple assign = gimple_build_assign_stat (lhs, zero);
  tree var = create_tmp_var (TREE_TYPE (lhs), "dummy_var");
  add_referenced_var (var);
  mark_sym_for_renaming (var);
  gimple_call_set_lhs (stmt, var);
  gsi_insert_after (&gsi, assign, GSI_CONTINUE_LINKING);

All of that add_referenced_var/mark_sym_for_renaming business is because the call to create_tmp_var creates a temporary that’s not in SSA form ie you’ll have an initialization like int dummy_var.0; and then when it’s used you’ll get dummy_var.0 = 0; when what you want is dummy_var.0_1 = 0;.

Looking at the code for mark_sym_for_renaming in tree-dfa.c, note that it’s basically identical to the code I used to replace it’s call:

tree
make_rename_temp (tree type, const char *prefix)
{
  tree t = create_tmp_var (type, prefix);

  if (TREE_CODE (TREE_TYPE (t)) == COMPLEX_TYPE
      || TREE_CODE (TREE_TYPE (t)) == VECTOR_TYPE)
    DECL_GIMPLE_REG_P (t) = 1;

  if (gimple_referenced_vars (cfun))
    {
      add_referenced_var (t);
      mark_sym_for_renaming (t);
    }

  return t;
}

So where is the error with my original approach given that it works on i686? I’m thinking that the representation of a tree as a union of tree nodes may be at issue ie I was sticking the return of make_rename_tmp where it should not be stuck.

Although it wasn’t of much use to me, I’ll present a quick example of debugging GCC with gdb for those interested (this applies to GCC plugins as well). I have found this page, on debugging a segmentation fault, particularly useful. For those who just want to step through the compiler for kicks, those instructions will work as well.

Here’s a concrete example:
I’ve installed my GCC at /home/ehren/gcc/dist/bin/gcc and am compiling hello.c which is in my home directory. The compiler was produced with -g3 -O0.

First run the compiler with -v to determine the actual command passed to cc1 or cc1plus (gcc or g++ is just a driver for these programs)
~$ gcc/dist/bin/gcc hello.c -v

The output will contain the following line:
/home/ehren/gcc/dist/libexec/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.5.0/cc1 -quiet -v hello.c -quiet -dumpbase hello.c -mtune=generic -auxbase hello -version -o /tmp/cctQO1Kb.s

Now invoke cc1 with gdb:

~$ gdb /home/ehren/gcc/dist/libexec/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.5.0/cc1

And then run it using the arguments given in the line above (the -v is now unnecessary but there’s no harm in including it). Set a breakpoint first if you’re not getting an internal compiler error:

(gdb) break main
(gdb) run -quiet -v hello.c -quiet -dumpbase hello.c -mtune=generic -auxbase hello -version -o /tmp/cctQO1Kb.s

And you’re good to go.

La llamada “revolución copernicana” supuso la primera humillación a nuestro orgullo de especie. Coincidió en el tiempo con el auge del “humanismo” renacentista; el tratado de Copérnico Sobre las revoluciones de los orbes celestes (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium) apareció a mediados del siglo XVI y no muchos tiempo antes había escrito Pico della Mirandola el Discurso sobre la dignidad del hombre, quizá el mejor compendio de la visión humanista. “Humanista” se denominó en el Renacimiento al cultivador de los studia humanitatis, disciplinas que, como filología o historia, pasarían a denominarse “humanidades”, centradas en las lecturas de autores clásicos grecolatinos con el fin de proporcionar una formación semejante a la de la antigua paideia. Lo específicamente moderno del humanismo consistirá en su orientación a la reflexión moral sobre el ser humano en tanto que microcosmos o universo a escala reducida. Dicha condición microcósmica del hombre, a mitad de camino entre lo más alto y lo más bajo del universo, entre la perfección sobrenatural a la que admirativamente tiende y la degradación en la naturaleza puramente animal que constituye para él un riesgo permanente, había sido subrayada por varios en el Renacimiento, desde Nicolás de Cusa a Marsilio Ficino o nuestro Juan Vives, quienes resaltarían su carácter de “nudo” (copula mundi) de aquellos dos extremos y hasta su proteica facilidad para transformarse en una cosa u otra; pero nadie se acercó a formularlo tan atinadamente como Pico en su mentado Discurso, donde el sumo Hacedor, tras crear el mundo y repartir sus dones entre todas las criaturas con la única excepción del ser humano, se dirige a éste hablándole en los siguientes términos:

No te he reservado, ¡oh Adán!, un puesto fijo ni una hechura propia, ni una misión determinada, para que de ese modo puedas instalarte en el sitio, adquirir la fisonomía y desempeñar la tarea que tú mismo elijas. A los demás seres les he asignado una naturaleza constreñida por las leyes que dicté para ellos, pero a ti te he dejado la definición de esa naturaleza de acuerdo con la libertad que te concedí. Te coloqué en una zona intermedia del mundo para que desde ahí pudieses contemplar con la mayor comodidad cuanto hay en él. Y no te concebí ni celestial ni terrenal para que, cual artista de tu ser, te esculpas de la forma que prefieras. Y de tu voluntad dependerá que te rebajes a los seres inferiores e irracionales o trates de elevarte y regenerarte en los superiores y próximos a la divinidad como los ángeles.

Sin embargo, fue la colonización de América lo que supuso el nacimiento de la Edad Moderna, y no la culminación de la Edad Media, como quería Hegel en sus Lecciones de filosofía de la historia. La ambigüedad de la Edad Moderna no es menos que la del propio hombre moderno y en ella se dan por igual cita su innegable potencial civilizatorio y su capacidad de explotación. Las grandes potencias europeas comenzaron su expansión imperialista, cuyos respectivos Estados nacionales fraguarían al calor de los avances todavía balbuceantes de las ciencias y la técnica junto con la incipiente consolidación económica del capitalismo. Desde un punto de vista polítco, es casi un tópico obligado contraponer a este respecto en los albores del Renacimiento las figuras contemporáneas de Maquiavelo y Moro. Mientras el primero de ellos instaurará en El Príncipe la fría mirada -un tanto cínica- del realismo político, la Utopía del segundo alienta una mirada harto más cálida -en ocasiones velada por melancólica ironía- que suministra argumentos de crítica a la realidad desde un punto de vista ético. Más que ambigüedad, lo que vendría a registrarse es una tensión entre ética y política que afecta tanto al realista cuanto al utopista.

El pensamiento de Kant heredará todas estas ambigüedades y tensiones de la Modernidad que se dejarían cifrar en la bien conocida contraposición entre las afirmaciones: “el hombre es un lobo para el hombre” (homo homini lupus) que Hobbes toma de Plauto y la de “el hombre es algo sagrado para el hombre” (homo homini sacra res) que el iusnaturalismo del siglo XVIII repetirá siguiendo a Séneca.

En torno a “el mal radical”, Kant sostendrá, a lo Pico della Mirandola, que el hombre no es un ángel, mucho menos un dios, y tampoco una bestia, no digamos un diablo, si bien puede inclinarse hacia un extremo u otro en función de su libertad. Y aunque no deje de ser en dicho punto más un hijo de la Reforma protestante que del Renacimiento, se distanciará sin embargo de Lutero allí donde éste -desde la perspectiva de potentia Dei absoluta del voluntarismo teonómico- no dudaba en asegurar que “lo que Dios quiere no lo quiere porque ello sea justo y Dios esté obligado a quererlo, sino que antes bien ello es justo porque lo quiere Dios”, de donde lisa y llanamente se seguiría la aniquilación de la autonomía de la voluntad del ser humano como sujeto moral en aras de la omnipotente voluntad divina.

Y en la línea de Pico, pero desde la Ilustración y no ya desde el Renacimiento, proseguirá su apología de la dignidad humana -tras sentar que “el hombre no es una cosa y, por lo tanto, no es algo que pueda ser utilizado simplemente como medio, sino que siempre ha de ser considerado como fin en sí” y que “la moralidad es aquella condición bajo la cual un ser racional puede ser un fin en sí mismo [...por lo que] la moralidad y la humanidad, en la medida en que ésta es susceptible de aquélla, son lo único que posee dignidad”- mediante estas palabras:

Ni la naturaleza ni el arte albergan nada que puedan colocar en el lugar de las acciones inspiradas por la moralidad y la humanidad, puesto que su valor no estriba en sus efectos que nacen de ellas ni en el provecho o la utilidad que puedan reportar [...sino] presentan a la voluntad que los ejecuta como objeto de un respeto inmediato, no requiriéndose más que la razón para imponerlas a esa voluntad en lugar de procurar granjearse su favor por otras vías, lo cual supondría por lo demás una contradicción tratándose de deberes [...y] semejante valoración permite conocer la importancia del recurso al criterio de la dignidad, colocándola infinitamente por encima de cualquier precio y con respecto a la cual no cabe establecer comparación ni tasación alguna sin, por así decirlo, profanar su santidad.

Aéreas prometem aumento de frota em 2010

Frota da Gol e da TAM mantiveram-se estáveis em 2009 (Foto: Airliners.net / Clique para ampliar)

Durante o painel As Empresas Aéreas e Projetos para o Interior de São Paulo, no segundo Seminário Aviesp, as companhias aéreas falaram sobre os projetos para 2010.

O diretor comercial da Gol, Eduardo Bernardes, afirmou que a empresa pretende terminar o próximo ano com 111 aeronaves. “Também existe a possibilidade de começarmos a operar em mais um destino do interior paulista, mas ainda não posso dizer qual”, declarou.

A Webjet, que fecha 2009 com 20 aviões, pretende ter mais cinco ou sete no próximo ano. A Trip, por sua vez, terá um acréscimo de oito a dez aeronaves, e a Azul pretende adquirir mais sete. O gerente operacional de Vendas da Tam, Fábio Faccio, afirmou que a companhia “tem o compromisso de renovar a frota doméstica em 2010″.

OceanAir e Passaredo não falaram em aumento de frota, mas, sim, no maior número de cidades atendidas. A OceanAir pretende atender um ou mais municípios paulistas em 2010. A Passaredo pensa em 2014. “No ano que vem vamos focar no interior, e, para o ano da Copa, pretendemos oferecer ligações diretas, a partir de Ribeirão Preto, para as dez principais cidades-sede”, disse o presidente da companhia, José Luiz Felício.

B-707 da FAB assusta população de Porto Alegre

A aeronave que assustou a população de Porto Alegre na tarde deste domingo é um Boeing 707 da Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB). Segundo a Aeronáutica, o chamado Sucatão, que estava participando dos exercícios da Operação Laçador, na Base Aérea de Canoas, sobrevoou a capital gaúcha a 1,5 mil pés de altitude em trajeto de 10 minutos até o pátio do Aeroporto Salgado Filho, onde ficaria estacionado. Segundo a Aeronáutica, em razão da pequena distância, o avião não chegou a levantar o trem de pouso e não subiu muito. Esses fatores, somados ao barulho da aeronave dos anos 60 e a fumaça da queima do combustível, assustaram a população. A Força Aérea garantiu que o voo ocorreu dentro das regras de segurança e não apresentou problemas.

Avião que não decolou é removido e operações são retomadas no RS

O avião Sêneca que não conseguiu decolar, na manhã desta segunda-feira (16), no Aeroporto Salgado Filho, em Porto Alegre, foi removido da pista e as operações foram retomadas. A aeronave, que pertence a uma empresa de táxi aéreo, apresentou problemas quando seguia em direção a Santa Maria (RS). Os demais pousos e decolagens foram suspensos. A suspeita é que houve falha mecânica. Segundo a Empresa Brasileira de Infraestrutura Aeroportuária (Infraero), apenas o piloto e o co-piloto estavam no avião e ninguém ficou ferido. A pista foi liberada depois das 9h30. Ainda de acordo com a Infraero, 21 voos sofreram atrasos.

Azul dá bônus para compras de passagens até dia 30

O cliente da Azul que comprar passagens de ida e volta de hoje ao dia 30 vai ganhar um bônus de R$ 200 para ser usado na compra de bilhetes de março a junho de 2010. Para saber mais e desfrutar do benefício, basta se cadastrar no site da promoção: www.voeazul.com.br/ganhe200 . O bônus de R$ 200 será concedido na forma de um voucher e pode ser usado integralmente para a compra de um bilhete ou complementar o valor a ser pago. Esta promoção é válida somente para passagens de ida e volta compradas do dia 16 a 30 de novembro de 2009, e os voos devem ser realizados até 31 de dezembro de 2009. O bônus de R$ 200 será válido para viagens no período de 1 de março a 30 de junho de 2010. As passagens aéreas podem ser compradas pelo site da empresa www.voeazul.com.br , Central de Atendimento pelo tel. 3003-2985 ou nas agências de viagens.

Gol e TAM já fizeram proposta à Abav sobre DU

A Gol e a TAM já enviaram à Abav Nacional uma proposta de modificação das regras da taxa DU. As companhias estariam dispostas a cobrar uma taxa de emissão de 5% na venda direta no site, diminuindo a diferença de preço em relação às agências de viagens para 5% (hoje a DU cobrada pelas agências e nas lojas das aéreas é de 10% ou R$ 30 – o que for maior). A Abav ainda negocia, pois deseja que a diferença seja de apenas três pontos percentuais. Uma alternativa entre as duas propostas pode ser a resultante da nova negociação.

João Pessoa (PB) ganha mais uma frequência da Gol

A partir de 1º de dezembro, e até 19 de fevereiro, João Pessoa (PB) passa a contar com mais um voo da Gol. A operação começa no Aeroporto do Galeão-Tom Jobim, no Rio de Janeiro, às 23h48, e termina, às 1h40, no Aeroporto Castro Pinto, no município de Bayeux. O voo de retorno inicia às 2h35, com previsão de chegada às 6h37. A nova frequência (sem escalas) chega para atender o aumento da demanda de turistas do Sudeste que, durante a alta temporada, chega a dobrar.

Segundo o secretário de Turismo da capital paraibana, Elzário Pereira Júnior, a chegada de mais uma linha é fruto das negociações envolvendo o trade turístico pessoense, a Setur da cidade e a Gol. “Estamos trabalhando junto às empresas aéreas para que elas incluam João Pessoa nos projetos de ampliação dos voos. A chegada de mais um voo direto é um incentivo para o setor.” Ainda segundo o dirigente, está em fase final de negociação a vinda de outra empresa aérea, não revelada ainda. A previsão é que as operações comecem a partir de janeiro.

Ex variguianos fazem confraternização em São Paulo

No próximo dia 30, a partir das 19h, os ex variguianos vão se encontrar para lembrar dos tempos da Varig, colocar a conversa em dia e comemorar o final de mais um ano. Será o quinto jantar de confraternização de ex profissionais da companhia, no restaurante Planeta´s, que fica na rua Martins Fontes, 450, no Centro de São Paulo. Aqueles que tiverem fotos antigas, devem levá-las. Mais informações pelo e-mail wagner-rocha@uol.com.br.

Trip fecha 2009 com faturamento de R$ 480 milhões

O presidente da Trip Linhas Aéreas, José Mário Caprioli (foto), acabou de ministrar a palestra Estória de um Empreendedor Criativo na segunda edição do Seminário Aviesp para Profissionais do Turismo. Em uma hora, Caprioli discorreu sobre características de gestão da Trip e traçou um panorama sobre o atual momento do setor aéreo no Brasil. Visão estratégica, desafios, crises e tomada de decisão foram alguns dos itens abordados pelo presidente da Trip. “Estamos crescendo cerca de 80% ao ano. Vamos fechar 2009 com 82 cidades atendidas e faturamento de R$ 480 milhões”, revelou Caprioli.

Boeing finaliza a montagem do primeiro jato 747-8

A Boeing anunciou que o primeiro cargueiro 747-8F deixou a fábrica da empresa, no Estado americano de Washington, para iniciar os preparativos do voo inaugural. Após a homologação, a aeronave será entregue para a companhia Cargolux. Recentemente, o fabricante americano anunciou ter postergado o primeiro voo deste modelo do quarto trimestre de 2009 para o ano que vem. A Boeing prevê que a entrega do primeiro aparelho ocorrerá no quarto trimestre de 2010. A linha tem também uma versão para transporte de passageiros, que deve ser entregue ao primeiro cliente no quarto trimestre de 2011. O novo avião tem 76,3 m de comprimento e poderá transportar cerca de 16% a mais de cargas do que o Boeing 747-400.

Embraer estabelece centro de distribuição de peças em Dubai

A Embraer estabeleceu uma parceria com a CEVA Logistics para oferecer aos seus clientes de jatos executivos um novo centro de distribuição nos Emirados Árabes Unidos. Localizado próximo ao Aeroporto Internacional de Dubai, na região de Jebel Ali, a instalação fornece peças de reposição para a crescente frota de jatos executivos do fabricante no Oriente Médio e suporte aos clientes no norte da África e Índia. A Embraer mantém atualmente um estoque de peças de reposição para o Legacy 600 e o Lineage 1000 em Dubai, o qual será ampliado para dar suporte aos jatos Phenom 100 e 300 em 2010, conforme o crescimento das entregas na região. Cerca de 3 mil peças estão disponíveis nesta instalação para atender de forma rápida às necessidades dos clientes e centros de serviços autorizados.

Jordânia, Kuwait e Marrocos adquirem lotes do AIM-120C-7

O governo dos EUA preparou três cartas de Oferta e Aceitação, em documentos separados, para a venda de mísseis de médio alcance guiados por radar Raytheon AIM-120C-7 para a Jordânia, Marrocos e Kuwait . Os três países vão receber quantidades ainda não reveladas do míssil, para utilizarem em missões de combate ar-ar. A vantagem do AIM-120C-7, que possui mais de 105km de alcance, é que pode ser rapidamente transferido do caça para um lançador terra-ar, aumentando as capacidades de defesa do seu operador. O AIM-120C-7 já foi integrado com aeronaves como os Lockheed F-16 (que operam na Jordânia e Marrocos), Boeing F-15, Boeing F/A-18 (utilizado no Kuwait), Eurofighter Typhoon e o F-35. Desde que entrou em serviço no ano de 1991, a família de mísseis AIM-120 acumula mais de 2.400 lançamentos reais e mais de 1,7 milhões de horas voadas.

China lança seu próprio filme Top Gun

Não é estranho imaginar que uma hora a China teria o seu próprio filme “à la” Top Gun. Assim como a superprodução hollywoodiana de US$ 15 milhões, que foi lançada nos eu em 1986 com a finalidade de promover a US Navy (marinha norte-americana) com atores de renome como Tom Cruise, a China acaba de estrear o filme “J-10 on a Mission”.

A produção chinesa fez questão de retratar os aviões em sua rotina diária operacional nos esquadrões, com imagens em solo mostrando fileiras dos caças em plenas condições de voo, manobras de alta performance, reabastecimentos em voo, pousos e decolagens utilizando pistas curtas, missões de ataque ao solo, interceptação e combate aéreo aproximado.

Nos trailer é possível ver cenas como autor principal Wang Ban, que aparece utilizando trajes de côo completo no estilo “Maverick” de Top Gun.

Caça britânico da Guerra Fria, Lightning cai e mata piloto na África do Sul

English Electric Lightning semelhante ao acidentado (Foto: Airliners.net / Clique para ampliar)

No ultimo sábado (14) durante uma apresentação na Base Aérea de Overberg, na África do Sul, o caça English Electric Lightining se acidentou depois de executar uma série de manobras sobre a pista. A aeronave, que fazia parte do inventário da empresa privada Thunder City, apresentou problemas mecânicos momentos depois de ter decolado, matando o piloto civil Dave Stock. Stock, que percebeu as falhas na aeronave, tentou três vezes executar a ejeção, que não teve sucesso, vindo a colidir contra o solo na frente do público. Ninguém ficou ferido no solo. As causas do acidente ainda são desconhecidas e as investigações para levantar as casas do foram iniciadas. Thunder City é um dos pouquíssimos locais no mundo que oferece para aficionados por aviação voos em jatos de combate clássicos, em várias modalidades. Situada em Cape Town, na África do Sul, a empresa possui sete caças Hawker Hunter, três BAe Buccaneers, quatro Lightning II (incluindo o exemplar perdido no sábado), um BAc Strikemaster e um Eurocopter SA.330 Puma .Esses são os quatro exemplares remanescentes do Lightning em serviço no mundo e, no caso, o cliente que optasse por voar essa aeronave em Thunder City podia atingir duas vezes a velocidade do som (mais de 2.450km/h) e chegar a uma altitude de 15.400m para ver a curvatura da Terra em apenas um minuto. O custo de uma hora no jato é de 11.000 Euros.

Embraer e Azul anunciam pesquisa sobre biocombustível 

A Embraer, Azul, General Electric e Amyris anunciam uma nova parceria na área de pesquisa sobre biocombustível para aviação. O anúncio será realizado na próxima quarta-feira (18/11), às 10h, na sala Copacabana do Hotel Sheraton, no Rio de Janeiro.

Lufthansa apresenta balanço das atividades e perspectivas para 2010

No próximo dia 24 de novembro (terça-feira), o vice-presidente da Lufthansa para as Américas, Jens Bischof, estará em São Paulo para falar das perspectivas do mercado. Na oportunidade, ele vai a nova diretora para o Brasil, Albena Janssen. Bischof vai comentar as perspectivas do mercado brasileiro e latino-americano para 2010 e falar dos resultados do Grupo Lufthansa este ano. O executivo comentará ainda os estudos para a introdução de novos destinos e novos voos, a cooperação com a Tam a partir da entrada da empresa brasileira para a Star Alliance, a chegada dos primeiros aviões Airbus 380 e a introdução do Flynet, a internet a bordo da companhia.

Passagem aérea sofre alta de 16,6% 

O preço médio das passagens aéreas no mercado doméstico fechou o mês de outubro com alta de 16,6% em comparação com o mês de setembro. O aumento do valor médio para R$ 312,20 é um indicador de que as companhias aéreas nacionais já estão promovendo aumentos nos preços. Na última quinta-feira (12/11), o presidente interino e vice-presidente de Finanças da TAM, Líbano Barroso, afirmou que a companhia já estava reajustando suas passagens nos voos nacionais em até 20% e a estimativa para as rotas internacionais é um aumento de até 15%. Segundo o levantamento feito pela Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (Anac), em comparação com outubro do ano passado, no qual o preço médio das passagens aéreas era de R$ 427,14, a tarifa representa um recuo de quase 27%.

TACA com voos para Orlando

A TACA inaugurou sua linha para Orlando na Flórida partindo de El salvador.
Os voos serão três vezes por semana partindo de El Salvador e é uma opção para passageiros em conexão de Lima,Peru.Para essa rota a TACA vai utilizar aviões Embraer E190 para 96 passageiros.

Helimarte refuta lei paulista

A Helimarte, operadora de helicópteros na capital paulista, vem se pronunciado contra alguns pontos da lei recentemente sancionada pela Prefeitura Municipal. Em pronunciamento recente Jorge Bitar Neto, proprietário da Helimarte, disse que a clausula que proíbe helipontos operando a menos de 300 metros de escolas, hospitais e universidades não tem qualquer fundamento técnico, “já que na hora do rush uma avenida gera muito mais ruído que um helicóptero”.

Bônus para aeronaves Cessna

Para agilizar as vendas de seus monomotores de propulsão convencional a norte-americana Cessna está oferecendo aos compradores vantagens especiais como um bônus de US$ 30 mil por avião Cessna 182 ou Turbo 182 encomendado até o fim do ano, e um sistema de alerta contra a proximidade do solo durante os voos noturnos.

Hércules de busca e salvamento

A norte-americana Lockheed recomeçou a fabricação de exemplares da versão de busca e salvamento do quadrimotor C-130 “Hercules”, tipo de aeronaves que não é mais fabricado desde o tempo da Guerra do Vietnam. O plano da USAF é comprar 22 aviões HC/MC-130J de busca e salvamento, para substituir exemplares de versões mais antigas, e também 37 outros “Hercules” da versão MC-130, para missões especiais.

Cooperação China/EUA

A COMAC (da China) decidiu juntar esforços com a norte-americana ALCOA para desenvolver novas tecnologias, incluindo novos conceitos estruturais de alumínio, para serem usados no novo avião C919, de 190 assentos, a ser construído em Shangai e com primeiro voo previsto para 2014. Sua entrada em serviço poderá ocorrer em 2016.

Embraer no Dubai Air Show

A Embraer vai participar do Dubai Air Show 2009 que será realizado nos dias 15 a 19 de novembro no Aeroporto Internacional de Dubai.A empresa promoverá toda a linha de jatos comerciais para o mercado de companhias aéreas incluindo a família do ERJ 145.Os jatos Lineage 1000 e Legacy 600 serão mostrados na área estática junto com o Phenom 100.

Brasileiros testam Gripen NG

Oficiais aviadores da FAB ensaiaram na Suécia o novo caça Gripen NG, um dos modelos oferecidos ao Brasil como concorrentes da disputa FX-2. A aeronave testada foi o protótipo do novo modelo de caça da Saab, que já se aproxima dos 100 voos de ensaio. O caça difere das versões anteriores do Gripen pelos aviônicos mais avançados e por um radar AESA, de varredura eletrônica ativa.

Avro ABJ mostrado em Dubai

Um avião Avro Business Jet (ABJ) foi apresentado na recente feira Dubai Air Show. Trata-se de um avião comercial RJ70, originalmente operado pela Bulgária Air e depois modificado para configuração executiva pela Inflite Engineering Services, do Aeroporto Stansted, em Londres.

Aviação agrícola em Ribeirão

Já está confirmado o Congresso Nacional de Aviação Agrícola 2010, que será realizado na cidade paulista de Ribeirão Preto nos dias 23 e 24 de junho. Esse encontro anual serve para a apresentação de novas técnicas e equipamentos, congrassamento de profissionais e discussão de problemas do setor. É apontado como o mais importante evento latino-americano desse tipo.

Aeronaves experimentais no Brasil

Com o objetivo de promover a aviação amadora a ANAC está acompanhando os processos de construção de aeronaves experimentais e ultra-leves, tipos de aeronaves que no Brasil não são de responsabilidade da Agência mas de conta e risco do construtor. Desde dezembro do ano 2008 a ANAC agregou recursos e funcionários para acompanhar esse segmento da atividade aeronáutica e hoje são cadastrados quase 360 processos por ano (um por dia). A ANAC acompanha também o grupo de trabalho formado pelas associações de construtores amadores e aviação experimental, que estuda modificações aos regulamentos envolvidos com essa atividade (RBHA 37 e RBHA 38).

Raytheon melhora visão dos pilotos

A Raytheon assinou contrato para melhorar a visão dos pilotos, capacitando-os a ter visibilidade de 360 graus em torno da aeronave mesmo em condições meteorológicas desfavoráveis. O sistema incluirá seis câmeras fixadas em torno do helicóptero UH-60 “Black Hawk”, e será testado num programa de ensaios de 14 meses.

I was trying to make some changes to my team’s website and the table was always showing up at the bottom of the page.

I want the table to be directly under the first header on the page, followed by subsequent headers but as I keep adding content, it always shows up above the table.

Probably a syntax error somewhere but I can’t seem to spot it.

Weird!

Kasak Foto: omomom.com

Weihnachtsmärkte, Weihnachten, das Fest der Liebe,  Sylvester und Neujahr stehen uns bevor. Die einen werden die Festtage im Kreis der Familie begehen, andere begeben sich auf eine Reise, wieder andere werden aus beruflichen, Krankheits- oder sonstigen Gründen von ihrer Familie getrennt sein.

Wer vor dem Heiligen Abend noch einmal tief durchatmen möchte – im Kloster Schöntal findet er Gelegenheit zur Meditation. Für dieses Seminar ist es gelungen, vier Jugendlichen eine Teilnahme über Spenden zu ermöglichen. Allen Spendern sei an dieser Stelle herzlichst gedankt. Zwar fehlt noch ein kleiner Betrag – aber auch der wird sich bis im Dezember einstellen.

Wer vor den Festtagen keine Möglichkeit findet, ins Kloster zu kommen, hat am Freitag den 8. Januar 2010 Gelegenheit, das neue Jahr mit einem Tag der Entspannung und Meditation im Kloster Schöntal zu begrüßen. Hier geht es zur Vorschau.

Und es gibt jetzt die Gelegenheit, eine wundervolle Meditationswoche im kleinen Kreis im Frühling 2010 auf seinem Wunschzettel für den Gabentisch zu platzieren. Das Seminar findet von Samstag 24. April bis Sonntag 02. Mai 2010 im Finkenwerder Hof, in Wendisch Waren statt. Zur Beschreibung, zur aktuellen Zimmerbelegung und zur Anmeldung geht es hier:

“Und wie ist der Weg zu uns selbst im Dschungel der Wege zu finden?”

„Der Weg zur Oase führt durch die Wüste.“

“Und der Weg zum Mond ist ein Phänomen für phantasievolle Köpfe und für Raketen.”

“Auf dem Teppich bleiben – das ist eine praktische Praxis und eine andere Geschichte.”

“Nicht weil es schwer ist,

fangen wir es nicht an,

sondern weil wir es nicht anfangen,

ist es schwer.”

hat der Philosoph  Seneca gesagt.

Hier geht es zu Blätter aufgelesen Nr. 039.

Um dos cursos mais procurados da School of Life, no West End de Londres, aborda o tema “como ser cool“, que quer dizer “bacana”, “legal”, em inglês. A escola tem entre seus fundadores o filósofo e escritor suíço Alain de Botton, que diz que o tema tem tudo a ver com grandes pensadores como o romano Sêneca e o  grego Aristóteles, e que ter uma vida simples é o primeiro passo para quem quer ser mais feliz.

E o que essa filosofia ensina? Aqui vão algumas dicas…

• não viva em função da opinião alheia: para Sêneca, essas pessoas nunca serão ricas em felicidade;
• a virtude está no meio: não ser nem corajoso nem covarde demais, os dois extremos trarão infelicidade;
• memento mori: em latim, significa “lembre-se de que você vai morrer”. Para Botton, lembrar-se disso todos os dias evitará que cometa os mesmos erros ou que leve uma vida sem prazer;
• o importante é a jornada: essa é do imperador romano Marco Aurélio, traduzindo que deve-se viver cada momento, sem se preocupar tanto com o resultado;
• nem tanto ao mar, nem tanto à terra: a felicidade está na convivência com os altos e baixos da vida, sem ficar tão feliz ou tão triste com tudo que acontece no nosso dia-a-dia. Deve-se conter a euforia e a desolação, saber equilibrar vitórias e derrotas, como ensinou Aristóteles.

Para ele, ser cool não significa ter 500 seguidores no Twitter ou 1.000 amigos no Facebook, “se você simplesmente ler seus e-mails com atenção e responder a eles com dedicação é provável que seja mais feliz.”

Simples, né? “Ser um bom irmão, passear com os filhos no parque, fazer geléia para dar de presente aos amigos, são atitudes como essa que fazem uma pessoa ser bacana e, assim, ser mais feliz” …

Fonte: Caderno Equilíbrio, Folha de São Paulo, 12/11/2009

Native Americans are an integral part of American history, culture and character. Contributions and accomplishments of Native Americans permeate and impact many facets of American life, including art, music, literature, agriculture, spirituality and medicine. In the face of overwhelming adversity, Native Americans and their culture remain a vital component of the American experience.

National American Indian Heritage Month, designated as the month of November beginning in 1990, not only pays tribute to Native Americans’ historical and contemporary achievements and revolutionary role in the development of American culture and society, but recognizes the evolution of the Native American experience and the significance of preserving Native traditions and heritage.

Our SIRS Knowledge Source (SKS) Spotlight of the Month honors Native Americans and promotes cultural understanding in the following articles and online research tool destinations:

ARTICLES

1. Promises, Promises: Indian Health Care’s Victims

2. 24 Charged in Crackdown on Native American Artifact Looting

3. Nothing Shy About This Guy

4. Robert J. Conley Tells Cherokee Stories

5. For Tribes, Economic Need is Colliding With Tradition

6. An Indigenous Perspective on the Fairness Doctrine

WEB SITE

American Indian Heritage Month

QUOTE

“One of the very early proponents of an American Indian Day was Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca Indian, who was the director of the Museum of Arts and Science in Rochester, New York. He persuaded the Boy Scouts of America to set aside a day for the ‘First Americans’ and for three years they adopted such a day. In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association meeting in Lawrence, Kansas, formally approved a plan concerning American Indian Day… What started at the turn of the century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the United States has resulted in a whole month being designated for that purpose.”
“U.S. Honors Contributions of American Indians, Alaska Natives,” America.gov Press Release, Nov. 3, 2008

[NOTE to Happiness students who missed the email memo: we're not meeting today (I'm "in studio"). Your assignment: read Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, & Seneca* in Part One, & Part Two on pleasure and satisfaction.]

Heading into our course’s last laps with the Cahn/Vitrano anthology Happiness: Classic and Contemporary Readings…

The editors pass along an important reminder in their brief introduction: “there is no single thing that it feels like to achieve eudaimonia [in the Aristotelian sense of happiness-as-flourishing], since everyone’s potential is different… it is not clear who is to be the judge of what one’s full potential is.”

This observation echoes Jennifer Hecht’s myth-busting and reinforces both her and  Sonja Lyubomirsky’s customized approach to “happiness activity”-seeking. If it’s not clear who should judge one’s potential, surely the onus of doing the work of self-discovery and self-realization devolves upon, who else, oneself.

But whether that work is fundamentally, Platonically rational is still an open question. This question came up in discussion Monday: can a “bad” person be happy? Plato wants to say no: undetected bad behavior reinforces the brutish, vicious element in human nature that is at war with the “whole soul”… and its “best nature.”

Aristotle harmonizes with Plato to a greater extent with regard to this question than to most others, going so far– too far, if my own experience of philosophers and their temperamental dispositions is any guide– as to to conclude that the reason-intoxicated philosopher will be happier than anyone. Not the most amused, but the most fulfilled.  ”Everything that we choose we chose for the sake of something else– except happiness, which is an end.”

Then there’s Epicurus’s famous overstatement: “Death is nothing to us…” Hecht, again, dealt deftly with that one.

Then Seneca* goes too far: when you adjust your attitude, refine it to a freeze-dried state of Stoic indifference, you lift yourself  to a new high, “not yet free, but still as good as.” Sounds more like freedom as nothing left to lose. Good song, disappointing lifestyle. I’m not buying it.

(Alain de Botton has written many books, all of them about happiness in one form or another. His latest is on work, and success.)

Wayne Davis offers a  ”definition of epistemic happification” according to which you need not be happy every time you think a thought that typically makes you happy, so long as you still have a tendency to be happy when you think it.  Not sure I see the profundity here, but it’s clear enough. Is it true? Or non-trivial?

Daniel Haybron addresses another question that came up in class yesterday: “Why Hedonism is False.” He says it’s because hedonism fails to distinguish psychologically deep and (typically) lasting events that impinge on our happiness (the death of a child, for example) from shallow events that can ruin your afternoon (like a flat tire). It reduces happiness to claims about the pleasantness of  experiences. “That my experience is now [un]pleasant says next to nothing about my propensities for the future.”

John Kekes is thinking about tomorrow too. You’re not really happy now unless it’s “reasonable to believe and unreasonable to doubt that this judgement will continue to hold in the future.”

(What would Matthieu Ricard say? Or Wendell Berry?: “We can do nothing for the human future that we will not do for the human present… [he] who works and behaves well today need take no thought for the morrow.”)

Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz is also preoccupied with our relation to the future, and to the past. Most of us “are indifferent to the remote past” and “unconcerned about the distant future, but the importance of tomorrow is equal, if not greater for them, than that of the present day.” He’s right about this, no? The present moment may be specious and impossible to spread out and live in, but give me 48 hours. There’s nothing spurious about the transitory pleasures and momentary satisfactions of a great weekend. Today was hectic, but tomorrow… let’s go to the dog park!

Welcome to Blue Ridge Pediatrics LLC located in Seneca, SC.  We provide professional, personalized care for newborns, children and adolescents.   Our goal is to make patients and their families feel like they have a caring place with dedicated staff to care for their children when they are ill as well as provide preventative well child care in accordance with the latest American Academy of Pediatric guidelines.   Blue Ridge Pediatrics has already provided a medical home for thousands of children in the community.  Thanks to your input, we are constantly making improvements.  Come see why so many have made Blue Ridge Pediatrics part of their family.

On The Shortness of Life – Seneca

Translation by C.D.N. Costa and emphasis by Tim Ferris

The majority of mortals, Paulinus, complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live.

Nor is it merely the common herd and the unthinking crowd that bemoan what is, as men deem it, an universal ill; the same feeling has called forth complaint also from men who were famous…

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly.

Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long. But one man is possessed by greed that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men’s fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: “The part of life we really live is small.” For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

Vices beset us and surround us on every side, and they do not permit us to rise anew and lift up our eyes for the discernment of truth, but they keep us down when once they have overwhelmed us and we are chained to lust. Their victims are never allowed to return to their true selves; if ever they chance to find some release, like the waters of the deep sea which continue to heave even after the storm is past, they are tossed about, and no rest from their lusts abides. Think you that I am speaking of the wretches whose evils are admitted? Look at those whose prosperity men flock to behold; they are smothered by their blessings. To how many are riches a burden! From how many do eloquence and the daily straining to display their powers draw forth blood! How many are pale from constant pleasures! To how many does the throng of clients that crowd about them leave no freedom! In short, run through the list of all these men from the lowest to the highest—this man desires an advocate, this one answers the call, that one is on trial, that one defends him, that one gives sentence; no one asserts his claim to himself, everyone is wasted for the sake of another. Ask about the men whose names are known by heart, and you will see that these are the marks that distinguish them: A cultivates B and B cultivates C; no one is his own master. And then certain men show the most senseless indignation—they complain of the insolence of their superiors, because they were too busy to see them when they wished an audience! But can anyone have the hardihood to complain of the pride of another when he himself has no time to attend to himself? After all, no matter who you are, the great man does sometimes look toward you even if his face is insolent, he does sometimes condescend to listen to your words, he permits you to appear at his side; but you never deign to look upon yourself, to give ear to yourself. There is no reason, therefore, to count anyone in debt for such services, seeing that, when you performed them, you had no wish for another’s company, but could not endure your own.

Though all the brilliant intellects of the ages were to concentrate upon this one theme, never could they adequately express their wonder at this dense darkness of the human mind. Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life—nay, they themselves even lead in those who will eventually possess it. No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal. And so I should like to lay hold upon someone from the company of older men and say: “I see that you have reached the farthest limit of human life, you are pressing hard upon your hundredth year, or are even beyond it; come now, recall your life and make a reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken up with a moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. Add the diseases which we have caused by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain idle and unused; you will see that you have fewer years to your credit than you count. Look back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed, what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are dying before your season!” What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals. You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!

You will see that the most powerful and highly placed men let drop remarks in which they long for leisure, acclaim it, and prefer it to all their blessings. They desire at times, if it could be with safety, to descend from their high pinnacle; for, though nothing from without should assail or shatter, Fortune of its very self comes crashing down.

The deified Augustus, to whom the gods vouchsafed more than to any other man, did not cease to pray for rest and to seek release from public affairs; all his conversation ever reverted to this subject—his hope of leisure. This was the sweet, even if vain, consolation with which he would gladden his labours—that he would one day live for himself. In a letter addressed to the senate, in which he had promised that his rest would not be devoid of dignity nor inconsistent with his former glory, I find these words: “But these matters can be shown better by deeds than by promises. Nevertheless, since the joyful reality is still far distant, my desire for that time most earnestly prayed for has led me to forestall some of its delight by the pleasure of words.” So desirable a thing did leisure seem that he anticipated it in thought because he could not attain it in reality. He who saw everything depending upon himself alone, who determined the fortune of individuals and of nations, thought most happily of that future day on which he should lay aside his greatness. He had discovered how much sweat those blessings that shone throughout all lands drew forth, how many secret worries they concealed. Forced to pit arms first against his countrymen, then against his colleagues, and lastly against his relatives, he shed blood on land and sea.

Through Macedonia, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, and Asia, and almost all countries he followed the path of battle, and when his troops were weary of shedding Roman blood, he turned them to foreign wars. While he was pacifying the Alpine regions, and subduing the enemies planted in the midst of a peaceful empire, while he was extending its bounds even beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates and the Danube, in Rome itself the swords of Murena, Caepio, Lepidus, Egnatius, and others were being whetted to slay him. Not yet had he escaped their plots, when his daughter and all the noble youths who were bound to her by adultery as by a sacred oath, oft alarmed his failing years—and there was Paulus, and a second time the need to fear a woman in league with an Antony. When be had cut away these ulcers together with the limbs themselves, others would grow in their place; just as in a body that was overburdened with blood, there was always a rupture somewhere. And so he longed for leisure, in the hope and thought of which he found relief for his labours. This was the prayer of one who was able to answer the prayers of mankind.

Marcus Cicero, long flung among men like Catiline and Clodius and Pompey and Crassus, some open enemies, others doubtful friends, as he is tossed to and fro along with the state and seeks to keep it from destruction, to be at last swept away, unable as he was to be restful in prosperity or patient in adversity—how many times does he curse that very consulship of his, which he had lauded without end, though not without reason! How tearful the words he uses in a letter written to Atticus, when Pompey the elder had been conquered, and the son was still trying to restore his shattered arms in Spain! “Do you ask,” he said, “what I am doing here? I am lingering in my Tusculan villa half a prisoner.” He then proceeds to other statements, in which he bewails his former life and complains of the present and despairs of the future. Cicero said that he was “half a prisoner.” But, in very truth, never will the wise man resort to so lowly a term, never will he be half a prisoner—he who always possesses an undiminished and stable liberty, being free and his own master and towering over all others. For what can possibly be above him who is above Fortune?

When Livius Drusus, a bold and energetic man, had with the support of a huge crowd drawn from all Italy proposed new laws and the evil measures of the Gracchi, seeing no way out for his policy, which he could neither carry through nor abandon when once started on, he is said to have complained bitterly against the life of unrest he had had from the cradle, and to have exclaimed that he was the only person who had never had a holiday even as a boy. For, while he was still a ward and wearing the dress of a boy, he had had the courage to commend to the favour of a jury those who were accused, and to make his influence felt in the law-courts, so powerfully, indeed, that it is very well known that in certain trials he forced a favourable verdict. To what lengths was not such premature ambition destined to go? One might have known that such precocious hardihood would result in great personal and public misfortune. And so it was too late for him to complain that he had never had a holiday when from boyhood he had been a trouble-maker and a nuisance in the forum. It is a question whether he died by his own hand; for he fell from a sudden wound received in his groin, some doubting whether his death was voluntary, no one, whether it was timely.

It would be superfluous to mention more who, though others deemed them the happiest of men, have expressed their loathing for every act of their years, and with their own lips have given true testimony against themselves; but by these complaints they changed neither themselves nor others. For when they have vented their feelings in words, they fall back into their usual round. Heaven knows! such lives as yours, though they should pass the limit of a thousand years, will shrink into the merest span; your vices will swallow up any amount of time. The space you have, which reason can prolong, although it naturally hurries away, of necessity escapes from you quickly; for you do not seize it, you neither hold it back, nor impose delay upon the swiftest thing in the world, but you allow it to slip away as if it were something superfluous and that could be replaced.

But among the worst I count also those who have time for nothing but wine and lust; for none have more shameful engrossments. The others, even if they are possessed by the empty dream of glory, nevertheless go astray in a seemly manner; though you should cite to me the men who are avaricious, the men who are wrathful, whether busied with unjust hatreds or with unjust wars, these all sin in more manly fashion. But those who are plunged into the pleasures of the belly and into lust bear a stain that is dishonourable. Search into the hours of all these people, see how much time they give to accounts, how much to laying snares, how much to fearing them, how much to paying court, how much to being courted, how much is taken up in giving or receiving bail, how much by banquets—for even these have now become a matter of business—, and you will see how their interests, whether you call them evil or good, do not allow them time to breathe.

Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. Of the other arts there are many teachers everywhere; some of them we have seen that mere boys have mastered so thoroughly that they could even play the master. It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die. Many very great men, having laid aside all their encumbrances, having renounced riches, business, and pleasures, have made it their one aim up to the very end of life to know how to live; yet the greater number of them have departed from life confessing that they did not yet know—still less do those others know. Believe me, it takes a great man and one who has risen far above human weaknesses not to allow any of his time to be filched from him, and it follows that the life of such a man is very long because he has devoted wholly to himself whatever time he has had. None of it lay neglected and idle; none of it was under the control of another, for, guarding it most grudgingly, he found nothing that was worthy to be taken in exchange for his time. And so that man had time enough, but those who have been robbed of much of their life by the public, have necessarily had too little of it.

And there is no reason for you to suppose that these people are not sometimes aware of their loss. Indeed, you will hear many of those who are burdened by great prosperity cry out at times in the midst of their throngs of clients, or their pleadings in court, or their other glorious miseries: “I have no chance to live.” Of course you have no chance! All those who summon you to themselves, turn you away from your own self. Of how many days has that defendant robbed you? Of how many that candidate? Of how many that old woman wearied with burying her heirs? Of how many that man who is shamming sickness for the purpose of exciting the greed of the legacy-hunters? Of how many that very powerful friend who has you and your like on the list, not of his friends, but of his retinue? Check off, I say, and review the days of your life; you will see that very few, and those the refuse. have been left for you. That man who had prayed for the fasces, when he attains them, desires to lay them aside and says over and over: “When will this year be over!” That man gives games, and, after setting great value on gaining the chance to give them, now says: “When shall I be rid of them?” That advocate is lionized throughout the whole forum, and fills all the place with a great crowd that stretches farther than he can be heard, yet he says: “When will vacation time come?” Everyone hurries his life on and suffers from a yearning for the future and a weariness of the present. But he who bestows all of his time on his own needs, who plans out every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the morrow. For what new pleasure is there that any hour can now bring? They are all known, all have been enjoyed to the full. Mistress Fortune may deal out the rest as she likes; his life has already found safety. Something may be added to it, but nothing taken from it, and he will take any addition as the man who is satisfied and filled takes the food which he does not desire and yet can hold. And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles; he has not lived long—he has existed long. For what if you should think that that man had had a long voyage who had been caught by a fierce storm as soon as he left harbour, and, swept hither and thither by a succession of winds that raged from different quarters, had been driven in a circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but much tossing about.

I am often filled with wonder when I see some men demanding the time of others and those from whom they ask it most indulgent. Both of them fix their eyes on the object of the request for time, neither of them on the time itself; just as if what is asked were nothing, what is given, nothing. Men trifle with the most precious thing in the world; but they are blind to it because it is an incorporeal thing, because it does not come beneath the sight of the eyes, and for this reason it is counted a very cheap thing—nay, of almost no value at all. Men set very great store by pensions and doles, and for these they hire out their labour or service or effort. But no one sets a value on time; all use it lavishly as if it cost nothing. But see how these same people clasp the knees of physicians if they fall ill and the danger of death draws nearer, see how ready they are, if threatened with capital punishment, to spend all their possessions in order to live! So great is the inconsistency of their feelings. But if each one could have the number of his future years set before him as is possible in the case of the years that have passed, how alarmed those would be who saw only a few remaining, how sparing of them would they be! And yet it is easy to dispense an amount that is assured, no matter how small it may be; but that must be guarded more carefully which will fail you know not when.

Yet there is no reason for you to suppose that these people do not know how precious a thing time is; for to those whom they love most devotedly they have a habit of saying that they are ready to give them a part of their own years. And they do give it, without realizing it; but the result of their giving is that they themselves suffer loss without adding to the years of their dear ones. But the very thing they do not know is whether they are suffering loss; therefore, the removal of something that is lost without being noticed they find is bearable. Yet no one will bring back the years, no one will bestow you once more on yourself. Life will follow the path it started upon, and will neither reverse nor check its course; it will make no noise, it will not remind you of its swiftness. Silent it will glide on; it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the applause of the populace. Just as it was started on its first day, so it will run; nowhere will it turn aside, nowhere will it delay. And what will be the result? You have been engrossed, life hastens by; meanwhile death will be at hand, for which, willy nilly, you must find leisure.

Can anything be sillier than the point of view of certain people—I mean those who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves very busily engaged in order that they may be able to live better; they spend life in making ready to live! They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes to-day. You dispose of that which lies in the hands of Fortune, you let go that which lies in your own. Whither do you look? At what goal do you aim? All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightway! See how the greatest of bards cries out, and, as if inspired with divine utterance, sings the saving strain:

The fairest day in hapless mortals’ life
Is ever first to flee.

“Why do you delay,” says he, “Why are you idle? Unless you seize the day, it flees.” Even though you seize it, it still will flee; therefore you must vie with time’s swiftness in the speed of using it, and, as from a torrent that rushes by and will not always flow, you must drink quickly. And, too, the utterance of the bard is most admirably worded to cast censure upon infinite delay, in that he says, not “the fairest age,” but “the fairest day.” Why, to whatever length your greed inclines, do you stretch before yourself months and years in long array, unconcerned and slow though time flies so fast? The poet speaks to you about the day, and about this very day that is flying. Is there, then, any doubt that for hapless mortals, that is, for men who are engrossed, the fairest day is ever the first to flee? Old age surprises them while their minds are still childish, and they come to it unprepared and unarmed, for they have made no provision for it; they have stumbled upon it suddenly and unexpectedly, they did not notice that it was drawing nearer day by day. Even as conversation or reading or deep meditation on some subject beguiles the traveller, and he finds that he has reached the end of his journey before he was aware that he was approaching it, just so with this unceasing and most swift journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether waking or sleeping; those who are engrossed become aware of it only at the end.

Should I choose to divide my subject into heads with their separate proofs, many arguments will occur to me by which I could prove that busy men find life very short. But Fabianus, who was none of your lecture-room philosophers of to-day, but one of the genuine and old-fashioned kind, used to say that we must fight against the passions with main force, not with artifice, and that the battle-line must be turned by a bold attack, not by inflicting pinpricks; that sophistry is not serviceable, for the passions must be, not nipped, but crushed. Yet, in order that the victims of them nay be censured, each for his own particular fault, I say that they must be instructed, not merely wept over.

Life is divided into three periods—that which has been, that which is, that which will be. Of these the present time is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain. For the last is the one over which Fortune has lost control, is the one which cannot be brought back under any man’s power. But men who are engrossed lose this; for they have no time to look back upon the past, and even if they should have, it is not pleasant to recall something they must view with regret. They are, therefore, unwilling to direct their thoughts backward to ill-spent hours, and those whose vices become obvious if they review the past, even the vices which were disguised under some allurement of momentary pleasure, do not have the courage to revert to those hours. No one willingly turns his thought back to the past, unless all his acts have been submitted to the censorship of his conscience, which is never deceived; he who has ambitiously coveted, proudly scorned, recklessly conquered, treacherously betrayed, greedily seized, or lavishly squandered, must needs fear his own memory. And yet this is the part of our time that is sacred and set apart, put beyond the reach of all human mishaps, and removed from the dominion of Fortune, the part which is disquieted by no want, by no fear, by no attacks of disease; this can neither be troubled nor be snatched away—it is an everlasting and unanxious possession. The present offers only one day at a time, and each by minutes; but all the days of past time will appear when you bid them, they will suffer you to behold them and keep them at your will—a thing which those who are engrossed have no time to do. The mind that is untroubled and tranquil has the power to roam into all the parts of its life; but the minds of the engrossed, just as if weighted by a yoke, cannot turn and look behind. And so their life vanishes into an abyss; and as it does no good, no matter how much water you pour into a vessel, if there is no bottom to receive and hold it, so with time—it makes no difference how much is given; if there is nothing for it to settle upon, it passes out through the chinks and holes of the mind. Present time is very brief, so brief, indeed, that to some there seems to be none; for it is always in motion, it ever flows and hurries on; it ceases to be before it has come, and can no more brook delay than the firmament or the stars, whose ever unresting movement never lets them abide in the same track. The engrossed, therefore, are concerned with present time alone, and it is so brief that it cannot be grasped, and even this is filched away from them, distracted as they are among many things.

In a word, do you want to know how they do not “live long”? See how eager they are to live long! Decrepit old men beg in their prayers for the addition of a few more years; they pretend that they are younger than they are; they comfort themselves with a falsehood, and are as pleased to deceive themselves as if they deceived Fate at the same time. But when at last some infirmity has reminded them of their mortality, in what terror do they die, feeling that they are being dragged out of life, and not merely leaving it. They cry out that they have been fools, because they have not really lived, and that they will live henceforth in leisure if only they escape from this illness; then at last they reflect how uselessly they have striven for things which they did not enjoy, and how all their toil has gone for nothing. But for those whose life is passed remote from all business, why should it not be ample? None of it is assigned to another, none of it is scattered in this direction and that, none of it is committed to Fortune, none of it perishes from neglect, none is subtracted by wasteful giving, none of it is unused; the whole of it, so to speak, yields income. And so, however small the amount of it, it is abundantly sufficient, and therefore, whenever his last day shall come, the wise man will not hesitate to go to meet death with steady step.

Perhaps you ask whom I would call “the preoccupied”? There is no reason for you to suppose that I mean only those whom the dogs that have at length been let in drive out from the law-court, those whom you see either gloriously crushed in their own crowd of followers, or scornfully in someone else’s, those whom social duties call forth from their own homes to bump them against someone else’s doors, or whom the praetor’s hammer keeps busy in seeking gain that is disreputable and that will one day fester. Even the leisure of some men is engrossed; in their villa or on their couch, in the midst of solitude, although they have withdrawn from all others, they are themselves the source of their own worry; we should say that these are living, not in leisure, but in idle preoccupation. Would you say that that man is at leisure who arranges with finical care his Corinthian bronzes, that the mania of a few makes costly, and spends the greater part of each day upon rusty bits of copper? Who sits in a public wrestling-place (for, to our shame I we labour with vices that are not even Roman) watching the wrangling of lads? Who sorts out the herds of his pack-mules into pairs of the same age and colour? Who feeds all the newest athletes? Tell me, would you say that those men are at leisure who pass many hours at the barber’s while they are being stripped of whatever grew out the night before? while a solemn debate is held over each separate hair? while either disarranged locks are restored to their place or thinning ones drawn from this side and that toward the forehead? How angry they get if the barber has been a bit too careless, just as if he were shearing a real man! How they flare up if any of their mane is lopped off, if any of it lies out of order, if it does not all fall into its proper ringlets! Who of these would not rather have the state disordered than his hair? Who is not more concerned to have his head trim rather than safe? Who would not rather be well barbered than upright? Would you say that these are at leisure who are occupied with the comb and the mirror? And what of those who are engaged in composing, hearing, and learning songs, while they twist the voice, whose best and simplest movement Nature designed to be straightforward, into the meanderings of some indolent tune, who are always snapping their fingers as they beat time to some song they have in their head, who are overheard humming a tune when they have been summoned to serious, often even melancholy, matters? These have not leisure, but idle occupation. And their banquets, Heaven knows! I cannot reckon among their unoccupied hours, since I see how anxiously they set out their silver plate, how diligently they tie up the tunics of their pretty slave-boys, how breathlessly they watch to see in what style the wild boar issues from the hands of the cook, with what speed at a given signal smooth-faced boys hurry to perform their duties, with what skill the birds are carved into portions all according to rule, how carefully unhappy little lads wipe up the spittle of drunkards. By such means they seek the reputation for elegance and good taste, and to such an extent do their evils follow them into all the privacies of life that they can neither eat nor drink without ostentation.

And I would not count these among the leisured class either—the men who have themselves borne hither and thither in a sedan-chair and a litter, and are punctual at the hours for their rides as if it were unlawful to omit them, who are reminded by someone else when they must bathe, when they must swim, when they must dine; so enfeebled are they by the excessive lassitude of a pampered mind that they cannot find out by themselves whether they are hungry! I hear that one of these pampered people—provided that you can call it pampering to unlearn the habits of human life—when he had been lifted by hands from the bath and placed in his sedan-chair, said questioningly: “Am I now seated?” Do you think that this man, who does not know whether he is sitting, knows whether he is alive, whether he sees, whether he is at leisure? I find it hard to say whether I pity him more if he really did not know, or if he pretended not to know this. They really are subject to forgetfulness of many things, but they also pretend forgetfulness of many. Some vices delight them as being proofs of their prosperity; it seems the part of a man who is very lowly and despicable to know what he is doing. After this imagine that the mimes fabricate many things to make a mock of luxury! In very truth, they pass over more than they invent, and such a multitude of unbelievable vices has come forth in this age, so clever in this one direction, that by now we can charge the mimes with neglect. To think that there is anyone who is so lost in luxury that he takes another’s word as to whether he is sitting down! This man, then, is not at leisure, you must apply to him a different term—he is sick, nay, he is dead; that man is at leisure, who has also a perception of his leisure. But this other who is half alive, who, in order that he may know the postures of his own body, needs someone to tell him—how can he be the master of any of his time?

It would be tedious to mention all the different men who have spent the whole of their life over chess or ball or the practice of baking their bodies in the sun. They are not unoccupied whose pleasures are made a busy occupation. For instance, no one will have any doubt that those are laborious triflers who spend their time on useless literary problems, of whom even among the Romans there is now a great number. It was once a foible confined to the Greeks to inquire into what number of rowers Ulysses had, whether the Iliad or the Odyssey was written first, whether moreover they belong to the same author, and various other matters of this stamp, which, if you keep them to yourself, in no way pleasure your secret soul, and, if you publish them, make you seem more of a bore than a scholar. But now this vain passion for learning useless things has assailed the Romans also. In the last few days I heard someone telling who was the first Roman general to do this or that; Duilius was the first who won a naval battle, Curius Dentatus was the first who had elephants led in his triumph. Still, these matters, even if they add nothing to real glory, are nevertheless concerned with signal services to the state; there will be no profit in such knowledge, nevertheless it wins our attention by reason of the attractiveness of an empty subject. We may excuse also those who inquire into this—who first induced the Romans to go on board ship. It was Claudius, and this was the very reason he was surnamed Caudex, because among the ancients a structure formed by joining together several boards was called a caudex, whence also the Tables of the Law are called codices, and, in the ancient fashion, boats that carry provisions up the Tiber are even to-day called codicariae. Doubtless this too may have some point—the fact that Valerius Corvinus was the first to conquer Messana, and was the first of the family of the Valerii to bear the surname Messana because be had transferred the name of the conquered city to himself, and was later called Messala after the gradual corruption of the name in the popular speech. Perhaps you will permit someone to be interested also in this—the fact that Lucius Sulla was the first to exhibit loosed lions in the Circus, though at other times they were exhibited in chains, and that javelin-throwers were sent by King Bocchus to despatch them? And, doubtless, this too may find some excuse—but does it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompey was the first to exhibit the slaughter of eighteen elephants in the Circus, pitting criminals against them in a mimic battle? He, a leader of the state and one who, according to report, was conspicuous among the leaders of old for the kindness of his heart, thought it a notable kind of spectacle to kill human beings after a new fashion. Do they fight to the death? That is not enough! Are they torn to pieces? That is not enough! Let them be crushed by animals of monstrous bulk! Better would it be that these things pass into oblivion lest hereafter some all-powerful man should learn them and be jealous of an act that was nowise human. O, what blindness does great prosperity cast upon our minds! When he was casting so many troops of wretched human beings to wild beasts born under a different sky, when he was proclaiming war between creatures so ill matched, when he was shedding so much blood before the eyes of the Roman people, who itself was soon to be forced to shed more. he then believed that he was beyond the power of Nature. But later this same man, betrayed by Alexandrine treachery, offered himself to the dagger of the vilest slave, and then at last discovered what an empty boast his surname was.

But to return to the point from which I have digressed, and to show that some people bestow useless pains upon these same matters—the man I mentioned related that Metellus, when he triumphed after his victory over the Carthaginians in Sicily, was the only one of all the Romans who had caused a hundred and twenty captured elephants to be led before his car; that Sulla was the last of the Roman’s who extended the pomerium, which in old times it was customary to extend after the acquisition of Italian but never of provincial, territory. Is it more profitable to know this than that Mount Aventine, according to him, is outside the pomerium for one of two reasons, either because that was the place to which the plebeians had seceded, or because the birds had not been favourable when Remus took his auspices on that spot—and, in turn, countless other reports that are either crammed with falsehood or are of the same sort? For though you grant that they tell these things in good faith, though they pledge themselves for the truth of what they write, still whose mistakes will be made fewer by such stories? Whose passions will they restrain? Whom will they make more brave, whom more just, whom more noble-minded? My friend Fabianus used to say that at times he was doubtful whether it was not better not to apply oneself to any studies than to become entangled in these.

Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They annex ever age to their own; all the years that have gone ore them are an addition to their store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious fashioners of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other men’s labours we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrested from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our betters?

Those who rush about in the performance of social duties, who give themselves and others no rest, when they have fully indulged their madness, when they have every day crossed everybody’s threshold, and have left no open door unvisited, when they have carried around their venal greeting to houses that are very far apart—out of a city so huge and torn by such varied desires, how few will they be able to see? How many will there be who either from sleep or self-indulgence or rudeness will keep them out! How many who, when they have tortured them with long waiting, will rush by, pretending to be in a hurry! How many will avoid passing out through a hall that is crowded with clients, and will make their escape through some concealed door as if it were not more discourteous to deceive than to exclude. How many, still half asleep and sluggish from last night’s debauch, scarcely lifting their lips in the midst of a most insolent yawn, manage to bestow on yonder poor wretches, who break their own slumber in order to wait on that of another, the right name only after it has been whispered to them a thousand times!

But we may fairly say that they alone are engaged in the true duties of life who shall wish to have Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus, as their most intimate friends every day. No one of these will be “not at home,” no one of these will fail to have his visitor leave more happy and more devoted to himself than when he came, no one of these will allow anyone to leave him with empty hands; all mortals can meet with them by night or by day.

No one of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die; no one of these will wear out your years, but each will add his own years to yours; conversations with no one of these will bring you peril, the friendship of none will endanger your life, the courting of none will tax your purse. From them you will take whatever you wish; it will be no fault of theirs if you do not draw the utmost that you can desire. What happiness, what a fair old age awaits him who has offered himself as a client to these! He will have friends from whom he may seek counsel on matters great and small, whom he may consult every day about himself, from whom he may hear truth without insult, praise without flattery, and after whose likeness he may fashion himself.

We are wont to say that it was not in our power to choose the parents who fell to our lot, that they have been given to men by chance; yet we may be the sons of whomsoever we will. Households there are of noblest intellects; choose the one into which you wish to be adopted; you will inherit not merely their name, but even their property, which there will be no need to guard in a mean or niggardly spirit; the more persons you share it with, the greater it will become. These will open to you the path to immortality, and will raise you to a height from which no one is cast down. This is the only way of prolonging mortality—nay, of turning it into immortality. Honours, monuments, all that ambition has commanded by decrees or reared in works of stone, quickly sink to ruin; there is nothing that the lapse of time does not tear down and remove. But the works which philosophy has consecrated cannot be harmed; no age will destroy them, no age reduce them; the following and each succeeding age will but increase the reverence for them, since envy works upon what is close at hand, and things that are far off we are more free to admire. The life of the philosopher, therefore, has wide range, and he is not confined by the same bounds that shut others in. He alone is freed from the limitations of the human race; all ages serve him as if a god. Has some time passed by? This he embraces by recollection. Is time present? This he uses. Is it still to come? This he anticipates. He makes his life long by combining all times into one.

But those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and troubled; when they have reached the end of it, the poor wretches perceive too late that for such a long while they have been busied in doing nothing. Nor because they sometimes invoke death, have you any reason to think it any proof that they find life long. In their folly they are harassed by shifting emotions which rush them into the very things they dread; they often pray for death because they fear it. And, too, you have no reason to think that this is any proof that they are living a long time—the fact that the day often seems to them long, the fact that they complain that the hours pass slowly until the time set for dinner arrives; for, whenever their distractions fail them, they are restless because they are left with nothing to do, and they do not know how to dispose of their leisure or to drag out the time. And so they strive for something else to occupy them, and all the intervening time is irksome; exactly as they do when a gladiatorial exhibition is been announced, or when they are waiting for the appointed time of some other show or amusement, they want to skip over the days that lie between. All postponement of something they hope for seems long to them. Yet the time which they enjoy is short and swift, and it is made much shorter by their own fault; for they flee from one pleasure to another and cannot remain fixed in one desire. Their days are not long to them, but hateful; yet, on the other hand, how scanty seem the nights which they spend in the arms of a harlot or in wine! It is this also that accounts for the madness of poets in fostering human frailties by the tales in which they represent that Jupiter under the enticement of the pleasures of a lover doubled the length of the night. For what is it but to inflame our vices to inscribe the name of the gods as their sponsors, and to present the excused indulgence of divinity as an example to our own weakness? Can the nights which they pay for so dearly fail to seem all too short to these men? They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.

The very pleasures of such men are uneasy and disquieted by alarms of various sorts, and at the very moment of rejoicing the anxious thought comes over them: “How long will these things last?” This feeling has led kings to weep over the power they possessed, and they have not so much delighted in the greatness of their fortune, as they have viewed with terror the end to which it must some time come. When the King of Persia, in all the insolence of his pride, spread his army over the vast plains and could not grasp its number but simply its measure, he shed copious tears because inside of a hundred years not a man of such a mighty army would be alive. But he who wept was to bring upon them their fate, was to give some to their doom on the sea, some on the land, some in battle, some in flight, and within a short time was to destroy all those for whose hundredth year he had such fear. And why is it that even their joys are uneasy from fear? Because they do not rest on stable causes, but are perturbed as groundlessly as they are born. But of what sort do you think those times are which even by their own confession are wretched, since even the joys by which they are exalted and lifted above mankind are by no means pure? All the greatest blessings are a source of anxiety, and at no time should fortune be less trusted than when it is best; to maintain prosperity there is need of other prosperity, and in behalf of the prayers that have turned out well we must make still other prayers. For everything that comes to us from chance is unstable, and the higher it rises, the more liable it is to fall. Moreover, what is doomed to perish brings pleasure to no one; very wretched,therefore, and not merely short, must the life of those be who work hard to gain what they must work harder to keep. By great toil they attain what they wish, and with anxiety hold what they have attained; meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. New distractions take the place of the old, hope leads to new hope, ambition to new ambition. They do not seek an end of their wretchedness, but change the cause. Have we been tormented by our own public honours? Those of others take more of our time. Have we ceased to labour as candidates? We begin to canvass for others. Have we got rid of the troubles of a prosecutor? We find those of a judge. Has a man ceased to be a judge? He becomes president of a court. Has he become infirm in managing the property of others at a salary? He is perplexed by caring for his own wealth. Have the barracks set Marius free? The consulship keeps him busy. Does Quintius hasten to get to the end of his dictatorship? He will be called back to it from the plough. Scipio will go against the Carthaginians before he is ripe for so great an undertaking; victorious over Hannibal, victorious over Antiochus, the glory of his own consulship, the surety for his brother’s, did he not stand in his own way, he would be set beside Jove; but the discord of civilians will vex their preserver, and, when as a young man he had scorned honours that rivalled those of the gods, at length, when he is old, his ambition will lake delight in stubborn exile. Reasons for anxiety will never be lacking, whether born of prosperity or of wretchedness; life pushes on in a succession of engrossments. We shall always pray for leisure, but never enjoy it.

And so, my dearest Paulinus, tear yourself away from the crowd, and, too much storm-tossed for the time you have lived, at length withdraw into a peaceful harbour. Think of how many waves you have encountered, how many storms, on the one hand, you have sustained in private life, how many, on the other, you have brought upon yourself in public life; long enough has your virtue been displayed in laborious and unceasing proofs—try how it will behave in leisure. The greater part of your life, certainly the better part of it, has been given to the state; take now some part of your time for yourself as well. And I do not summon you to slothful or idle inaction, or to drown all your native energy in slumbers and the pleasures that are dear to the crowd. That is not to rest; you will find far greater works than all those you have hitherto performed so energetically, to occupy you in the midst of your release and retirement. You, I know, manage the accounts of the whole world as honestly as you would a stranger’s, as carefully as you would your own, as conscientiously as you would the state’s. You win love in an office in which it is difficult to avoid hatred; but nevertheless believe me, it is better to have knowledge of the ledger of one’s own life than of the corn-market. Recall that keen mind of yours, which is most competent to cope with the greatest subjects, from a service that is indeed honourable but hardly adapted to the happy life, and reflect that in all your training in the liberal studies, extending from your earliest years, you were not aiming at this—that it might be safe to entrust many thousand pecks of corn to your charge; you gave hope of something greater and more lofty. There will be no lack of men of tested worth and painstaking industry. But plodding oxen are much more suited to carrying heavy loads than thoroughbred horses, and who ever hampers the fleetness of such high-born creatures with a heavy pack? Reflect, besides, how much worry you have in subjecting yourself to such a great burden; your dealings are with the belly of man. A hungry people neither listens to reason, nor is appeased by justice, nor is bent by any entreaty. Very recently within those few day’s after Gaius Caesar died—still grieving most deeply (if the dead have any feeling) because he knew that the Roman people were alive and had enough food left for at any rate seven or eight days while he was building his bridges of boats and playing with the resources of the empire, we were threatened with the worst evil that can befall men even during a siege—the lack of provisions; his imitation of a mad and foreign and misproud king was very nearly at the cost of the city’s destruction and famine and the general revolution that follows famine. What then must have been the feeling of those who had charge of the corn-market, and had to face stones, the sword, fire—and a Caligula? By the greatest subterfuge they concealed the great evil that lurked in the vitals of the state—with good reason, you may be sure. For certain maladies must be treated while the patient is kept in ignorance; knowledge of their disease has caused the death of many.

Do you retire to these quieter, safer, greater things! Think you that it is just the same whether you are concerned in having corn from oversea poured into the granaries, unhurt either by the dishonesty or the neglect of those who transport it, in seeing that it does not become heated and spoiled by collecting moisture and tallies in weight and measure, or whether you enter upon these sacred and lofty studies with the purpose of discovering what substance, what pleasure, what mode of life, what shape God has; what fate awaits your soul; where Nature lays us to rest When we are freed from the body; what the principle is that upholds all the heaviest matter in the centre of this world, suspends the light on high, carries fire to the topmost part, summons the stars to their proper changes—and ether matters, in turn, full of mighty wonders? You really must leave the ground and turn your mind’s eye upon these things! Now while the blood is hot, we must enter with brisk step upon the better course. In this kind of life there awaits much that is good to know—the love and practice of the virtues, forgetfulness of the passions, knowledge of living and dying, and a life of deep repose.

The condition of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but most wretched is the condition of those who labour at preoccupations that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders in case of the freest things in the world—loving and hating. If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own.

And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name. Life has left some in the midst of their first struggles, before they could climb up to the height of their ambition; some, when they have crawled up through a thousand indignities to the crowning dignity, have been possessed by the unhappy thought that they have but toiled for an inscription on a tomb; some who have come to extreme old age, while they adjusted it to new hopes as if it were youth, have had it fail from sheer weakness in the midst of their great and shameless endeavours. Shameful is he whose breath leaves him in the midst of a trial when, advanced in years and still courting the applause of an ignorant circle, he is pleading for some litigant who is the veriest stranger; disgraceful is he who, exhausted more quickly by his mode of living than by his labour, collapses in the very midst of his duties; disgraceful is he who dies in the act of receiving payments on account, and draws a smile from his long delayed heir. I cannot pass over an instance which occurs to me. Sextus Turannius was an old man of long tested diligence, who, after his ninetieth year, having received release from the duties of his office by Gaius Caesar’s own act, ordered himself to be laid out on his bed and to be mourned by the assembled household as if he were dead. The whole house bemoaned the leisure of its old master, and did not end its sorrow until his accustomed work was restored to him. Is it really such pleasure for a man to die in harness? Yet very many have the same feeling; their desire for their labour lasts longer than their ability; they fight against the weakness of the body, they judge old age to be a hardship on no other score than because it puts them aside. The law does not draft a soldier after his fiftieth year, it does not call a senator after his sixtieth; it is more difficult for men to obtain leisure from themselves than from the law.Meantime, while they rob and are being robbed, while they break up each other’s repose, while they make each other wretched, their life is without profit, without pleasure, without any improvement of the mind. No one keeps death in view, no one refrains from far-reaching hopes; some men, indeed, even arrange for things that lie beyond life—huge masses of tombs and dedications of public works and gifts for their funeral-pyres and ostentatious funerals.

But, in very truth, the funerals of such men ought to be conducted by the light of torches and wax tapers, as though they had lived but the tiniest span.

“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Folgen wir nicht, wie das Herdenvieh, der Schar der Vorangehenden! Wandern wir nicht, wo gegangen wird, anstatt auf dem Wege, den man gehen soll! Nichts bringt uns in größere Übel, als wenn wir uns nach dem Gerede der Leute richten, für das Beste halten, was allgemein angenommen wird, nicht nach Vernunftgründen, sondern nach Beispielen leben.”

(Quelle: Seneca – De vita beata / Vom glücklichen Leben, I, 3)

dias de muito trabalho, mil e uma coisa pendentes, powerpoints, chás, um chocolate quente prometido, mas até ver, gastam-se os dias  e trabalha-se uma, duas, três… até chegar às nove e correr para o quente da cama e dos livros. nos entretantos, abandona-se a dança ao verão e parte-se para os cobertores, a lareira, as castanhas e a conversa até ser dia e regressarmos novamente ao emprego e pensarmos que era tão bom só quando estudávamos.

das leituras nada tenho escrito porque ocupei as primeira noites de outono com as Cartas a Lucílio de Séneca que tinha começado a ler, mas depois abandonei à paz dos mortos.

como ninguém vive só de Sénecas e outros que tais, comecei ontem a ler A Paixão Segundo G. H. de Clarice Lispector. embora reconheça que o estilo intimista, voltado para o interior, me seja muito querido, ainda não sei se estou ou não a gostar. e pronto, era só mesmo isto que tinha dizer.

So, I have been working on IO_Form, mostly just doing the empty files… and when I updated, it got a conflict with the PRJ file. Now, me being lazy, I deleted my copy, and then used the one from SVN, added my files to it, then committed. Anyone finish or even start their code for IO_Form?

Shamelessly stealing the idea from Colin Marshall, I’ve  decided to select nine people whose thoughts and actions have in some way influenced my outlook on life. I’ve come to realize the importance of having heroes in one’s life: never underestimate how they can help you to shape your values and achievements.

***

“The best advice I got from my aunt, the great singer Rosemary Clooney, and from my dad, who was a game show host and news anchor, was: don’t wake up at seventy years old sighing over what you should have tried. Just do it, be willing to fail, and at least you gave it a shot. That’s echoed for me all through the last few years.”

-George Clooney

***

“Choose someone whose way of life as well as words, and whose face very mirroring the character that lies behind it, have won your approval. Be always pointing him out to yourself either as your guardian, or as your model. There is a need, in my view, for someone as a standard against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler to do it against, you won’t make the crooked straight.”

-Lucius Annaeus Seneca

***

“Too many people are afraid to look deep down and look at where you made mistakes. That’s not always easy to do, to be honest with yourself. That’s something my father always instilled in me and even to this day, sometimes it’s difficult, but you have to take an honest look and have an honest evaluation of your performance.”

-Tiger Woods

***

“For me the goal is the same: try to improve my tennis and try to continuing have the good results. In the end, is only one number. No. 1 and No. 2 is only one number of difference. You know, I say it 100 times, no? I didn’t go to sleep thinking if I am No. 1 or No. 2, and I didn’t wake up thinking about if I am the No. 1 or No. 2. I think about I have to play well today or I have to practice well today. I have to improve. “

-Rafael Nadal

***

“A lot of people are in business to try to make money. If that’s the primary driver, I think it’s pretty hard to do well in the long term. But if instead you’re doing something that you’re so passionate about doing that you’d be happy doing it for 10 years without making any money, I think that you’re much more likely to be successful, and the optimism will come naturally on its own.”

-Tony Hsieh

***

“It’s hard to find work you love; it must be, if so few do. So don’t underestimate this task. And don’t feel bad if you haven’t succeeded yet. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you’re discontented, you’re a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial. If you’re surrounded by colleagues who claim to enjoy work that you find contemptible, odds are they’re lying to themselves. Not necessarily, but probably.”

-Paul Graham

***

“I’ve always tried not to fall for the lies that say things like ‘you can do anything if you have the will’ or that ‘you’re the only one who can carve out your own life.’ According to the audience member’s beliefs, you could call it the will of God or social systems, or fate; but in the end, what I’m trying to say is the same. And that is, ‘Life doesn’t go your own way.”

-Park Chan Wook

***

“Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes,’ otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”

- Ian Fleming

***

How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.”

-Paulo Coelho – “The Alchemist“