Science for SEO: quotes

Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts

January 23, 2009

TGIF - weeeeeee

Welcome to yet another installment of TGIF, and I do hope that this post finds you well. It has been a long week for a lot of people I have spoken to, some of the adjectives used were "crappy", "boring", "stressful", "@!*%£^&!" and so on. Something must be up with the universe. I think me having a particularly relaxing time on idyllic islands in southern Thailand has put everything out of synch. Fear not, the balance will return very soon.

Without further ado...

Stuff I liked this week:

This cool site shows you how the brain works from top to bottom.

A list of 10 debunked scientific beliefs of the past.

I like Design 21, the Social Design network in partnership with UNESCO - excellent stuff.

My favourite thing this week was Steve Spalding's article called "Why I love the scientific method and so should you" on the "How to split an atom" site.

The scientific method is:

1 - Ask a Question

2 - Do Background Research

3 - Construct a Hypothesis

4 - Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment

5 - Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion

6 - Communicate Your Results

Oh look, there's my thesis plan all written up and ready (apart from the "further work" section) :)

Quotes:

Computer Science is a science of abstraction -creating the right model for a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it. (A.Aho and J. Ullman)

The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. (The Countess of Lovelace on Babbage's Analytical Engine)

I, myself, have had many failures and I've learned that if you are not failing a lot, you are probably not being as creative as you could be -you aren't stretching your imagination. (J. Backus)

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming: testing is the treatment. (K.Beck)

Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen. (E. Berard)

I particularly like:

Rules of Optimization:

Rule 1: Don't do it.

Rule 2 (for experts only): Don't do it yet.

(M.A Jackson)

Facts:

Macintosh invented the start menu in 1982 and the Recycle bin in 1984

Xerox invented desktop icons in 1981

John Atanasoff & Clifford Berry founded ABC Computer in 1942 thus becoming the 1st computer business.

John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly invented the UNIVAC computer which was able to pick presidential winners

Dan Bricklin & Bob Frankston invented the 1st Spreadsheet Software called VisiCalc in 1978 (it paid for itself within 2 weeks of its release)

This is a really cool video made in stop motion with paper - it's simply brilliant.

January 16, 2009

TGIF - yippie

Welcome to another installment of TGIF. I am assuming that those of you who have had a very cold week will not want to hear about how hot and sunny it is here in Thailand so I won't expand. I hope that you have all had a great week and that you picked up a few exciting projects along the way.

Without further ado...

I love Larissa Meek's 28 cakes for Geeks. Feel free to make me one and send it through. I love cake.

Check out some very cool videos called "“Accurate Scientific Visualizations of the T4 bacteriophage infection process and replication” - you'll have to go and look.

Quotes:

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation. (H. H. Munro)

The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. (Merrick Furst)

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. (Donald Knuth)

Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. (Dick Brandon)

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (A. Clarke)

Facts:

A byte, in computer terms, means 8 bits. A nibble is half that: 4 bits. (Two nibbles make a byte)

While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.

The Afghan capital Kabul has a cyber cafe

Wikipedia has a page devoted to toilet roll holders

The oldest surviving computer in the world is called CSIRAC and is located in Melbourne

Microsoft writes the code for autopilot systems in all major airplanes

And thank you to Steve for this nice little YouTube gem :)

October 24, 2008

TGIF - at long last.

Welcome...you survived yet another week, and you're now on the home run...the weekend hits soon.

As every friday here at SFS, we'll treat ourselves to some fun stuff - here goes:

The huge printing presses of a major Chicago newspaper began malfunctioning on the Saturday before Christmas, putting all the revenue for advertising that was to appear in the Sunday paper in jeopardy. None of the technicians could track down the problem. Finally, a frantic call was made to the retired printer who had worked with these presses for over 40 years. "We'll pay anything; just come in and fix them," he was told.

When he arrived, he walked around for a few minutes, surveying the presses; then he approached one of the control panels and opened it. He removed a dime from his pocket, turned a screw 1/4 of a turn, and said, "The presses will now work correctly." After being profusely thanked, he was told to submit a bill for his work.

The bill arrived a few days later, for $10,000.00! Not wanting to pay such a huge amount for so little work, the printer was told to please itemize his charges, with the hope that he would reduce the amount once he had to identify his services. The revised bill arrived: $1.00 for turning the screw; $9,999.00 for knowing which screw to turn.

Commentary: most debugging problems are fixed easily; identifying the location of the problem is hard.

It is...it drives me mad. Luckily I have some clever friends to help out :)

Our usual...this brings to mind the mess that is Vista:

"If you can't make it good, at least make it look good".

....aw...Bill....

October 03, 2008

TGIF quotes and humour

To start things off for the weekend, here are a couple of quotes:

"All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer."

– IBM Maintenance Manual, 1925

"If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done."

– Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The Internet? We are not interested in it."

– Bill Gates, 1993

...oh Bill....