Peter Lindberg picks out some quotes from Semiotics: A Primer for Designers, one that I found really interesting...#

``[The founder of semiotics, Ferdinand de] Sassure made what is now a famous distinction between language and speech. Language refers to the system of rules and conventions which is independent of, and pre-exists, individual users; Speech referes to its use in particular instances. … According to the Saussurean distinction, in a semiotic system such as cinema, any specific film is the speech of that underlying system of cinema language.''

In terms of abstract programming, I think this is similar to Put it in the Syntax ideas - A library, or domain, should not be a little box you carry around with you. It should be a new dictionary that supplements your vocabulary and integrates into. This is also like On Lisp - building your domain language on top of Lisp so that it suits you and what you are doing.

Assembler/C-embler is like "reading" a picture book, Object-Oriented-ness is like reading grade school "Chapter Book", but Lisp is like poetry. Apologies for high and mightiness.

Peter points out...#

``Quick note on constrained universes of expression: what's important for a software project—and possibly any project where a team of people is creating something—is awareness of the universe's constraints.''

Like knowing that there ARE problems is the first step to fixing them. Each problem needs to be fixed a different way and each project challenge and direction cannot follow the rigid path of a methodology. But, the process of identifying a group's shortcomings and advantages can benefit from a formulated introspection.

A Better Blackout from Space picture from Michael Feldman#

From Michael Feldman is Something Very Disturbing - A boy lost his penis in an accident. They grew another one on his arm. Click through to be disturbed.#

The Yeti explains "The Kiss" -#

``As anyone knows, ignoring women is absolutely the best way to get them to follow you around like puppy dogs - especially at a young age. The need for attention, coupled with a newfound, "women embracing their sexual needs" meme led to guys getting laid with little or no effort.

Well, the power struggle couldn't last long. Younger guys started to realize they actually wanted relationships with women, but women would only pay attention to the guys that ignored them.

So now, guys were more than fed up with all of these antics. They started not only ignoring women, but actively trying to stop them from coming around, unless it was for drunken, dirty sex.

Then women found a chink in the armor. Lipstick lesbianism. Few guys can ignore the sight of two girls dancing close, kissing, or touching each other suggestively without at least spending a good ten minutes staring.

Women realized they could spend time with their girlfriends, and still get what they wanted from the guys - attention. Boom - the explosion of girl on girl action in clubs, the explosion of GirlsGoneWild, and now, when a woman wants attention, she knows she can get it with outrageous behavior.

Britney is washed up. Madonna is way over the hill washed up. Neither has much of a voice left, if they ever had one. The kiss was of course staged, or promoted by the two - there was frickin tongue involved. ''

Ryan McGee - THE MAN, THE MYTH - Has a great review of the VMAs...#

``7:03 pm: Jessica Simpson has arrived, and she wants the world to know she has breasts. That's one to grow on, people. And speaking of one to grow on, Jessica Simpson has breasts.''

``7:45 pm: OK, this can't be topped. John Norris just called Ludacris "Luda" without being ironic and asked him "how many G's" his coat set him back. OK, John, enough's enough. Isn't this why we have Homeland Security? To take out people who are harmful to my way of life? If John Norris has a job next year, then the terrorists have already won.''

``9:18 pm: Whoa. Watching 50 Cent try to make an acceptance speech is a little like watching a 2nd grader freeze up in his/her first school play. Only the 2nd grader in this case is completely high.''

``10:00 pm: Duran Duran, Kelly Osbourne, and Avril Lavinge. Or, as I like to call them, "The Supergroup That Nobody Asked For, Nobody Wants, and Really, It Would Make Most People More Comfortable If You Just Left Quickly".''

``10:45 pm: Anyone else think that Britney Spears and Madonna have just been making out backstage for the last 3 hours, hoping someone would notice? Just me then? OK.''

Via Slashdot - AOL Blocks Links from LiveJournal. That's shitty.#

Daniel Drezner is an interesting guy,#

``One of the quirks of APSA is that even though everyone -- well, almost everyone -- attending the conference is interested in current events, during the four days the conference is in progress people exist in a black hole for news. Free copies of the New York Times are available for participants, but few attendees have the time to peruse the news in the same way. ''

Michael Watkins writes about the rejuvenated "negotiations" between the US and North Korea.#

``The United States and North Korea yesterday held their first discussions in four months. These occurred in the context of the six-party talks sponsored by the Chinese to attempt to deal with the continuing tensions on the Korean peninsula. The administration was quick to state that it would not hold "any separate formal bilateral meetings with the North Koreans."

OK, so no separate formal bilateral meetings. This presumably means that the administration can hold (1) non-separate bilateral meetings, (2) informal bilateral meetings, (3) separate formal multilateral meetings,and (4) separate formal bilateral dance parties. Which covers a lot of territory in terms of negotiating.

[...]

Why all these contortions to mask the fact that we are talking with North Korea? Because key people in the Bush administration have a long history of excoriating those who advocated negotiations "as weak on the enemy", as helpfully describing the North Korean leader as "tyrannical dictator," and as advocating surgical strikes on North Korea's nuclear facilities (it is a very nasty regime to be sure, but what good does it do to personally attack the leadership). So they needed to find a face-saving way to back away from that position. Thanks to the Chinese for providing it.''

Darling Girl is very funny...#

``I did like watching Avril "Plague of Locusts" Lavigne and Kelly "Failed Record" Osbourne pout at Britney and Christina's antics, though. As much as those two annoy me, I must admit that they remind me of my sour, dejected high school self.''

And again!#

``1. Consider, if you will, Madonna, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera. You have to fuck one of them, marry one, and push one off a cliff. Choose.

4. Is Jack Black attractive to you in any way? If you don't like guys in general, answer the question as if it said "Pink" instead of "Jack Black."

5. BE HONEST: Would you fuck the Olsen Twins if they were 18 and asked for you by name?''

Madpony Sister, Kristin gives advice to freshman...#

``2. girls, don't dress up all cute for class. high heels, expensive handbags, adorable little skirts, and dark red lipstick are nightime things. tshirts, jeans, gym shorts, and sweatpants are daytime things. please do not confuse the two, or i might have to make fun of you. lots. ''

Just a Gwai Lo writes, "Lesbian Kisses: Not Shocking", and how true it is...#

``So let me get this straight: Madonna kissed Britney Spears. (Q: Why no link? A: It's almost as if you haven't seen it yet.) A 45-year-old kissing a 22-year-old. This would have been creepy if the 45-year-old was a man, with accusations of robbing the cradle and so forth, but nevermind that.

This officially signals that lesbian kisses are cliché. Among many other famous kisses, we now have the kiss on Friends between Jennifer Aniston and Winona Ryder, a "lesbian" rock group TATU, and a kiss on a soap opera (All My Children, my sources tell me). If Madonna's on the gravy train, you know it has runs its course. Note that we have yet to see a kiss by actual lesbians, very few of whom look like any of the above. Since I only really think in terms of how things in the news remind me of movies and TV, and—more accurately—since I ran out of things to say, I quote from Chasing Amy...''

Just a Gwai Lo quotes some of Clifford Orwin's coloumns about the demise of reading and writing in modern youth...#

``Reading and writing are activities that presuppose leisure. The great age of letter writing was the 18th century, when the letters, like the novels, were serious literary compositions often running to considerable length. The voluminous correspondences of that day remains engrossing in ours because of the thought and care lavished on them by serious people for whom the complementary activities of reading and writing lay at the core of their existence. When John Adams wrote Thomas Jefferson, or vice versa, it was a major event in the lives of both, and each strove to be worthy of the other. E-mail, on the contrary, is the medium of communication of the frenetic, who don't want to spend a second more than necessary whether composing or responding to it. [...] Simplification of the language is the essence of e-mail, which is to say, in the end, impoverishment of it. (The substitution of letters and numbers for words, in particular, seems ingenious to the semiliterate.)''

Via Accordion Guy is a bunch of Canadian who can't tolerate any fun - I'm glad to live in the United States of Whatever.#

Accordion Guy talks about his recent conversion of a someone to the order of the Apple...#

``I kept my own counsel, deciding to let him try it out over the next couple of weeks. A lot of the hardcore end up liking using OS X as their desktop UNIX. It's the pleasant UI, the way the hardware the integrates so well with the software and most of all, the way things just work on the Mac that inspires such loyalty. try it. You'll like it.

My own personal take, Zooko: buying a PowerBook and putting Linux on it is like winning a gold medal and then having it bronzed.

(Hmmm. Perhaps I'd better don the flame-proof accordion. Really guys, I run Linux too.)

Welcome to the club! Your Steve Jobs idol, to be worshipped several times a day, is in the mail. ''

Martin writes about "The Kiss" -#

``Non mais la je m'en veux vraiment d'avoir manqué les MTV Video Award hier soir, j'ai manqué 2 moments que j'aurais bien aimé voir les gros french entre Britney Spears et Madonna et Christina Aiquilera et Madonna, merde il faut que ça passe en reprise un moment donnée, si vous savez quand ça va rejouer laisser le moi savoir, sinon je vais me rabattre sur Kazaa il va surement avoir quelqu'un qui va mettre ça la dessus.''

From Dave Winer is an AP Article with a very choice quote...#

``Through the years, the presumptive front-runners have discovered that Labor Day is either the beginning of the glide path to the nomination and the White House or the time they acquire a giant bull's-eye on their back.''

Also from Dave are Tips for Candidates who want weblogs -#

``1. Run a real weblog. Not the candidate, everyone knows he or she doesn't have the time or bandwidth, in 2003, to run the blog. Maybe later, but not now. In order to run a weblog, you must embrace the key feature of the Web, linking -- which means you must link to all articles about your candidate, not just favorable ones. You should also link to articles about your opponents. When deciding what to link to ask yourself this question: "Would an informed person want to consider this information or point of view?" If the answer is yes, link to it. This way you attract informed people and can help shape their opinion, even if they don't support your candidate, at this time. That's how you're going to win the election, btw, by converting the other guys' voters. You don't get anywhere by preaching only to the choir (but you have to do that too).''

Joi Ito comments on the 10 Commandments thingy...#

``Like I keep saying, all of you "I only have one God, and my God is the best" people seem to be a bit insecure about your God. As Christopher Hitchens says, "The first four of the commandments have little to do with either law or morality, and the first three suggest a terrific insecurity on the part of the person supposedly issuing them."

As we Shintos like to say, you can put your god over there next to our other gods. While you're at it, why don't you get off your high horse and quit defining Good and Evil as Us and Them. ;-p''

Shelley Powers comments on Joi Ito's post and Judge Moore...#

``There is a point missed in all of this fuss about Judge Moore that goes beyond this basically uninteresting man, and the point is hypocrisy. It is hypocritical to prevent Moore from having that really ugly piece of cementgranite (I mean, couldn't they do a better job of the statue?) in the court house when ministers are asked to open sessions of Congress with a prayer, our coins have "In God we Trust", we swear on the bible in court, we legislate against gay rights, and the Supreme Court opens with "God save the United States and this Honorable Court". ''

Dr. Frank writes about the British...#

``Fervent apologies and extravagant expressions of gratitude for trivia are just about the only occasions where British people seem comfortable and unembarrassed by overt demonstrations of emotion-- if "emotion" is the right word for what is really (I think) mostly a histrionic application of some mysterious standard of formal civility. I'm not sure if you'd use "emotion" for the heavy, gloomy, resigned "we're all doomed and there's no point" manner that most Brits seem to affect around 80% of the time: within every man, woman, child, banker, Queen, beggar, glamour girl, or bus conductor, there seems to lurk an inner Morrissey that doesn't have much trouble taking hold of the host organism in most circumstances. Other than that, though, the Brits have the unique ability to be embarrassed by just about everything. And I'm sure the tendency towards an extreme daintiness of expression (even among those who imagine themselves to be "rough") has to do with the need to create embarrassment-repellent distance in a city where everyone is always bumping into and standing on top of one another.''

Lance Arthur writes about making a big decision in his life...#

``My "worst possible scenario" has always been death, i.e. "would it be worse to be in this job in New Jersey working for a company I hate and don't trust for another six months, or to be dead?" If I decide, "I would rather be dead than do this..." see how simple that makes everything? I mean, c'mon, that's the worst possible scenario. "Would I rather live on the streets and eat someone else's discarded two-day-old Egg McMuffin and not shower and shit into mailboxes... or be dead?" If you have no other choice, and you choose death, well there you have it. Simple.''

Sometimes it is very difficult to be confident in yourself before you make a big decision. There's so much hesitation, and it gets more intense as the decision becomes more important. Very strange like that. Then you waste all your time thinking about WHAT to do that by the time it needs to be done you either do nothing or make a quick rash decision on a whim because your thinking process was not constructive. At least this is what it is like for me sometimes.

So I finally upgraded my harddrive. Hopefully it is happy now. Sorry for downtime.#

Martin Fowler writes about the inability to measure productivity...#

``We see so much emotional discussion about software process, design practices and the like. Many of these arguments are impossible to resolve because the software industry lacks the ability to measure some of the basic elements of the effectiveness of software development. In particular we have no way of reasonably measuring productivity.

Productivity, of course, is something you determine by looking at the input of an activity and its output. So to measure software productivity you have to measure the output of software development - the reason we can't measure productivity is because we can't measure output.''

Good music on Asterisk* this week, although I'm not sure if Death Cab is much like Modest Mouse, bug Built To Spill and other Doug Marsch stuff certainly is.#

Don Park is very clever. On the idea of subsidizing wireless access and profitability he comes up with this thought...#

``I agree that profitability is a problem. While reading Tim's post, I thought of the vending machine business. Where and how a vending machine is placed is similar to the problem of where and how a W-Fi AP gets installed. No single business model will work in all situations. Some store owners run their own vending machines, some even pay out of pocket to have them installed, some shares profit.

Thinking of the vending machine business leads naturally to the idea of vending-machines with built-in Wi-Fi AP. Vending machines are placed where people are. Power is needed so AP has power. Connectivity is desirable for real-time inventory, so some aggressive players might opt for pulling DSL lines to vending machines instead of using radios. It's a stretch, of course.''

Yet another interesting idea from Don Park is the idea that "combat" online is very "morose." Referring to "Trial by Combat" he writes...#

``Regardless of communication medium and topic of dicussion, the truth belongs to the strongest and most persistent debater. It doesn't matter if the opponent is terrible at debating (swordsmanship), not fluent with the language (weapon of choice), indisposed to confrontations, too busy, or simply dumb.

Is what I wrote above the truth? Nay. It's just me swinging my sword. You may charge in and comment your sword against mine but what is the point? If I fail to block your counter-attack, that only proves that I couldn't, not that nobody can. See what I am getting at?

The difference between the medieval Europe and online world is that combat never really ends online. After the original debaters have moved on, others step in and keep the arguments going. Language and cultural boundaries also matter like the way weather and landscape might affect the outcome of a battle.''

Godless on Gene Expression links to a large discussion about how the topic of genetics in relation to intelligence is very taboo. Like another reader, this is why I like Gene Expression, because it takes very taboo, "racist ideas" and presents them in a reasonable and non-racist way.#

Alex at Gene Expression summarizes the current events in the world of "CHC, g, and Intelligence" -#

``Intelligence is too broad and nebulous a term to use, except for common parlance. Moreover, it often evokes visceral reaction, which often hinders more than helps. Consequently, most use the term g, which stands for general intelligence (named by Charles Spearman).''

Ryan at The Ward is a thinkin' man...#

``Anyone see the open-mouth tounge kiss between Madonna + Christina + Britney on MTV the other day? I came into work and just found out about it. I liked the way they taped it at the performance with a close-up on Justin Timberlake right when Madonna and Britney have the mouth-to-mouth action goin on. It's so damn hot, I had to link the picture to a bigger picture so you all can print it out and hang that shit up on your walls. Every day, Britney in Playboy is looking closer and closer.

The Britney Spears Playboy issue will be my masturbation fodder for years to come. I just hope she does it now and not when she's 40. Even with Britney, you can only go so old before attractiveness starts to fade.

What kind of dumb shit is Justin Timberlake (JT) anyway? Maybe they had some good reasons for breaking up, but until I hear specifics in the comments from IPs that I can track directly to their respective houses, JT is the biggest fucking moron on the face of this planet. Think about this - Britney Spears is in love with you (she disclosed that publicly). She gives herself to you, laying claim to the man who busted the pop princess's cherry.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Britney Spears give off an attitude of a bedroom fucking vixen. If she possesses just a sliver of what she sings in bed, not only are you in for the ride of your life - it's freaking Britney man. You have an all-access pass to Britney. How can you tear that pass up?''

Moxie is a very good person...#

``So I walked him up and down the streets for about an hour. Pointing out places where I'd seen him in the past.

We tried his keys in dozens of buildings that "looked familiar" and finally another dog walker recognized him and told me that he lived in one of either two buildings on the street. Of course it was the one he said was "most definitely NOT it."

Once I got him inside I also saw that the couch was not green rather a very neutral tan. I fed the dogs, gave them water -- watered the drunk, too and left a trash can by the bed along with a note.''

Mr. Roboto - I mean, Mr. Pierce - has a funny tale to tell...#

``she dragged her teeth across my collarbone and then up my neck and slithered her tounge behind my ear and said hey whats this.

i said what.

she said this dial.

i was all what dial.

she said its pointed to Depressed as Hell.

i fumbled to whatever it was that she was touching on the back of my neck and she said let me look let me look. i let her look.

she said whoa theres lots of settings. who did this to you?

i hadnt told her about the xbi.''

Tony Piece made VMA predictions...#

``*Best Dance Video* needs to go to Justin because yes hes gay but he dances really well, although in a pinch i would give it to the former Fly Girl jlo but it would just go to her head.''

Tony Piece has great memories, that I live vicariously through...#

``im not exactly sure if it was just a straight up dare, but it was something like that and this one hot cheerleader leaned over to this other hot cheerleader and they made out for a good thirty seconds.

which is eternity for a fifteen year old boy, which the bus was full of.''

Ted Leung links an article by Brian Marick about "Test-Driven Development", which he renames something else for ease of adoption. Ted writes...#

``Here are some renamings that I found while reading his post:

test-driven development => example-driven development
unit test => technology facing examples
programmer support tests => checked examples
retained checked examples => change detectors

I think that this could use some more work to *make these ideas even clearer to the non-infected.* The other observation that he made was that there are two roles for examples. Some examples are written to guide near term development -- what functionality needs to be implemented next, and what do examples of its use look like? Other examples are used exclusively for rechecking that the past behavior of some code remains unchanged. Some guiding examples eventually become rechecking examples, but not all rechecking examples were originally guiding examples.''

William Grosso comments on the "Public Disservice Announcement" that is at the beginning of some movies about Piracy and how it hurts the cheaper employees. He notes how strange it is that they would put this at the beginning of a movie, that you've obviously paid to see...#

``The trailer is obscene. The film industry is speaking up for the little guy? Am I only one who feels the disconnect? While Daniel, and the other laborers, are lucky to have a job for 12 straight months, executive (and star) salaries in the movie industry are obscene (for example, in 1997, Michael Ovitz got 94.5 million in cash as a severance packe in 1997. And, in 2001, Michael Eisner, who replaced Ovitz, got an $11.5 million bonus while slashing the salaries of animators). The film industry is run by people who take enormous amounts of money off the top and leave drippings for everyone else. For them to complain that piracy hurts the little guy is the height of hypocrisy.''

Philip Greenspun writes about how terrible the Wall Street Journal is after not having read it in a while...#

``One of the main editorials is about the latest statistics on SAT scores. It seems that the black-white gap has grown quite a bit over the past 10 years. A typical black student will score 206 points lower than a typical white student on the SATs. Public schools are blamed, of course, with the suggestion that vouchers and school choice are the answer. A study is cited where the conclusion is that "students who have roughly equal skills and knowledge will have roughly equal earnings". At first glance this seems reasonable. You can't cheat the marketplace forever, no matter how many layers of racial preferences are imposed by society. On the other hand, look at all the business executives who earn fat salaries while remaining ignorant of all things related to making products, accounting, and other skills that were traditionally associated with managing a business. If Carly Fiorina can rise to the top of HP, why can't a black man get paid a fat salary despite a low level of knowledge and skill? [One simple comprehensive explanation that the Journal does not consider is whether the racial quotas in colleges and graduate schools has something to do with it. Why bother to study for standardized tests if you know that the color of your skin will guarantee you a spot in the college of your choice?] ''

Kim has the same dream as me...#

``Application programmers shouldn't have to do modelling. Once a concept has been added to a library, the programmer should be able to talk about things directly, without having to use programming-language abstractions. This is Blue Sky.

[...]

Currently, programming languages map concrete syntax into abstract programming-language concepts, which then get mapped into machine code. Application programmers never work with their problems directly -- instead, they work indirectly, by referring to and manipulating programming-language concepts like functions, objects, and types. At no point do they ever actually refer to the problem domain itself. I want to change this so that syntax instead maps to problem domain concepts, which then map to programming-domain concepts and so on to machine code. And I want to keep all the mappings separate.

I don't know exactly how to implement this idea (it is Blue Sky, after all), but I do have an intuitive feeling that it doesn't have to be as hard as we might think -- especially if you allow models to be incomplete, over-simplified, and even wrong sometimes.''

Note: A great part of her post is that she links http://www.tunes.org/ to the word "impractical" - Hah!

Chris Anderson writes what he does and doesn't look for in a employee...#

``I agree with what was said in Fuji, that today's skills are quickly outdated - I don't care if you know Java, C#, C++, VB, etc. I care that a prospective employe is bright, driven, and passionate. Now, often I would argue that a lack of understanding of the current skills in the industry is a sign that you aren't passionate - however I don't think it is a simple boolean "if you don't know Java you must not care about computing", but rather just one piece of data... ''

Via Tom Coates is a funny article about The 10 Commandments -#

``The first four of the commandments have little to do with either law or morality, and the first three suggest a terrific insecurity on the part of the person supposedly issuing them. I am the lord thy god and thou shalt have no other ... no graven images ... no taking of my name in vain: surely these could have been compressed into a more general injunction to show respect. The ensuing order to set aside a holy day is scarcely a moral or ethical one, unless you assume that other days are somehow profane. [...] Whereas a day of rest, as prefigured in the opening passages of Genesis, is no more than organized labor might have demanded, perhaps during the arduous days of unpaid pyramid erection.

[...]

One is presuming (is one not?) that this is the same god who actually created the audience he was addressing. This leaves us with the insoluble mystery of why he would have molded ("in his own image," yet) a covetous, murderous, disrespectful, lying, and adulterous species. Create them sick, and then command them to be well? What a mad despot this is, and how fortunate we are that he exists only in the minds of his worshippers.''

John Holden writes about David Blaine's publicity stunt...#

``David Blaine's forthcoming stunt of starving himself whilst suspended over the Thames at Tower Bridge is morally repugnant. Voluntary starvation for entertainment looks pretty sick when there are so many people really starving in the world. But is there something more sinister at work? Are the broadcasters who will televise this stunt unaware that Blaine's act debases the currency of one of the most extreme forms of political protest? When the next political prisoner decides to go on hunger strike, who will not be influenced by the fact that the something very similar was undertaken on screen to make money?''

James Robertson and Ted Leung comment on Patrick Logan's post about programming environments.#

Ted: ``he goes on to speculate that static languages will sort of get this ability to easily deal with data structures via XML. It's horrible but true. XML is the s-expressions of the new millenium.''

James: ``Productivity is greatly enhanced when you can explore the bounds of a problem easily. Most of the static language crowd still doesn't get this''

Dan Beste has the product wish list...#

``All engineering is tradeoffs; and there are a lot of goals. Needless to say, you want your tool to work correctly; and you want it to sell well. You want it to be possible to manufacture it and distribute it, and you want it to cost much less than customers are willing to pay for it so that you make a profit selling it. You want it to be reliable, and you want it to be easy to learn to use, and easy to use (which is not the same thing). It has to be possible to complete the design with the staff you have, in the development time you've been granted, within the budget which was allocated. And you want it to vanish when in use; you want it to become an extension of the user.

Someone will buy your tool if it expands their abilities. That's what tools do; people use tools because they can accomplish things that would be much more difficult or completely impossible without them. Or they may buy your tool because it makes it easier to do things than the tools they already have.''

At UserCreations is this nice "story"...#

''While rummaging through some old emails, I found an excerpt from the Steve Jobs' Playboy interview that in my twenties I was fond of quoting for inspirational purposes.

At Apple, people are putting in 18-hour days. We attract a different type of person -- a person who doesn't want to wait five or ten years to have someone take a giant risk on him or her. Someone who really wants to get in a little over his head and make a little dent in the universe.

We are aware that we are doing something significant. We're here at the beginning of it and we're able to shape how it goes. Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.

Most of the time, we're taking things. Neither you nor I made the clothes we wear; we don't make the food or grow the foods we eat; we use a language that was developed by other people; we use another society's mathematics. Very rarely do we get a chance to put something back into that pool. I think we have that opportunity now. And no, we don't know where it will lead. We just know there's something much bigger than any of us here.

Of course, when I learned, first hand, that Steve Jobs was nothing more than a snake oil salesman who's destroying the Mac culture that I so strongly value, I quit quoting it.''