It is said that patriotism is the love of country. I think it is the love of the things about your country that you don’t want to see lost—that you want to see perpetuated—and you’re willing to sacrifice to ensure it.

General David M. Shoup

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A little copying is better than a little dependency.

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"Any advice for a new dad?"

[Long pause]

"If someone offers you free napkins, take them."

"That's it?"

"That's the only thing I'm sure of."

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There are two kinds of software: prototype and obsolete.

Ben Wheatley

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I thought it was a good joke.

Breck Yunits

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What I cannot draw I do not understand.

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To invent a thing that will be used in 2050, invent a thing that would have been used in 1990.

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Now for the matter of drive. You observe that most great scientists have tremendous drive. I worked for ten years with John Tukey at Bell Labs. He had tremendous drive. One day about three or four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was. John was a genius and I clearly was not. Well I went storming into Bode’s office and said, “How can anybody my age know as much as John Tukey does?” He leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, grinned slightly, and said, “You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as hard as he did that many years.” I simply slunk out of the office!

What Bode was saying was this: “Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.” Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. 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. I don’t want to give you a rate, but it is a very high rate. Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime. I took Bode’s remark to heart; I spent a good deal more of my time for some years trying to work a bit harder and I found, in fact, I could get more work done. I don’t like to say it in front of my wife, but I did sort of neglect her sometimes; I needed to study. You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done. There’s no question about this.

Richard Hamming. You and Your Research. 1986

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Live by the compass and not the clock.

Greg Bourgond (2010)

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A farmer and his son had a beloved horse who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbours exclaimed, "Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!" The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not."

A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild horses back to the farm as well. The neighbours shouted out, "Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!" The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not."

Later that week, the farmer's son was trying to break one of the horses and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The neighbours cried, "Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!" The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not."

A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all boys for the army. They did not take the farmer's son, because he had a broken leg. The neighbours shouted, "Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!" To which the farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not. We'll see."

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Little tiny steps using local information winds up leading to all the best answers.

John Carmack

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=18804s

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Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

Søren Kierkegaard (1847)

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I think I’m more visual than symbolic. I try to get a feeling of what’s going on. Equations come later.

Claude Shannon

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Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.

Desmond Tutu

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The best use the best tools, but need none.

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I’ve been working on three different ideas simultaneously, and strangely enough it seems a more productive method than sticking to one problem.

Claude Shannon

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Don't worry about people stealing your idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken (invented the computer).
Portraits in Silicon. pgs 88-89.

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Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.

Derek Sivers (sive.rs/htl08)

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Make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

Albert Einstein, On the Method of Theoretical Physics

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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

Alan Perlis

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In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Airman's Odyssey. 1939. pg 39

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Sing in me Muse, and through me tell the story of that man, skilled in all ways of contending...

The Odyssey

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People don't understand the true nature of money. It is meant to circulate, not be wrapped up in a stocking.

Guglielmo Marconi

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Just say it.

Those that matter don't mind

and those that mind don't matter.

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It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.

Richard Feynman

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Do you hear them talking of genius, Degna? There is no such thing. Genius, if you like to call it that, is the gift of work continuously applied. That's all it is, as I have proved for myself.

from My Father Marconi

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They put a gun to my head and demanded I put a copyright symbol on my ideas.

I told them to pull the trigger.

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What I cannot create, I do not understand.

Richard Feynman

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Nothing to fear but fear itself.

-FDR

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Have you ever heard a crack head say: "I have no money, I'm not going to smoke today." No. They always find a way. Are you gonna let a crack head out hustle you today?

Mr. Rogers

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Collaborate with contemporaries.

Compete against centuries.

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A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.

Systemantics (1975; p52) by John Gall

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Build like no one is coming to save you.

And then be bold.

Sometimes mighty forces will come to your aid.

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Collaborate with your contemporaries.

Compete against other centuries.

We are Team 20.

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Writing everyday has amazing consequences.

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An eye in your mind
so you can fly
and go high
every time.

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The Banger


There's a person online who is never ignored,

wherever they post or they play;

their content's the stuff that the people adore,

from morning to end of the day.

They’re cheered on with likes in the digital lands,

and followed by all neighborhoods;

wherever they post, there's applause and more fans—

they’re The Banger Who Delivers the Goods.


The lurkers of feeds just scroll on and lament;

their posts never seem to take flight;

their memes miss the mark, their replies seem half-sent,

their engagement's a trickle, not quite.

The crowd tires of accounts that just fade into blur,

in the echo of bland neighborhoods;

but there’s one who commands every comment and stir—

they’re The Banger Who Delivers the Goods.


Some barely can bother, just sharing reposts,

and hoping for traction in vain;

some clog up the feed with their endless lame boasts,

and some whine their way to disdain.

But one always crafts with precision and flair,

while others stay stuck in their moods;

they hit every platform with style and care—

they’re The Banger Who Delivers the Goods.


One frets if they’ve shared something too spicy,

and one stays too safe, dull, and bland;

one floods with spam, trying to stay commercial,

but their reach is just dust in the sand.

So here’s to the wizard of wit and of charm,

whose posts lift us all out of slumps;

it’s a toast to the genius, the digital star—

The Banger Who Delivers the Goods!


@breckyunits

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In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

Francis Darwin (1914)

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The pen is mightier than the sword. And someday there will be a thing called tldraw, and that will be mightier than the pen.

Abraham Lincoln

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A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.

CS Lewis

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You wouldn't put your children in chains.

Why would you put your ideas in ©hains?

Publish your ideas with love, not licenses.

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Make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

On the Method of Theoretical Physics by Albert Einstein

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