RS Classic: Saturday Quote-a-Thon - Technology-ish
>> Saturday, July 17, 2010
In keeping with the Uber Cool Nerd God Theme [I'll explain tomorrow], I went searching through my long list of quotes for technology related quotes. This is the first batch. I hope you enjoy them.
The big corporations are suddenly taking notice of the web, and their reactions have been slow. Even the computer industry failed to see the importance of the Internet, but that’s not saying much. Let’s face it, the computer industry failed to see that the century would end.
–Douglas Adams
“But eventually you’ll solve my problem, right?”
“Sure, if your problem is too much optimism.”
From Dogbert’s Tech Support
–Scott Adams
I found some numbers that support your strategic plan. I had to take the square root of a negative number to do it. The timeline is on this mobius strip.
–Scott Adams
If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a UNIX user to show you how it’s done.
–Scott Adams
Generations of presenters have adopted the K.I.S.S principle — Keep It Simple Stupid. This is the K.I.S.S. of D.E.A.T.H. for audience concentration, however. The speaker, sensing inattention, simplifies still more. This downward spiral ends in the Lucidity Paradox: the speaker’s points eventually become so clear they disappear.
–Dale Dauten
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
–Richard Feynman
An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.
–Anatole France
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
–John Kenneth Galbraith
The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
–Robert Heinlein
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
–Elbert Hubbard
Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
–William James
Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.
–Doug Larsen
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
–H.L. Mencken
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
–Emo Phillips
Don’t push the on-button if you don’t know where the off-button is.
–Solomon Short
Heh, heh! Scott Adams's take on UNIX/Linux users is right on the button; according to them, the rest of us are just kids playing with toys.
My favorite technology-ish quote comes from electro-acoustic music pioneer Wendy Carlos. These are what she calls her Three Laws:
1. Every parameter you CAN control, you MUST control.
2. What is full of redundancy or formula is predictably boring. What is free of all structure or discipline is randomly boring. In between lies art.
3. If you find that a worthwhile task requires much more work to do really well than you ever dreamed, you're probably doing it right. If you make it look easy, you're definitely doing it right.
I did those three up in nice calligraphy and had it hanging over my synth rack for years.
There are a lot of quotes I haven't read before... thx
"I found some numbers that support your strategic plan. I had to take the square root of a negative number to do it. The timeline is on this mobius strip."
THAT's a keeper. Gonna memorize it and use it on my kids. Reminds me of a quote in "Proof." Several good lines in there.