When you improvise, anything becomes possible [Article]

John-Paul Flintoff clarifies in the School of Life:

 an improviser doesn’t sit waiting for the perfect moment to arrive. An improviser takes whatever is available, and makes the best use of it. Where others may see only unpromising materials and situations, an improviser sees abundant possibilities. 

But those possibilities can only be realised if we train ourselves to accept what we have been given, and to tap into our natural creativity. 

More reading material: FBI’s declassified “The Vault” [Links]

Not every FBI investigation begins with a suspicion that the luminary in question is up to no good. In many cases, cultural figures received threats (usually extortion-related) from mysterious parties and called in the FBI to, well, investigate. As with any tool in human hands, nations can use their investigation organizations for good, or for, shall we say, more ambiguous purposes. Whatever their aims, they do produce fascinating reading. [via Open Culture]

Reading material: 30 Essays & stories by David F Wallace [Link]

OpenCulture has collected links to about 30 essays & short stories by the exceptional writer David Forster Wallace. Gold.

And in case you missed this, here’s DFW giving the commencement speech at Kenyon College titled “This is Water.”

Would you be okay with a law requiring fingerprint scanners on all future phones & a phase-out of cash and physical credit cards over time? [Article]

Scott Adams’ take on the future of government & society.

Imagine if the government required fingerprint scanners on any new phone sold after a certain date. And then imagine the government requiring phone companies to phase out service to any cell phone that doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor.

Now imagine that your phone becomes your only wallet and only means of paying for stuff. That seems likely at some point. The government won’t print cash forever, and credit cards are redundant with your phone.

What would that world look like?