Various Quotations

Various quotations from various sources which either made me laugh or rang true with me in a philosophical way. Topics vary widely.

Running Linux is like owning a Lightsaber.
It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."


main {
__if Schrodinger_Cat is Alive then
____call Functional_Code()
__else
____call Crash_Windows()
}


"Spec will never make you a better player -
you cant help stupid, and you cant nerf skill."
	- Kalaren

"I played warrior to feel invincible. I played rogue to be invisible.
I played priest to heal others. I played hunter because I like animals.
And then I found Druid and got all of it."
	- Scarletwolfe


"The fact is, nobody knows what we're capable of. We're the wildcard,
we could snap at any time and go postal. You should probably leave now,
while we're still in control of our actions. Because we're capable
of anything. =/"

	- Saboruto


"I love it when people attempt to apply real world logic to a video
game that features cow men zapping people with sky lasers."

	- meatzo


"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust,
sophisticated, and well supported in logic and argument than others."

	- Douglas Adams


"We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just
stuff that works."

	- Douglas Adams


"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining
armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos
neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate
technology, led them into it in the first place."


"A learning experience is one of those things that says,
'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'"


"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by."


"Mr. McKitrick, after a careful consideration I have came to the
conclusion that your defense system sucks."

	- General Beringer (from movie War Games)


"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as
kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills
and listening to repetitive music."

	- Marcus Brigstocke


"Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time
to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete.
Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would
take as long?

	- "Epigrams in Programming", ACM SIGPLAN, Sept. 1982


"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of parliament!],
'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures,
will the right answers come out?' I am not rightly able to
apprehend the kind of confusion that could provoke such a question."

	- Charles Babbage


"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label
on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before
the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document
written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."

	- Tim Berners-Lee


"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve
the quality of life, please press three."


"I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that
life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more
advanced than ours."

	- John F. Kennedy


"Technology can do little for people who have nothing to say."

	- Eric Auchard, "Blog Publishers Stealing Web Limelight" (3/1/03)
		from the Reuters Internet Report


"Technology.is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand,
and it stabs you in the back with the other."

	- C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971


"The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines
what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men."

	- Havelock Ellis


"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can
do the work of one extraordinary man."

	- Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923


"Opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in
overalls and looks like work."

	- Thomas Edison


"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

	- Thomas Edison


"The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most
honor to the human genius."

	- Voltaire


"I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart
like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain
unfolding to success ... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep,
friends, love, everything."

	- Nikola Tesla


"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted
into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of
a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one
another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through
television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly
as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of
thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able
to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone.
A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket."

	- Nikola Tesla


"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."

	- Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures


"I believe that school makes complete fools of our young men, because
they see and hear nothing of ordinary life there."

	- Petronius, Satyricon


"Show me the man who has enjoyed his schooldays and I will show you
a bully and a bore."

	- Robert Morley, Robert Morley: Responsible Gentleman (1966)


"Reason is the main resource of man in his struggle for survival."


"That's the great thing about being a 'lock...you don't have to eat;
you don't have to drink; you don't even have to BREATHE.
You can subsist entirely on the suffering of your enemies."


Dev: Our NERFS will block out the sun.
Druids: Then we will tank in the shade.
Dev: Um, actually...  Here, take this sun lamp.
Druids: Oh cool, thanks.


You can't write code or design software to secure "stupid".
If those folks were using an abacus, they'd probably get
their head stuck in it.


Theory is where you know everything and nothing works.
Practice is where things work, but noone knows why.
Here, we combine theory and practice.
Nothing works, and noone knows why.


What's the opposite of <3?
h8
</3
>3
!<3


C++ doesn't have a compiler, it has a complainer.


Lable on asian knife:  "Warning: Keep out of children."


if guns kill people
then pencils misspell words
and cars make people drive drunk
and spoons made rosie o'donnell fat


Saying that Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like
saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.


My biological clock says 12:00 and blinks.


kate: wat r u doin ryt now
Patrick`: Trying not to hunt you down and beat you into a pulp with a dictionary.


Elzie_Ann I love how God tries to mass murder the Israelites like a million times in exodus
Elzie_Ann And Moses has to calm him down every time
Elzie_Ann [God] ARGH MUST KILL MY PEOPLE WHO SUCK [Moses] Wait they didn't mean it
          [God] k but next time they're dying. [Moses] Dammit guys, stop pissing God off

"I have a theory that clouds taste like Jesus...  Just a theory..."
	- Philip DeFranco

A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly
how the user thought it would.

"Every GUI programmer should suffer true usability lab testing of their
creations.  You know, the one where the subject is in another room,
trying to perform tasks with your beautiful creation, and completely
failing.  Watching your creation fail miserably, in slow motion, is
a pain you need to suffer."
	- Doug (commentor on The Old New Thing blog)

"The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting."
	- Plutarch

"Ridicule is he only weapon which can be used against unintelligible
propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them."
	- Thomas Jefferson

Yea though I fly through the valley of the shadow of death... I fear
no evil... for I fly the biggest, baddest, meanest, fastest motherfucker
in the whole damn valley.

Patents are supposed to expose secrets in exchange for a temporary monopoly.
However, if nobody looks at the patents to find those secrets and yet manage
to reinvent them, what exactly is the value of those patents? If you have a
patent system where people need to search for the patent to license *after*
they have made their product, your patent system is broken at a fundamental
level.
	- gutnor (872759) on /.


Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic.
Corollary: Any sufficiently skilled technologist is indistinguishable
from a magician.


There is no secret to success - success is a team sport.


"Nothing that you set out to make under any circumstances is exactly what you
intended to make.  It's better, or worse, and... hopefully it's mostly better,
but it's never what you originally intended.  That's not  a bug, it's a
feature: That's how we learn."

	- Adam Savage (Still Untitled podcast)


Asked 'what does it mean to be a man':
"...you have an obligation to forego comfort, to overcome fear, in order to
keep your word and do your job."

	- Nick Freitas