#Cambridge authors

[infinitysisters]

“BLAKE WROTE the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial.

The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable "either-or"; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain.

This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision.

Even on the biological level life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.

I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.

Evil can be undone, but it cannot "develop" into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, "with backward mutters of dissevering power"-or else not. It is still "either-or." If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.

I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) was precisely nothing: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in "the High Countries."

In that sense it will be true for those who have completed the journey (and for no others) to say that good is everything and Heaven everywhere. But we, at this end of the road, must not try to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do, we are likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse and fancy that everything is good and everywhere is Heaven.

But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.”

C.S. Lewis, preface to The Great Divorce

[an-ruraiocht]

i need people to stop writing books in which characters in cambridge go fleeing across hills (plural)

[sassenashsworld]

I have just returned from a 4-day drive Montreal/Boston to follow the first steps of the American revolution and this man who I admire since I was a child and who still has grows within me with the fallout reference: John Hancock.

It was a beautiful journey full of revelations and I cannot recommend enough to people who have not done so to do it...

But as a fanfiction author, that’s another point of view that the journey has revealed to me. The shock SoSu gets when they comes out of the shelter must be even worse than anything I could have imagined because the Vermont, the New Hampshire and the Massachusetts are incredibly beautiful.

The respect for trees and nature in these regions is incredible and the pride of the inhabitants for their heritage as well.

There is not a corner of everything I have seen that is not cared for and that the inhabitants do not care for with religious love and shining pride.

And I’ve seen a lot of them--even in just four days.

I already had the intention to rewrite my fanfiction because I have developed a lot my English since I started it, but there may be major changes...

I think that this love and pride of Boston and the surrounding area, faced with the destruction of everything that was important in the America Spirit is something major.

Look forward to the new version of Silver’s adventures, there will be a complete change up-- (and at the same time, the next chapter of Heartbeat should come out soon)

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Transgressions Blotted Out

I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee. — Isaiah 44:22 | Authorized King James Version (AKJV) The Holy Bible: Authorized King James Version; Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK. All rights reserved. Cross References: 2 Chronicles 6:21; Psalm 51:1; Psalm 51:9; Isaiah 1:18; Isaiah 31:6; Isaiah 33:24; Isaiah 41:14; Isaiah 43:1; Isaiah 43:25; Isaiah 48:20; Isaiah 55:7; Jeremiah 33:8; Zechariah 1:3; Acts 3:19; 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 1:18-19

Read full chapter

Notes: This verse calls us to turn to God. By faith in Christ, when He sees us He doesn't see our sin. He sees the very righteousness of Jesus. This is what redemption means, that when we stand before our holy God, the price for our sins have been paid, and they are wiped away. They're gone like mist.

[vox-anglosphere]

Bertrand Russell was Britain's leading intellectual of the 20th century

[shakespearenews]

Shakespeare's Contemporaries Infographic

[jcmarchi]

The regions racing to become the “Silicon Valley” of an aging world

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-regions-racing-to-become-the-silicon-valley-of-an-aging-world/

The regions racing to become the “Silicon Valley” of an aging world

In 2018, when Inc. Magazine named Boston one of the country’s top places to start a business, it highlighted one significant reason: Boston is an innovation hub for products and services catering toward the aging population. The “longevity economy” represents a massive chunk of economic opportunity: As of 2020, the over-50 market contributed $45 trillion to global GDP, or 34 percent of the total, according to AARP and Economist Impact.

What makes Boston such a good place to do business in aging? One important factor, according to the Inc. story, was MIT — specifically, MIT’s AgeLab, a research organization devoted to creating a high quality of life for the world’s growing aging population.

Inspired by that claim, AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin, AgeLab science writer and researcher Luke Yoquinto, and The Boston Globe organized a yearlong series of articles to explore what makes Boston such a fertile ground for businesses in the longevity economy — and what might make its soil even richer. The series, titled “The Longevity Hub,” had a big goal in mind: describing what would be necessary to transform Boston into the “Silicon Valley of aging.”

The articles from the Globe series stand as a primer on key issues related to the wants, needs, and economic capabilities of older people, not just in Boston but for any community with an aging population. Importantly, creating a business and research environment conducive to innovation on behalf of older users and customers would create the opportunity to serve national and global aging markets far larger than just Boston or New England.

But that project with the Globe raised a new question for the MIT AgeLab: What communities, Boston aside, were ahead of the curve in their support of aging innovation? More likely than Boston standing as the world’s lone longevity hub, there were doubtless many international communities that could be identified using similar terms. But where were they? And what makes them successful?

Now The MIT Press has published “Longevity Hubs: Regional Innovation for Global Aging,” an edited volume that collects the original articles from The Boston Globe series, as well as a set of new essays. In addition to AgeLab researchers Coughlin, Yoquinto, and Lisa D’Ambrosio, this work includes essays by members of the MIT community including Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; the author team of Rafi Segal (associate professor of architecture and urbanism) and Marisa Moràn Jahn (senior researcher at MIT Future Urban Collectives); as well as Elise Selinger, MIT’s director of residential renewal and renovation.

In addition to these Boston Globe articles, the book also includes a new collection of essays from an international set of contributors. These new essays highlight sites around the world that have developed a reputation for innovation in the longevity economy. 

The innovative activity described throughout the book may exemplify a phenomenon called clustering: when businesses within a given sector emerge or congregate close to one another geographically. On its face, industrial or innovation clustering is something that ought not to happen, since, when businesses get physically close to one another, rent and congestion costs increase — incentivizing their dispersal. For clustering to occur, then, additional mechanisms must be at play, outweighing these natural costs. One possible explanation, many researchers have theorized, is that clusters tend to occur where useful, tacit knowledge flows among organizations.

In the case of longevity hubs, the editors hypothesize that two sorts of tacit knowledge are being shared. First is the simple awareness that the older market is worth serving. Second is insight into how best to meet its needs — a trickier proposition than many would-be elder-market conquerors realize. An earlier book by Coughlin, “The Longevity Economy” (PublicAffairs, 2017), discusses a long history of failed attempts by companies to design products and services for older adults. Speaking to the longevity economy is not easy, but these international longevity hubs represent successful, ongoing efforts to address the needs of older consumers.   

The book’s opening chapters on the Greater Boston longevity hub encompass a swathe of sectors including biotech, health care, housing, transportation, and financial services. “Although life insurance is perhaps the clearest example of a financial services industry whose interests align with consumer longevity, it is far from the only one,” writes Brooks Tingle, president and CEO of John Hancock, in his entry. “Financial companies — especially those in Boston’s increasingly longevity-aware business community — should dare to think big and join the effort to build a better old age.”

The book’s other contributions range far beyond Boston. They highlight, for example, Louisville, Kentucky, which is “the country’s largest hot spot for businesses specializing in aging care,” writes contributor and Humana CEO Bruce Broussard, in a chapter describing the city’s mix of massive health-care companies and smaller, nimbler startups. In Newcastle, in the U.K., a thriving biomedical industry laid the groundwork for a burst of innovation around the idea of aging as an economic opportunity, with initial funding from the public sector and academic research giving way to business development in the city. In Brazil’s São Paulo, meanwhile, in the absence of public funding from the national government, a grassroots network of academics, companies, and other institutions called Envelhecimento 2.0 is the main driver of aging innovation in the country.

“We are seeing a Cambrian explosion of efforts to provide a high quality of life for the world’s booming aging population,” says Coughlin. “And that explosion includes not just startups and companies, but also different regional economic approaches to taking the longevity dividend of living longer, and transforming it into an opportunity for everyone to live longer, better.”

By 2034, for the first time in history, older adults will outnumber children in the United States. That demographic shift represents an enormous societal challenge, and a grand economic opportunity. Greater Boston stands as a premier global longevity hub, but, as Coughlin and Yoquinto’s volume illustrates, there are potential competitors — and collaborators — popping up left and right. If and when innovation clusters befitting the title of “the Silicon Valley of longevity” do arise, it remains to be seen where they will appear first.

[malewifestation]

Holiday Harvard 🎄☃️🍪

12/14/2023

[howlsmovinglibrary]

Cardinal sin: book did not do British academia and its associated job structures correctly. Big sad :((

[aryburn-trains]

That's the 5:00 pm Portland bound Downeaster in the distance and the towers of the of the new Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge (Interstate 93) spanning the Charles River. The bridge was part of the Big Dig. Cambridge, MA September 9, 2012

[haveyoureadthispoll]

As Paris rediscovers its joie de vivre, Tabitha Knight, recently arrived from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather, is on her own journey of discovery. Paris isn’t just the City of Light; it’s the city of history, romance, stunning architecture . . . and food. Thanks to her neighbor and friend Julia Child, another ex-pat who’s fallen head over heels for Paris, Tabitha is learning how to cook for her Grandpère and Oncle Rafe. Between tutoring Americans in French, visiting the market, and eagerly sampling the results of Julia’s studies at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, Tabitha’s sojourn is proving thoroughly delightful. That is, until the cold December day they return to Julia’s building and learn that a body has been found in the cellar. Tabitha recognizes the victim as a woman she’d met only the night before, at a party given by Julia’s sister, Dort. The murder weapon found nearby is recognizable too—a knife from Julia’s kitchen. Tabitha is eager to help the investigation, but is shocked when Inspector Merveille reveals that a note, in Tabitha’s handwriting, was found in the dead woman’s pocket. Is this murder a case of international intrigue, or something far more personal? From the shadows of the Tour Eiffel at midnight, to the tiny third-floor Child kitchen, to the grungy streets of Montmartre, Tabitha navigates through the city hoping to find the real killer before she or one of her friends ends up in prison . . . or worse.

[melcatshenanigans]

"The Black Death, A Personal History." By John Hatcher. A Christmas gift in 2022 from my best friend, months before she died.

[daisyachain]

“The novel by Waugh features a friendship between male students sometimes referred to as an ‘S-Class’ relationship”

[desdasiwrites]

– Alex Michaelides, The Maidens

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Coming of the Son of Man

29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

The Lesson of the Fig Tree

32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33 so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. 35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. — Matthew 24:29-35 | Authorized King James Version (AKJV) The Holy Bible: Authorized King James Version; Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK. All rights reserved. Cross References: Exodus 19:16; Deuteronomy 4:32; Psalm 102:26; Psalm 119:89; Ecclesiastes 12:2; Song of Solomon 2:13; Isaiah 13:10; Daniel 7:13; Zechariah 12:11; Matthew 10:23; Matthew 16:28; Mark 13:28; James 5:9; Revelation 3:20

Read full chapter

What is the meaning of the Parable of the Fig Tree?

[tjeromebaker]

#MaxineNweri: ‘I now know that anything is possible’ | From a women’s shelter to Cambridge University

No matter how low you sink, your dreams can still come true: one woman’s inspirational story by Maxine Nwaneri, Source: The Guardian, Sun 21 Apr 2024 12.00 BST Maxine Nwaneri As a woman with decades of business experience, a Cambridge graduate with a fulfilling career running my own company, alongside a joy-filled family life, few would guess from looking at me today how close I came to having…