Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy read more

Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy day: managed to work in three hours of usenet. Bad day: barely squeezed in three hours of usenet.

Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no read more

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite. -Paul Dirac.

The facts of the present won't sit still for a portrait. They are constantly vibrating, full of clutter and confusion.

The facts of the present won't sit still for a portrait. They are constantly vibrating, full of clutter and confusion.

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in read more

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
PL/I --'the fatal disease'-- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under read more

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.

The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.

Man's fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike holding back human knowledge and happiness.

Man's fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike holding back human knowledge and happiness.

It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.

It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.