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Art washes from the soul, the dust from every day life - Pablo Picasso
I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process. - Vincent van Gogh
Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree. - Pablo Picasso
The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence. - Woody Allen
If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint. - Edward Hopper
The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not - Kurt Vonnegut
The last 10 years have been about building a world that is mobile-first. In the next 10 years, we will shift to a world that is AI-first.
Artificial Intelligence is the study of how to make computers do things at which, at the moment, people are better.
Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Now here’s Tom with the weather
The problem with books is that they end. - Caroline Kepnes
A reader lives a thousand lives before they die. The person who never reads lives only one. - George R. Martin
- She smiled at him. - And then it arose and struck Vimes that, in her own special category, she was quite beautiful; that was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at. She couldn’t do worse, but then, he couldn’t do better. So maybe it balanced out. She wasn’t getting any younger but then, who was? And she had style and money and common sense and self-assurance and all the things that he didn’t, and she had opened her heart, and if you let her she could engulf you; the woman was a city. - And eventually, under siege, you did what Ankh-Morpork had always done–unbar the gates, let the conquerors in, and make them your own.
Stop thinking about making a million dollars and start thinking about serving a million people. - Dharmesh Shah
… You know throughout the years in business I found something which was I’d always ask why you do things and the answer you invariably get is oh that’s just the way it’s done. Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks about things very deeply in business. That’s what I found… - Steve Jobs
If you know how big the market is, you're too late.
The best entrepreneurs are not risk-takers. They spend every day reducing risk.
Startups mostly don't compete against each other, they compete against no one giving a shit.
Our company is worth nothing. That's the difference between you and I. Business isn't about money to me...
If tomorrow my company goes under I will just start another paper company. And then another and another and another. I have no shortage of company names.
I used to work at McDonald’s making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? It’s like, “Hey, if I could pay you less, I would, but it’s against the law“ - Chris Rock
There are decades when nothing happens. There are weeks where decades happen. - Vladimir Lenin
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. - M. E. Porter
If it's not a hell yes, it's a no.
In the age of information, ignorance is a choice - Donny Miller
The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. - Gandhi
God is consciousness without the sense of self
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Because you're only free if you refrain from touching the walls of your cell.
It's all in your head. You just have no idea how big your head is. - Lon Milo Duquette
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
The ego is an enlightenment trap.
Meditation is the medicine, mindfulness the diet.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment - Thoreau
Lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it's been...
- A man was walking along a river bank when he saw another man on the opposite side. - Hello! he called out, how do you get to the other side of the river? - The man called out in response, you are on the other side of the river!
We often look, but we rarely see.
We often hear, but we rarely listen.
- I have seen this as well. It's called ego death. - The past and future do not exist. Only the moment. And in the moment everything exists. Life... existence... reality itself raging forward. You are only random jumble of some matter from a random part of the universe. You are no more important than any other piece of reality. But in the same sense, you are the most important thing in the universe. You are the universe. The universe is within you and you within it. - During ego death you realise this. This fact of existence. You are only another piece of matter. You are exactly the same as a table or chair or the dirt. You are simply matter. Conscious matter. A bunch of atoms with self awareness. Ego death is... in my opinion, the most tangible example of nirvana. It is the greatest form of understanding. - We are all just lucky bundles of atoms experiencing existence together. It makes you chill out and have empathy for other life forms. - We just exist. We are just alive. And we overcomplicate it all. But all life forms have the same basic feelings about stuff.
The universe is endless, limitless and infinite. Any effort to define it's boundaries is an attempt to overcome ignorance. We are physical, mental and spiritual beings ... there is no beginning and there is no end. There is only memory. Our repeated loss of memory experiences create the illusion of beginnings and ends. Immortality is the ability to retain full memory through all consciousness transformations. Loss of memory is man's greatest curse and, in very real terms, death.
Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.
Although the road is never ending take a step and keep walking, do not look fearfully into the distance... On this path let the heart be your guide for the body is hesitant and full of fear.
Modern man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from touching the walls of his dungeon.
You are an extra in everyone else's movie
Heaven, it's anywhere but where you are.
- So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could for example have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. - And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure during your sleep. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great”. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be. - And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today. - That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have. Of playing that you weren't god, because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he is not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality, not god in a politically kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you are all that, only you are pretending you are not.
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
If everything is under control, you're going too slow. - Mario Andretti
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. - Carl Sagan
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Everything you can imagine is real. - Pablo Picasso
It is the simplest version of the idea that sticks. - Christopher Nolan
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious - Albert Einstein
If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules.
Create. Not for the money. Not for the fame. Not for the recognition. But for the pure joy of creating something and sharing it. - Ernest Barbaric
DMT will not teach you anything about this universe. The only guaranteed truths you will find there are about the self. Everything else is just what could be, in my opinion.
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. - Steve Jobs
You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people - Charles Eames
When you drink alcohol you are just borrowing happiness from tomorrow.
The dose makes the poison.
Know your body, know your mind, know your substance, know your source.
A brilliant professor of mine liked to say The Answer of the Engineer: it depends.
The more afraid you are the more power your fear has.
A penny saved is a penny earned. - Benjamin Franklin
One man's debt is another man's financial asset
Rich people buy things that make them more money; poor people buy big screen TV's and cars - Robert Kiyosaki
Wealthy is meaningless; use Unwealth: the difference, at any point in time, between what you have and what you would like to have
Do the simple thing first.
Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. This improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve. - Elon Musk
Freedom consists of the distribution of power and despotism in its concentration.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.
To know who your true friends are, look out for the ones who say good things behind your back and bad things to your face.
If computer science fundamentals are so important why do I only think about them during interviews?
I actually saw a job ad today for a front end developer proficient in all JavaScript frameworks
The grass is greener on the other side, but that's because it's fertilised with bullshit
I'm glad I'm unemployed so I have time to configure it!
You can’t wait to take perfectly Instagrammed photos of the meal to go along with your perfectly Instagrammed life.
Being a millennial is like joining a game of monopoly after all the properties have been bought up.
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels. The package makers, the man page writers. The rounded windows in Qt mixed with the less rounded windows of GTK. The ones who literally see things differently because of missing proprietary fonts.
The exercises are phenomenal. Though they do range from a stop gap to see if you understand to PhD thesis so it does vary.
if you haven’t automatically destroyed something by mistake, you are not automating enough
A junior software engineer is a function that maps programs to excuses.
The Muskonauts figured out why their shit exploded. Hackernews, literally all of whom are actual rocket scientists, wonders if unit tests could have helped.
An astronaut has passed away. He retired from NASA in 1976, since which time humanity has been phoning it in with this whole space-travel scene. Half of Hackernews recognizes this as the massive failure it is; the other half seizes the opportunity to virtue-signal about all the other problems nobody's fixing.
Some people Instagram their food. On Hackernews, foodie cred is earned by bragging about what you don't eat. Sugar. Bread. Dairy. Meat. Caffeine. All of these are linked by science to early stroke, heart attack, cancer, and/or obesity. In addition, to live a long healthy life you need to tend to the bacteria living in your intestine like a Sea Monkey colony -- and don't forget to meditate frequently. I bet you can figure out where all this is headed -- and yes, when a very scientific study was published indicating eating nothing at all gave you regenerative superpowers, the Hackernews dietary virtue-signalers lost their collective mind.
Technologically current X.org resembles a trashcan with rockets taped on it.
I've seen insane comments. And then there are reddit insane comments.
- Hey how did your hackathon go? - Not too bad, we got Babel set up. - Yep. - Yep…
The S in the IoT stands for Security.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay
Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday. - Steve Jobs
The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. - Mark Manson
If you don’t measure it, it won’t get fixed.
What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again. - Anne Frank
The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next
There are decades when nothing happens. There are weeks where decades happen. - Vladimir Lenin
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. - John Steinbeck
Throughout the history of the human race, few things have been more profitable than selling both the poison and the cure.
If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. - Henry Ford
It is the simplest version of the idea that sticks. - Christopher Nolan
If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results. - Newton
We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane. - Philip K Dick
The amateur waits for inspiration. The professional knows that it will come after he starts.
Knowledge means knowing where it's written down.
Never memorise something that you can look up. - Albert Einstein
An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialised knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others. - Napoleon Hill
The wise warrior avoids the battle.
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. - Albert Einstein
Study without devotion damages the brain - Leonardo da Vinci
Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry its progress, ignorance its end.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.
I leaned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. - Richard Feynman
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
In the age of information, ignorance is a choice - Donny Miller
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. - M. E. Porter
Pass it on, .... That’s the game I want you to learn. Pass it on.
An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialised knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others. - Napoleon Hill
The wise warrior avoids the battle.
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
“Study without devotion damages the brain”. - Leonardo da Vinci
I knew when I was eight .. that I might sincerely regret not having participate in this thing called the internet.. - Jeff Bezos
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry its progress, ignorance its end.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin
Learn to love and admire the right people, live or dead.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself. - Albert Einstein
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.
I leaned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
Review the intuitive definition. Rephrase technical definitions in terms that make sense to you.
I didn’t learn to talk from a linguist, I learned to talk from hearing other people talk
A language isn't something you learn so much as something you join.
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. - Alan Watts
For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. - Alfred D. Souza
People have a lot invested in this ride. - Bill Hicks
When you change yourself you change the world.
Once you realise what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense - Watchmen by Alan Moore
Mistakes are the portals of discovery. - James Joyce.
I don't believe in asceticism or sobriety, moderation is the middle path.
Don't let anyone tell you your ideas are stupid or the thing you feel most passionate about 'won't work - Dennis Crowley
It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose. - Bill Gates
Times change, and we change with them.
One tomorrow at a time.
I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain
Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own. - Bruce Lee
Have you ever noticed that when you sit down to write something, half the ideas that end up in it are ones you thought of while writing it? The same thing happens with software. Working to implement one idea gives you more ideas. So shelving an idea costs you not only that delay in implementing it, but also all the ideas that implementing it would have led to. In fact, shelving an idea probably even inhibits new ideas: as you start to think of some new feature, you catch sight of the shelf and think “but I already have a lot of new things I want to do for the next release. - Paul Graham
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. - Lao Tzu
Empower people. Embrace change. Eliminate waste.
An unexamined life is not worth living.
A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. - Oscar Wilde
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. - Steve Jobs
You can’t be free if you judge people
It’s interesting to think about how profoundly we’re a product of the culture we’re raised in, even to the level of our modes of cognition. We’d all like to think there’s something essential about us as individuals that would persist no matter where or when we were born, but so many of the pursuits that define us are entirely culture-specific. Music seems to be found in all cultures, so maybe a musician would be drawn to music no matter what form it took in the culture she was born into, but what would I be drawn to in a culture without the written word? - Ted Chiang
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. - Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
Anxiety's a funny thing. A simple change in perspective and it's just gone. But will it stay gone? That's always the question.
I wish it need not have happened in my time, said Frodo. So do I, said Gandalf, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - The Fellowship of the Ring
Modern man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from touching the walls of his dungeon.
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
Anyone, no matter how smart or educated, can be tricked and it's impossible to know when the person being tricked is you.
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style.
I don't think - said Alice; Then you shouldn't talk said the Hatter. - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. - Alfred D. Souza
I can remember thinking, Oh, someday, like in my mid-thirties maybe, everything's going to just somehow gel and settle, just end. It was like there was this plateau, and it was waiting for me, and I was climbing up it, and when I got to the top, all growth and change would stop. Even exhilaration. But that hasn't happened like that, thank goodness. I think that what we don't take into account when we're young is our endless curiosity. That's what's so great about being human. - From movie “Waking Life
All you touch, and all you see is all your life will ever be.
The grass isn't greener on the other side, it's greener where you water it.
Don't spend life daydreaming about 'what could be' in a different place or circumstance. Instead, invest your energy in what is right in front of you and see how it can be cultivated into something beautiful.
Don’t worry about controlling your emotions. Control your actions
Be the person you needed in life.
Perhaps drugs aren't the experience, but life itself is the experience
Energy is the currency of the universe. When you ‘pay’ attention to something, you buy that experience. Be selective with your focus.
Will either find a way, or make one Your soul takes on the colour of your thoughts
A mistake only stays a mistake if you don't learn from it.
The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. - Gandhi
Learn to love and admire the right people, live or dead.
You often cannot control your thoughts, but you can control your actions.
He who fears death is a slave of life.
Awaken; return to yourself. Now, no longer asleep, knowing they were only dreams, clear-headed again, treat everything around as a dream
It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if your using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal - if he's living a normal human life. And if it's normal, how can it be bad?
You can hold your breath until you turn blue, but they'll still go on doing it.
Leave other people's mistakes where they lie
Don't mistake the finger for the moon
I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time. - Banksy
The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there’s no ground. - Trungpa Rinpoche
The more afraid you are the more power your fear has.
Once you realise what a joke everything is, being the comedian is the only thing that makes sense.
The best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago. The second best time is today.
I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain
An unexamined life is not worth living.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
You can’t be free if you judge people
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. - Mark Twain
Anyone, no matter how smart or educated, can be tricked and it's impossible to know when the person being tricked is you.
All you touch, and all you see is all your life will ever be. - Mark Twain
Life's about the journey not the destination.
I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time. - Mark Twain
Dying is but a moment
Thoughts become words, words become actions
The teacher appears when the student is ready
The first draft of anything is garbage. - Ernest Hemingway
No plan survives contact with the enemy
You only dread these dreary tasks when you're dreading them
You must have a map, no matter how rough. Otherwise you wander all over the place. In The Lord of the Rings I never made anyone go farther than he could on a given day. - Tolkien
What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast? - Anthony Bourdain
The self hides in many ways, under every stone, the self can hide in compassion, going to India and looking after poor people, because the self is attached to some idea, faith, conclusion, belief, which makes me compassionate because I love Jesus or Krishna, and I go up to heaven. The self has many masks, the mask of meditation, the mask of achieving the highest, the mask that I am enlightened, that “I know of what I speak.” All this concern about humanity is another mask. So one has to have an extraordinary, subtle, quick brain to see where it is hiding. It requires great attention, watching, watching, watching. - On Mind and Thought, p 133
Mathematics requires a small dose, not of genius, but of an imaginative freedom which, in a larger dose, would be insanity. - Angus K. Rodgers
Fractals are shapes with a non-integer dimension
She, like many, had always thought that mathematics did not derive its meaning from the universe, but rather imposed some meaning onto the universe. - Ted Chiang
In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them. - John von Neumann
Geometry without algebra is dumb! Algebra without geometry is blind! - Hestenes
Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them. - John von Neumann
To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of. - R. A. Fisher
Most people who are Bad At Math simply don't have the fundamentals down. It happens in school where, if you don't have a concept well understood, too bad we're onto the next topic. And you don't have the skills to cope with the new topic. You fall behind and it's kind of over unless you really apply yourself. I know this because it happened to me. So what I suggest is, no matter what course you take, start at the very beginning. Even if you think you know it, do all the exercises. You'll build your skills piece by piece much like programming and before long you'll wonder why you found it hard in the beginning. It becomes like programming where even with huge problems you just break them down into smaller and smaller pieces until you can cope.
The less I needed, the better I felt - Charles Bukowski
To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. - Lao Tzu
Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness - Zhuang Zhou
In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. - Dr. Martin Luther King
- Man is the most insane species. - He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. - Unaware that the Nature he is destroying is this God he is worshipping.
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
They love us too much, and understand us too little.
There are years that ask questions and years that answer. - Zora Neale Hurston
The general principle that any problem you face, no matter how big, can be broken down into smaller and easier to solve problems, recursively, is the most important idea in human history.
The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you. - Heisenberg
It's all either order or chaos. You momentarily ordered what was already there in a more structured way. Then when you deleted it, that specific order disappeared. Like a plant assembling itself out of minerals and water and atmospheric compounds, and the dying and decomposing back into them again. The underlying elements are still there, but the structure is gone.
What is special about atomic theory is the supposition that there is an endpoint to recursive reduction. That at some point you cannot find anything simpler.
It's not complicated, it's just a lot of it. - Richard Feynman
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. - Abraham Lincoln
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it - Upton Sinclair
If you don't read the paper you are uninformed, if you do you are misinformed - Mark Twain
Democracy is the worst form of government ... except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Political battles are won with money not words
Today's surveillance is extremely stealthy. If a person was following you all day, writing down what you are doing, of course you would care. But the problem today is, most people don't see the person following them.
There is no cloud, just other people's computers
If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules.
Apple often doesn't invent the whole thing, but definitely puts a usable version on the market.
'The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise' - Edsger Dijkstra
Hope is not a strategy.
…You have to say to yourself – “I don’t know what I’m doing. We, as a field, don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know what programming is, we don’t know what computing is, we don’t even know what a computer is.” And once you truly understand that, once you truly believe that – then you’re free, and you can think anything. - Bret Victor
A feature that isn't documented is a useless feature.
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
If it doesn't work right, in what sense does it work at all?
When in doubt, use examples
Lots of problems arise from a bad understanding of where we should be in the levels of abstraction.
The goal is not to write code that works, the goal is to write code you keep using but never touch again.
I have made this function so long only because I did not have the time to make it shorter.
A programmer will be able to understand a problem in full only when he has solved it at least once.
Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. - Hardol Abelson
Writing programs is just the way you make the machine understand your maths
It's so fun to stop every now and then when writing a lambda function and think it through all the way to the electrons hitting the monitor, etc.
Error driven development
Wait, what? Why does my code depend on that? - Ancient Google proverb.
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. - Tom Cargill, Bell Labs.
The whole point of JavaScript libraries is to abstract away the browser’s internal API and provide a different, better API instead.
To be able to speak, one must listen. To be able to write (code), one must read (code)
It's better for your tool to be dumb and work in predictable ways than to implement surprising convenience behaviours. The presence of magic numbers set by default is a good indicator that some tool is too smart for its own good and will cause you grief.
When you get the message, hang up the phone. - Alan Watts
Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.
Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Now, heres Tom with the weather. - Bill Hicks
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
It's like explaining what being wet is like to someone that has never seen water
- Some people say that we’ve been here before.That we don’t live just once, but hundreds of times. - Some people say that we have soulmates, not just one, but many. And that we meet again and again throughout our lives. - Some people like to keep their minds on other things. And so they spend their whole lives looking for answers to the wrong questions. - But what if the many secrets of life and death were not as unknown as we’ve been taught to believe? - Maybe, if you just shift your mind ever so slightly just an inch to the left you’ll see what I mean. - You’ll know when it happens. It will feel like a hundred sunsets hitting you all at once. - It’s a difficult feeling to explain, maybe you have felt it before. It’s sort of like old friends meeting, or the dawn breaking into the night after a thousand years of darkness. - But if I really told you the secrets of the universe, you probably wouldn’t believe me. - So I am here to remind you of how it used to be. No longer just the distance of a memory but instead something completely clear as if it were only yesterday.
Without salt, an egg is no fun to eat
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
Simplicity Is Complexity Resolved - Constantin Brancusi
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. - John Steinbeck
I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact - Elon Musk
Take something that people do, and remove a step (or make that step very very easy). That's the key to a successful startup. - Ev Williams
- Fail fast. - Do your best to validate the business idea before investing a bunch of time and money. - The faster you fail, the faster you can move onto another idea that might actually be the winner.
Stop making the product perfect. Get it to market and get feedback
The ultimate judges are users.
The hardest thing to do is start.
Focus on selling your product, not selling your company.
Focus on the long term, and always do what’s right to grow the company and not make short-term decisions. And outlast everyone
The best startup book is one you never open because you're too busy marketing and building your product.
Do the simple thing first.
Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. This improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve. - Elon Musk
It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose. - Bill Gates
It’s not about having time, it’s about making time.
Focus is a matter of deciding what not to do. - John Carmack
Are you moving one step in 20 directions or 20 steps in one direction?
Show, don't tell
First, master fundamentals. Then, play infinite games. - James Stuber
You don't remember the work, you remember the exhilaration. - Robert Herjavec
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin
I am reminded of the story of the great French Marshal Lyautey, who once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow-growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The Marshal replied, In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon. - John F. Kennedy
If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results - Isaac Newton
We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.
Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday. - Steve Jobs
If everything is under control, you're going too slow. - Mario Andretti
Mistake only stays a mistake if you don't learn from it
The grass isn't greener on the other side, it's greener where you water it.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway
Don't mistake the finger for the moon
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.
Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. - Jim Rohn
“Nobody is the boss. The project is the boss.”
Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.
Frameworks descend and burn up in the atmosphere like meteors. Technology changes fast enough that today’s problems are never tomorrow’s problems. Historically, our greatest technologies have been created by those who kept digging until they hit bedrock; who understood foundational ideas and technologies well enough to improve upon them.
The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest
Every day we change the world. But to change the world in a way that means anything - that takes more time than most people have. It never happens all at once. It's slow. It's methodical. It's exhausting. We don't all have the stomach for it
You want to be the first and last mover. Be the company that defines that area : Google / Amazon. Think of the end game, but do start.
Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching. - Naval Ravikant
Just because other people are idiots doesn't mean we should be.
Think for yourself, question authority.
I am reminded of the story of the great French Marshal Lyautey, who once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow-growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The Marshal replied, In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon. - John F. Kennedy
It's all either order or chaos. You momentarily ordered what was already there in a more structured way. Then when you deleted it, that specific order disappeared. Like a plant assembling itself out of minerals and water and atmospheric compounds, and the dying and decomposing back into them again. The underlying elements are still there, but the structure is gone.
If we don’t end war, war will end us.
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five. - Carl Sagan
You are a business, your skills are the product. Treat it like that.
You don’t get paid what you deserve. You get paid what other people think you're worth.
Show, don't tell.
You don't remember the work, you remember the exhilaration. - Robert Herjavec
You don't pay a plumber to bang on your pipes, you pay them to know where to bang
If you think a pro is expensive, wait until you have to fix the work of an amateur
Never use a long word when a short one will do.
Write like you speak
