Frank Herbert (Dune)

Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Albert Einstein

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

Joseph Browning

The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from skill the ability to access wealth.

Philip J. Corso

Let there be no doubt. Alien technology harvested from the infamous saucer crash in Roswell, N.Mex., in July 1947 led directly to the development of the integrated circuit chip, laser and fiber optic technologies, Particle beams, Electromagnetic propulsion systems, Depleted uranium projectiles, Stealth capabilities, and many others! How do I know? I was in charge! A matter of public record I think the kids on this planet are wise to the truth, and I think we ought to give it to them. I think they deserve it.

Joel Spolsky

The world of programming is very just and very strictly ordered and a heck of a lot of people go into programming in the first place because they prefer to spend their time in a just, orderly place, a strict meritocracy where you can win any debate simply by being right.

Aaron Hsu

Programming is just another name for the lost art of thinking.

Alan Perlis

Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad infinitum---which is why we're always starting over.

Alan Perlis

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

Alan Perlis

Computers don't introduce order anywhere as much as they expose opportunities.

Alan Perlis

The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

Alan Perlis

The only constructive theory connecting neuroscience and psychology will arise from the study of software.

Carl Sagan

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

Nikola Tesla

I don't care that they stole my idea… I care that they don't have any of their own.

Gilbert Murray

A machine is a great moral educator. If a horse or a donkey won't go, men lose their tempers and beat it; if a machine won't go, there is no use beating it. You have to think and try till you find what is wrong. That is real education.

Douglas Adams

Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

Joel Spolsky

The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it's not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless.

Steve Wozniak

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

Flickr Help Mail

Just a quick email from Team Flickr to let you know that we've successfully received your recent Help by Email query and we hope to respond within 3 days.

We'd also like to take an opportunity to remind you that one query is sufficient and multiple queries regarding the same issue make the Magic Donkey cry.

Albert Einstein

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

Isaac Asimov

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.