Every Choice
Every choice
Is a knife,
And I’ve lived
Half a life
Bleeding.
I’ve begged
The stars to
Cauterize,
But they always
Say “too soon.”
Complex Systems Evolution
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.
You have to start over with a working, simple system.
John Gall, 1975
Poverty
My definition of poor are those who need too much. Because those who need too much are never satisfied.
Jose Mujica
Powerful and Stupid
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.
Dr. Who
Being Somebody
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realise I should have been more specific.
Lilly Tomlin
Literacy
Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.
Carl Sagan
Creativity
The creative adult is the child who has survived
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Woods
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
Henry David Thoreau
Preferences and Rules
Not to question anyone’s preferences, but I think Rule 34 just logged off, muttering “That’s enough Internet for today.”
Useless Products
... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words ... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.