Scientists are the easiest to fool. They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors - they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident. -James P. Hogan.
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Sped up my XT; ran it on 220v! Works greO?_|.
Sped up my XT; ran it on 220v! Works greO?_|.
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in read more
FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
PL/I --'the fatal disease'-- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.
The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to read more
The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited.
By the time (the Leaning Tower of Pisa) was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But read more
By the time (the Leaning Tower of Pisa) was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. There are no plans to replace it, since it was never needed in the first place. I expect every installation has its own pet software which is analogous to the above.
May every young scientist remember... and not fail to keep his eyes open for the possibility that an irritating failure read more
May every young scientist remember... and not fail to keep his eyes open for the possibility that an irritating failure of his apparatus to give consistent results may once or twice in a lifetime conceal an important discovery. -Patrick Blackett.
Like the furtive collectors of stolen art, we [cell biologists] are forced to be lonely admirers of spectacular architecture, exquisite read more
Like the furtive collectors of stolen art, we [cell biologists] are forced to be lonely admirers of spectacular architecture, exquisite symmetry, dramas of violence and death, mobility, self-sacrifice and, yes, rococo sex.
It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.
It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.
