# In https://qz.com/1290434/ The study estimates that since human civilization began, the planet has lost 83% of its wild mammals, 80% of its marine mammals, 50% of plant life, and 15% of its fish. Welcome to the anthropocene. # The Economist, May 2021 Autonomous systems rely on artificial intelligence (AI), which in turn relies on data collected from those system's surroundings. When these data are good - plentiful, reliable, and similar to the data which the system's algorithm was trained - AI can excel. But in many circumstances data are incomplete, ambiguous or overwhelming. Consider the difference between radiology, in which algorithms outperform human beings analyzing X-rays images, and the self driving cars, which still struggle to make sense of a cacophonous stream of disparate inputs from the outside world. On the battlefield that problem is multiplied [...] enemies constantly constantly attempt to fool those sensors through camouflage, concealment, and trickery. # Donald Knuth machines follow the letter of the law precisely, while being oblivious to its spirit # Isaac Newton Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious Lady that a man had as good be engaged in Law suits as have to do with her. # Pearse Keane We often hear from medics saying they have a big dataset on one disease or another. But when you ask basic questions about what format the data is in, we never hear from them again. # Richard Feynman I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and there are many things I don't know anything about [...] I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. # Jean-Yves Girard Semantics has been dressed in all possible sauces, for instance the opposition between - denotational semantics, the category-theoretic interpretation of logic, - and operational semantics, the tiresome and unimaginative paraphrases of a programming language. - Not to speak of algebraic semantics, the interpretation of a system in itself by changing the character style: syntax in italics, semantics in boldface and more generally of very creative activity trying to obfuscate the meaning, so as to produce - one more useless paper - or PhD. This is why I prefer to confine the use of this dubious word to its original sense and use for the rest 'interpretation', or 'explanation', which have the advantage of being clear and honest, without any subliminal background. # Magister dixit Nullius in verba # Freud ...in the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his immortality. # Matiyasevich Julia Robinson failed to prove that the set of powers of 2 was not Diophantine, and she switched to trying to show that it was Diophantine. # Hoare: There are two ways of constructing a software design: - one way is to make is so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies - the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. # Heisenberg ... the human language permits the construction of sentences which do not involve any consequences and which therefore have no content at all - in spite of the fact that these sentences produce some kind of picture in our imagination, e.g., the statement that "besides our world there exists other world, with which any connection is impossible in principle" does not lead to any experimental consequence, but does produce a kind of picture in the mind. Obviously, such statement can neither be proved nor disproved. One should be especially careful in using the words "reality", "actually", etc., since these words very often lead to statements of the type just mentioned. # (unknown): There are two kinds of people: - those that divide the people in two kinds - those that don't Corollary: I belong to the first kind # (unknown): There are 10 kinds of people: - those that understand the binary system - those that don't # Economist, June 2016 "Leaders" In rich countries the problem [of teacher preparation] is more subtle. Teachers qualify following a long, specialised course. This will often involve - airy discussions of theory on "ecopedagogy", possibly, or on "conscientisation" (don't ask). Some of these courses, including masters degrees in education, have no effect on how well their graduates' pupils end up being taught. # (unknown, Einstein?): Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. # Norbert Wiener: ... the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences... # Antoine de Saint-Exupery: Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien `a ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien `a retrancher. # Dijkstra: Computer Science is no more about computers than Astronomy is about telescopes. # Christopher Hitchens: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. # Dijkstra (EWD1305, http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/welcome.html): It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs. The things society asks for are generally understood, and you don't need a University for that; the University must offer what no one else can provide. # Steven Weinberg: We speculate a lot about things we see as fundamental, like the masses of the particles, the different varieties of forces, the fact that we live in three space dimensions and one time dimension. But maybe all this is not fundamental but environmental. The universe may be much more extensive than we've imagined, with much more than just the big bang that we see around us. There may be different parts of the universe - where "parts" could mean various things - that have very different properties and in which what we normally call the laws of nature may be different and even the dimensionalities of space and time are different. There has to be some underlying law that describes the whole thing, but we may be much further from it than we now imagine. # Palle Yourgrau: ...For both [Godel and Einstein], mathematics was a window onto ultimate reality, not, as for many of their scientific colleagues, a mere tool for intellectual bookkeeping. # Wolfgang Pauli: Asked about a paper from a young physicist, he said: "It is not even wrong." # Wolfgang Pauli: I do not mind if you think slowly, but I do object when you publish more quickly than you think. # Einstein: The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. # Brook´s law: Adding manpower to a late project makes it later. # Benjamin Franklim: Tell me and I will forget, Teach me and I will remember, Involve me and I will learn. # Andrew Hodges (on Alan Turing): ...the most insistent defender of personal freedom, he held that free will and originality are susceptible to mechanization: the mind of Alan Turing remains an enigma. # Bill Buxton: Healthy universities need to understand that their primary role is long-term, basic, curiosity research. To be blunt, I believe that when academic research starts demonstrating industry relevance is when funding should be cut off, not augmented. # Javascript course (about object programming): http://www.javascriptmall.com/learn/lesson7.htm ...Quite frankly, objects have always been confusing to me. So don't feel bad if you have a problem understanding the concepts... # Chris Hillman: ...some of the most imaginative mathematical ideas of recent years have been introduced by computer scientists, physicists and engineers, not by mathematicians # Robin Milner: ...I certainly recognize a lot of inelegant work, both in computer and in music, including some of my own. # Abelson and Sussman: Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. # Donald E. Knuth: Premature optimization is the root of all evil. # Donald E. Knuth: I'm worried about the present state of programming. Programmers now are supposed to mostly just use libraries. Programmers aren't allowed to do their own thing from scratch anymore. They are supposed to assemble reusable code that somebody else has written. There's a bunch of things on the menu and you chose from these and put them together. Where's the fun in that? Where's the beauty in that? We have to figure out a way we can make programming interesting for the next generation of programmers. # (anonymous): - Theory is when you know something, but it doesn't work. - Practice is when something works, but you don't know why. - Programmers combine theory and practice: nothing works and they don't know why. # Robert Archer: If there's one thing worse than a program that doesn't work when it should, it's a program that does work when it shouldn't. # Donald E. Knuth: Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. # www.cscs.umichig.edu/~crsalizi/notabene/tsallis/html It has come to my attention that some people are citing this notebook as though it had some claim to authority. Fond though I am of my own opinions, this seems to be deeply wrong. # Dexter Kozen: If this appears confusing, don't worry, it really is. # Donald E. Knuth: Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. # Bertrand Meyer: Incorrect documentation is worse than no documentation. # M.A. Jackson: Rules of Optimization: Rule 1: don't do it. Rule 2 (for experts only): don't do it yet. # Butler Lampson (text with a small modification): All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of abstraction. Kevlin Henney's exception to Butler Lampson theorem: "...except for the problem of too many layers of abstraction." # A Murphy law for programmers: For every bug B in a program P, the correction of B introduces at least two new, much more subtle, bugs B1, B2. Corollary: Do it right the first time. # "Startling Software": Popular technologies, such as Java, are often popular precisely because are not very powerful. Many shops prefer to use tools and build systems such that anybody, even bad programmers, can work on them and stand little chance of doing much harm. They pay for this in limiting the productivity of good programmers. # Bertrand Russell: The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible. # Brendan Gill: Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. # Albert Einstein: The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education # Edward Gibbon: Everyone who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself. # Edward Gibbon: We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win. # Woodrow Wilson: the object of the college, as we have known and used and loved it [...] is not scholarship [...] but the intellectual and spiritual life. Its life and discipline are meant to be a process of preparation, not a process of information. By the intellectual and spiritual life I mean the life which enables the mind to comprehend and make proper use of the modern world and all its opportunities. The object of a liberal training is not learning, but discipline and the enlightenment of the mind. The educated man is to be discovered by his point of view, by the temper of his mind, by his attitude towards life and his fair way of thinking. He can see, he can discriminate, he can combine ideas and perceive whither they lead; he has insight and comprehension. His mind is a practised instrument of appreciation. He is more apt to contribute light than heat to a discussion [...] he has the knowledge of the world which no one can have who knows only his own generation or only his own task. # Edward Gibbon: I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect. # Shostakovich: Dear Isaak Davidovich, I arrived in Odessa on the day of the All-Peoples celebration of the 40th anniversary of Soviet Ukraine. This morning, I went out into the street. You, of course, understand that one cannot stay indoors on such a day. Despite wet and foggy weather, the whole of Odessa was out of doors. Everywhere are portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and also of comrades A. I. Belyaev, L. I. Brezhnev, N. A. Bulganin, K. E. Voroshilov, N. G. Ignatov, A. I. Kirilenko, F. R. Kozlov, O. V. Kuussinen, A. I. Mikoyan, N. A. Mukhitdinov, M. A. Suslov, E. A. Furtseva, N. S. Khrushchev, N. M. Shvernik, A. A. Aristov, P. A. Pospelov, Ya. E. Kalnberzin, A. P. Kirichenko, A. N. Kosygin, K. T. Mazyrov, V. P. Mzhevanadze, M. G. Pervukhin, N. T. Kalchenko. Everywhere are banners, slogans, posters. All around are happy, beaming Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish faces. Here and there one hears eulogies in honour of the great banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and also in honour of comrades A. I. Belyaev, L. I. Brezhnev, N. A. Bulganin, K. E. Voroshilov, N. G. Ignatov, A. I. Kirichenko, F. R. Kozlov, O. V. Kuussinen, A. I. Mikoyan, N. A. Mukhitdinov, M. A. Suslov, E. A. Furtseva, N. S. Khrushchev, N. M. Shvernik, A. A. Aristov, P. A. Pospelov, Ya. E. Kalnberzin, A. P. Kirilenko, A. N. Kosygin, K. T. Mazyrov, V. P. Mzhevanadze, M. G. Pervukhin, N. T. Kalchenko, D. S. Korotchenko. Everywhere one hears Russian and Ukrainian speech. Sometimes one hears the foreign speech of the representatives of progressive humanity who have come to Odessa to congratulate its residents on the occasion of their glorious holiday. I too wandered around and, unable to restrain my joy, returned to my hotel where I resolved to describe, so far as I can, the All-Peoples celebration in Odessa. Do not judge me harshly. All the best, D. Shostakovich # Alsel Adams: There is nothing more disturbing than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. # Thomas Jefferson: Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances. # W. Churchill: The best lesson life has taught me is that the idiots in many cases are right. # W. Shakespeare: Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. # A. Pushkin: To God obedient, O Muse, Demand no wreath, fear no abuse. Remain to praise and slander cool, And do not argue with a fool. (quoting a quotation: from Leonid Levin's homepage) # Herman Melville: Somehow I knew that the notional space behind all the computer screens would be one single universe. # Anonymous (?): A map is not the land it represents... but look at the fixed-point Theorem. # Norbert Wiener: A professor is one who can speak on any subject -- for precisely fifty minutes. # Norbert Wiener: The best model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat. # Donald Knuth: I can't go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts of the menu. # Donald Knuth: My main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working with TEX is that software is hard. It's harder than anything else I've ever had to do. # Edsger Dijkstra: Elegance is not a dispensable luxury, but a quality that decides between success and failure. # Edsger Dijkstra: The question whether "machines can think" is as relevant as the question whether "submarines can swim". # Rob Tubbs: ...there is this pressure on you to publish papers, and if you happen to get some results - even if they say something strange about something of no interest - you want to publish it someplace. # Murray Kempton: Nothing decays like progress and nothing preserves like neglect # ? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder # Karl Poppe The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know; our knowledge of our ignorance. # Alan Turing: I have read Wilkes' proposals for a pilot machine [...] The code which he suggests is however very contrary to the line of development here [at the National Physical Laboratory], and much more in the American tradition of solving one's difficulties by means of much equipment rather than thought. # Jaron Lanier (Scientific American) We still have the potential to choose what we want. When we speak about grand trade­offs between privacy and security or privacy and convenience, it is as if these trade­offs are unavoidable. It is as if we have forgotten the most basic fact about computers: they are programmable! # F. William Lawvere It was always hard for many to comprehend how Cantor's mathematical theorem could be re-christened as a **paradox** by Russell and how Godel's theorem could be so often declared to be ** the most significant result of the 20th century ** There was always the suspicion among scientists that such extra-mathematical publicity movements concealed an agenda for re-establishing belief as a substitute for science. # May 29, TrueCript: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues. # John MacCarthy We understand human mental processes only slightly better than a fish understands swimming. # Robin Fairbairns The TEX community seems to me to function best when very small groups are doing the work. Examples include (almost) one-man-bands that produce distributions like Web2C, teTEX and MiKTEX. By contrast, I have a strong suspicion that large TEX projects tend to run very slowly! # The Economist: "Artificial Intelligence": a term John McCarthy coined hoping it would attract money for the first conference on the subject at Dartmouth in 1956. # Dijkstra "How recursion got in programming: a comedy..." "Any other occurrence of the procedure identifier denotes reactivation of the procedure." [...] That sentence has been inserted sneakily. And of all the people who sort of had to agree with the report, none saw that sentence. That’s how recursion was explicitly included. # James Callagan (in Keen, the Cult of the Amateur) "A lie can make its way around the world before the truth has the chance to put its boots on". That has never been more true than with the speeding, freewheeling, unchecked culture of today's blogosphere. # Primo Levi Ogni tempo ha il suo fascismo: se ne notano i segni premonitori dovunque la concentrazione di potere nega al cittadino la possibilità e la capacità di esprimere ed attuare la sua volontà. A questo si arriva in molti modi, non necessariamente col terrore dell'intimidazione poliziesca, ma anche negando o distorcendo l'informazione, inquinando la giustizia, paralizzando la scuola, diffondendo in molti modi sottili la nostalgia per un mondo in cui regnava sovrano l'ordine, ed in cui la sicurezza dei pochi privilegiati riposava sul lavoro forzato e sul silenzio forzato dei molti. # Newton Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious Lady that a man had as good be engaged in Law suits as have to do with her. # Newton Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external [...] Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. # Ferguson, Schneier, and Kohno To work in this field [cryptography], you have to become devious yourself. You have to think like a malicious attacker to find weaknesses in your own work. This affects the rest of your life as well. Everybody who works on practical cryptography systems has experienced this. Once you start thinking about how to attack systems, you apply that to everything around you. You suddenly see how you could cheat the people around you, and how they could cheat you. Cryptographers are professional paranoids. It is important to separate your professional paranoia from your real-world life so as to not go completely crazy. Most of us manage to preserve some sanity . . . we think.' In fact, we think that this practical paranoia can be a lot of fun. Developing this mindset will help you observe things about systems and your environment that most other people don't notice. # Linus Torvalds, Just for Fun The same is true in computers. You can do something the brute force way, the stupid, grind-the-problem-down-until-it's-not-a-problem-anymore way, or you can find the right approach and suddenly the problem just goes away. You look at the problem another way, and you have this epiphany: it was only a problem because you were looking at it the wrong way. # Mao Zedong Even though I believe we should promote Chinese medicine, I personally do not believe in it. # Economist, September 2016 A large American health-care provider, Ochsner Health System, introduced a rule that workers must make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within ten feet of another person in the hospital. Pret A Manger sends in mystery shoppers to visit every outlet regularly to see if they are greeted with the requisite degree of joy. Pass the test and the entire staff gets a bonus—a powerful incentive for workers to turn themselves into happiness police. Companies have a right to ask their employees to be polite when they deal with members of the public. They do not have a right to try to regulate their workers’ psychological states and turn happiness into an instrument of corporate control. @