Try to develop a reflex reaction - if a computer
does anything unexpected, freeze. - Simon Tatham
%
This is what I say: Give me back my old computer stuff. And this
is what I mean: I'd really like to have the system before that.
 - Marc Fisher, Washington Post
%
Unix makes easy tasks hard and hard tasks possible.
Windows makes easy tasks easy and hard tasks $29.95.
 - istartedi, Slashdot
%
Copyright lasting until 50 years after the author's death?
Software patents on obvious ideas that have lots of prior art?
Get a clue. - Anonymous, Slashdot
%
Workaholics and others who can't tear themselves away from the mouse and
keyboard need to keep their legs active and get away from the computer for
some exercise every now and then. So, please, get up and stretch every so
often. You certainly don't want to wind up eDead from eThrombosis.
 - Jenny Thompson, HSI
%
I can think of two reasons for running Windows software.
A: Your fascist employer is a nitwit and approves of nonsense
like Lotus Notes, which oughta be illegal.
B: You're running games. - Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson
%
Computers are beyond dumb, they're mind-numbingly stupid.
They're hostile, rigid, capricious, and unforgiving.
They're impossibly demanding and they never learn anything.
-- John R. Levine
%
If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them
in the guise of programs! - Alan J. Perlis, SICP
%
Anyone who slaps a "this page is best viewed with Browser X" label
on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the
Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written
on another computer, another word processor, or another network.
 - Tim Berners-Lee, Technology Review, July 1996
%
But, hey, the very _existence_ of Microsoft would have been _impossible_
without systematic and pervasive sloppiness, carelessness and outright
lies, so it's kinda hard to argue against those vices with people who
_only_ want a quick buck (which is a vice on its own, if you ask me).
 - Erik Naggum on comp.lang.lisp, May 1998
%
When Bill puts "My Computer" on your screen, he means it.
 - Tom Felker, August 2004
%
To repeat my initial point. Bill Gates is NOT a "skilled businessman" -
he is a criminal, whose various acts of sabotage, fraud, and so on,
should have landed him in jail. - A. C. on Slashdot, October 2004
 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=126220&cid=10566043
%
Frankly, I'd love to find a way to fit computers in, but between the
chess tournaments, the model building, the old Life magazines - there
just doesn't seem to be time. - Arthur J. Siegel, April 2005
%
Whether or not computers are used in school is a trifle compared to
fixing the basic assumptions and design that make schools a poor place
for learning. It's not that they fail at helping children learn, it's
that helping children learn is not even a goal of school.
 - Dethe Elza, April 2005
%
What's exciting to me about computers is it's an area where humans,
notorious for not getting along, especially politically and religiously,
have co-created some awesomely complicated yet working technology. It's
a metaphor for civilization itself. - Kirby Urner, May 2005
%
It is rare to find a corporate environment where the project team has any-
thing approaching the level of planning, documentation, or review found in
successful open source projects. For some reason, as soon as a budget and a
deadline are involved, all of the lessons we've learned over the years and
applied successfully to open source projects seem to fly out the window.
 - Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene, February 2006
%
One important shortcoming of open source projects is that oftentimes they
are just done on a programmer's whim. On the other hand, the problem with
many corporate projects is that they're just done on a vice president's
whim. The best projects - in both worlds - are the ones that actually ful-
fill real needs of real users, and aren't just someone's pet project.
 - Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene, February 2006
%
In the '70s I was a huge fan of various bands; now I'm a huge fan
of software. I've gone from gazing at record covers to gazing at
online help files, which is a little sick, now that I think about it.
 - Wayne Lytle, March 2006
%
Just because computers were a liberating force in the past doesn't mean
they will be in the future. There is enormous political and economic
power behind the idea that you shouldn't truly own your computer or your
software, despite having paid for it. - Bruce Schneier, May 2006
%
If users expect the Nintendo Wii to be truly off, they need to pull the
power plug - assuming there isn't a battery foiling that tactic. There
seems to be no way to disconnect the Internet, as the Nintendo Wii is
wireless only. Maybe there is no way to turn the Nintendo Wii off.
 - Bruce Schneier, May 2006
%
For over a year, Microsoft has planted a program on every modern Windows-
powered PC that reported home every day. [...] Maybe you can trust your
computer, your livelihood, your home finances, your kids' games, every-
thing you do online, to a company that would do that, but you can count
me out. - Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, June 2006
%
It is particularly galling to realize that if I bought a new Mac, I would
be subsidizing the development of an operating system that contains code
whose sole purpose is to lock me into a specific hardware platform.
 - Mark Pilgrim, June 2006
%
In the developed world, we do not have a shortage of IPv4 addresses at
this time. [...] In the developing world the situation is already dire.
In some places, entire universities are hidden behind a single routable
IPv4 address, and in others, NAT's are as much as 5 levels deep.
 - Jim Gettys, June 2006
%
One of the sanest acts I have done lately is to sell out my collection of
sub 1Ghz machines for $100 and move on. The soul should not be wasted on
the preservation of industrial waste. - Jim Tarvid, February 2007
%
We should develop a solid understanding of low-level software, and learn
techniques that will allow us to easily dig into any program's binaries
and retrieve information. Not sure why a system behaves the way it does
and no one else has the answers? No problem: dig into it on your own and
find out. Sounds scary and unrealistic? It's not. - Eldam Eilam, 2005
%
Microsoft si sta ormai comportando come un parassita impazzito che,
per eccesso di avidità, attacca e distrugge l'organismo ospite.
[...] Una azienda come questa va fermata, esattamente come va
fermato un virus letale. - Alessandro Bottoni, agosto 2007
%
Sure enough, the bloggers and the ignorant have already begun to spit
on the XO laptop. "Dude, for $400, I can buy a real Windows laptop,"
they say. Clearly, the XO's mission has sailed over these people's
heads like a 747. - David Pogue, New York Times, October 2007
%
The XO laptop, now in final testing, is absolutely amazing,
and in my limited tests, a total kid magnet. Both the hardware
and the software exhibit breakthrough after breakthrough - some
of them not available on any other laptop, for $400 or $4,000.
 - David Pogue, New York Times, October 2007
%
Not only is Vista + Office the most bloated desktop software stack
ever to emerge from Redmond, its system requirements are so out of
proportion with recent hardware trends that only the latest and
greatest from Intel or AMD can support its epically porcine girth.
 - exo.blog research staff, November 2007
%
If you play any game perfectly it's a pretty boring experience. Computer
games get interesting in the boundaries where you can make mistakes.
 - Clark Aldrich
%
Microsoft has managed to besmirch the entire ISO process, which is
now effectively worthless. [...] ISO has turned from being a kind
of gold standard, into a worthless rubber stamp wielded at the
behest of the rich and ruthless. - Glyn Moody, Marzo 2008
%
If you hold MS shares, sell now! The ship is s(t)inking.
 - Max Stirner, April 2008
%
Firefox wants to be Emacs. It should be obvious that Emacs also wants to
be Firefox. Each has what the other lacks, and together they're pretty
damn close to the ultimate software package. - Steve Yegge, April 2008
%
Some people with a narrow IT/CS focus lose sight of the fact that at
the end of the day, a computer is a tool, most people don't like them
very much, and only put up with them to the extent that they help
to make their lives better. - Russell Keith-Magee, May 2008
%
Why is Apple not using an open protocol such as SyncML? Why do they
have to do everything closed? It is just too sad. Apple could be
10 times bigger but they choose not to. Everyone has its limits.
 - Fabrizio Capobianco, June 2008
%
I was horrified to learn that on Mac OS X, fsync(), well, doesn't.
Which perhaps helps explain Apple apps' propensity for casually
discarding user data. - Tim Bray, July 2008
%
[Videogames] are consistent - the behavior of the environment and the
creatures in it are governed by hidden and generally unchanging rules,
encoded by the game designers. In the process of learning a game, gamers
try to deduce those rules. This leads them, without them even realizing
it, to the scientific method. - Clive Thompson, September 2008
%
[Some] people consider software about as intrinsically interesting
as toasters. Many of my most enthusiastic customers despise every
minute of using their computers. They put up with it because it gets
them back to their kids faster than any non-computer alternative.
 - Patrick Kalzumeus, March 2009
%
I do not believe in a future where everything is streamed from the cloud.
Usability is key. You want your app on your device, you want the data
synced on your device, pushed to you when you are not looking at it.
 - Fabrizio Capobianco, November 2009
%
We appear to be the only screen entering mass production designed for
reading that offers color, video, longer battery life and works as-is
with existing software stacks (from OS to viewers) and in any lighting
condition including the pitch black and outside in direct sunlight and
integrates easily with touchscreens. - Mary Lou Jepsen, October 2009
%
There was a time just a few months ago when I did not have Google Wave.
I think of that time with horror - because that epoch was marked with
conflicts, total chaos, money was being lost every day, fights were
happening between me and my collaborators. Google Wave came in, and
within a couple of weeks, a heavenly peace had descended on my business.
 - Max Klein, January 2010
%
The notion of syncing all your devices, but only if they're from Apple,
is insane. By "insane" I mean "like before the Internet". Back then you
could connect all your IBM computers in a IBM network, and your DEC
computers in a DEC network, and so on; let's please not go back.
 - Tim Bray, June 2011
%
Chrome OS, an operating system built entirely around HTML5
is still very much in beta mode. Android, an operating system
built entirely around native apps is exploding with growth.
Which would you back right now?
 - MG Siegler, Tech Crunch, February 2011
%
Apple claims a degree of originality it doesn’t possess, uses it to wage
lawfare on competitors, and its fans excuse all this by bleating that
originality isn’t necessary for genius. You pathetic suck-ups are enough
[to] make anyone hate Apple just for the degree of brain-damaged
rationalization it induces in its groupies. - Eric S. Raymond, June 2011
%
Most of the people who rely on GPSD will never know it’s there. It’s
not a user-facing application that people actually see, it’s plumbing
that the programs they do see relies on. Like physical plumbing, it’s
unglamorous and out of sight and essential. I’m OK with that. There’s
a quiet kind of satisfaction - not really new to me, since some of my
other code is even more ubiquitous - to knowing that the world rests
on your software, even if most people will never understand how.
 - Eric S. Raymond, August 2011