Quotations
Enlightening, Nerdy, and Humorous
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The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
- — Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness,
impatience, and hubris.
- — Larry Wall, Programming Perl (1st edition)
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Nothing much has changed, those folks who have a strong educational background in Comp Sci
and have allowed themselves to be exposed to the full breadth of computing typically become
excellent programmers regardless of the software language of choice. Those that choose to
specialize early and only have a narrow view of the field typically have significant knowledge
gaps that can be seen at the code level.
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I think this album [Van Halen III] actually does a service for VH fans with split loyalties:
it will unite the legions of Sammy-haters and Dave-haters against new lead singer Gary
Cherone.
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After eagerly awaiting the outcome of the format war between DVD-Audio and SACD, only to see
them both tank in favor of 128,000 bps Auditory Sandpaper(TM), I’m pretty much in
despair on that front. We have a whole generation now who are capable of listening to that
without covering their ears and screaming: “Make it stop!” and worse yet, are
willing to pay money for it. Meanwhile, people will pay hundreds of dollars for “Home
Theater Systems” with 9% (!) Total Harmonic Distortion, when 0.1% was entry-level for
$100 receivers 30 years ago! Oh, well... by the time my Carver separates die,
hopefully my hearing will have deteriorated to the point I won’t be able to “tell
the difference” either.
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The separation between "matters of faith" and "matters of science" is itself a lie we tell
ourselves and each other so we can tolerate living in a world populated by irrational people
and irrational beliefs. But it’s artifice, there’s no reason any actual phenomenon
can’t be investigated “scientifically.”
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On a log scale [growing up in suburbia] was midway between crib and globe.
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The main tool used by schools to manage large groups is competition. Whenever you get two or
more people to compete then they have to be, by definition, doing the same thing. The rest of
the rules are only there to cover the corner cases that competition misses.
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Similarly, no one who is the best at something can ever, by definition, push the human race
forward. Because to be the best at something means you have to be, by definition, doing the
same thing as everyone else.
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When I was a kid, I used to think adults had it all figured out. I had it backwards. Kids are
the ones who have it all figured out. They’re just mistaken.
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The grass is always greener on the other side—but that’s because they use more
manure.
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In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally.
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There are only two kinds of software: released too early and never released at all.
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I am downloading the [iPhone] SDK and I don’t even know how to program. This is too
awesome not to learn how.
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Drastic measures call for drastic time signatures.
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The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the
poor to be corrupt, too.
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I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
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Operating System:
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An operating system is a collection of things
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that don’t fit into a language.
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There shouldn’t be one.
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Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram
it down their throats.
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In the software business there are many enterprises for which it is not clear that science
can help them; that science should try is not clear either.
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The hardest part of the software task is arriving at a complete and consistent specification,
and much of the essence of building a program is in fact the debugging of the
specification.
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Step one: Shave Shrodinger’s cat with Occam’s razor...
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Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.
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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don’t know and I don’t
care.
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In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is
- — Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut
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The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
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But what is the difference between literature and journalism? ... Journalism is unreadable
and literature is not read. That is all.
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There are three kinds of programmers: those who make off by one errors, and those who
don’t.
- — seen onsignature of Benjamin Franksen, Haskell mailing list.
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Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
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A liberal is a person whose interests aren’t at stake at the moment.
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Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off
through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to
reality.
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I’ve tried to teach people autodidactism, but I’ve realized they have to learn it
for themselves.
- — shapr, #Haskell IRC channel
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There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all
traces of reality.
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Design doesn’t have to be new, but it has to be good. Research doesn’t have to be
good, but it has to be new.
- — Paul Graham, Design and Research
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One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never
know.
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Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.
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I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other
room and read a book.
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I don’t think anyone should write their autobiography until after they’re
dead.
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This message is encoded ROT0. Decoding is punishable by death under the DMCA.
- — slashdot signature, user "hard burn"
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During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or
that question if he is elected except the candidate; he’s too busy wondering what
he’ll do if he isn’t elected.
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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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When all is said and done, more is said than done.
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Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better
idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the
Universe is winning.
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Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after
them.
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If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another
nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.
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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
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Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings,
either a liberal or a conservative.
- —Kurt Vonnegut, "Cold Turkey", In These Times, May 10, 2004
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At the mention of ugly source code, people will of course think of Perl. But the superficial
ugliness of Perl is not the sort I mean. Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having
to build programs out of the wrong concepts. Perl may look like a cartoon character swearing,
but there are cases where it surpasses Python conceptually.
- —Paul Graham, the Python Paradox.
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Zip bop doodley bop a doo frang da dappy!
- —Duck and Cover song, Teddy Newton, from the film, The Iron Giant
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On the internet, no one knows you’re wearing a hyper-sleeve shirt.
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Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space,
blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.
- —Instructions for using toothpicks (Douglas Adams)
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[Updike.org] looks like one of those dot org sites.
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Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
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Never write five lines of code when one will do. Never write fifty lines of code when three
short one-liners will do. Never write 500 lines of code when ten three-liners will do.
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Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything
from history.
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It just hasn’t been the same since we held those National Sentimental Society of
Nostalgia meetings. Not the same at all.
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Most people don’t take enough pride in their work, but not enough employers give people
work worth taking pride in.
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We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about
commercially controlling simple social concepts [i.e. Microsoft attempt to patent emoticons]
are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the
most powerful companies on the planet.
- —Mark Taylor, Open Source Consortium
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My other car
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has a better license plate holder
- —Purportedly seen on the back of Jared’s car
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Many young men are more likely to show daredevil tendencies in their driving because of
factors such as emotional immaturity and misplaced feelings of immortality.
- —Carolyn Gorman, Institute of Insurance Information
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[Microsoft, Adobe, or any large company, for that matter] can’t pay people enough to
build something better than a group of inspired hackers will build for free.
- —Paul Graham, What Businesses Can Learn from Open Source
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Except the GIMP and Blender, apparently.
- —Jared Updike, Programmers are Really Bad at Designing Interfaces for
Designers
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Disney escapee Jeffrey Katzenberg knows the animation business. He also knows his toon
factory can’t compete with Pixar on quality. So he’s making it up on volume.
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Nights are 9pm to 6am.
- —Cingular Wireless Money Hounds
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Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
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If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.
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We are what we believe we are.
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Do you know the difference between who and what you are?
- — Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Duel with the Devil
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The quality of their programmers was inversely proportional to the density of goto statements
in their programs.
- —Edsgar Dijkstra, Programming Considered as a Human Activity
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Interaction is the mind-body problem of computing.
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The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
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The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.
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The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere
"extension language". It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and
maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that!
- —Richard Stallman, Why you shouldn’t use Tcl
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Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
- —Igor Stravinsky (quoting Picasso)
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Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for
something they don’t need.
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Every 5 minutes you spend writing code in a new language is more useful than 5 hours reading
blog posts about how great the language is.
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Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to
tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
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He wrapped himself in quotations—as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of
Emperors.
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The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.
- — Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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A lot of effor went into making this look effortless
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We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress
can.
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To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of
education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.
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Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
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All power corrupts, but we need the electricity.
- — Unknown
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Wittgenstein is popularly credited with the idea that most philosophical controversies are
due to confusions over language. I’m not sure how much credit to give him. I suspect a
lot of people realized this, but reacted simply by not studying philosophy, rather than
becoming philosophy professors.
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For those that understand, no explanation is needed. For those that do not understand, no
explanation is possible
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Biography lends to death a new terror.
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At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the
second glass. The refill contained the antidote.
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In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.
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Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard
it.
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Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
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Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the
room.
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You get fifteen Democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions.
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I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time.
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We’re actors — we’re the opposite of people.
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I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins
to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (probably a Sherlock
Holmes quote)
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The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how
difficult it was.
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Microsoft offers the quality of a Chinese knockoff without the lower price tag.
- — Daniel Eran Dilger, Myths of Leopard #8
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Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think
it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it
look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks
like and feels like. Design is how it works.
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Work like a dog being taken for a walk, instead of an ox being yoked to the plow.