Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ~ Arthur C Clarke
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. ~ Larry Niven or Terry Pratchett, nobody knows for sure.
1 Like
“The difference between you and me is I know I’m crazy.”
-Old Jack H., Texas professional fish poacher
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent. -Wittgenstein
1 Like
‘Why stop now just when I’m hating it?’
- Marvin the paranoid android.
2 Likes
- H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
1 Like
@discobot quote
Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you — Princess Diana
@discobot fortune
You may rely on it
1 Like
Knowing is not enough; we must apply! — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Yes, I accept your application to understand , or to make sure it is enough, enough support for the knowledge to be worthwhile enough, or more.
Applications are also good to put understanding from designers, analysts and programmers into practice
which is for them to know,
so that other can use it to gain knowledge, which is for those others to find out.
Hi! To find out what I can do, say @discobot display help.
Wernher von Braun
American-German aerospace engineer
Quotes
Research is what I’m doing when I don’t
know what I’m doing.
I have learned to use the
word impossible with the greatest caution.
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the
paperwork is overwhelming.
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft… and the only one that can be mass
produced with unskilled labor.
There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program - your tax-dollar will go further.
It will free man from the remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet.
Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.
For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
Quotes
The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet.
- Remark to a colleague after the first V-2 rocket hit London (September 1944), as quoted in
Apollo in Perspective : Spaceflight Then and Now (1999) by Jonathan Allday, p. 85
-=
We knew that we had created a new means of warfare, and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else. We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through, and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured.
- Arts & Entertainment, Biography (1959–1961 series). Mike Wallace, television biography of Wernher von Braun, video clip of the press statement. (May 1945)
-=
Don’t tell me that man doesn’t belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go — and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.**
- Time magazine (17 February 1958)
-=
Everything in space obeys the laws of physics. If you know these laws, and obey them, space will treat you kindly. And don’t tell me that man doesn’t belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go—and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.
- As quoted in Time (17 Feb 1958)
-=
If our intention had been merely to bring back a handful of soil and rocks from the lunar gravel pit and then forget the whole thing, we would certainly be history’s biggest fools. But that is not our intention now—it never will be. What we are seeking in tomorrow’s [Apollo 11] trip is indeed that key to our future on earth. We are expanding the mind of man. We are extending this God-given brain and these God-given hands to their outermost limits and in so doing all mankind will benefit. All mankind will reap the harvest…. What we will have attained when Neil Armstrong steps down upon the moon is a completely new step in the evolution of man.
- Banquet speech on the eve of the Apollo 11 launch, Royal Oaks Country Club, Titusville (15 Jul 1969). In “Of a Fire on the Moon”, Life (29 Aug 1969), 67, No. 9, 34
-=
I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.
- Taped TV interview, broadcast on WMAL, Washington, (7 Jan 1972), as reported in “Birth of Child on Moon Foreseen by von Braun”,
New York Times (7 Jan 1972), 14.
-=
For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.
- From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)
-=
My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?
- From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)
-=
It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.
- From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)
-=
Can a physicist visualize an electron? The electron is materially inconceivable and yet, it is so perfectly known through its effects that we use it to illuminate our cities, guide our airlines through the night skies and take the most accurate measurements. What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electrons as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him?
- In letter to California State board of Education (14 Sep 1972).
-=
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.
- Quoted in “Juan Yong Ying Yu Ming Yan” - Page 242 - by Xi-ya Ma - 2007
(Well, science does have moral factors involved, yes, everyone is welcomed to not only know it, but also to be part of it. No matter how evil, immorality is a moral wrong. It is directly opposed to good.
It’s indeed true that surgeon can use science to perform miracles, acts which can’t be explained, towards good. A murder is a moral wrongdoing.
Of course, it is a matter of interpretation, and he is also right, although parts of it are omitted for good reasons, and it can be used for protection, not for murder mystery evening at a mansion of suspense.
Yes, not to mention.)
-=
The materialists of the nineteenth century and their Marxist heirs of the twentieth, tried to tell us that, as science gives us more knowledge about the creation, we could live without faith in a Creator. Yet so far, with every new answer, we have discovered new questions. The better we understand . . . the master plan for the galaxies, the more reason we have found to marvel at the wonder of God’s creation.
- Cited in The Watchtower magazine, article: Basis for an Assured Faith, 6/15, 1981.
-=
Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.
- In an interview in the New York Times, 16 December 1957, cited in a footnote on page 32 of “Work, Society, and Culture” by Yves Reni Marie Simon, and also in a footnote (in German) on page 360 of “Vita activa oder Vom taetigen Leben” by Hannah Arend (1981)
Variants: Basic research is when I’m doing what I don’t know I’m doing.
Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.
Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.
-=-=
Attributed
There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program: Your tax dollar will go farther.
Attributed in Reader’s Digest (1961). In Fred R. Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), 101.
-=
In this age of space flight, when we use the modern tools of science to advance into new regions of human activity, the Bible … this grandiose, stirring history of the gradual revelation and unfolding of the moral law … remains in every way an up-to-date book. Our knowledge and use of the laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil. The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God. It is no longer enough that we pray that God may be with us on our side. We must learn again that we may be on God’s side.
- As quoted in Bob Phillips, Phillips’ Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings (1993), 42
-=-=-=
In this modern world of ours many people seem to think that science has somehow made such religious ideas as immortality untimely or old fashioned. I think science has a real surprise for the skeptics. Science, for instance, tells us that nothing in nature, not even the tiniest particle, can disappear without a trace. Nature does not know extinction. All it knows is transformation. If God applies this fundamental principle to the most minute and insignificant parts of His universe, doesn’t it make sense to assume that He applies it to the masterpiece of His creation, the human soul?
As a nice counterpoint:
“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
1 Like
Although I know of no reference to Christ ever commenting on scientific work, I do know that He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Thus I am certain that, were He among us today, Christ would encourage scientific research as modern man’s most noble striving to comprehend and admire His Father’s handiwork. The universe as revealed through scientific inquiry is the living witness that God has indeed been at work.
Wernher von Braun
Some reference to Christ on scientific work is and are the scientific accomplishment of medical science in the face of adversity, which, is Holy.
He himself was resurrected through this medical science exceptional fact, and lived with a hole in his side along with other traces visible and confirmed by the human sense of touch (through his forearms or hands).
Practitioner are more than only researchers, even if that practicing or design or implementation does include studies and research as part of the final work.
It does take understanding , and to develop understanding, not by ignorance, but with good faith, to discover how facts are, and to benefit from this knowledge.
One does not need to question to find good test results.
It helps to know what one does, even if or when forgiven for not knowing what they do.
-=
Science and religion are not antagonists. On the contrary, they are sisters. While science tries to learn more about the creation, religion tries to better understand the Creator. While through science man tries to harness the forces of nature around him, through religion he tries to harness the force of nature within him.
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Von Braun (2007). “The Voice of Dr. Wernher Von Braun: An Anthology”, Collectors Guide Pub
(Science is an extension of religion, it is a specialized field for the best of it.
There are more normal, easy, and regular facts, which are no less scientific.)
-=
It takes sixty-five thousand errors before you are qualified to make a rocket.
-=
it was very successful, but it fell on the wrong planet.
-=
The best computer is a man, and it’s the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
-=
To simply dismiss the concept of God as being
unscientific is to violate the very objectivity of science
itself.
-=
Everything science has taught me – and
continues to teach me – strengthens my
belief in true continuity of our spiritual
existance after death.
Wernher von Braun
-=
I believe in an immortal soul. Science has proved that
nothing disintegrates into nothingness. Life and soul,
therefore, cannot disintegrate into nothingness, and
so are immortal.
-=
Conquering the universe one has to solve two
problems: gravity and red tape. We could have
mastered gravity.
-=
All one can really leave one’s children is what’s inside
their heads. Education, in other words, and not
earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only
thing that cannot be taken away.
-=
We should remember that science exists only
because there are people, and its concepts exist only
in the minds of men. Behind these concepts lies
the reality which is being revealed to us, but only by the
grace of God.
-=
A good engineer gets stale very fast if he doesn’t keep his hands dirty.
-=
The first men who set out for Mars had better make
sure they leave everything at home in apple-pie
order. They won’t get back to earth for more than
two and a half years. The difficulties of a trip to mars
are formidable. . . . What curious information will
these first explorers carry back from Mars? Nobody
knows-and its extremely doubtful that anyone now
living will ever know. All that can be said with
certainty today is this: the trip will be made, and will
be made . . . someday.
-=
One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.
Stephen Hawking
Theoretical physicist
Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.
Quotes
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
Also,
We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.
I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers.
People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,
Not only does God play dice, but… he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen
Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.
7. ON SCIENCE VERSUS RELIGION
“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works.”
— To Diane Sawyer/ABC News, June 2010
Except that there is also science in religion, even besides theology, which cannot be scientifically explained, even though it is of scientific cause.
On God
“God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.” – in a 2010 CNN interview.
“The scientific account is complete. Theology is unnecessary.” – in a 2010 CNN interview.
By the way, human have a need to create, not a need for a creator.
They must create, like eat and sleep.
Explanation or excuses didn’t and won’t put it up together.
Science learns something new everyday.
This is nothing new from day 1.
On women
“My [physician assistant] reminds me that although I have a PhD in physics, women should remain a mystery.” – in his first Reddit AMA. (His PA is a woman, by the way.)
On why the universe exists…
❝If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God❞ - A Brief History Of Time, published 1988
On black holes…
“Einstein was wrong when he
said ‘God does not play dice’.
Consideration of black holes
suggests, not only that God does
play dice, but that he sometimes
confuses us by throwing them
where they can’t be seen.”
–
The Nature of Space and Time
= = = NASA
On artificial intelligence…
❝The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate… Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded❞ - Interview, BBC, December 2014
On the possibility of contact between humans and aliens…
❝I think it would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low❞ - In Naked Science: Alien Contact, the National Geographic Channel, 2004
On space colonies…
❝I don’t think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars❞ - Interview, the Daily Telegraph, October 2001
On the end of the universe…
❝It will take about a thousand million million million million years for the Earth to run into the sun, so there’s no immediate cause for worry!❞ - A Brief History Of Time, published 1988
(Actually, only a few billion years, certainly not 100 billion years.)
“Strike me down now and i am your father! Wait, no”
Obi-wan kenobi to Darth Vader, first cut.
“Me so horny. Me love you long time”
Some whore, Full metal jacket
1 Like
The 33 Strategies of War Quotes
“12–Lose Battles, But Win The War: Grand Strategy
Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”
― Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War
“Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.”
“Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity–precisely the time when
you need strength. What best equips you to cope with the heat of battle is neither more knowledge nor more intellect. What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness.
No one can teach you this skill; you cannot learn it by reading about it. Like any discipline, it can come only through practice, experience, even a little suffering. The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for it – to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it.”
“Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or
successes), and preconceived notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling and hardening
there and damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendency in the mind.”
“Everything in life can be taken away from you and generally will be at some point. Your wealth vanishes, the latest gadgetry suddenly becomes passé, your allies desert you. But if your mind is armed with the art of war, there is no power that can take that away. In the middle of a crisis, your mind will find its way to the right solution. Having superior strategies at your fingertips will give your maneuvers irresistible force. As Sun-tzu says, “Being unconquerable lies with yourself.”
“Our successes and failures in life can be traced to how well or how badly we deal with the inevitable conflicts that confront us in society.”
“Your mind is the starting point of all war and all strategy. A mind that is easily overwhelmed by emotion, that is rooted in the past instead of the present, that cannot see the world with clarity and urgency, will create strategies that will always miss the mark.”
“For what the leaders are, that, as a rule, will the men below them be. —Xenophon (430?–355? B.C.)”
“Understanding the world too well, you see too many options and become as indecisive as Hamlet.
No matter how far we progress, we remain part animal, and it is the animal in us that fires our strategies, gives them life, animates us to fight. Without the desire to fight, without a capacity for the violence war churns up, we cannot deal with danger.
The prudent Odysseus types are comfortable with both sides of their nature. They plan ahead as best they can, see far and wide, but when it comes time to move ahead, they move. Knowing how to control your emotions means not repressing them completely but using them to their best effect.”
“When you have success, be extra wary. When you are angry, take no action. When you are fearful, know you are going to exaggerate the dangers you face.”
“Forgetting our objectives. —During the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every profession is chosen and commenced as a means to an end but continued as an end in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent of all acts of stupidity. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1844”
That’s one reason we set and find goals and objectives in systems analysis for the system design phase.
“Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency?”
“As Xenophon said, your obstacles are not rivers or mountains or other people; your obstacle is yourself. If you feel lost and confused, if you lose your sense of direction, if you cannot tell the difference between friend and foe, you have only yourself to blame.”
“[Strategy] is more than a science: it is the application of knowledge to practical life, the development of thought capable of modifying the original guiding idea in the light of ever-changing situations; it is the art of acting under the pressure of the most difficult conditions. HELMUTH VON MOLTKE, 1800–1891”
You can also develop marketing strategy (as well as other strategy) in systems analysis and design.
“If you feel lost and confused, if you lose your sense of direction, if you cannot tell the difference between friend and foe, you have only yourself to blame.”
“ведения войны заключается в том, чтобы не полагаться на то, что противник не придет, а полагаться на то, с чем ты можешь его встретить. Сунь-цзы. «Трактат о военном искусстве» (IV в. до н. э.)”
“Strategic warriors operate much differently. They think ahead toward their long-term goals, decide which fights to avoid and which are inevitable, know how to control and channel their emotions. When forced to fight, they do so with indirection and subtle maneuver, making their manipulations hard to trace. In this way they can maintain the peaceful exterior so cherished in these political times.”
“When you have success, be extra wary. When you are angry, take no action. When you are fearful, know you are going to exaggerate the dangers you face. War demands the utmost in realism, seeing things as they are. The more you can limit or compensate for your emotional responses, the closer you will come to this ideal.”
“To promote any value, even peace and pacifism, you must be willing to fight for it and to aim at results — not simply the good, warm feeling that expressing such ideas might bring you. The moment you aim for results, you are in the realm of strategy. War and strategy have an inexorable logic: if you want or desire anything, you must be ready and able to fight for it.” ~~ Robert Greene (Book: The 33 Strategies of War)
“Others will agree that war and strategy are primarily matters that concern men, particularly those who are aggressive or among the power elite. The study of war and strategy, they will say, is a masculine, elitist and repressive pursuit, a way for power to perpetuate itself, such an argument is dangerous nonsense.”
“A women’s lack of interest in strategy and war is not biological but social and perhaps political.”
“Your interest in war is not the violence, the brutality, the waste of loves and resources, but the rationality and pragmatism it forces in us and the ideal of winning without bloodshed.”
“Strategy is the art of commanding the entire military operation. Tactics, on the other hand, is the skill of forming up the army for battle itself and dealing with the immediate needs of battlefield.”
“To have the power that only strategy can bring, you must be able to elevate yourself above the battlefield, to focus on your long-term objective, to craft an entire campaign, to get out of the reaction mode that so many battles in life lock you into. Keeping your overall goals in mind, it becomes much easier to decide when to fight and when to walk away.”
“Strategy is an art that requires not only a different way of thinking but an entirely different approach to life itself.”
“Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it. In strategy all of life is a game that you are playing. This game is exciting but also requires deep and serious attention. The stakes are is high. What you know must translate into knowledge.”
It’s a military tactic to hold others liable for what they are not, and to say they are responsible for their own problems when they are victimized by comments like this. It’s also against international law. I’m not saying it’s not technically feasible.
What’s holding them back, is themselves, that’s easy to say when you keep prisoner or prisoner of war, as a mean of diversion , to justify war crimes, however, it won’t take those who say that to heaven.
http://www.kuote.us/quotes_book.php?idBook=602&uid=100923108908237058699
Understand: if you let narcissism act as a screen between you and other people, you will misread them and your strategies will misfire. You must be aware of this and struggle to see others dispassionately. Every individual is like an alien culture. You must get inside his or her way of thinking, not as an exercise in sensitivity but out of strategic necessity. Only by knowing your enemies can you ever hope to vanquish them.
No matter how far we progress, we remain part animal, and it is the animal in us that fires our strategies, gives them life, animates us to fight. Without the desire to fight, without a capacity for the violence war churns up, we cannot deal with danger.
So when something goes wrong, look deep into yourself?not in an emotional way, to blame yourself or indulge your feelings of guilt, but to make sure that you start your next campaign with a firmer step and greater vision.
When an action goes wrong?in business, in politics, in life?trace it back to the policy that inspired it in the first place.
The goals of the war, and the policies that drove it, were unrealistic, inappropriate, blind to other factors.
Always pay attention to the first step of the campaign. It sets the tempo, determines the enemy?s mind-set, and launches you in a direction that had better be the right one.
Hit him directly and he reacts, taking a defensive pose that may allow him to parry your next blow; but if he can?t see the point of your strike, or if it misleads him as to where the next one will come from, he is defenseless and blind.
Preventing your opponent from seeing the purpose of your actions gives you an enormous advantage.
A part of grand strategy related to severing the roots is seeing dangers as they start to sprout, then cutting them down before they get too big to handle. A grand strategist knows the value of preemptive action.
Too many wars and battles drag on because neither side knows how to strike at the other’s roots.
Every event has a reason, a causal chain of relationships that made it happen; you have to dig deep into that reality, instead of seeing only the surfaces of things.
Surprise. Only grand strategy can yield grand results.
1 Like
“A man is not complete until he is married. Then he is finished.”
-Zsa Zsa Gabor
1 Like
Ah, Zsa Zsa Gabor, quote maker extraordinaire!
“I tell you, in this world being a little crazy helps to keep you sane.” -Zsa Zsa Gabor.
“My husband said it was him or the cat. I miss him sometimes.” -Zsa Zsa Gabor.
But if you really want to know who Zsa Zsa Gabor was, here’s the money quote:
"I pay all my own bills… I want to choose the man. I do not permit men to choose me." -Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Quite a character.
1 Like
“In order to measure a person’s worth you must do more than push them. The real way to test their worth is to give them power. When they gain the freedom to act outside the boundaries of law and ethics you can sometimes see their souls.”
“Overall, I think people tend to reveal their true selves when they step into an avatar. As I said earlier, they probably feel some sense of freedom. But freedom easily gained quickly turns into a false sense of omnipotence.”
“A perfect plan doesn’t mean having everything go within expectations. A perfect plan is achieved when it has the plasticity needed to flexibly deal with troubles.”
-PsycoPass
GIve them power in peace time, and how they can wreck it the last 50% of the time, 36 years to 36.5 years.
“A man is not complete until he is married. Then he is finished.”
-Zsa Zsa Gabor
is meant as humor & irony of the language.
There are double entendre (a word or phrase open to two interpretations, one of which is usually risqué or indecent. humor using double entendres.), & dual agreement and consent.
Then his destiny is fulfilled.
Akhenaten
Pharaoh
Quotes
Indulge not thyself in the passion of anger; it is whetting a sword to wound thine own breast, or murder thy friend.
Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.
As the ostrich when pursued hideth his head, but forgetteth his body; so the fears of a coward expose him to danger.