“The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're good at fussing and figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experience has only prepared us to deal with confusion. A programmer who denies this is probably lying, or else is densely unaware of himself.” KnowsWellsLyingDealsSeaIgnoranceComputerFunctionConstantPreparedDenyConfusionExpertsProgrammersFussing Book:Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents Source: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents
“To play with baubles is our ambition, not to deal with grave questions in a spirit of serious energy. But while we are playing with baubles, with our Legislative Councils, our Simultaneous Examinations, our ingenious schemes for separating the judicial from the executive functions, - while we, I say, are finessing about trifles, the waters of the great deep are being stirred and that surging chaos of the primitive man over which our civilised societies are superimposed on a thin crust of convention, is being strangely and ominously agitated.” MenPlaySpiritEnergyWaterDealsSeriousAmbitionFunctionChaosGravesExecutivesConventionsPrimitiveSchemesCouncilExaminationTriflesJudicialIngeniousSeparatingCivilisedSimultaneousPrimitive ManCivilised Society Author:Sri Aurobindo
“The Assault Weapons Ban deals with a fictional distinction. You have guns that are exactly the same guns as are banned, in function, that were banned because of the way they look. And you know, that's the whole truth of this policy: it's to make politicians look as if they are doing something, when in point of fact, they are doing nothing.” IfsKnowsWayLooksWholeFactsDealsPolicyPoliticianWeaponsGunFunctionDistinctionAssaultDoing NothingBansBannedWhole TruthAssault WeaponsAssault Weapons Ban Author:Alan Keyes
“Let me be very blunt: the heterosexual transmission of AIDS is, in Africa, a function of truly pathological promiscuity. So this is really a violence issue - not the same violence we deal with in Boston, where teenagers stab and shoot each other, but the violence of African men who are killing themselves, and killing African women and children, with pathological promiscuity.” MenChildrenDealsIssuesViolenceLet MeFunctionKillingScaryAidsTeenagerBostonBluntTransmissionPromiscuityAfrican Women Author:Eugene Rivers
“Astronomers have a common ground for discussion with musicians in the harmony of the stars and musical concords in tetrads and triads of the fourth and the fifth, and with geometricians in the subject of vision; and in all other sciences many points, perhaps all, are common so far as the discussion of them is concerned. But the actual undertaking of works which are brought to perfection by the hand and its manipulation is the function of those who have been specially trained to deal with a single art.” Has BeensArtHandsStarsDealsCommonVisionSubjectsMusicianConcernedPerfectionFunctionHarmonyMusicalDiscussionManipulationFourthFifthUndertakingsCommon GroundAstronomersTriads Author:Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
“. . . the membership relation for sets can often be replaced by the composition operation for functions. This leads to an alternative foundation for Mathematics upon categories -- specifically, on the category of all functions. Now much of Mathematics is dynamic, in that it deals with morphisms of an object into another object of the same kind. Such morphisms (like functions) form categories, and so the approach via categories fits well with the objective of organizing and understanding Mathematics. That, in truth, should be the goal of a proper philosophy of Mathematics.” ShouldWellsKindPhilosophyFormUnderstandingGoalDealsObjectsFitApproachFunctionRelationMathematicsFoundationObjectivesAlternativesOperationsCategoriesCompositionReplacedOften IsMembership Author:Saunders Mac Lane
“My stories usually begin with the characters and some elements of how power (personal, political, magical) functions in the world. The rest develops as I write, and research helps a great deal with that. If you're going to write about an agrarian economy, research agrarian economies. If your main character is starving, then you should know what it means for a malnourished body to break down.” IfsKnowsWorldShouldWritingMeanCharacterHelpingStoriesBodyPoliticalDealsBreakEconomyElementsResearchFunctionBreaking DownStarvingMain Characters Author:Leigh Bardugo