![[ Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system is a giant step backward for your freedoms. ]](../comp/BadVista.png "Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system is a giant step backward for your freedoms.")
"Every time Vista boots, an angel gets his wings... ripped out."
- ConceptJunkie's /. sig
You can also link to various individual quotes throughout each section.
Hit CTRL+U to View Source, and you can see...
"Greetings to the solitary.
Friends, fellow beings, you are not strangers to us.
We are closer to one another than we realise.
Let us remember one another at night, even though we do not know each other's names."
- end of "Encounter With Silence", the final movement of
David Gascoyne's poem
"Night Thoughts"
"Take
care of each other, stay strong, find some time to play,
don't let God laugh alone."
- Joybubbles aka Josef 'Whistler' Engressia,
phone phreaker
"Quod petis, hic est, Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus."
('Whatever you seek is here, in this remote place, if only you have a good firm mind.')
('That which you seek is here, at Ulubrae, unless your mind fail to be calm and clear.')
- the words of Horace
carved in
Auchinleck House.
Nasruddin is looking outside his house
for his key. A friend sees him and helps to search for some time, before asking,
"Are you sure this is where you lost it?" Nasruddin replies,
"No, I lost it in the house, but there is more light out here."
- Idries Shah's
Sufi story
[paraphrased]
"If
Stephen Hawking says that light is
affected by gravity, does this mean that it's easier to drop things in the dark?"
- Bill Bailey (paraphrased) on Radio 4's
Loose Ends
2005-11-05
"Don't turn out the light - I won't be able to see how to sleep."
- Russian children's author
Kornei Chukovsky
quoting a child in
"From
Two To Five"
"Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep."
- Fran Liebowitz
"You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."
- seen on
/. 2008-07-11
"If you're going through
hell, keep going."
"There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at
without result."
"You can always count on Americans to
do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
"Men occasionally stumble over the
truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off
as if nothing had happened."
- Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
(more)
"In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird.
Now the world is weird, people take Prozac to make it normal."
- UNiT21's sig
"On the road of life there are two types of people...
Those who are on the way and those who are in the way."
- WishBone17
"Atheism: A non-prophet organization."
- seen on
Sven Guckes'
homepage
"Any Technology which is discernable from Magick is not sufficiently advanced."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"When you jump for joy, beware that no-one moves
the ground from beneath your feet."
- Stanislaw Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts"
"If you notice that a person is deceiving you,
they must not be deceiving you very well."
- seen on
/.
"You can always buy rubbish cheap."
- Maurice Pike
[or the longer version...]
"There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse
and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey."
- John Ruskin
"Buy
cheap, buy twice."
- unknown
"The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten."
- Sir Henry Royce
"A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."
- Robert Frost, quoted in Harald
Milz's sig on
lau 2004-01-10
"In a
rich man's
house, there is nowhere to spit, except
in
his face."
- Diogenes
(heard on
Quote
Unquote)
"We have a minimum wage, HOW ABOUT A MAXIMUM WAGE?"
- Jello Biafra speaking at
The Last
HOPE
"Capitalism is a great idea in theory, but in practice, it just doesn't work."
- Jeremy Hardy on
The News Quiz 2008-11-14
"Why
is there only one Monopolies Commission?"
- Screaming
Lord Sutch, Monster Raving Looney Party
"Co-operation
beats competition."
- Malcolm Smith, Jan 2002
"The non-hierarchic View is that the only internal rule is
Awareness and the only external rule is Kindness."
- Frank
Perry
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
- The 14th Dalai Lama, quoted in
Spiritual Vegan Roots
by Colin Sky
"Time shared has a different flow."
- Robert Mitchell's song
"Our Dream Mile"
"In Hebrew, we have a saying: 'For every pot there is a lid'."
- Dafna Dori, Nov 2002
"When the axe entered the forest, the trees said,
'The handle is one of us!'"
- Turkish proverb, seen on
/. 2008-07-10
"Don't be shy. You don't get nowhere bein' shy."
- Pirate radio station, London, 1990
"When life deals you a lemon, make a lemon meringue pie."
- Gez Lemon
"Some mornings it's hardly worth
chewing through the restraints to get out of bed."
- Kozar_The_Malignant's
/. sig
"I try to live each day as if it were my last:
so I lie in bed all day, slipping in and out of consciousness."
- Jeremy Hardy on
The News Quiz
2008-02-01
"Laughter
is the best medicine, but that's not true if you've got facial injuries.
Quite a nasty setback."
- Linda Smith on
The News Quiz
2005-03-11
"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't."
- Russian pianist Nikolai Demidienko
"Yes, 'avoidance' is certainly
a feature of personal style:
what you choose NOT to do...
but a time comes when
avoidance of avoidance
is a good thing to try out."
- American trumpeter
Jon Hassell, 29mar04
"Sometimes the
best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution."
- jhrfy's
/. sig
"We have forgotten to observe.
Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns."
- Russian filmmaker
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1980
"All life processes are dynamic and unpredictable,
and irreducible to any kind of 'pattern'."
- Alexander Ivashkin paraphrasing composer
Alfred Schnittke in
his biography
"Traveller, there are no ways, but we must go, dreaming."
-
inscription from a monastery in Toledo which
inspired
Luigi Nono's
violin duet "Hay Que Caminaro Sonando" and chamber piece
"No hay caminos, hay que caminar...", as well as my own song
"To Caesars Of
Opportunity"
"Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place."
- from
Peter
Weir's haunting 1973
film of Joan Lindsay's novel
"Picnic
At Hanging Rock"
"Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That's why it is called 'present'."
- seen on Sven Guckes'
homepage
"In Sioux culture, no decision would be made without reference to the will of the seven generations previous and in consideration for its effects and consequences for the seven generations following."
"A generation which ignores
history has no past - and no future."
"Once you can honestly say, "I don't know",
then it becomes possible to get at the truth."
"Be wary of
strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors - and miss."
"Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with
her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest
and dignified as your persona requires."
"Delusions are often functional.
A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness,
et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth."
"Do not handicap your children by making their lives
easy."
"Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your
life are painfully few.
[...] there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you,
and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible.
[...] So learn to say No - and to be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty,
or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness.
The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend,
or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because
it is "expected" of you.)"
"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's,
social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere.
The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere."
- Robert Heinlein
(that page is full of awesome quotes)
See more wisdom elsewhere...
"Listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go."
- e. e. cummings
Interviewer - "Where does your fascination with space come from?"
Mad Mike Banks
- "From wanting to escape from here."
"There's a way out of any cage."
- Captain Christopher Pike, "The
Menagerie" ('The Cage'), stardate 3012.4
"Soon the UFOs will land
and mankind will meet much
stronger brains and habits.
Let's get ready for that."
- P. Hinten (on the cover of Guru Guru's "UFO" LP, 1970)
"Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel."
- IIRCAFAIKIANAL's
/. sig
"Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity."
- Ex NZ Army Signalman David Weir
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt."
- Bertrand Russell
"The War On Terrorism ain't about understanding - it's about over-standing."
- Get Your War On
"Victims of 9/11: <3000.
Traffic in the US: >40000/year."
- orzetto's
/. sig
"There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now."
- afidel's /. sig
"You know what Tony Blair, George Bush,
Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein have in common?
They're all men.
Men have ruined the world.
Women should rule the world.
We've made a mess of it - you clean it up!"
- Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell at the Edinburgh Festival
heard on Radio 4 2005-09-03 12:55
"Blame Madison Avenue, Television, and the
petro-chemical octopus whose grip we enjoy."
- mjt
"Fascism
should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and
corporate power"
- Mussolini quoted in
goombah99's /. sig
Journalist - "What do you think of western civilisation?"
Mahatma Gandhi: -
"It would be a good idea!"
"I'd like
Nelson Mandela to chair a Truth And Reconciliation Commission on everything
that the U.S. has done to the rest of the world that has been inherently evil and bad."
- Robert Steele speaking at
The Last
HOPE
"Democracy
Crazy demonstration
Demonstration of craze"
- from "Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense" by
Fela Anikulapo Kuti,
1986
"Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities
decline sharply the minute they start waving guns around?"
- Doctor Who
"If two governments can't agree,
give 'em a rifle each
and let 'em fight it out.
Don't lose twenty thousand men.
It isn't worth it."
- Harry Patch,
the last survivor of WWI trenches, aged 111
"Without followers, evil cannot spread."
- Spock,
"And
The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5 (seen on
/. 2003-01-05)
"To lead the people, walk behind them."
- Lao Tzu
"The well-run group is not a battlefield of egos."
- Lao Tzu
"Followers 'have a say' in what they are being led to.
A leader who neglects that fact soon finds [him|her]self without followers."
- Garry Wills
"We have been given two ears and but a single mouth
in order that we may hear more and talk less."
- Zeno of Citium
- the above three from Donaghy Leadership Quotes
"Rule #1: The Boss is always right.
Rule #2: If the Boss is wrong, see Rule #1."
- The Rules of Work
"Never
argue
with an idiot.
They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience."
- ljmaxx's
sig
+
"Never argue with an idiot. People watching may have trouble telling who's who."
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."
- BVis'
/. sig
"In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile
and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together."
- bhima's old
/. sig
"The End Time has begun.
The world is being overrun by retards. We've made everything so safe and
childproof we've upset the natural selection process. Stupid people aren't
dying as much. And now. Now we cannot go back. Too many of the stupid people
are intergrated into our ruling class. The rich. The famous. We are doomed.
But do not worry. We still have time."
- turlock (seen at
http://markwoodman.com/)
Seen
on toilet door of warehouse at work:
"Visualise
voluntary human extinction"
"It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the
human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."
- Albert Einstein
"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as
I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more."
- Franz Kafka, while admiring fish in an aquarium
"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore,
if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.
And to act so is immoral."
- Leo Tolstoy
"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century,
all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of 'real
food for real people,' you'd better live real close to a real good hospital."
- Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
Washington, D.C.
"About 2,000 pounds of grains must be supplied to livestock in order to produce enough meat
and other livestock products to support a person for a year, whereas 400 pounds of grain eaten
directly will support a person for a year. Thus, a given quantity of grain eaten directly will
feed 5 times as many people as it will if it is eaten indirectly by humans in the form of
livestock products...."
- M.E. Ensminger, PH.D.
- all of the above from Vegan Outreach
"For as long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will
never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.
Indeed he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
- Pythagoras
"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts,
how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?"
- George Bernard Shaw
- both from all-creatures.org
"drug, n: A substance that, injected into a rat, produces a scientific paper."
- seen on
/. 2004-03-06
"There's no reason
to drink cow's milk at any time in your life.
It was designed for calves, not humans, and we should all stop drinking it today."
- Dr. Frank A. Oski, Former Director of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University (quote from
milksucks.com)
"Eating fuels the body; eating good fuels the soul. Never forget the spice of life."
- William Shatner (during the Iron Chef USA contest), seen at
Metlin.org
In a survey of 4-8 year olds, kids shared their views on love...
"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
"Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you don't yell at him because you know it would hurt his feelings."
"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
"Love is if you hold hands and sit beside each other in the cafeteria. That means you're in love. Otherwise, you can sit across from each other and be okay."
"Love is when mommy sees daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redbird."
"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."
"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."
"You can break love, but it won't die."
- all from Rainbow Corner
Here is a list of quotes from grade school essays on classical music...
"J.S. Bach died from 1750 to the present"
"Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music."
"Refrain means don't do it. A refrain in music is the part you better not try to sing."
"Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was rather large."
"Beethove wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling him. I guess he could not hear so good. Beethoved expired in 1827 and later died from this."
"Henry Purcell is a well-known composer few people have ever heard of."
"An opera is a song of bigly size."
"A harp is a nude piano."
"Aaron Copland is one of our most famous contemporary composers. It is unusual to be contemporary. Most composers do not live until they are dead."
"A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals."
"Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel."
"I know what a sextet is but I'd rather not say."
- all of the above from Rainbow Corner; they also appear Down Under along with a few more gems:
"When a singer sings, he stirs up the air and makes it hit any passing eardrums. But if he is good, he knows how to keep it from hurting."
"It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm."
"Just about any animal skin can be stretched over a frame to make a pleasant sound once the animal is removed."
- And now some wise words from some of my mentors:
"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny."
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of
boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
- Frank Zappa, pointed out by
Bowie on GearSlutz
"Music is a dream without the isolation of sleep."
- Klaus Schulze,
on his 1977 album
Mirage
"...each musician ought to play drums for several
years in order to be able to grasp the concepts of groove and rhythm on a
purely physical level."
- Klaus Schulze,
November 2004
interview
with Albrecht Piltz
"If you
have to fix it with a computer, quantize-piss-correct it, and overly inspect it,
then you can't do it."
"Musicians should not play Music.
Music should play musicians."
- Henry Rollins
"...back in the day...
People were really excited to be in the studio and it was an amazing day to
look forward to; there was a hopes-and-dreams aspect to it. Now every day is
a day in the recording studio, because every other house seems to have a
Pro Tools rig in it."
- Daniel Lanois
"The difference between a 'joke' -
pre-prepared, armed with a punch line - and 'humor' -
the art of spinning something out of present circumstances -
is like the difference between 'classical' and 'improvised' music.
The experience is quite different."
- American trumpeter
Jon Hassell, 29may03
"Anyway the best of my mind all goes down on the strings and the page"
- Joni Mitchell,
in her song "Talk To Me"
Miles Davis: (after a take) "Man, that silence was LOUD!"
"In the critics' eyes, Scriabin is not merely the
greatest of all musicians, he is a saint, a teacher, a messiah, and to
argue with such people is merely a waste of
time and energy."
- Cecil Gray (Edinburgh critic)
"Every man is potential hero and genius;
only inertia keeps men mediocre."
- Novalis (I'm sure he meant women too :-)
"Art demands of us that we never stand still."
"No-one knows better than I that you cannot command genius."
- Ludwig Van Beethoven
"If I let my Muse go to sleep, then it is only so that
she should be more active when she awakes."
- Ludwig Van Beethoven, from his Letters
"Don't ever try and compromise in any way.
It's better to try and be Beethoven and fall a hundred miles short than not have tried."
- Elisabeth Lutyens
"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
"Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember, amateurs built the Ark; professionals built the Titanic."
- Anonymous
"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are
lured and then quietly strangled."
- Sir Barnett Cocks (1907-1989)
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no
evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of
the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be
foolish than sensible."
- Bertrand Russell, in "Marriage and Morals", 1929
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead
"Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."
- Stanislaw J. Lee
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches
of evil to one who is striking at the roots."
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
"Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes
back to its original dimensions."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
"Those who will not reason, are bigots,
those who cannot, are fools,
and those who dare not, are slaves."
- George Gordon Noel Byron (1788-1824), [Lord Byron] English romantic poet
"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
[the above eight were from Vegan Outreach]
"Ignorance must certainly be bliss or there wouldn't be
so many people so resolutely pursuing it."
- seen on
/. 2004-09-23
"It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile.
Be yourself no matter what they say."
- A beautiful mind's
/. sig
"Eventually your experience catches up with your opinion."
- David Palmer (ex-Steely Dan), posted by
jjblair
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the
majority, it is time to reform."
"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral?
It is because we are not the person involved."
- both by Mark Twain, seen at
Metlin.org
"Only dead fish swim with the stream."
- Unknown, on Quote Unquote, 2005-05-15
"I'm not going to tell you what to think,
I'm going to tell you what to think about."
- Steven Rambam speaking at
The Last
HOPE
"It's not always good to do something just
because it's technically possible."
- Klaus D. Mueller
"Pay attention, because you pass this way only once."
- Bryan
Appleyard
"Trust me, the closer you get to the line between
genius and
madness, the wider it looks!"
- Ian
Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK
"My horizon is the border between the now and the may be,
the known and the unknown, the finite and the infinite. The fulfilment and the wish.
The magic and the hunger, the self and the other. The more you advance
the more it recedes. What you gain on one side you'll lose on the other.
The horizon remains always at the same distance from you which is
determined by the height of your ideas - the higher the ideas the wider
the horizon, so, relax!"
- painter Mati
Klarwein, 1984
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there."
- Rumi
"The wind may blow you off course,
And the waves wash you ashore,
But maybe you needed to find
Somewhere new to explore."
- Justine Hart,
Vitae, 1999
"There is vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, not how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in your self or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
No artist is ever pleased... there is no satisfaction whatever at
any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed
unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the
others."
- Modern dancer Martha Graham, writing in a letter to
Agnes DeMille
"Nowadays, it's simply the
desert [he laughs]. The notion of spirituality has been drowned. If something
is possible, it must be done soon because it'll be very very hard."
- Jannick Top,
bassist with
Magma
"Being defeated is often a temporary condition.
Giving up is what makes it permanent."
- Marilyn Vos Savant
"Mind like parachute - only work when open."
- Charlie Chan, fictional 1950's detective
"There is too much to read and too little time,
so choose reading that carries value for the future -
Resurgence"
- James Hillman
"The length of this document defends it well
against the risk of its being read."
"There is no such thing as public
opinion. There is only published opinion."
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
- Winston Churchill
(more)
"Should
you wish to make sure that your birthday will be celebrated three hundred
years hence, your best course is undoubtedly to keep a
diary. Only first be certain that you have
the courage to lock your genius in a private book and the humour to gloat over
a fame that will be yours only in the grave. For the good diarist writes
either for himself alone or for a posterity so distant that it can safely
hear every secret and justly weigh every motive. For such an audience there is
need neither of affectation nor of restraint. Sincerity is what they ask,
detail, and volume; skill with the pen comes in conveniently, but brilliance
is not necessary; genius is a hindrance even; and should you know your business
and do it manfully, posterity will let you off mixing with great men, reporting
famous affairs, or having lain with the first ladies in the land."
- Virginia
Woolf in
The Common Reader
"Far more creativity, today, goes into the marketing
of products than into the products themselves, athletic shoes or feature films."
- Hubertus Bigend in
William Gibson's
(excellent) novel
'Pattern
Recognition' (p.67)
"Don't let your children watch television until they
know how
to read,
Or else all they'll
know how
to do is cuss, fight and breed.
No child is bad from the beginning -
They only imitate their atmosphere."
- Prince,
"Sexuality", 1981
"Cannes is where you lie on the beach and stare at the stars
- or vice versa."
- film critic
Rex Reed
"Everyone's right to privacy
is more important than anyone's right to profit."
- Anonymous Brave Guy's
/. sig
"Google is not in the search
business, google is in the
advertising matching business.
This search engine doesn't hurt that business at all, indeed it probably
makes it marginally less likely we will see the emergence of a
proprietary
competitor to topple them. It is actually possible for people to just enjoy doing cool stuff
without being bastards about it. People forget this sometimes, maybe due
to the reputation of a certain dominant software provider."
- Jimmy
Wales, founder of
Wikipedia
"While
leaving behind the industrial society and entering into the information and
knowledge society the concept of liberty changes. Defending our liberty today
means defending the freedom of knowledge. Moreover: free knowledge has already
proved, through
free software
and publishing, to be able to promote social, economic and development
models that produce wealth, growth and wellness."
- Hipatia, organising the
Week of Freedom
"A choice of masters is not freedom."
- Free
Software Foundation
"There's no free expression without
control of the tools you use."
- AGNULA
"The handles of a craftsman's tools bespeak an
absolute simplicity, the plainest forms affording the greatest range of
possibilities for the user's hand.
That which is overdesigned, too highly specific, anticipates
outcome; the anticipation of outcome guarantees, if not failure, the
absence of grace."
- William Gibson's
"All Tomorrow's Parties", quoted in
Jorn Nettingsmeier's
sig on
lau 2004-04-10
"I feel that there is a world market for as many as five computers."
- Thomas Watson, IBM corp., 1943
"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons,
computers in the future by the year 2000, may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only
1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, March 1949
"There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, DEC, 1977
Wirth's Law: "Software gets slower faster than Hardware gets faster."
"640K ought to be enough for anyone."
- wrongly attributed to Bill Gates, 1981
- all from Gary Field's excellent SCSI FAQ page
"Every time Vista boots, an angel gets his wings... ripped out."
- ConceptJunkie's
/. sig
"...the chief architect of twenty years of chaos"
- AsciiNaut
discussing
Bill Gates
"20 years and counting Bill. 20 years.
I weep for the state of computing under MS's jackboot."
- GreatDrok on
/.
What was it the Chairman of
SUN said about open systems?
"In a world without fences, who needs Gates?" :-)
- posted on comp.os.linux.hardware
by palmist3
"Windows 95:
n. 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit
operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a
2 bit company, that
can't stand 1 bit of
competition."
- from
Doug's Home Page
"Windows without the
X is like making love without a partner."
- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi, seen on
/. on 2008-11-23
"This is an airconditioned room, do not open Windows."
"Do NOT calculate Pi in binary. It is conjectured that this number is normal, meaning that it contains ALL finite bit strings. This would include copyright infringement of all existing programs, possession of child pornography, possession of DeCSS, possession of all viruses and more. The RIAA is currently sueing people over the use of Pi, saying that '3 times diameter is more than accurate enough; we'll protect our copyrights.'" (seen in comp.risks, by Keith F Lynch via Russ Perry Jr)
- both from Jurriaan on comp.os.linux.hardware
"Push to test. <click> Release to detonate."
- Unknown Sign
"Non-Geek: Someone who thinks a kilobyte is 1000 bytes.
Geek: Someone who thinks a kilometre is 1024 metres."
- both from Sven Guckes' homepage
"All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less."
- Michael Elkins, author of
Mutt
Definition
of programming:
"Programming is race between Programmers, to produce idiot proof apps,
and God, to create better
idiots. So far God is winning."
- a derivative of
Cook's Law seen on
/.
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© copyright Malcolm Smith 2002-02-06 - last updated 2020-01-24 - links verified 2003-12-05