"Widgets are recursive"
"Den Tod erlebt man nicht"
The designer is not responsible for the problems that arise. However, it is true that users will exhibit certain undesirable behavior that that the designer has to accept.
The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computer (Paperback) by Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff (Paperback - Jun 1993) page 322, The MIT Press, ISBN 0262581205.
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. -- The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution C.P. Snow (1959 Rede Lecture)
The Name of The Arnold Chrysler
Indeed, for those who have read Feynman's books, a good way to try to think clearly about evidence and explanation is to ask "What would Feynman do?" - Edward W. Tufte: "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint", Graphics Press, Sept. 2003.
A disciple of Sen Rikyu once asked this question:
'What precisely are the most important things that must be understood and kept in mind at a tea gathering?'
Sen Rikyu answered: 'Make a delicious bowl of tea; lay the charcoal so that it heats the water; arrange the flowers as they are in the field; in summer suggest coolness; in winter, warmth; do everything ahead of time; prepare for rain; and give those with whom you find yourself every consideration.'
The disciple, somewhat dissatisfied with this answer because he could not find anything in it of such great importance that it should be deemed a secret of the practice, said, 'That much I already know....'
Rikyu replied, 'Then if you can host a tea gathering without deviating from any of the rules I have just stated, I will become your disciple.'"
-- Soshitsu Sen XV, Tea Master, Urasenke School in "Tea Life, Tea Mind"
Look harder! After all we don't even know where "real life" is lived nowadays, or what it is, and what name it goes by. Leave us to ourselves, without our books, and at once we get into a muddle and lose our way -- we don't even know whose side to be on or where to give our allegiance, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We even find it difficult to be human beings, men with real flesh and blood of our own; we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace, and we are always striving to be some unprecedented kind of generalized human being. We are born dead, and moreover we have long ceased to be the sons of living fathers; we become more and more contented with our condition. We are acquiring a taste for it. Soon we shall invent a method of being born from an idea. But that's enough; I shall write no more from the underground. -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "Notes from Underground" 1864
See Topical Guide: Reality by Eric Kraft
"Disciplines like Tai Chi and the tea ceremony seem demanding to us moderns because our technological control over the environment often makes us passive spectators and consumers - fulfilling the promises offered by technological consumerism. Yet the reactivation of our primal physical awareness can indeed heal our incapacity for sheer pleasure and physical delight in our surroundings." - Michael Heim in "Virtual Reality and the Tea Ceremony", printed in "The Virtual Dimension: Architecture, Representation, and Crash Culture", edited by John Beckmann (1998).
"I did not come from a musical or intellectual family. I have not been a child prodigy. I do not have a photographic memory; neither do I play faster than other people. I am not a good sight reader. I need eight hours' sleep. I do not cancel concerts on principle, only when I am really sick. My career was so slow and gradual that I feel something is either wrong with me or with almost anybody else in the profession. Literature -- reading and writing -- as well as looking at art have taken up quite a bit of my time. When and how I should have learned all those pieces that I have played, besides being a less than perfect husband and father, I am at a loss to explain."
"There is something missing, some vivid touch that the cool computer
screens we now all stare into at work and at home cannot deliver.
The last common feeling we have left is depression, and it is so
common, we only notice it when we cannot bear any longer to go on.
We can grow hair on our heads and stuff new breasts into our chests
and suck fat from our hides but we cannot seem to paste a smile on
our faces. We are not the people who will die of laughter."
-- Charles Bowden
"Blues for Cannibals: The Notes from Underground", page 11
"Love and expertise"
-- actor Timothy Spall giving the reasons for his
successful recovery from leukemia. on "Parkinson",
BBC TV, Saturday, 27th April 2002.
"Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians..." How do we tell truths that might hurt?" Edsger W. Dijkstra, 18 June 1975
Alpha, the cause of causes, first
In station, fountain, whence the burst
Of light, and blaze of day;
Whence bold attempt, and brave advance,
Have motion, life, and ordinance
And heav'n itself its stay.
-- "A Song to David" by Christopher Smart (1722-1771)
You can shed tears that she is gone
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her and only that she's gone
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
-- Anonymous
Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin. -- John von Neumann
Just for a minute, forget everything stressful and read this...
Or perhaps try harder...
Philosophy is written in this grand book -- I mean the universe -- which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth. -- Galileo Galilei, 1623
One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts - obedient ghosts, or tortured ghosts. It is said that science [read: knowledge] will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died at Auschwitz, to stand here by the pond as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.
Jacob Bronowski, from "The Ascent of Man"
See also an alternate text
"I learned this at least, by my experiment; that of one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
"To be governed is to be watched over, spied on, directed, legislated, regimented, closed in, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, evaluated, censored, commanded; all by creatures that have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor virtue... To be governed means that at every move, operation, or transaction one is noted, registered, entered in a census, taxed, stamped, priced, assessed, patented, licensed, authorized, recommended, admonished, prevented, reformed, set right, corrected. Government means to be subjected to tribute, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, pressured, mystified, robbed; all in the name of public utility and the general good. Then, at the first sign of resistance or word of complaint, one is repressed, fined, despised, vexed, pursued, hustled, beaten up, garroted, imprisoned, shot, machine gunned, judged, sentenced, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed and to cap it all, ridiculed, mocked, outraged, and dishonored!... O human personality! How can it be that you have cowered in such subjection for sixty centuries?"
Pierre-Joseph Proudon's quote from "Anarchism", written by Daniel Guerin
"Hear me people: We now have to deal with another race---small and feeble when our fathers met them, but now great and overbearing. Stangely enough they have a mind to till the soil and the love of possesions is a disease with them. These people have made many rules which the rich may break but the poor may not. They take their tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule."
Chief Sitting Bull, speaking at the Powder River Conference, 1877
"Propaganda is to Democracy as violence is to a Dictatorship. We live entangled in webs of endless deciet, we live in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried."
Noam Chomsky
"Hello, my love I heard a kiss from you Red magic satin playing near, too All through the morning rain I gaze - the sun doesn't shine - Rainbows and waterfalls run through my mind" -- The Johnson Brothers
This style is not free This style is expensive, alright
From "Dusted" by Leftfield from "Rhythm and Stealth"
"All these worlds are yours-- except EUROPA. Attempt no landings there." -- 2010: Odyssey Two Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Words for Meaning Fish trap is for catching fish, Once the fish is caught, the trap would be set aside. Rabbit snare is for trapping rabbit, Once the rabbit is caught, the snare would be set aside. Words are for communicating meanings, Once the idea is understood, word could be set aside. How may I find such a person who has set words aside? I would like to speak with him.
Quoted in "The Night Coloured Pearl" by Tzunami Renivaro
Enter branding: the ingenuous solution to the loss of place, the sense of insignificance induced by high technology, high speed production and globalism. Now through artifice, the large, incomprehensible world can appear seemingly smaller and knowable. Branding becomes our way to belong, to feel recognised, to take our place and to acknowledge others. We do this not through the promotion of a shared set of values and agendas which we fight for but by wearing Nike, signing on with AOL, taking our coffee with Starbucks and identifying with the aspirational aspects that adhere to those products.
From "The payoff" by Susie Orbach, The Guardian, Tuesday March 20, 2001
A quote to remember Chris Wood
The soul of man, It is like water: It comes from heaven, It mounts to heaven, And earthward Descends Eternally changing. -- Geothe.
One Egg to rule them all, One Egg to find them, One Egg to bring them all and in the darkness bind them -- "Gordo the Grey"
Towers of Dub (The Orb)
"In any natural history of the human species, language would stand out
as the preeminent trait. To be sure, a solitary human is an impressive
problem-solver and engineer. But a race of Robinson Crusoes would not
give an extraterrestrial observer all that much to remark on. What is
truly arresting about our kind is better captured in the story of the
Tower of Babel, in which humanity, speaking a single language, came so
close to reaching heaven that God himself felt threatened. A common
language connects the members of a community into an
information-sharing network with formidable collective powers. Anyone
can benefit from the strokes of genius, lucky accidents, and
trial-and-error wisdom accumulated by anyone else, present or
past. And people can work in teams, their efforts coordinated by
negotiated agreements. As a result, Homo sapiens is a species, like
blue-green algae and earthworms, that has wrought far-reaching changes
on the planet."
-- Steven Pinker "The Language Instinct"
"I use my car when I need it. I watch television
when I need it. I navigate on the Internet when I need it.
When I don't, I drink Scotch. Which is far, far better."
- Umberto Eco
"I came into this game for the action, the excitement, go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they've got the whole country sectioned off - you can't make a move without a form..." - Harry Tuttle, heating engineer, in "Brazil" (1985)
See also quotes at IMDB.COM
Information Is Not Knowledge
Knowledge Is Not Wisdom
Wisdom Is Not Truth
Truth Is Not Beauty
Beauty Is Not Love
Love Is Not Music
Music Is THE BEST
-Frank Zappa
"In 1980, I wrote a song for William Burroughs called 'Language Is a Virus.' This was quote from one of Burroughs' books. It's a strange thing for a writer to say that language is a disease communicable by mouth. It's also a very Buddhist thing to say. I mean, in Buddhist thought there's the thing and there's the name for the thing and that's one thing too many. Because sometimes when you say a word, you think that you actually understand it. In fact, all you're doing is saying it, you don't necessarily understand it at all. So language, well, it's a kind of trick." - Laurie Anderson, "Laurie Anderson,", page 99 Possibly from "Laurie Anderson" by RoseLee Golberg, Published 22 May, 2000 (UK) Thames and Hudson; ISBN: 0500019932
"To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life -- this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do." -- Charles Dudley Warner "My Summer in a Garden" (1870)
Bitterly it mathinketh me, that I spent mine wholle lyf in the lists
against the ignorant.
-- Roger Bacon, "Doctor Mirabilis"
The lesson is don't lean on the weird, or eventually they'll cut your head off and perverts will eat your brain. Horrible, Bubba - I've seen it. -- Hunter S. Thompson, Better Than Sex
"The Pacific Yew can be cut down and processed to produce a
potent chemical, taxol, which offers some promise of curing
certain forms of lung, breast, and ovarian cancer in
patients who would otherwise quickly die. It seems an easy
choice -- sacrifice the tree for a human life -- until one
learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated,
that only specimens more than a hundred years old contain the
potent chemical in their bark, and that there are very
few of these yews remaining on earth."
-- Al Gore "Earth In the Balance" (page 119)
"We need the tonic of wilderness... we can never have enough of nature." - Henry David Thoreau
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. "I've done questionable things" - Roy Batty "Also, extraordinary things" - Tyrell
Where the great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye.
The Forsaken Merman by Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888
"But there is a time and place for everything, and sometimes the warmest admirer of ale would prefer the lymph of the hill-side fountain to the choicest ale that ever foamed in tankard from the cellars of Holkham." -- "Wild Wales", George Borrow, 1862.
"Homesteaders" are fleeing Geocities
At ever increasing velocities
Since new owner, Yahoo,
Wants their copyrights, too,
While still running ad banner atrocities.
-- Jeannine Mosely
Not United States, but critical states; Not a borderless world, a world of fractal borders; Not one currency, an m-currency; Not global monoculture, a diversely-identical metaculture; Not English as the imposed onelanguage, Musculpt as universal metalanguage.
I am a wind on the sea,
I am a wave of the ocean,
I am a powerful ox,
I am a hawk on a cliff,
I am a dewdrop in the sunshine,
I am a boar for valor,
I am a salmon in pools,
I am a lake in a plain,
I am the strength of art,
I am a spear with spoils that wages battle,
I am one who shapes fire for a head.
-- the poet Amhairghin, from the Irish creation myth chronicled in the
_Lebor Gabala Erren_ (Book of the Invasion of Ireland), ca. 1150 A.D.
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
--Albert Einstein
A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was
eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality
test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into
the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too".
Cooking is a sacred activity. It is an act of lovemaking. Our society
is spiritually malnourished because we have abandoned the kitchen.
- novelist Laura Esquivel, author of _Like Water for Chocolate_
Knowledge is not a series of self consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness. -- Paul Feyerabend
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 18:49:54 -0700 From: LEON KALINIEC <kaliniec@email.msn.com> To: Gordon Joly <gordo@tdc.dircon.co.uk> Subject: Anarchism Yes the Chomsky quote which says that an anarchist should be a socialist. National Socialism, Fascism and Communism are forms of socialism. The primary requirement of any socialism is that its members work towards a common goal: this cannot be achieved without coersion, as Lenin discovered in trying to put his theories into practice. "To each according to his need, from each according to his ability" can only be enforced with an authority which "comes from a barrel of a gun" (Mao Tse Tung).It is the muddled thinking of anarchists to equate socialism with freedom. Anarchism is the ideal system, but for ideal beings: which we, collectively, are not.
"Noise [i.e. clutter and other display debris] is costly, since computer displays are low-resolution devices, working at extremely thin data densities, 1/10 to 1/1000 of a map or book page. This reflects the essential dilemma of a computer display: at every screen are two powerful information-processing capabilities, human and computer. Yet all communication between the two must pass through the low-resolution, narrow-band video display terminal, which chokes off fast, precise, and complex communication." - Edward R. Tufte in "Envisioning Information"
To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. -- e.e. cummings
"I am part of all that I have met; yet all experience is
an arch thro' which gleams that untravelled world whose margin
fades forever and forever when I move..."
- Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson
"There is more than one way of getting close to your ancestors.
Follow the Old Road and as you do, think of them; they climbed
Chillingbourne Hill just as you did. They sweated and paused for
breath just as you did today.
And when you see the bluebells in the spring and the wild thyme, and
the broom and the heather, you're seeing what their eyes saw. You ford
the same rivers, the same birds singing. And when you lie flat on your
back and rest, and watch the clouds sailing as I often do, you're so
close to those other people, that you can hear the thrumming of the
hoofs of their horses, and the sound of the wheels on the road, and
their laughter, and talk, and the music of the instruments they
carried.
And they turned the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of
Canterbury. I feel I have only to turn my head to see them on the road
behind me."
-- Thomas Colpepper in "A Canterbury Tale", by "The Archers",
aka Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
1. Existence. The world we live in contains an abundance of things, events, processes. There are trees, dogs, sunrises; there are clouds, thunderstorms, divorces; there is justice, beauty, love; there are the lives of people, gods, cities, of the entire universe. It is impossible to enumerate and to describe in detail all the incidents that happen to an individual in the course of a single boring day. [...] I'd never been on a farm, amd I am not even sure which are begonias, dahlias, or petunias. Plants, like algebra, have a habit of looking alike and being different, or habit of looking different and being alike; consequently mathematics and botany confuse me. Paul Feyerabend - Farewell to Reason, Chapter 3, page 104
"Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!" -- Genghis Khan, Bukhara 1220
"What the ... This is Lambic! Where's my culture of amoebic dysentery?" Gary Larson
"The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it." John Gilmore in Times, 5 (6?) December 1993.
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered." Number 6
No man is an island, entire upon itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. . . any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. -- John Donne, 1624, Devotions
Recursion begins at home... and "Gordon Joly Lives Next Door"