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Quote by Alan Kay

“We cannot predict the future, but we can invent it.”

Quote by Alan Kay

Author

Alan Kay is a renowned computer scientist, born on May 17, 1940. He has had a profound impact on the field of computer science, particularly in the areas of object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces. During his tenure at Xerox PARC, Kay made significant contributions to the development of personal computers. more

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“Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?”

“I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three. So I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit 1st grade. And I already knew that the teachers were lying to me.”

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“It makes me laugh when I hear a guy talking about being in touch with his feminine side. But I gravitate towards women, I identify with them. And I do cry very easily, more and more as I get older.”

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“It's all about long-term, sustaining relationships.”

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“When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it's the first personal computer worth criticizing. So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you'll rule the world.”

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“The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.”

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“Knowledge is silver. Outlook is gold. IQ is a lead weight.”

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“Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. There’s an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the "Aha." Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we’re in - the one that we think is reality.”

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“The future is not laid out on a track. It is something that we can decide, and to the extent that we do not violate any known laws of the universe, we can probably make it work the way that we want to.”

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“The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.”

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Author:Alan Kay