Quotable

"Using the language of the app to pose questions about the app—getting the subject to think the same..."

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:06:29 -0400

“Using the language of the app to pose questions about the app—getting the subject to think the same way you think—is the antithesis of what you’re there for.”

- http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/09/21/chris_clark/

"Our affinity for the lesser team “is a mile wide and an inch deep,” concluded the..."

Tue, 25 May 2010 22:20:00 -0400

“Our affinity for the lesser team “is a mile wide and an inch deep,” concluded the researchers. “We may feel morally good about rooting for the underdog, but our positive reaction is quite malleable.””

- http://www.slate.com/id/2252372/pagenum/all/

"greatest value of HN comments is when you finish reading one of these articles and are quite taken..."

Wed, 19 May 2010 23:52:17 -0400

““greatest value of HN comments is when you finish reading one of these articles and are quite taken in by the premise, many times (for me personally) right there at the top of the comment page is someone with a different experience reminding you not be so impressionable.””

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1360824

"And that, apparently, we now live in a world enriched by the fulfillment of the Merb Promise of..."

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:15:33 -0500

“And that, apparently, we now live in a world enriched by the fulfillment of the Merb Promise of 2008.”

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1096778

"When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, what they really mean is that it..."

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:10:25 -0500

“When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, what they really mean is that it has started to be driven mostly by people’s identities. [1] Because the point at which this happens depends on the people rather than the topic, it’s a mistake to conclude that because a question tends to provoke religious wars, it must have no answer.”

- Keep Your Identity Small

"The text segment also maps your binary file in memory, but writes to this area earn your program a..."

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:44:10 -0500

“The text segment also maps your binary file in memory, but writes to this area earn your program a Segmentation Fault. This helps prevent pointer bugs, though not as effectively as avoiding C in the first place”

- Anatomy of a Program in Memory : Gustavo Duarte

The Third Bit » Unwritten

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:46:22 -0500

The Third Bit » Unwritten:

Do want.

"Grandparents are odd things, cursed to die at almost the exact moment they become anything beyond..."

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:29:13 -0500

“Grandparents are odd things, cursed to die at almost the exact moment they become anything beyond the kind face that gives you cookies or kisses boo-boos. They have the funny tendency to pass away just as the grandchildren are finally old enough to meet them on their own terms and understand that there was a person that existed before they became simply grandma and grandpa, that indeed, beneath those subjectively all-important titles, there was a very different and very important name. Later, the child realizes that these uncomplicated caregivers actually had jobs and things, maybe even made mistakes occasionally (and maybe even made a mistake that you call Dad!). But by the time you’re old enough to appreciate them as something beyond what they are to you, they die. It’s a dirty trick that life plays. I might hope that our increasing lifespans would create more overlap between grandparents and mature, perceptive grandchildren actually old enough to really learn something, but it seems like we’re compensating for our longer lives by having children ever later, so the essential chronological curse of the grandparent seems unlikely to change much.”

- The Musty Man - Words Between The Lines Of Age

"That said, I do think that the greatest potential benefit of DSLs comes when business people..."

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:44:04 -0500

“That said, I do think that the greatest potential benefit of DSLs comes when business people participate directly in the writing of the DSL code. The sweet spot, however is in making DSLs business-readable rather than business-writeable.”

- MF Bliki: BusinessReadableDSL

"WORK is feeling more and more like a Skinner box."

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:47:33 -0500

“WORK is feeling more and more like a Skinner box.”

- Preoccupations - In Hard Times, Fear Can Impair Decision-Making - NYTimes.com

"publish a public Web diary of what you do every day, thus discouraging you from wasting time because..."

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:33:38 -0500

“publish a public Web diary of what you do every day, thus discouraging you from wasting time because you’ll be ashamed to admit that all you accomplished yesterday was a 15-minute oil change and a trip to Target”

- Early Retirement

"Computer programming is an activity that is also a culture. The unfortunate fact is that it is not a..."

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:12:07 -0500

“Computer programming is an activity that is also a culture. The unfortunate fact is that it is not a culture that values mental or physical health very much.”

- How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary

"So, when the simple stuff fails, what do most people do? Think up a bunch of features and train a..."

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:28:01 -0500

“So, when the simple stuff fails, what do most people do? Think up a bunch of features and train a classifier.”

- Geeking with Greg: Finding task boundaries in search logs

"One of its characteristics was that “reasoning by analogy” was rampant; another..."

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:13:54 -0500

“One of its characteristics was that “reasoning by analogy” was rampant; another characteristic was almost total intellectual stagnation, and we now see why the two go together. A reason for mentioning this is to point out that, by developing a keen ear for unwarranted analogies, one can detect a lot of medieval thinking today.”

- E.W. Dijkstra Archive: On the cruelty of really teaching computing science (EWD 1036)

"Woe be to him that reads but one book."

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:50:05 -0400

“Woe be to him that reads but one book.”

- Quote Details: George Herbert: Woe be to him… - The Quotations Page

"A programmer is greatly influenced by the language in which programs are written; there is an..."

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:46:15 -0400

“A programmer is greatly influenced by the language in which programs are written; there is an overwhelming tendency to prefer constructions that are simplest in that language, rather than those that are best for the machine. By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method; it is much closer to reality.”

- http://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming-Fundamental-Algorithms/dp/0201896834/ref=pd_sim_b_1

"Unfortunately, most programmers (myself included) tend to use exactly the wrong definition of..."

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:02:10 -0400

“Unfortunately, most programmers (myself included) tend to use exactly the wrong definition of convenience: they choose a modeling technique that is convenient for themselves.”

- Stevey’s Blog Rants: The Universal Design Pattern

"Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday..."

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:36:45 -0400

“Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.”

- David Foster Wallace - Commencement Speech at Kenyon University

"If you’re interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents’..."

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:00:07 -0400

“If you’re interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents’ arguments. But if you’re interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents’ arguments for them.”

- Black Belt Bayesian » DH7: Why Good Argumentative Discourse Is Like a Bad Horror Movie

"If you want to do good, work on the technology, not on getting power."

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:51:04 -0400

“If you want to do good, work on the technology, not on getting power.”

- John McCarthy - Wikiquote