Spring 1996 Tech Quote Submissions

Quotations related to Science and Technology

Submitted by SCEN167 class, Spring 1996
"Science Concepts behind High Technology"

(The Inevitable.)
Humanity is Roadkill on the Information Super Highway
JOOP! Jeans, Advertisement 1995
Submitted by: Michael Pisano (3/1/96)

(The Good?)
The Internet, of course, is more than just a place to find pictures of people having sex with dogs.
Time Magazine, 3 July 1995 B (popularized by Geek Site of the Day)
Submitted by: Michael Pisano (3/1/96)

(The Inevitable.)
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Submitted by: Doug Chudzik (3/1/96)

(The Good?)
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
ANDY ROONEY
Submitted by: Doug Chudzik (3/1/96)

(The Good?)
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Submitted by: Doug Chudzik (3/1/96)

(The Future)
We are crossing a threshold that will forever change the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. Not since the invention of the computer itself, has such an extraordinary transformation occurred.
BILL GATES, The Road Ahead (1995)
Submitted by: Alan Parry (3/3/96)

(The Good?)
It is said that one machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine however can do the work of one extraordinary man.
TEHYI HSIEH
Submitted by: Michael Pisano (3/4/96)
Found at: Doug Turner's Quotation Server

(The Bad!)
One has to look out for engineers - they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.
MARCEL PAGNOL
Submitted by: Michael Pisano (3/4/96)
Found at: Doug Turner's Quotation Server

(The Future)
[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system.
DAN QUAYLE, on the concept of a manned mission to Mars.
Submitted by: David Carver (3/6/96)
Found at: The "Official" Internet Quayle Quote List

(The Future)
We are leaders of the world of the space program. We have been the leaders of the world of our... of the space program and we're not going to continue where we're going to go, not withstanding the Soviet Union's demise and collapse -- the former Soviet Union -- we now have independent republics which used to be called the Soviet Union. Space is the next frontier to be explored. And we're going to explore. Think of all the things we rely upon in space today: communications from... Japan, detection of potential ballistic missile attacks. Ballistic missiles are still here. Other nations do have ballistic missiles. How do you think we were able to detect some of the Scud missiles and things like that? Space, reconnaissance, weather, communications -- you name it. We use space a lot today.
DAN QUAYLE, in What a Waste It Is to Lose One's Mind the unauthorized bibliography
Submitted by: David Carver (3/6/96)
Found at: Dan Quayle on Science and Technology

(The Bad!)
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all of the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
JEFF RASKIN, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
Submitted by: William Berry (3/6/96)

(The Bad!)
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
RICH COOK
Submitted by: William Berry (3/6/96)

(The Inevitable)
The first experiment in cyberspace was a man named Alexander Graham Bell looking for someone named Watson.
JOHN BARLOW, Founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and lyricist for the Grateful Dead
Submitted by: Matt Lipstein (3/6/96)
As heard on interview on National Public Radio on March 2, 1996.

(The Future)
Eisenhower went into a room full of computers. And he put the question to these machines, "Is there a God?" And they all start up, and the lights flash, and the wheels turn, and after a while a voice says, "Now there is."
JOSEPH CAMPBELL, The Power of Myth
Submitted by: Scott Stein (3/6/96)

(The Bad!)
Big Brother is watching you.
GEORGE ORWELL, 1984
Submitted by: Scott Stein (3/6/96)
Found at: Lexmark Quotations Page

(The Bad!)
A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable.
LESLIE LAMPORT, June 1992
Submitted by: Scott Stein (3/6/96)
Found at: Lexmark Quotations Page

(The Inevitable)
Why is it drug addicts and computer affictionados are both called users?
CLIFFORD STOLL, UNIX sysop, hacker stalker, and author of Silicon Snake Oil
Submitted by: Scott Stein (3/6/96)
Found at: Lexmark Quotations Page

(The Internet)
The Internet is like 'crack cocaine' for us information junkies.
PAUL STEPHEN, Winnipeg PC User Group
Submitted by: Michael Gilbode (3/7/96)
Found at: webhippie quotes page

Are the "facts" of Western" science just "social constructs?" Is science the tool of oppression of peoples and environment? Is "scientific objectivity" mere self-congratulation?
PAUL GROSS, U. Virginia, from a flyer for a UD Special Science Colloquium "Talking the Talk About Science"; author of Higher Superstition
Submitted by: Bob Harrison (3/7/96)

(The Internet)
The Internet is kind of like a gold rush where there really is gold.
BILL GATES in Microsoft Magazine, Jan/Feb 1996.
Submitted by: Blair Gordon (3/7/96)

(The Good?)
The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against whacking them around a little.
PORTERFIELD
Submitted by: Lisa Seigh (3/7/96)
Found at: Kerrie's Computer Quotation Page from The Kerrie DeGood Quotes Page

(The Good?)
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
SAINT-EXUPERY
Submitted by: Lisa Seigh (3/7/96)
Found at: Doug Turner's Quotation Server

(The Inevitable)
This begins a new era in the history of civilization. Never before has society been confronted with a power so full of potential danger and at the same time so full of promise for the future of man and for the peace of the world. The menace to our people . . . would call for prompt legislative action, even if the military and economic implications were not so overwhelming.
"The Congressional Record" of 1857
Submitted by: Gary Scott (3/8/96)
Note: The subject was not nuclear power but the internal combustion engine!

(The Inevitable.)
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.
HENRI POINCARE
Submitted by: Scott Smith (3/11/96)
Found at: A few quotes this time...from Robert Herzog personal homepage

(The Inevitable.)
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
HENRY SPENCER
Submitted by: Scott Smith (3/11/96)
Found at: A few quotes this time...from Robert Herzog personal homepage

(The Good?)
Do you know today's secret password?.....It's Knowledge.
New York Times, house ad, March 17, 1996
Submitted by: Michael Pisano (3/17/96)

Comments, suggestions, or requests to ghw@udel.edu.