technology

I use technology in order to hate it more properly.
- Nam June Paik

The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much.
- Paul Licker

There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
-- C. A. R. Hoare

The so-called 'desktop metaphor' of today's workstation is instead an 'airplane-seat' metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference - one can see only a very few things at once.
- Fred Brooks, Jr.

Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design would be accurate.
- K.E. Inverson

Never trust a computer that you can't repair yourself.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.

Cafe Minimalism: To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting into practice any of its tenets.
- Douglas Coupland, 'Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'

Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia: If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.

The achievements of the software industry over the last thirty years are astonishing. They've managed to entirely negate several orders of magnitude of performance improvements provided by the hardware industry.

One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is...If they do foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little.
- Joe Martin

First, a few words about tools.
Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If you're ever walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted. If I were you, I'd walk right up and smack them in the face.
- Dave Barry, 'The Taming of the Screw'

civilization & government

It can never be too strongly emphasized that the crisis which Western man is undergoing today is a metaphysical one; there is probably no more dangerous illusion than that of imaging that some readjustment of social or institutional conditions could suffice of itself to appease a contemporary sense of disquiet which rises, in fact, from the very depths of man's being.
- Gabriel Marcel, 'Man Against Mass Society' (Chapter III ¶1)

A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
- Publilius Syrus

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling to the whole state, for styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions. ... The new style, gradually gaining a lodgement, quietly insinuates itself into manners and customs, and from it ... goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying the utmost impudence, until it ends by overturning everything.
- Plato, 'Republic', 370 B.C.

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organisation of hatreds.
-- Henry Adams, "The Education of Henry Adams"

misc

The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best".
- H. Allen Smith

Courage is fear that has said it's prayers.

Laws of Serendipity:
(1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something.
(2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one.

Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities, requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how plumbing works.
A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you.
- Dave Barry, 'The Taming of the Screw'

It was pity stayed his hand.
'Pity I don't have any more bullets,' thought Frito.
- _Bored_of_the_Rings_, a Harvard Lampoon parody of Tolkein

'I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.'
What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: 'Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America,' or 'Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II.'
- Dave Barry, 'An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar'

Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.