Stilltitled

The hand is the window on to the mind

–Immanuel Kant

We must do our best to intensify self-discipline among internet media to guarantee internet security….Online media must treat the creation of a positive mainstream opinion environment as an important duty…

The importance different countries attach to internet security is different. We must…, from the angle of national security, information security and cultural security, actively respond to the challenges in internet security and … find a path of internet development with Chinese characteristics.

China is a victim of hackers and resolutely opposes hacking. To maintain internet security, we need international co-operation and close co-ordination.

—Wang Chen, head of the State Council Information Office & deputy head of the Communist party’s propaganda deparment, on Google’s announcement that they would pull out of China

China’s Internet is open. The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what information and content can be spread over the internet,

–Jiang Yu, spokeswoman

Meanwhile, Google has capitalized on an incredible opportunity to substantiate its “Don’t Be Evil” motto.

“Everyone’s property taxes are too damn high…Until we reform our state’s antiquated structure for providing local government services [leaders are] never going to get the job done”

—Jon Corzine, on his departure from the governor’s office

I think this state suffered obviously because he wasn’t proactive. He was a man who tried to get things done but because of issues within his own party, as well as with the people, he just didn’t connect.

—Alex DeCroce, Republican Assembly Minority Leader from Parsippany, making an observation that, for all of its certainty, may only be founded in opinion

Both Christies need to step very carefully. With the political climate, the public concerns about the financial services industry, and Chris’s reputation as someone who fights corruption, if there’s even the insinuation that Todd was receiving information from inside government that benefited his business, it would be very damaging to the new governor.

—Brigid C. Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University

The New York, Northern-New Jersey, Long Island metropolitan area saw the third worst year over year decline in non-farm employment, after the BLS‘s LA (-194k) and Chicago (-186.6k) regions. The NY region saw a decline of 186.1k jobs.

I was a hardened kayak builder.

–George Dyson, framing an allegory of the Aleuts and the Tlingit in the North Pacific: kayak-builders who collect every available bit to build the lightest possible vessel; and dugout canoe-makers, who start with a solid bough and carve away the excess to yield a light and sturdy canoe. Edge: How is the Internet changing the way YOU think?

I notice that the idea of ‘expert’ has changed. An expert used to be ‘somebody with access to special information’. Now, since so much information is equally available to everyone, the idea of ‘expert’ becomes ‘somebody with a better way of interpreting’. Judgement has replaced access.

–Brian Eno, from The ‘Authentic’ Has Replaced the Reproducible, where he explains that “more of my time is spent in words and language” and carves out expertise through the definition above, along with a variety of other words, with no hint that the boundaries of the definitions might belie his underlying discussion: the authentic vs the reproducible

Today’s announcement has no immediate impact on tenant services or the day-to-day operations of the community. The debt for Stuyvesant and Peter Cooper Village is secured exclusively by the property and is not cross- collateralized with any others. It does not impact, nor is it impacted by, any other properties in which Tishman Speyer or BlackRock may be invested.

—Tishman Speyer and Blackrock on missing today’s $16.1m monthly payment on debt associated with the $5.4b purchase of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartments, with a distinct attempt to firewall the effects of any eventual default

He said that they were going to miss a payment and that would begin the process of a default

—Daniel Garodnick, NYC Councilman, on a conversation with Rob Speyer yesterday

I understand why the government or society wants people to have homes. I get it, the whole beneficial aspect of homeownership. But individually, I’m not seeing it as a moral good.

—Alan Berks

Once upon a time, people bought houses to live in…with the sudden run-up in foreclosures, you’re starting to see people ask, is housing a good investment? In fact, it probably never was.

—William Clark, a geography professor at UCLA, who explained that the mind-set began to change in the 1970s, when it became something so much more.