We Would Have

We would have killed many of them already, but our commanders are cowards and don't let us.

-- Abdul Hanan, an Afghan soldier, on American military advisers, New York Times, 26 September 2012

Parent

Parent is a verb.  Do it.

LEGO Great Ball Contraption (GBC)

A conspiracy to destroy the productivity of the United States (or something like that).

LEGO Great Ball Contraption (GBC) Layout 2012.9

So here's this video that someone posted a week ago (I recommend the video).  It runs 7 minutes long.  And it was watched 3 million times during the first week.  So that's 21 million minutes (35,000 hours (14,500+ days (~40 years))) spent watching that video, in just the first week.  That's an average of 2000+ people viewing this video at any given time throughout the week.  That's +100,000 views since I first watched the video earlier today.

And according to the video, it took ~600 hours to produce the Rube  Goldberg device in the video.  So that's a viewing payback of almost 60:1 in  just the first week.

I don't pay more [taxes] than are legally due, and, frankly, if I had paid more than are legally due, I don't think I'd be qualified to become president.

-- Mitt Romney to ABC News regarding his 2010 taxes, July 2012, prior to releasing his 2011 tax returns on which he deliberately overpaid to avoid having a ~10.5% income tax rate

Crooked Papyrologists

It's hard to construct a scenario that is at all plausible in which somebody fakes something like this. The world is not really crawling with crooked papyrologists.

-- New York University's Roger Bagnall, on a scrap of papyrus that has Jesus uttering the words "my wife", New York Times, 19 September 2012

As the certainty that legislation violates the U.S. Constitution increases, so does the probability of predictions that severe harm or death will come to Americans if the proposal is not swiftly enacted.

-- Declan McCullagh, US journalist, programmer, and photographer, McCullagh's Law of Politics, cnet.com, 11 October 2007


http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9795316-38.html

I think the reward for conformity is everyone likes you but yourself.

-- Rita Mae Brown (1944-), American writer, Bingo (1988)

Machines

Machines which ape people are tending to encroach on every aspect of people's lives, and that such machines force people to behave like machines.  The new electronic devices do indeed have the power to force people to "communicate" with them and with each other on the terms of the machine.  Whatever structurally does not fit the logic of machines is effectively filtered from a culture dominated by their use.  The machine-like behaviour of people chained to electronics constitutes a degradation of their well-being and of their dignity which, for most people in the long run, becomes intolerable.  Observations of the sickening effect of programmed  environments show that people in them become indolent, impotent, narcissistic and apolitical.  The political process breaks down, because people cease to be able to govern themselves; they demand to be managed.

-- Ivan Illich (1926-2002), Austrian-born Christian anarchist & author, Silence Is A Commons (1982)

The Success Of Others

Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.

-- Jules Renard (1864-1910), French author

Communication

In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph. ...  Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.

-- Primo Levi (1919-1987), Italian chemist and author, holocaust survivor, The Drowned And The Saved (1986)

Second Place

The political spirit is the great force in throwing the love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place.

-- John Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838-1923), British statesman, writer, and newspaper editor, On Compromise (1874)

Childhood Bedrooms

College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they  can move out and get going with life.

-- Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan at the Republican National Convention, 29 August 2012

Ease And Security

Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others.  Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

-- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher, logician, and mathematician, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)

Snob

The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.

-- John Buchan (1875-1940), Scottish novelist, poet, and politician, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Pilgrim's Way: An Essay in Recollection (1940)

An Engineer

A century hence, 2000 may be viewed as quite a primitive period in human history.  It's something to hope for. ...  I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer -- born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow.  As an engineer, I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession.

-- Neil Alden Armstrong (5 August 1930 - 25 August 2012), test pilot and astronaut, commander of Apollo 11, first man to walk on the moon, in "The Engineered Century", remarks delivered during National Engineers Week on behalf of the National Academy of Engineering at the National Press Club, 22 February 2000

Judge Nutter Speaks

He is going to do what he wants to do.  Now what do you think he is going to try to do in this next term?  One of the things, my opinion.  One of the things is he's going to try to give the sovereignty of the United States away to the United Nations.  What do you think the public is going to do when that happens?  We are talking civil unrest, civil disobedience, possibly, possibly civil war, OK?  Now what happens?  What happens?  Now I'm not talking just talking riots here and there.  I'm talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator.  OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens?  He is going to call in the UN troops, personnel carriers, tanks and weapons.

-- Lubbock County, TX Judge Tom Head, on the Drive Home on FOXTalk 950 with Jeff Klotzman, 20 August 2012

Going Forward

Going forward, I am going to devote myself to raising my five beautiful (and energetic) kids, fighting cancer, and attempting to be the fittest 40-year old on the planet.

-- Lance Armstrong (1971-), retired US professional cyclist, 7-time winner of the Tour de France, announcing that he will not take part in USADA arbitration nor respond to assertions that he doped during his years of winning the Tour de France; U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief executive Travis Tygart says the agency will ban Lance Armstrong from cycling for life and strip him of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, 23 August 2012

Creation Of The Human Brain

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. ... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

-- Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943), Serbian American physicist, inventor, and electrical engineer, quoted in Marconi and Tesla:  Pioneers of Radio Communication (2008) by Tim O'Shei

Headache

As human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.

-- Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn, which has more than a million employees worldwide but is using a growing number of robots, New York Times, 19 August 2012

The Traveler

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience.  The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him.  He goes "sightseeing."

-- Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004), American historian and writer, "The Image: A Guide to Psuedo-Events in America", (1961)