2010 Apr 03 - Sat

Welcome to Planet NIT WIT

NIT WITs (Nationalize, Inflate, and Tax . Whatever It Takes) in Washington

Taken from a Casey Daily Dispatch:

Key among the tools used by governments around the globe to fund their steady expansion are the rights they take unto themselves to Nationalize, Tax, and Inflate, or NIT for short.

And they don't stop there. If a problem arises that threatens the status quo in any way, governments these days are quick to do "Whatever It Takes" (WIT). And we.re not just talking about snuffing out Arab bogeymen in Dubai hotels or handing over $180 billion to failing insurance companies - these days, if a problem is considered serious enough, no obvious limits need apply.

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2010 Mar 28 - Sun

A Collection of Quotes

Seduction is part of my stock in trade in the diplomatic service. Public lies are shouted in councils and courts, but secret truths are whispered in beds. -- The Miocene Arrow

"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end. -- an email footer

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." -- Albert Einstein

<< One of the really cool things about the camera is its cooling system. >> -- One would hope so. -- email foot from Dan Drasin

Holmes opined "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts".

"Undecidable by reduction to the halting problem in general, though apparently possible for straight-line code (no loops/recursion) through the brute-force method of generate all paths and send them to a theorem prover to prove equivalence." -- email foot from Scott McMurray

"The American dream is not owning a house; it.s every individual having the opportunity to achieve their full, God-given ability, and each generation having the responsibility to leave the country better off and better-positioned than the next so that our children and grandchildren can have a better way of life than we have" -- former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker

"It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs." -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News

"If you don't do it right the first time, you'll just have to do it again." -- Jack T. Hankins,

"The more sophisticated the technology, the more vulnerable it is to primitive attack. People often overlook the obvious." -- Dr. Who,

"Everything should be as simple as possible, and no simpler" -- Einstein

"Common sense is not so common" -- Voltaire

"Stability leads to instability. The more stable things become and the longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits." -- Hyman Minsky

"Never appeal to a man's 'better nature,' he may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage."

"Unfortunately, inefficiency scales really well." -- Kevin Lawton

"Davenport answered with a lift of his own glass, sniffed, then sipped. Tantalizingly delicious, deliciously tantalizing. He saw that it could be dangerous--a taste too easily acquired for something not so easily acquired." -- Foundations Friends.

"Let me state the obvious and posit the known--nothing is so overlooked as the obvious and nothing is so mysterious as the known" -- Foundations Friends

"It is what you do in life, not what torments you in your soul, that matters. And who you are in life, not who you fear you might become." Bast to Herzer in There Will Be Dragons

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2007 Oct 31 - Wed

Make It Seem To Work

"Sometimes it's much cheaper and easier to make people think that something works rather than actually make it work. After all, the result is, in all important aspects, the same." -- Douglas Adams

This reminds me of a building engineer, who, when complained to by staff that they were cold and wanted their own thermostat, put a thermostat on the wall. No one had asked that it be connected to anything, and no one complained after that.

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2007 Oct 26 - Fri

Bliss

What is better than eternal bliss? Nothing. But a slice of bread is better than nothing. So a slice of bread is better than eternal bliss.

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2007 Oct 03 - Wed

Life, Judgement and Experience

The Tired Architect talks about second systems, and refers to one of my favorite books: The Mythical Man Month by Frederick Brooks.

Anyway, The Tired Architect has a good quote:

As they say, good judgement comes from experience, and experience from bad judgement. It makes you a better architect, like how pain makes you appreciate health better.

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2007 Aug 11 - Sat

John H. Holland

Programs that learn, changing the course of calculation as the model accumulates experience, are rare after almost half a century of endeavor. We still have little theory to guide us and few implementations. . John H. Holland

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2007 Jun 02 - Sat

Tag Line, Found on GrokLaw

Simulation engineers do it with models virtually every day!

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2007 Mar 22 - Thu

Junk is stuff you throw away. Stuff is junk you keep.

Seen on GrokLaw.

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2007 Feb 14 - Wed

Tag Line, by Tom Robbins

Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef.
-- Tom Robbins

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