Computers
computer mistake fast handgun tequila
“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila.”
— Mitch Ratcliffe
Neil Postman computer better education politics ignorant foolish
“Through the computer, the heralds say, we will make education better, religion better, politics better, our minds better — best of all, ourselves better. This is, of course, nonsense, and only the young or the ignorant or the foolish could believe it.”
― Neil Postman (1931-2003)
observation computer incompetent Peter principle
“Three Observations
1) The computer may be incompetent in itself—that is, unable to do regularly and accurately the work for which it was designed. This kind of incompetence can never be eliminated, because the Peter Principle applies in the plants where computers are designed and manufactured.
2) Even when competent in itself, the computer vastly magnifies the results of incompetence in its owners or operators.
3) The computer, like a human employee, is subject to the Peter Principle. If it does good work at first, there is a strong tendency to promote it to more responsible tasks, until it reaches its level of incompetence.”
― Laurence J. Peter (1919-1990)
Papert - school computer child program model
"In many schools today, the phrase "computer-aided instruction" means making the computer teach the child. One might say the computer is being used to program the child. In my vision, the child programs the computer and, in doing so, both acquires a sense of master over a piece of the most modern and powerful technology and establishes an intimate contact with some of the deepest ideas from science, from mathematics, and from the art of intellectual model building."
— Seymour Papert (1928-2016)
kasparov - chess computer human weak good
“In chess, as in so many things, what computers are good at is where humans are weak, and vice versa.”
—Gary Kasparov
quality accomplish man hardware computer automation
“The transformation can only be accomplished by man, not by hardware (computers, gadgets, automation, new machinery). A company can not buy its way into quality.”
― W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993)
The purpose of computers is human freedom.
"The purpose of computers is human freedom."
— Ted Nelson
life simple computer
"No one's life has yet been simplified by a computer."
— Ted Nelson
computer is a moron
“The computer is a moron. ”
― Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005)
computer honest
“Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.”
― Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
computer violin flexible learn
“A computer is like a violin. You can imagine a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren’t flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it.”
― Marvin Minsky (1927-2016)
information age computer printing
“Nothing could be more misleading than the idea that computer technology introduced the age of information. The printing press began that age, and we have not been free of it since.”
― Neil Postman (1931-2003)
Shannon - computer future do tell
“The best is yet to come. We've only scratched the surface. Computers can only do what we tell them now, but it will be different in the future".
—Claude Shannon (1916-2001)
automate information flow computer revolution
"It is the automation of information flow that is really at the heart of the computer revolution."
—Paul Baran (1926-2011)
Wheeler - information physics computer
"it is not unreasonable to imagine that information sits at the core of physics, just as it sits at the core of a computer"
—John Archibald Wheeler (1911-2008)
computers
“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
― Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
foresee internet computer industry century y2k
“I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course--the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end.”
― Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
computer telephone easy use
“I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.”
― Bjarne Stroustrup
programmed computer understand car
"I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing."
—John Searle
TLF problem think machine men
"The real problem is not whether machines think, but whether men do"
—Technology Liberation Front
microsoft problem symptom
"Microsoft is not the problem. Microsoft is the symptom."
— Eric S. Raymond
cheapest fastest reliable component computer system
"The cheapest, fastest and most reliable components of a computer system are those that aren't there."
— Gordon Bell
theory computation abstract mathematics computer physics
“The theory of computation has traditionally been studied almost entirely in the abstract, as a topic in pure mathematics. This is to miss the point of it. Computers are physical objects, and computations are physical processes. What computers can or cannot compute is determined by the laws of physics alone, and not by pure mathematics.”
― David Deutsch