Computers Quotes Page 2

The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.

You can't do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously.

A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable.

The most complex object in the known universe: brain, only uses 20 watts of power. It would require a nuclear power plant to energize a computer the size of a city block to mimic your brain, and your brain does it with just 20 watts. So if someone calls you a dim bulb, that's a compliment.

Unless in communicating with it one says exactly what one means, trouble is bound to result.

The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.

From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand.

Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

I have a son, Mason, who is disabled - cerebral palsy - and he does not walk independently, sit independently or speak. He uses a talking computer. I started becoming an advocate for him when he was 3 years old.

The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

It's not what you know about the computer that's important, but your ability to do things with it. By studying French in an academic setting, you get to know a lot about it, but typically, you can't express yourself well or have an interesting conversation with it.

If one ox could not do the job they did not try to grow a bigger ox, but used two oxen. When we need greater computer power, the answer is not to get a bigger computer, but . . .to build systems of computers and operate them in parallel.

Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.

The computer is the most extraordinary of man's technological clothing;

it's an extension of our central nervous system. Beside it, the wheel is a mere hula-hoop.

There can be infinite uses of the computer and of new age technology, but if teachers themselves are not able to bring it into the classroom and make it work, then it fails.

To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.

Automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

Learning by doing, peer-to-peer teaching, and computer simulation are all part of the same equation.

With our work at Kazaa, we began seeing growing broadband connections and more powerful computers and more streaming multimedia, and we saw that the traditional way of communicating by phone no longer made a lot of sense.

Bad programmers worry about the code.

Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

Supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by about 2020.

Despite the fact that computer speeds are measured in nanoseconds and picoseconds - one billionth and one trillionth of a second, respectively - the smallest interval of time known to man is that which occurs in Manhattan between the traffic signal turning green and the taxi driver behind you blowing his horn.

There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go.

Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club.

You're not out of it until the computer says you're out of it.

The novice-friendly software is more like a misbehaving dog: it shits on the floor, it destroys things, and stinks - the novice-friendly software embodies the opposite of what computer people have dreamed of for decades: artificial stupidity. It's more human.

Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.

The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do.

The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do.

Code never lies, comments sometimes do.

That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.

Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer.

There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living.

All these gadgets, the phone and the computer, they expose the inside of your brain in a way that's bad.

I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.

I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.