“The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word 'renowned'... I think what enabled the first word to tip me off that I was about to spend a number of hours in the company of one of the worst prose stylists in the history of literature was this. Putting curriculum vitae details into complex modifiers on proper names or definite descriptions is what you do in journalistic stories about deaths; you just don't do it in describing an event in a narrative... Why did I keep reading? Because London Heathrow is a long way from San Francisco International.” ThinkingWayFirstsWellsMayLongBookStoriesReadingLiteratureNamesLanguageHoursNumbersCompanyNovelWrittenWorstEventsComplexesInternationalDetailsLondonNarrativeCodeProseDescriptionDefiniteLong WaySan FranciscoDescribingCurriculumStylistJournalisticRenownedDa Vinci Code Author:Geoffrey K. Pullum
“I started passing out the schematics and the code listings for the computer, telling everyone here it is. It's small, it's simple, it's inexpensive: Build your own. No idea to start a company. Steve Jobs came by later and say, you know, people are interested. Why don't we start a company?” PeopleKnowsIdeasJobsSimpleCompanyComputerPassingPassingsNo IdeaCodeInexpensivePassing Out Author:Steve Wozniak
“When you're designing and inventing the way I did, every minute of your life is put - every neuron in your brain into trying to think about the little code and how you can maybe have one less line of code and a little bit more straightforward from the beginning to the answer. And you don't have time to think about companies and products and how would I build this. So Steve Jobs and I were a very necessary pair.” ThinkingWayTryingLittlesJobsLife IsBitsLinesAnswersBrainCompanyMinutesDesignProductsLittle BitCodePairsStraightforwardInventingTime To ThinkNeurons Author:Steve Wozniak
“You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.” PeopleLevelsCompanySourceAmountProtectLike MeCodeScrutinyProtect YouVerification Author:Kenneth P. Thompson
“The world has paid a heavy price for the lack of democracy in most of the Middle East. Operation Ajax [CIA code for the August 1953 coup] taught tyrants and aspiring tyrants there that the world's most powerful governments were willing to tolerate limitless oppression as long as oppressive regimes were friendly to the West and to Western oil companies. That helped tilt the political balance in a vast region away from freedom and toward dictatorship.” WorldLongGovernmentPoliticalPowerfulCompanyDemocracyMiddleTaughtWillingBalancePaidWestWesternHeavyOilEastOppressionCodeOperationsRegionsFriendlyMost PowerfulTyrantsRegimesMiddle EastDictatorshipTolerateLimitlessCiaAugustCoupsTiltOil CompaniesAjaxPowerful Government Author:Stephen Kinzer
“While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible. Once a company that produces a certain product goes out of business, it has no simple way to uncover how its product encoded data. The code is thus lost, and the software is inaccessible. Knowledge has been destroyed.” WayHas BeensStillsUsedCertainLostSimpleCompanyCreativeCenturyProduceProductsProgramDestroyedDataCodeSoftwareCreative WorkInaccessibleSimple Ways Author:Lawrence Lessig