Same As Ever Flashcards
Adbi and Nageeye said he just sat there, staring at the wall, in perfect silence and contentment.
a feeling of being happy or satisfied
Some of those traits are awesome, and you should look up to them, maybe try to emulate.
emulate sth or sb: to try to do something as well as somebody else because you admire them
He (John Boyd) was as close to a flying savant as they come.
a person who has an unusually high level of ability in a particular skill, for example in art or music, or in remembering things, but who has serious learning or social difficulties in other areas
Thas’t because as smart as Boyd was, he was a maniac.
person who behaves in a dangerous, violent or wild way and who you think is crazy or strange
He screamed at his superiors to the astonishment of peers, and was once nearly courtmartialed for setting ablaze hangars that didn’t proper heating.
- be court-martialed: 軍法審判
- ablaze: burning quickly and strongly
- hangar: 機庫
In meetings he would chew calluses off his hands and spit the dead skin across the table.
- callus: an area of thick hard skin on a hand or foot, usually caused by rubbing
- spit: to force liquid, food, etc. out of your mouth
That same peronality made him naturally indifferent to established custom.
- indiffernt to: having or showing no interest in somebody/something
- established: respected or given official status because it has existed or been used for a long time
He is extremely intolerant of those who attempt to impede his program.
- intolerant of: not willing to accept ideas or ways of behaving that are different from your own
- impede: to delay or stop the progress of something
While Boyd was writing the definitive book on fighter maneuvers, two colonels denied his promotion.
- definitive: considered to be the best of its kind and almost impossible to improve
- maneuver: a movement performed with care and skill
- colonel: 上校
John Maynard Keynes once purhased a trove of Isaac Newton’s original paper ar aution.
treasure trove: valuable things that are found hidden and whose owner is unknown
Many had never been seen before, as they had been stashed away at Cambridge for centuries.
to store something in a safe or secret place
It is utterly impossible to deny that it is wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value;
- utterly: completely
- wholly: competely
- devoid of: competely without something
The interpreter is stunned, and says she can’t relay that message.
relay: to receive and send on information, news, etc. to somebody 轉告
Patton laughs hysterically, raise his glass…
in an extremely excited way and without any control, often with crying or laughter
Twitter etiquette
the formal rules of correct or polite behaviour in society, among members of a particular profession or in a particular area of activity
A mindset that can dump a personal fortune into colonizing Mars is not the kind of mind that worries about the downsides of hyperbole.
a way of speaking or writing that makes something sound better, more exciting, more dangerous, etc. than it really is
overstepping the boundaries of reality.
to go beyond what is normal or allowed
(Elon Musk)… is not the kind of person worried about making untenable promises to shareholders.
(of a theory, position, etc.) that cannot be defended against attack or criticism
You don’t run for president in your fourties unless you have a certain moxie.
ourage, energy and determination
膽量，勇氣
History reveals no instances of a conqueror being surfeited by conquests.
- a particular example or case of something
- surfeit: an amount that is too large, or is more than is needed
You gotta challenge all assumptions. If you don’t, what is doctrine on day one becomes dogma forever after.
- a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church, a political party, etc.
- a belief or set of beliefs held by a group or organization that others are expected to accept without argument
casualities of perfection
a person who suffers or a thing that is destroyed when something else takes place
A common urge is to squeeze out as much efficiency and perfection as you can from whtaever you’re pursuing.
a strong desire to do something
Not maximizing your potential is actually the sweet spot in a world where perfecting one skill compromise another.
to cause something to be in danger of attack or of working less well??
So spieces rarely evolve to become perfect at anything, because perfecting one skill comes at the expense of another skill that will eventually be critical to survival.
with loss or damage to somebody/something
If your job is to be creative and think through yough problems, then time spent wandering around a park or aimlessly lounging on a couch might be your most valuable hours.
- to consider a problem or a possible course of action fully
- to stand, sit or lie in a lazy way
The irony is that people can get some of their most important work done outside of work, when they’re free to think and ponder.
- the funny or strange aspect of a situation that is very different from what you expect; a situation like this
- to think about something carefully for a period of time
This meshes with a Stanford study that showed walking increases creativity by 60 percent.
to fit together or match closely, especially in a way that works well; to make things fit together successfully
Or leave at 3:00 p.m. and spend the rest of the day envisioning a new strategy.
to imagine what a situation will be like in the future, especially a situation you intend to work towards
…, you wind up less efficient during the hours that are devoted to sitting at your desk cranking out work.
- (of a person) to find yourself in a particular place or situation
- to produce something with no special care or effort.
Another form of helpful inefficiency is a business whose operations have slack built in.
the fact that something is too loose
Just-in-time manufacturing was the epitome of efficient operations over the last twenty years.
a perfect example of something
There’s an investing quip that it’s better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.
a quick and clever remark
… an important life skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving.
one of the two posts that form part of a goal 足球網的竿子
A common storyline of history goes like this…
the basic story in a novel, play, film, etc.
People gauge their well-being relative to those around them, and luxuries become necessities in a remarkably short period of time when the people around you become better off.
- to make a judgement about something, especially people’s feelings or attitudes
- in a way that is unusual or surprising and causes people to take notice
the well-paid worker, who does his job under healty and agreeable conditions, is a valuable worker.
- pleasant and easy to like
- very useful or important
Wealth came so fast to so many that it was jarring.
to have an unpleasant or annoying effect
There is a common nostalgic vision of a typical American life in the 1950s.
having or bringing a sad feeling mixed with pleasure when you think of happy times in the past
a 1950s family would have found it unfathomable that their grandchildren would earn more than twice as much as they did.
too strange or difficult to be understood
The Ferenczes fled Romania to scape Jewish persecuation duing the Holocaust.
- to leave a person or place very quickly, especially because you are afraid of possible danger
- the act of treating somebody in a cruel and unfair way, especially because of their race, religion or political beliefs
I have a friend who grew up in abject poverty in Africa.
terrible and without hope
It’s astounding to him how abundant food is in Ameriaca.
so surprising that it is difficult to believe
And that’s astounding for me to ponder - he finds immense pleasure in something I don’t think twice.
extremely large or great
And this, I think, is a window into understanding why we yearn for the 1950s, despite today being better by almost any measure.
to want something very much, especially when it is very difficult to get
Economic growth accrued straight to happiness.
to increase over a period of time
By the early 1980s, the postwar togetherness that dominated the 1950s and ’60s gave way to more stratified growth, where many people plodded along while a few grew exponetially wealthier.
- the happy feeling you have when you are with people you like, especially family and friends
- ?
- ?
- to make very slow progress, especially with difficult or boring work
This glorious lifestyles of the few inflated the aspirations of the many.
- deserving or bringing great success and making somebody/something famous
- to make something appear to be more important or impressive than it really is
- a strong desire to have or do something
We might have higher incomes, more wealth, and bigger homes - but it’s all so quickly smothered by infalated expectaions.
- to cover something/somebody thickly or with too much of something
- to kill somebody by covering their face so that they cannot breathe
There are so many examples of this that defy intuition.
to be impossible or almost impossible to believe, explain, describe, etc.
Harry Truman - a failed retailer, failed farmer, failed zinc miner, failed oil driller, and senator held on a leash by local Missourident businessman - was almost universally panned when he become president after Franklin Roosevelt died.
to severely criticize something such as a play or a film
We should be less than candid at this grave moment if we did not recognize the great disparity between.
- saying what you think openly and honestly; not hiding your thoughts
- (of situations, feelings, etc.) very serious and important; giving you a reason to feel worried
- a difference, especially one connected with unfair treatment
They can make a celebrity feel miserabale and destitue family feel amazing.
without money, food and the other things necessary for life
You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism.
the fact of not complaining or showing what you are feeling when you are suffering
It took less than thrty days for most people to go from never having heard of COVID-19 to it upending their life.
to turn somebody/something the wrong way up or onto one end
New ideas fight for attention, business models fight incumbents, skyscrapers fight gravity. There’s always a headwind.
- the person who has or had a particular official position
- a wind blowing in the opposite direction to the one you are moving in
But only one thing has to happen to cause its demise.
the end or failure of an institution, an idea, a company, etc.
After just five weeks a human embryo has a brain, a beating heart, a pancreas, a liver, and a gallblader.
- 胚胎
- 胰臟
- 膽囊
Constructions requires skilled engineers; demolition requires only a sledgehammer.
- to pull or knock down a building; to destroy something
- 大錘
So slow progress amid a drumbeat of bad news is the normal state of affairs.
- in the middle of or surrounded by
That’s hard for people to contextualize or even imagine, let alone measure.
- to consider something in relation to the situation in which it happens or exists
- used after a statement to emphasize that because the first thing is not true or possible, the next thing cannot be true or possible either
It is so easy to discount how much progress is achievable.
to think or say that something is not important or not true
If I were to say, “What are the odds average American will be twice as rich fifty years from now?” it sounds preposterous.
completely unreasonable, especially in a way that shocks or annoys you
Let me share a few ideas about the allure, and danger of shortcuts.
the quality of being attractive, interesting, or exciting
Few stories make you wince as much as that of the Donner Party.
to suddenly make an expression with your face that shows that you are embarrassed or feeling pain
The journey was grueling and risky at the best of times, taking several months and under constant threat of attack from Native Americans, disease, and nasty weather.
- very difficult and making you very tired, needing great effort for a long time
- even when the circumstances are very good
- very bad or unpleasant
The “shortcut” was for longer and arduous than the traditional route, taking them through the scorching heat of the Great Salt Lake Desert in the middle of summer.
- involving a lot of effort and energy, especially over a period of time
- very hot
Before long, starvation set in, and members began dying in droves.
- soon
- When something unpleasant sets in, it begins and seems likely to continue in a serious way.
- a large group, especially of people, moving towards a place成群的
That’s when the survivors of the Donner Party resorted to what would make them famous for the ages: cannabalism.
to do something that you do not want to do because you cannot find any other way of achieving something
There’s a scene in the movie Lawrence of Arabia in which Lawrence puts out a match with his fingers and doesn’t flinch.
- 點火
- to make a sudden movement with your face or body as a result of pain, fear, surprise, etc.
His career leading up to then was a bleak; at one point he lived in a halfway house for the cheap rent.
- to be an introduction to or the cause of something
- (of a situation) not giving any reason to have hope or expect anything good
The other end of spectrum - fully accepting every incidence of nonsense and hassle - is just as bad.
- incidence of something (formal)： the extent to which something happens or has an effect
- a situation that is annoying because it involves doing something difficult or complicated that needs a lot of effort
Franklin Roosevelt - the most powerful man in the world, whose paralysis meant his aides often had to carry him to the bathroom…
- a loss of control of, and sometimes feeling in, part or most of the body, caused by disease or an injury to the nerves
- a person who helps another person, especially a politician, in their job
Often nothing works. Emotion run wild. Confusion reigns.
- to grow or develop freely without any control
- (of an idea, a feeling or an atmosphere) to be the most obvious feature of a place or moment
But dealing with that hassle is the entire reason why it can be lucrative.
producing a large amount of money; making a large profit
The most likely answer is that he lives in denial over what he thinks he’s in control of and demands unrealistic precision from subordinates who compensates by hiding bad news.
- a statement that something is not true or does not exist; the action of denying something
- a person who has a position with less authority and power than somebody else in an organization
- ?
One estimate calculated… the resulting firestorm would have engulfed an area the size of the state of Maryland.
to surround or to cover somebody/something completely
But there was a weird silver lining to how deadly these bombs were…
an advantage that comes from a difficult or unpleasant situation
neither country wanted “a war that would leave not one Rome intact but two Carthages destroyed.”
complete and in the original state
By 1960 we got around this predicament by going the other way.
- to deal with a problem successfully
- a difficult or an unpleasant situation, especially one where it is difficult to know what to do
We built nuclear landmines that could fit in a backpack, with a warhead the size of a shoebox.
- a bomb placed on or under the ground, which explodes when vehicles or people move over it
- 彈頭
The risk was that a country would “responsibly” use a tiny nuclear weapon in battle, starting a retaliatory escalation that opened the door to lauching one of the big bombs.
- intended to harm somebody because they harmed you first
- the act of becoming or making something greater, worse, more serious, etc.
Big risks are easy to overlook because they’re just a chain reaction of small events,each of which is easy to shrug off.
to treat something as if it is not important
We’ve seen it happen time after time.
often; on many or all occasions
People weren’t complacent.
too satisfied with yourself or with a situation, so that you do not feel that any change is necessary; showing or feeling complacency
What happend - and I can only say this with hindsight - was a bunch of small risks colliding and multiplying at once.
- the understanding that you have of a situation only after it has happened and that means you would have done things in a different way
- (of people, their opinions, etc.) to disagree strongly
- at the same time
In the aftermath authorities wondered how such an egregious catastrophe could occur.
- the situation that exists as a result of an important (and usually unpleasant) event, especially a war, an accident, etc.
- extremely bad
It was books that taught me that things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.
to make somebody suffer very much
the most-admired person in the investing industry has at times had a miserable family life - partly his own doing, the collateral damage of a life where picking stocks was the highest priority.
collateral(n): 抵押品
collateral damage: deaths of or injury to civilians (= people not in the armed forces) or damage to buildings that are not connected to the military during a war. People say ‘collateral damage’ to avoid saying ‘innocent people being killed’.
I grew up with a chronic stutter.
- (of a problem) lasting a long time; difficult to solve
- a speech problem in which a person finds it difficult to say the first sound of a word and repeats it several times
so many things can be disguised in a way that places a facade of normalcy over a person’s internel struggle.
- to hide something or change it, so that it cannot be recognized
- the way that somebody/something appears to be, which is different from the way somebody/something really is
- a situation where everything is normal or as you would expect it to be
And it’s stripped of all the hard parts.
to take away property or honours from somebody, as a punishment
When you are keenly aware of your own struggles but blind to those of others, it’s easy to assume you’re missing some skill or secret that others have.
in a way that involves strong or deep feelings or awareness
Only when you get to know someone well do you realize that the best you can do in life is to become an expert at some things while remaining inept at others - and that’s if you are good.
acting or done with no skill
And I submit to you that second question is actually the more important of the two.
to say or suggest something
But I’m very confident about people’s penchant for greed and fear, which never changes.
a special liking for something
