QUOTES

Computing

• We've all heard that a million monkeys pounding on a million typewriters will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespear. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this isn't true. Robert Wilensky, round about 1995.

• We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys at SRI. We typed L and asked on the phone, "Do you see the L"? "Yes", came the reply. We typed O and asked "Do you see the O?". "Yes, we see the O". We typed G - and the system crashed.
  Report of the first connection over the Internet (originally the US Arpanet) in 1969, quoted in "Building Intranet Applications" by Lawrence Shafe. Re-quoted at the end of "The Computer Bulletin" for October 1997.

• If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever to get a 'fix' of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine.
  Quoted by Robin Stevens

• I've noticed lately that the paranoid fear of computers becoming intelligent and taking over the world has almost entirely disappeared from the common culture. Near as I can tell, this coincides with the release of MS-DOS.
  Larry DeLuca , 3/95.

• He coded in Fortran like hell,
  wrote programs with whistle and bell.
    Now feels that this tool
    has made him a fool
  but cannot get rid of its spell.
  From a volume of software proceedings, mid-70s?

• Dijkstra

  • Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.

  • It is potentially 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.

  • In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included.

  • We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession, on the technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and, mainly, one computer manufacturer.

  • The problems of business administration in general and data base management in particular are much too difficult for people that think in IBMerese, compounded with sloppy English.

  • About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.

Maths

• God does not care about our experimental difficulties. He integrates empirically.
  Einstein

Other

• The battle for the mind of Ronald Reagan was like trench warfare in World War 1; never have so many battled so hard over such barren terrain.
  Peggy Noonan, speechwriter to Reagan, quoted in "Spin Doctor" by Michael Shea

• A pacifist doesn't always show a passive fist.
  Roy Dean in "Mainly in Fun"

• What you lost on the pit you may gain on the pendulum.
  Roy Dean in "Mainly in Fun"

• In 1939 Stalin couldn't decide whether to finish off Poland or polish off Finland.
  Roy Dean in "Mainly in Fun"

• On her better days, she looked as if she'd been dragged through a hedge forwards.
  Roy Dean in "Mainly in Fun"

• Some Cubans are getting sick of their leader — it's called Castroenteritis.
  Roy Dean in "Mainly in Fun"

• Politicians seeking election may count on the density of the population.
  Roy Dean in "Mainly in Fun"

• A gynaecologist is one who listens to the patter of tiny foetuses.
  Roy Dean in "Mainly in Fun"

• She was good at being inarticulately abstracted, in the same way that midgets are good at being short.
  Clive James writing about Marylyn Monroe

• I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body, until I realised who was telling me that.
  Emo Philips

• The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
  Paul Ehrlich

• To get the attention of a large animal, be it an elephant or a bureaucracy, it helps to know what part of it feels pain. Be very sure, though, that you want its full attention.
  Kelvin Throop

• Always be sincere, whether you mean it or not.
  Flanders & Swann

• It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
  Gore Vidal

• Radio 4's goth popularity may be because [...] Radio 4's news coverage is both intelligent and mainly about death, much like most goths' conversations. uk.gothic.people FAQ

• The reason Neil Kinnock's speeches go on for such a long time is that, having nothing to say, he has no idea of when to stop saying it. John Major of Neil Kinnock

• A Singapore hotel employee was sacked when, after being asked to clean the hotel's lifts, he spent four days doing so. When asked why it had taken so long, he replied "There are forty lifts, two on each floor. Sometimes, some of them aren't there." From a Singapore paper, quoted in the News Quiz