Memorable Quotations - Page 32

[vegaseat]

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
... Benjamin Franklin

[Reverend Jim]

"Nobody taxes the sun yet."

Actually, several states have passed legislation that effectively financiallyy penalizes those inconsiderate "takers" who have invested in solar panels. So, yes, the government has found a way to tax the sun.

[Reverend Jim]

The rise of addiction is a symptom of a deeper sickness in the way we live–constantly directing our gaze towards the next shiny object we should buy, rather than the human beings all around us.

from Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari

[vegaseat]

“Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.”
... George Carlin

I hope we are not quite there yet!

[vegaseat]

“This book was written using 100% recycled words.”
... Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters)

[vegaseat]

"We will perhaps eventually be writing only small
modules which are identified by name as they are
used to build larger ones, so that devices like
indentation, rather than delimiters, might become
feasible for expressing local structure in the
source language."
... Donald E. Knuth, December 11, 1974

[Ene Uran]

Anything done by software can be undone by software!
---- Wesley Clark

[Reverend Jim]

Wesley Clark was an idiot (in this case, at least).

There was a case many years ago where a keyboard timeout in the software controlling the radiation treatment of a patient in Pinawa (Manitoba) resulted in the patient getting several hundred times the dose of radiation that he was supposed to. Some things done by software cannot be undone. Let's never forget that software affects more than the setting of ones and zeroes and pretty pictures on the screen. Software is used to manage financial transactions, control nuclear reactors, airplanes, missile silos and much more. In many of these cases, mistakes cannot be undone.

[vegaseat]

Maybe Wesley Clark was referring to virus/malware software?

"Everybody in the military has a reputation, and usually it doesn't come out to the public."
... General Wesley Clark

[vegaseat]

"Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them."
... Spock, Star Trek

[vegaseat]

"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother."
... Albert Einstein

[vegaseat]

"When all think alike, no one is thinking."
... Walter Lippman

[vegaseat]

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are sure and the intelligent are full of doubt."
... Bertrand Russell

[Reverend Jim]

"What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani

ummm - isn't that the exact opposite of freedom?

[vegaseat]

"Our minds are information vacuums. Either we fill them with thoughts of our choosing or someone else will.”
... Ray Davis

[vegaseat]

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth."
... John F. Kennedy

[vegaseat]

"If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation."
... Common US taxpayer

[vegaseat]

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy."
... William Butler Yeats

[vegaseat]

"May the luck of the Irish be with you!"
... Polish proverb

[vegaseat]

"Irish diplomacy is the ability to tell a man to go to hell so that he looks forward to making the trip."
... Barry McDonald

[Reverend Jim]

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

Winston Churchill

[vegaseat]

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
... Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,1977.

[vegaseat]

"Regret of the past and fear of the future are the thieves of happiness."
... Vernon Howard

[vegaseat]

“While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.”
... Groucho Marx

[vegaseat]

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
... Epictetus

[XP78USER]

Why is the world so crazy now....

[Reverend Jim]

Now? When was it ever sane? It only seems crazier now because we're in it.

“Nothing of importance happened today.”
George III’s diary, July 4th 1776

[vegaseat]

"May you be in heaven a half hour
before the devil knows you're dead."
... Irish proverb

[ddanbe]

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
- Oscar Wilde