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Post by Tamrin on Mar 9, 2014 7:47:15 GMT 10
Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done
As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product
The system should treat all user input as sacred
A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to harm
A computer shall not waste your time or require you to do more work than is strictly necessary
An interface is humane if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties
An unlimited-length file name is a file. The content of a file is its own best nameJef RaskinAmerican human–computer interface expert (Apple’s Macintosh project) Born this day 1943) Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 9, 2014 7:47:59 GMT 10
Of course, conservatives always claim to be against judicial activism
It wouldn't be fair to say that conservatives cherish property the way liberals cherish equality. But it would be fair to say that the takings clause is the conservatives' recipe for judicial activism just as they say liberals have misused the equal protection clause
Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property "without just compensation." The basic model of an unconstitutional "taking" would be if the government threw you out of your house
They can't take your house and give it to the mayor's mistress, even if they pay you for it. But they can, apparently, take your house and tear it down to make room for a development of trendy shops and restaurants, a hotel and so on
In any event, the proper question isn't what a journalist thinks is relevant but what his or her audience thinks is relevant. Denying people information they would find useful because you think they shouldn't find it useful is censorship, not journalism
Among the social sciences, economists are the snobs. Economics, with its numbers and graphs and curves, at least has the coloration and paraphernalia of a hard science. It's not just putting on sandals and trekking out to take notes on some tribe
Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airsMichael KinsleyUS journalist, editor, founder of Slate magazine (Born this day 1951) A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 9, 2014 7:50:01 GMT 10
If you've got a religious belief that withers in the face of observations of the natural world, you ought to rethink your beliefs — rethinking the world isn't an option
Look at the bible as a pastiche, a collection of mutually and often internally inconsistent fragments slapped together for crude reasons of politics and art and priestly self-promotion and sometimes beauty and a lot of chest-thumping tribalism, and through that lens, it makes a lot of sense. It does tell us something important … about us, not some fantastic mythological being. It tells us that we are fractious, arrogant, scrappy people who sometimes accomplish great things and more often cause grief and pain to one another. We want to be special in a universe that is uncaring and cold, and in which the nature of our existence is a transient flicker, so we invent these strange stories of grand beginnings, like every orphan dreaming that they are the children of kings who will one day ride up on a white horse and take them away to a beautiful palace and a rich and healthy family that will love them forever. We are not princes of the earth, we are the descendants of worms, and any nobility must be earned
What I want to happen to religion in the future is this: I want it to be like bowling. It's a hobby, something some people will enjoy, that has some virtues to it, that will have its own instit- utions and its traditions and its own television programming, and that families will enjoy together. It's not something I want to ban or that should affect hiring and firing decisions, or that interferes with public policy. It will be perfectly harmless as long as we don't elect our politicians on the basis of their bowling score, or go to war with people who play nine-pin instead of ten-pin, or use folklore about backspin to make decrees about how biology works
I wanted to discuss a good paper or two [on Evolutionary Psychology] … And people sent me links and papers. Only problem: they were all awful. Every one. I couldn’t believe that even these papers that some people were telling me were the best of the bunch were so lacking in rigor and so rife with unjustified assumptions. I read through about a dozen before I gave up in disgust and decided that there were better things to do in my time
I have a real problem with evolutionary psychology, and it goes right to the root of the discipline: it’s built on a flawed foundation. It relies on a naïve and simplistic understanding of how evolution works … it appeals to many people, though, because that misconception aligns nicely with the cartoon version of evolution in most people’s heads, and it also means that every time you criticize evolutionary psychology, you get a swarm of ignorant defenders who assume you’re attacking evolution itself. That misconception is adaptationism
Now you can see that the first problem the evolutionary psychologists have to confront is whether the feature they are examining is actually a functional adaptation; they can’t simply assume that it is, as they often do, and then proceed on their merry way, building hypotheses to explain an assertion that they haven’t yet established as true. Wait, check that. Actually, the first thing they have to do is show that the feature they’re examining is a direct product of a genetic variant in the first place, and shows some pattern of inheritance. They often skip this step, too
I know what science denialism is. I think denying the flaws in your own science is a pretty good example of itP.Z. MyersAmerican biologist (Evolutionary Development) (In 2006, the journal Nature listed his Pharyngula as the top-ranked blog by a scientist) (Born this day 1957) The word for people who are neutral about truth is "liars"
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 9, 2014 7:51:50 GMT 10
Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way
Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste
Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them
That is what friendship means. Sharing the prejudice of experience
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics
The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting
If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to loseCharles BukowskiGerman-American novelist and poet (Died this day 1994) Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 9, 2014 7:52:23 GMT 10
Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city
Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made
The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible
It's hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty
I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate
I was always taught to respect my elders and I've now reached the age when I don't have anybody to respectGeorge BurnsAmerican centenarian comedian (Died this day 1996) Say goodnight Gracie
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 10, 2014 7:42:29 GMT 10
Monday’s Quotes:Amazing grace! how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see
Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from it, and with this I begin and end
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it
Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home
So dress and conduct yourself so that people who have been in your company will not recall what you had on
Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the dark
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I amJohn Newton (1725 - 1807) Repentant English slaver, Anglican clergyman (Converted to Christianity this day 1748) I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon(last words)
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 10, 2014 7:44:23 GMT 10
Virtue is reason which has become energy
Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education
Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius
When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics
Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man
Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous
Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortalKarl Wilhelm Friedrich von SchlegelGerman romantic writer and critic ( Lucinde) (Born this day 1772) It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 10, 2014 7:48:28 GMT 10
We are tired of having a 'sphere' doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is 'unwomanly'. We want to be natural just for a change — we must be ourselves at all risks
Is it right that your mother, your sister ... should be classed with criminals and lunatics...? Is it right that while the loafer, the gambler, the drunkard, and even the wife-beater has a vote, earnest, educated and refined women are denied it? ... Is it right... that a mother... should be thought unworthy of a vote that is freely given to the blasphemer, the liar, the seducer, and the profligate?
The crudity and unfairness of the present method of election . . . still goes on sending men to Parliament for whom only a minority of their constituents have voted, leaving the majority quite unrepresented. As a representative system, it is a sham, a delusion and a snare to the unthinking
In Wellington is every year assembled a National Council of men, which holds a session lasting several months... From that Council women are excluded ... Under these circumstances a National Council which largely represents the thinking and working women of the colony (and which, it may be remarked, costs the country nothing) becomes a necessity. I trust the day is not far distant ... when the necessity for men's councils and women's councils, as such, will be swept away
The news is being flashed far and wide, and before our earth has revolved on her axis every civilized community within the reach of the electric wires will have received the tidings that civic freedom has been granted to the women of New Zealand
It does not seem a great thing to be thankful for, that the gentlemen who confirm the laws which render women liable to taxation and penal servitude have declared us to be “persons”
We are glad and proud to think that even in so conservative a body as the Legis- lative Council there is a majority of men who are guided by the principles of reason and justice, who desire to see their womenkind treated as reasonable beings, and who have triumphed over prejudice, narrow-mindedness and selfishnessKate SheppardEnglish-born leader of the female suffrage movement in New Zealand (the first country to introduce universal suffrage, 1893) (Born this day 1847) All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 10, 2014 7:51:06 GMT 10
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world
I grew up like a neglected weed — ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it
I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other
Quakers [are] almost as good as colored. They call themselves friends and you can trust them every time
I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger
I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves
You'll be free or die!Harriet TubmanUS abolitionist, conductor on the Underground Railroad (Died this day 1913) I can't die but once
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 10, 2014 7:54:22 GMT 10
A man may be a tough, concentrated, successful money-maker and never contribute to his country anything more than a horrible example
A manager may be tough and practical, squeezing out, while the going is good, the last ounce of profit and dividend, and may leave behind him an exhausted industry and a legacy of industrial hatred
A tough manager may never look outside his own factory walls or be conscious of his partnership in a wider world. I often wonder what strange cud such men sit chewing when their working days are over, and the accumulating riches of the mind have eluded them
Men of genius are not to be analyzed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more common place in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech
It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness
“I pay my taxes," says somebody, as if that were an act of virtue instead of one of compulsion
I am one of the few men honest enough to say they do not understand womenBro. Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, KT, AK, CH, FAA, FRS, QCAustralian Prime Minister (1939 – 1941 & 1949 – 1966), (Initiated this day 1920 in Austral Temple Lodge, Victoria) I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die (of the Queen, quoting poet Thomas Ford)
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