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Monday, June 04, 2001
Quote of the moment: Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.
¶ 136 Posted at 11.20 AM ⇒ No Comments ( interesting | quotes ) Tuesday, January 22, 2002
This guy Paul Snively (unfortunate name; currently psinvely AT earthlink.net) said something interesting on a message board (link) that I liked. I figured I would give credit. He said: "I don't know what to say about this. It frustrates me, but I end up feeling like giving that frustration full expression seems elitist." The context doesn't really matter. It's just a good way of articulating that vague feeling I've often had when stuff just doesn't measure up.
Sunday, June 06, 2004
"Because of the success of science, there is, I think, a kind of pseudoscience. Social science is an example of a science which is not a science; they don't do [things] scientifically; they follow the forms -- you gather data, you do so-and-so and so forth but they don't get any laws, they haven't found out anything.... You see, I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiment, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something, and therefore I see how they get their information and I can't believe they know it, they haven't done the work necessary, haven't done the checks necessary, haven't done the care necessary. I have a great suspicion that they don't know, that this stuff is [wrong], and they're intimidating people." From "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out," by Richard P. Feynman
¶ 770 Posted at 12.22 PM ⇒ No Comments ( science! | quotes ) Tuesday, November 02, 2004
I started the final tome in Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" this weekend. I came across this particularly delightful 1 part last night: Then he got a look on his face as if he were thinking. Daniel had learned, in his almost seventy years, no to expect much of people who got such looks, because thinking really was something one ought to do all the time.I've always thought it strange and disturbing how many smart people seem to apply their intellect only to study and work and turn it off for the remaining parts of their lives, but I never expressed it so well.
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I have found the language he uses in these books to be increasingly appealing. Indeed, for some time after reading them, my own choice of words and manner of speech is informed by a flowery and whimsical manner that I find rather entertaining, though I know not how those regard it who must endure it.
Monday, November 22, 2004
From "Will Iran Be Next?" in the December 2004 issue of the Atlantic Monthly: Companies deciding which kind of toothpaste to market have much more rigorous, established decision-making processes to refer to than the most senior officials of the US government deciding whether or not to go to war.Michael Mazarr, professor of national-security strategy at the National War College. There will be no such thing as a quick, clean war. War will always take you in directions different from what you intended. The only guy in recent history who started a war and got what he intended was Bismarck.Colonel Thomas Hammes, Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies.
¶ 967 Posted at 10.26 AM ⇒ No Comments ( quotes | politics ) Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Charles Stross is an uneven writer, but he sure is a smart guy. From a transcript of a talk he gave:
One of the biggest risks we face is that of sleep-walking into a police state, simply by mistaking the ability to monitor everyone for even minute legal infractions for the imperative to do so.As much as I like that quote, it's worth reading the whole thing. This should help you understand why science fiction isn't just interesting, it's important.
¶ 1442 Posted at 04.06 PM ⇒ No Comments ( quotes | science! ) |