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C Quotes

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All C Quotes

“Computer science increasingly relies on its private corporate patrons who apply their own closed systems of peer review and criticism, with occasional results thrown over the wall. The closed walls of Redmond or Mountain View enable old-fashioned patronage of nature's secrets. The objectivity and scientific status of computer science is a chimera: we cannot stand on the shoulders of giants in computer science, for they simply refuse to let us.”

ScienceComputer ScienceOpen Source
Author:Samir Chopra
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“Computer science only indicates the retrospective omnipotence of our technologies. In other words, an infinite capacity to process data (but only data -- i.e. the already given) and in no sense a new vision. With that science, we are entering an era of exhaustivity, which is also an era of exhaustion.”

GivenProcessVisionTechnologyComputerCapacityInfiniteDataErasEnteringExhaustionComputer ScienceOmnipotenceRetrospectiveNew Vision
Author:Jean Baudrillard
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“Computer security can simply be protecting your equipment and files from disgruntled employees, spies, and anything that goes bump in the night, but there is much more. Computer security helps ensure that your computers, networks, and peripherals work as expected all the time, and that your data is safe in the event of hard disk crash or a power failure resulting from an electrical storm. Computer security also makes sure no damage is done to your data and that no one is able to read it unless you want them to.”

WantHardDoneHelpingAbleNightSecurityEventsSafeComputerStormExpectedDataDamageEmployeeCrashEquipmentSpyFilesBumpsElectricalDiskDisgruntledComputer SecurityDamage Is DonePower Failure
Author:Bruce Schneier
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“Computer simulation often works fine if we assume nothing more than Newton’s laws at the atomic scale, even though we know that really we should be using quantum, not classical, mechanics at that level. But sometimes approximating the behaviour of atoms as though they were classical billiard-ball particles isn’t sufficient. We really do need to take quantum behaviour into account to accurately model chemical reactions involved in industrial catalysis or drug action, say. We can do that by solving the Schrödinger equation for the particles, but only approximately: we need to make lots of simplifications if the maths is to be tractable. But what if we had a computer that itself works by the laws of quantum mechanics? Then the sort of behaviour you’re trying to simulate is built into the very way the machine operates: it is hardwired into the fabric. This was the point Feynman made in his article. But no such machines existed. At any rate they would, as he pointed out with wry understatement, be ‘machines of a different kind’ from any computer built so far. Feynman didn’t work out the full theory of what such a machine would look like or how it would work – but he insisted that ‘if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum-mechanical’.”

PhysicsQuantum MechanicsSimulationMathsQuantum ComputingQuantum Behaviour
Author:Philip Ball
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“Computers and rocket ships are examples of invention, not of understanding. ... All that is needed to build machines is the knowledge that when one thing happens, another thing happens as a result. It's an accumulation of simple patterns. A dog can learn patterns. There is no "why&rdqo"; in those examples. We don't understand why electricity travels. We don't know why light travels at a constant speed forever. All we can do is observe and record patterns.”

KnowsLightHappensScienceUnderstandingCan DoSimpleResultsKnowledgeForeverRecordsOne ThingDogExampleNeededComputerMachinesConstantPatternsSpeedThings HappenInventionShipsElectricityRocketsAccumulation
Author:Scott Adams
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“Computers are good at swift, accurate computation and at storing great masses of information. The brain, on the other hand, is notas efficient a number cruncher and its memory is often highly fallible; a basic inexactness is built into its design. The brain's strong point is its flexibility. It is unsurpassed at making shrewd guesses and at grasping the total meaning of information presented to it.”

HandsStrongMemoriesNumbersBrainInformationDesignComputerMassBuiltEfficientAccurateFlexibilityGraspingComputation
Author:Jeremy Campbell
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