SMALL TALK
... Miscellaneous Topics
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Actually we know computers are black holes -- look how they eat up our time.
Affordable supercomputing is almost an oxymoron.
Computers are to computing as instruments are to music. Software is the score,
whose interpretation amplifies our reach and lifts our spirit. Leonardo da Vinci
called music "the shaping of the invisible", and his phrase is even more
apt as a description of software.
Data is a lot like humans: it is born. Matures. Gets
married to other data, divorced. Gets old. One thing
that it doesn't do is die. It has to be killed.
Distributed file systems are a cruel hoax.
Documentation is like sex; when it is good, it is very, very good;
when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
File names are infinite in length where infinity is set to 255 charcters.
GNU Emacs is a LISP operating system disguised as a word processor.
Hardware is ephemeral; software is massively inertial.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
I remember 48K machines. I remember 16K machines. Sometimes I have nightmares.
I try to get people to see what I have... When you run a computer
company, you have to get people to buy into your dreams.
If trainstation is where the trains stop, what is a workstation?
In a way, staring into a computer screen is like staring into an eclipse.
It's brilliant and you don't realize the damage until its too late.
In pioneer days they used oxen for heavy pulling, and when one ox couldn't
budge a log, they didn't try to grow a larger ox. We shouldn't be trying for
bigger computers, but for more systems of computers.
It's a lot like memory... you can never have too much.
Man is a game playing animal, and a computer is another way to play games.
Memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it.
Man is not a machine... Although man most certainly processes information,
he does not necessarily process it the way computers do. Computers and men are
not species of the same genus... However much intelligence computers may attain,
now or in the future, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine
human problems and concerns.
Most Non-Unix managers concludes that VI is either extraterrestrial in origin
or was devised by the original Unix developers as part of a secret communication
code to reach another dimension.
Network folks are OS folks who've gotten even crazier.
NFS is commonly said to stand for "No File Security", justifiably so.
Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers.
SNMP??? Real engineers only need ping!
People in the computer industry use the term 'user' which to them
means 'idiot'.
Power Users believe computer salesmen.
Power users think 'Your computer is stoned' is part of the DOS
copyright banner.
Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustruating as
reading sex manuals withput the software.
Real supercomputers live in aquariums.
Software is like Entropy: it's hard to grasp, weighs nothing and
obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e. it always increases.
The Apple was available in any color as long as it was beige.
The 486 is to a modern CPU as a Jules Verne reprint is to a SF novel.
The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul
up there's no law against wacking them around a little.
The only thing worse than no documentation is incorrect documentation.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting
than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much.
The tough part of a Data Processing Manager's job is that users don't
really know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want.
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
Using an IBM PC is like juggling straight razors. When I learned computers, I stopped having to remember, because I understood
how remembering is done.
Workstations are like toothbrushes. Nobody else may use mine, especially
not while I'm using it!
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